Another difficulty in finding friends is that I am extremely intelligent. (I left it out of the first post because of being afraid I was bragging.) I also happen to be well educated, but my two best friends are very intelligent, though their education was not Ivy League.\u00a0 Because of the trauma and my parents\u2019 alcoholism, I started questioning things very early.\u00a0 This means that I tend to ask uncomfortable questions and express uncomfortable thoughts.\u00a0 I\u2019m not good at small talk, except with people I\u2019m comfortable with.\u00a0 On a recent visit to my family, I couldn\u2019t participate in the conversation which was almost entirely about shopping and TV shows.\u00a0 I don\u2019t shop, I hate shopping, and I learned very early that buying things in order to boost self-esteem doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 I don\u2019t watch TV, though I do have a small TV and VCR so I can watch the occasional movie.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also caught in the \u201cDemoralization Box<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 described by Bruce Levine<\/a> in Surviving America\u2019s Depression Epidemic.\u00a0 Once you are demoralized, you don\u2019t have the energy to remoralize yourself.\u00a0 You need it to come from outside. How can I arrange for that?\u00a0 I haven\u2019t a clue.\u00a0 Dance events usually help.\u00a0 Certain friends almost always help, but sometimes they\u2019re busy or away.\u00a0 Sometimes I feel better as long as I\u2019m with them and drop back into depression when they\u2019re gone.\u00a0 The biggest difficulty, when I start feeling depressed, is it gets harder and harder to call friends for help.\u00a0 That\u2019s the Demoralization Box.<\/p>\n Reminded about the social causes of depression, I see the faces of traumatized people from Dakota 38<\/a>.\u00a0 There were faces of soldiers in Vietnam, and faces of Natives taken in black and white.\u00a0 Both have the same flat look.\u00a0 I\u2019m tempted to say \u201cstunned\u201d but there\u2019s not that look of emergency, of something having just happened.\u00a0 They don\u2019t look unconscious, but what they are conscious of is a black hole of disbelieving hopelessness and helplessness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another difficulty in finding friends is that I am extremely intelligent. (I left it out of the first post because of being afraid I was bragging.) I also happen to be well educated, but my two best friends are very … Continue reading