Lindsay - Chapter V

Lindsay – Chapter V

Lindsay sat on her couch and turned on the TV. They had watched a couple of movies, but she far preferred TV shows. She felt bored and all of a sudden started to cry. She was beginning to realize that her life was not at all what she hoped for herself when she was a little girl. As a child she wanted to become an actress and also an astrophysicist. Two very different fields, indeed. Nevertheless, she studied Art History in university, which has not done much for her career. She had held multiple jobs after graduation, but they were all clerical, administrative support or customer service related. Years after graduation she had less than two months of experience in her own field. And now she had been unemployed for such a long time that she was starting to give up.

She sent her resumes to several places, but to no avail. Sometimes she got call-backs, but the only interviews she actually got were with staffing agencies or with one company that wanted her to do a whole day of job shadowing as an interview. She was open to the idea, but it was in outbound calls and that was something she didn’t want to do. 

Lindsay's sakura flowers. Photo by Elena

Mostly because she was very shy. She always felt like she was bothering the people she called, and she was surprised that applying for a position of Administrative Assistant she was redirected to a cold-calling assignment. In addition, some people at a centre where she volunteered advised her that it was most likely a company that simply wanted free labour. Again, she was not so much bothered with that (she was after all a volunteer), but the outbound calls were not something she was comfortable with.

Drinking what was left of the wine, she became more and more depressed. She feared she was going crazy. She was also very sad because an apartment that she used to live in burned down. She remained uninjured but all her belongings, as well as precious memories, vanished in the fire. The feeling that there was nothing that she could do about that weighed heavily on her.

• Lindsay - Chapter VI
• Lindsay - Table of Contents

The feelings. Illustration by Elena

Lindsay's cat. Photo by Elena

Lindsay – Chapter VI

Lindsay – Chapter VI

Saturday, Lindsay cried herself to sleep on the couch. The next morning, Sunday, was equally depressing: it was raining and cold, despite being a summer day. She had been diagnosed with depression months earlier, but she refused to take antidepressant medication. She did not believe it could help her and she was afraid of the side effects. 

The doctor explained that the side effects were outweighed by the help of the antidepressants, but he was in no position to force her to take them. Not that he would if he could. Usually, the laws governing mental health mean that as long as a person is competent and not a danger to themselves or others they can make their own decisions.

Lindsay was competent and certainly not a danger to others. However, she had dark thoughts. She contemplated suicide, she just chose to hide it from her doctor. She had multiple suicide attempts, but no serious ones. One thing was clear, she was suffering. The rain kept falling adding to her misery. She clung to life, and at the same time wondered if her life was worth living.

Lindsay Peony flower. Photo by Elena

Her doctor had said to her that part of her wanted to get better, that’s why she sought help. But there was a part of her that had given up. She often told to herself: “Don’t ever give up on yourself!” But she failed to take her own advice.

To make herself feel better, she poured a large cup of coffee. Since her last apartment had burned down and she had no insurance, she had little more than a couch, a small bed, a coffee maker and few clothes. One of her problems was that she could not go to interviews appropriately dressed. She had suits before, but they were gone and she could not afford to get new ones.

See also:

• Lindsay - Chapter VII
• Lindsay - Table of Contents

Lindsay in her dreams. Photo by Elena

Lindsay's Toys. Photo by Elena

Lindsay - Chapter VII

Lindsay – Chapter VII

Depression is difficult for everyone who suffers from it. Called MDD or Major Depressive Disorder in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) published by the APA (American Psychiatric Association), it is a debilitating mental illness. People often think that depression is simply feeling blue, but it’s so much more than that. First, the symptoms have to persist for more than 2 weeks for MDD to be diagnosed. Symptoms include but are not limited to: feeling useless, sad, unmotivated and uninterested in activities one used to enjoy. Lindsay felt like that for years, years since her apartment burned down with all that was inside.

She was also very unlucky in love. She has had very few boyfriends, and most of them treated her badly. Then, when she met Patrick she got played. They say that every woman who has twenty suitors, always chooses someone who could not care less about her. And that’s where playing hard-to-get comes in, although that was not Lindsay’s forte.

Lindsay's Orange flower. Photo by Elena

Perhaps if she had girlfriends to advise her she would have an easier time with men. But she didn’t. She knew the basics of not making herself too available, but she never used that knowledge. She believed in sincere, honest and open relationships. Trust was what mattered most to her, and she couldn’t reconcile in her mind building trust and pretending being busy, aloof or unavailable.

Thus, her romantic failures only aggravated her depression, as did her lack of true friends. She felt bored most of the time, which is understandable given that no one (or almost no one) was there to cheer her up. In her despair, she contacted Patrick again, a serious mistake by all means, since the more she pursued him, the more he despised her. 

Martin did not text or call on the next day, she didn’t like him enough to miss him, but she was somewhat distressed that he was just interested in her as a romantic partner and nothing else. But perhaps she was catastrophizing, a feature of depression.

See also:

• Lindsay - Chapter VIII
• Lindsay - Table of Contents

Cosmic Grace. Photo by Elena

Lindsay's Dark Thoughts. Illustration by Elena

Lindsay - Chapter VIII

Lindsay – Chapter VIII

Lindsay started crying again. She was quite unstable lately. She wondered if she should listen to her doctor and take antidepressants. But then she remembered that all medication had side effects. She also knew that some medication reducing anxiety was addictive. She was afraid of that too. In her younger years she took a lot of drugs. 

When she was 17-20 years old she experimented with various substances, including ecstasy, pure MDMA, speed (amphetamine) cocaine, crack and cannabis. She was not proud of her past. She felt guilty and stupid to damage her brain like that. She blamed those years for the way she felt today. She blamed her joblessness on burned brain cells during her late teens and early youth. If only she knew and understood back then what she realized now.

Today, she was reluctant to even take pills when she had a headache. She did not drink coffee. She felt that if she drunk coffee everyday, the day she could not drink a cup of coffee she would have a monster headache. Caffeine did that to her. She still drank alcohol though. That night with Martin she had really enjoyed the wine, but she felt guilty because of it; it was cheating on her diet.

Lindsay's violet flower. Photo by Elena

In addition to depression she had a comorbid eating disorder, namely anorexia nervosa. She didn’t eat much, was usually avoiding alcohol and compulsively counted calories. Her diet contained mostly lean protein and vegetables, she didn’t even eat fruit or drink juice.

 She was of average weight when she started obsessively dieting, but she wanted to be thin like models: with the thigh gap, hip bones and a completely flat stomach. As per experts on the subject, losing weight was simple albeit not easy: you just have to consume less calories than you spend. But that was much easier said than done.

See also:

• Lindsay - Chapter IX
• Lindsay - Table of Contents

Lindsay's romantic presentation. Photo by Elena

Lindsay's feat. Illustration by Elena

Lindsay - Chapter IX

Lindsay – Chapter IX

Lindsay was feeling more and more depressed, so she turned to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The academic literature praises the therapy and shows that in conjunction with antidepressant medication, CBT is more effective at fighting depression than medication alone. CBT rests on the premise that our thoughts influence our emotions. Thus, the same negative event may trigger different emotional responses in different people, thus leading to distinct behaviours. Lindsay had found a Website about CBT and was now analyzing her own thoughts, emotions and behaviours.

The Website had many quizzes and much information on the scores. Also, one of the exercises involved thinking about a situation when one felt inadequate. Lindsay immediately thought about one particular interview during her job search. She went to many interviews that failed to lead to jobs, but that one interview specifically left her feeling like her whole job search was pointless. However, the Website she was now on, explained that people react differently precisely to these types of situations…

Lindsay's Red flower. Photo by Elena

For example, Lindsay completely blamed herself and felt like a failure. She then thought that things will always stay the same and that she lacked any opportunities to find another job. Notwithstanding, CBT teaches that reactions like hers may lead to negative mood and even depression in some cases. The Website even had an article about how depression may be linked to a pervasive pattern of self-blame, guilt and self-deprecation that has gone on for years.

Psychologists also have a theory about internal and external attributes. When something negative happens, such as failing an exam, a person may attribute the failure to internal (“I’m a bad student” “I’m stupid”) or external (“the test was really hard” “I was unprepared because I had a long shift at work”) circumstances. Thus, internal attributions often leave very little space for hope. And without hope comes despair and misery.

See also:

• Lindsay - Chapter X
• Lindsay - Table of contents

The worries. Illustration by Elena 

Lindsay's exhibition. Photo by Elena