On Mental Health

Confession time: Rosalind Little started this blog as a way to help her deal with her depression. She didn't want to tell you this. Because, well, it doesn't exactly seem like a selling point for readers, does it?

I imagined that I would be prone to long gloomy nihilistic posts about the state of the world. But now I think it is most honest to come clean. And that I should maybe just try to talk about depression as an aspect of my life, which is what it is.

Besides, it's not like I have any readers anyway. Which is just fine for right now.

While we're being honest, Rosalind Little is not my real name. This is because I'm an academic, and I teach undergraduates, and they understand very well how to google their instructors, and I'll be looking for jobs in the next few years.

So I can't pop up on Google as a depressed, Regis-and-Kelly-watching, maternally-impaired, would-be romance novelist. Besides, I'm vain about what former high school classmates might potentially find about me online. I hope you understand this.

If you've never had trouble with depression, it's hard to understand what it is like: a shifty little mood that sits on you and doesn't get off. It skews everything you think about. No, actually, it's not exactly a mood. You don't forget about it after somebody says something funny or you have a good day. But you might PRETEND like you do. At least I do. I have put in some really intense effort into pretending like I'm not feeling as bad as I do -- "hello! how are YOU today?! What a LOVELY day it is outside! Would you like a cookie?" -- so that I hopefully don't come across as detestable and self-pitying.

But then, of course, I get really angry when people I love don't understand how bad I feel. I don't understand why I can't get people to take it more seriously, to help me out. That's part of the charm of depressed people. We're cute like that.

Depression, as I experience it, makes nothing reliable. Not my own self-assessement. Not my friendships and relationships. Not the parts of life that I assign value to, and not the things I enjoy. Everything is vulnerable. When I'm really down, I feel like I am standing in a train depot with a million heavy bags hanging off of me, that I don't know how much longer I can stand, and there is no solid wall to lean against, much less some place to sit.

If I were reading this, I would probably be armchair-psychologist enough to wonder: why depression, Rosalind? What's wrong with you? Childhood trauma? Or is it just some bad wiring in your brain? What gives?

And I wish I could tell you. But I have no idea why I've been having these problems for the past year or so. Well, I have a few ideas. But I don't have any kind of satisfying air-tight story about what it is that causes it: that it is definitely all chemical, or that it is definitely all situational, or genetic, or due to childhood trauma, or whatever. I know being alone during the day doesn't help the situation. I know that I have a few lifelong tendencies (self-criticism, rumination, etc.) that make it worse, too. But I don't think either one of the those things cause it.

Sometimes I convince myself I'm not really depressed. I'm just another self-pitying, bookish, upper-middle class white girl with too much time on her hands. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself, dammit, and do something for other people for a change! But I'm starting to catch on that although it sounds admirably socially responsible and self-aware, that kind of thinking is really a trick of the depression. It's a way for me to talk myself out of doing something to stop it. I need to get well to be able to do good for other people. I need to get well to be able to be decent to my family and friends. And getting well involves admitting that you're sick.

Sometimes I convince myself that depression is just a rational reaction to an unfair and cruel social order. That we tell ourselves that depression is an individual-level problem, that it is something wrong with people psychologically, when in fact it is something wrong with society, something we all bear responsibility for. And maybe this is true. Who knows? But I'm doing well if I am combing my hair every morning, much less taking on remaking the social order all by myself. At some point one must narrow one's vision to what one can control.

I don't plan to dwell on the specifics of my depression in this blog, but I don't know why I should hide it either. Like it or not, it is part of who Rosalind Little is right now. I hope not forever.

On Democracy

Rosalind Little tends to vote Democrat, almost without exception. (When she lived in the Bay Area, she voted for Green Party candidates in some local elections. When she was still living with her parents in Augusta, Georgia, she voted for a Republican candidate when there no choice.)

Very rarely do Democratic candidates best reflect my true opinions. When I take online polls matching me up with my ideal candidates (like these), I invariably match up best with Kucinich, or Nader, or whoever the crazy left-wing candidate is who supports gay marriage and legalization of marijuana. It's not a perfect match -- I do have a few issues I tend to be oddly conservative on -- but it's usually closer than anything else.

Yet I do not vote for these candidates. I don't even consider voting for them. I vote for the Democrat. I know this is infuriating behavior on my part in some respects. But I'm a pragmatic girl, and frankly, sometimes the most important factor in an election is who does not get elected. For example, in the 2004 election the most pressing concern for the country was that Bush NOT get elected, and not so much who actually won. We didn't seem to pull that one through, though.

Right now I am more optimistic about the 2008 election. At very least, it promises to be immensely entertaining. We almost can't go wrong in that respect. (What with all the Latter-day Saints and insane New Yorkers and women and African Americans and actors who were featured on Law & Order as recently as LAST SEASON.) And I don't want to jinx it, but it seems like as of now the Democrats are less of a train wreck than the Republicans.

So why don't I know who to vote for? I don't know who I support. I honestly have no idea.

Edwards isn't doing it for me. I thought he was a solid VP candidate last time, but he's not ringing my bells right now.

I suppose I'm leaning slightly towards Obama. It's hard to argue against the charisma. He's dreamy. But really, seriously, he isn't all that experienced. I wish that we could put him on hold for a bit. Let him serve a few terms first. Why the rush? When you compare his level of preparation for the job to say, Hillary's, he's not really competitive at all. Makes me nervous.

So why not Hillary? She has the experience. She's smart. She's polished, if a bit unnatural. The symbolism of a female president is appealing.

But she would be a female president who was riding, at LEAST a little bit, on the coattails of her famous presidential spouse. And what really bothers me is that she would be the second president in the past ten years who was exploiting the presidential status of a family member. The past four presidents would be Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Clinton.

The dynasty aspect of that is troubling. I am not so naive as to think that the process of electing a president is really about finding the best person on an equal playing field ... but if we start to turn to the same powerful families to provide us consistently with our leaders, we're not even bothering trying any more. We're not even pretending that this democracy is functioning.

I'm surprised that more people haven't observed this, to be honest. It really troubles me. What would Jimmy Stewart say, for crying out loud?

Rosalind Little is Taken With Regis and Kelly

I am taken with Regis and Kelly. I know that some of you might find them to be too cheerful, or cloying, or insincere.

But you're wrong. I know this because they are my friends. Seriously. I watch them every day. Before my daughter Lucy was born, I watched them at the gym, and would become infuriated if I were five minutes late and missed the beginning. Since Lucy's birth, I record them on the Tivo and watch them whenever I get a spare moment.

It doesn't matter as much to me if I see the guests; what matters is the banter. I like to hear where Regis went to dinner last night; I like to know what Kelly watched on TV and how her daughter's dance recital went. I am comforted by the consistent connection with other people's lives.

Does that disturb you? Like, it's what happens when you take an impulse that used to be aimed at real relationships and you aim it at freaking talk show hosts, all disconnected and commercial?

Or maybe you're just jealous because I'm Regis and Kelly's best friend and you're not. Everybody wishes they were Rosalind Little.

On the Maternal Instinct

I am travelling for my dissertation research. I am in a strange city: a city that I actually like very much but that slightly intimidates me. Like almost all places with streets and cars and human beings.

This morning I was having coffee in a café, and reading -- the last third of the last Harry Potter book, as a matter of fact -- and I suddenly heard a baby crying.

At the next table there was an older man, perhaps sixty, feeding pieces of a muffin to a baby sprawled in a stroller. The baby was unhappy. She flailed her small limbs around. The man leapt out of his seat to get something at the counter, and in his absence the baby wailed more loudly, arching her back and balling her fists.

This distracted me to the point that I could not read. I tried to make eye contact with the baby -- to smile at her and lift my eyebrows and mouth the word "hi" -- which usually brings down the house with the under-two set.

But although she seemed to look my direction, her eyes could not seem to focus on mine. At this point I noticed the way her body slumped over in the stroller -- very little muscle control for such a large baby -- and the way her head bobbed around. I wondered if she had been born prematurely, or had some kind of special needs.

Her caretaker came back to the table with his coffee, and continued the process of feeding her the muffin. But she continued to wail. It was obvious that she was uncomfortable, distraught, anxious.The man doggedly tried to poke muffin into her mouth. His expression was blank and unaffected.

Now her despair, and the man's ineptitude at comforting her, was grating at me. Why didn't he TALK to her? What was the matter with this man? Didn't he know how to talk to a baby? You know: quietly, in that dumb sing-song way?

I started imagining scenarios that explained his behavior. I imagined that he was her grandfather, left alone with her for an hour and that he had never taken care of a child before. Or that he was her father, and a jerk, didn't think that talking to a special-needs baby was even worth it. Or that she was a rich person's baby, and he was her kidnapper, holding her for ransom, and he didn't care about her emotional well-being.

How tempted I was to get up from my table, and pick her up, wrap my arms reassuringly around her and pat her back: shh, shh, you're okay, you're okay. Like I have done a million times with my own daughter, my small and dear Lucy.

Eventually he wheeled her out of the café, across the street to a hotel. I hoped they were headed in the direction of someone who would pick that baby up. I mean really.

And why is this noteworthy? It was an experience that confirmed I DO have a maternal instinct.

Okay, an alarming thing for someone who is already a mother to say, I admit. Don't call child protective services, please. I certainly love my daughter madly, and would do anything for her. But I do worry that I am not, well, naturallly maternal. That it is all an act on my part.

I see my female friends fall seemingly effortlessly into nurturing others; I see them throw away their own dreams and comfort for the sake of their children in all kinds of ways I can't imagine. They really do seem to be selfless.

And I worry that wow, maybe I am too critical and self-absorbed and cold for motherhood. To be honest, it is not THAT uncommon that I wish somebody else were taking care of my kid, and I was, oh, I don't know, at a meeting, or at a bar, or out for a run, or on the couch, or really anywhere but reading this goddamn Go Dog Go again.

I worry that someday, in Lucy's autobiography, she will write the sentence: "My mother was not really the kind of woman who ought to be a mother, although she tried."

But in that café, without obvious reason, I actually had the urge to pick up unfamiliar baby. Not a baby to which I am related and thus naturally am drawn to and/or obligated to care for, and not a close friend's baby, but a total stranger baby! It made me ANGRY that the baby was going uncomforted. It actually produced real anxiety.

It turns out I have MATERNAL INSTINCT POURING OUT OF MY ORIFICES. I'm a nurturer leaking all over the place.

This is yet another sign that my judgment of myself is not to be trusted. What else have I been wrong about? Maybe how I look? Do you think it's possible that I actually am a five-ten Danish model with huge boobs?

On Mountaintops

Almost daily I wonder about mountaintop experiences. That moment when you suddenly have perspective, can see the horizon, feel connected with everything around you. Or maybe, even better, that moment when you kiss the face of God? I don't know -- how does it work exactly?

This certainly has never happened to me. Not even close. I am fairly skeptical as to whether it happens to anyone. I don't really believe those people that say it does, if you know what I mean.

But then sometimes I wonder. Maybe it is a matter of having experiences for which you have been primed. What if I had spent my formative years preparing for the extraordinary and the noble? Instead of, you know, obsessing about how many fat grams a bagel had, and whichever ridiculous unattainable boy I had a crush on, and how to set the timer on the VCR so that I could tape Days Of Our Lives while I was at school.

Or maybe the whole notion of the mountaintop experience is some kind of Romantic illusion. Why should we value these Great Sweeping Moments of Grandeur, these John Williams-scored epiphanies? Isn't that just a bombastic culture's view of a mystical experience?

Maybe perspective comes in quiet moments and in modest conclusions. Maybe it comes from wit and sacrasm. I hope so. I'm actually a lot better at that. Moutaintops are nice, but in point of fact I've never been fond of heights.

And yet. Transcendence is not without its appeals. Are we not ever intended to be thoroughly humbled and awed and thrilled and uplifted by contact with something greater than ourselves?

But there may not be anything greater than ourselves. Or there may be something that just doesn't care for us to kiss its face.

I am Rosalind Little.

Before I was a doctoral student (some fourteen, fifteen years before, actually, back before I was a living history instructor on a sailing ship or a documentary filmmaker or an actor or a college student or high school student or junior high student) I used to have an ambition to be a romance novelist.

When I was a sixth grader I wanted to grow up to be a romance novelist in Canada. I wanted to dress everyday in accurate Victorian clothing, and live in an antique country manor. I would have silk dresses, rose bushes pruned like animals, and seventeen cats. I think I imagined I would write my books with an quill and ink well all morning, and then break for tea and scones on the patio in the afternoon.

There was nothing in this fantasy about what my Canadian neighbors might think about me -- even in Canada I don't think this behavior is the norm -- and I doubt I gave it very much thought. I doubt at that age that it would have troubled me to have faced a future as a crazy corset-wearing cat lady.

On the other hand, I am sure I gave a LOT of thought as to what kind of scones they ought to be: raspberry? ginger? chocolate chip? topped with butter, cream or jam? This was the kind of kid I was.

Now I am primarily struck by the boldness of the idea, which does not match my current self-conception. It was a super idea, actually. Why not live in Canada? Why not be some cat-urine-scented thirtysomething version of Anne of Green Gables? What is so wrong with eccentricity? Don't you agree that I should have pursued it further? Do we get a do-over?