Thinky Thoughts.

[paraka]

First off, Happy Birthday _wwsd_! I hope you had a great day!

Next...
So, remember last week how I was mentioning feeling blue? Well, sometimes I just get into these moods, where I feel sad. If things are stressfull in my life then these moods can be blown into full out depression complete with suicidal thoughts and self harm, but a lot of the time, it just makes me want to cry. Normally what I'll do is go and find a really angsty fic, and cry over that, and feel better. This week I didn't though, so when my sister announced that she was pregnant, I cried over that. A lot.

I made the mistake of telling my mom that I was crying so much becuase I was feeling blue. And now... well she wants to *fix* it. I find this frustrating for a couple reasons.
1) She doesn't seem to realize that there's a difference between depression and PMS.
2) She tries to compair me to other people. My mom can also be very preachy when she wants to be. Which is often.
and 3) She wants me to go to the Dr.s about it. I really don't want to do this.

Last time I mentioned to my Dr. that I get depressed he put me on a series of drugs, even though I wasn't feeling depressed at the time, and it totally *fucked* my life up. It made me *really* depressed. When I was a teenager I had done stupid things like cutting, and ended up in the ER once after trying to kill myself, but since then, I had stopped. Until I was put on the stupid drugs, and now..? well, I do it more often then I'd like to admit. I'm off the drugs now, but the thought of going back on something really freaks me out. I don't remember really having these "blue" periods befre I took the drugs. I don't even know if these types of drugs can affect you is such a way, but, god, I'm really bad at taking drugs regularly. I can't even manage to stay on the pill for more than a few months, because I just end up forgetting to take the damn things. I can't stand the thought of becoming relient on drugs to get through the day, because I don't trust myself to stay on them. And what if they fuck me over more?


So, *everyone* remembers the whole race debate that went on earlier this year. I think about it quite a lot actually. It was the first time that I really got involved in a thing like this. I spent a *lot* of time reading what other people had to say, and then defending myself when I posted publicly about it on my LJ. I don't know, a lot of it stuck with me when going through fandom.

A lot of people would think that was good, and the whole point of having that debate, but I can't help but thing I'd be dissapointing them, because I tend to think of all the "side" arguments that went on. You know the ones that people would complain are either missing the point, or a weak attempt to change the point/subject.

For example, one of the stories that kept getting mentioned was String Theory by toft_froggy because Teyla was simply Rodney's driver in the fic.
I hadn't read the fic at the time, but someone posted a podfic of it over at sgapodfic so I finally listened to it today.

After reading it, and remembering what people were saying about it back when, I was really surprised at Teyla's part in the fic. Not because she was a driver, but because so many people tried to justify Teyla in that position by saying she was so much *more* than a driver to Rodney. Wha? She was barely in it? and one of the only scenes where she and Rodney spoke she was asking for a day off, much like Bob Cratchit asked Ebenezer Scrooge for Christmas off. I can totally see why people would be thrown off by Teyla's part in this fic.

The same thing happened with the original Barista!Ronon fic. So many people came to the author's defense saying that Ronon was a Big Important Character in the fic, and wasn't he *awesome* in his part? Ronon was barely in the fic, hadn't much to do with the story line, and you could have easily inserted a different character into that position and not changed the feel of the story one bit.

I don't know, to me, it sounds so much better to say, well this person was a secondary character to my story so just got shoved in, than to try and justify and/or hide the fact that they were just shoved in.

Comments

[equusentric.livejournal.com]

I've never visited anyone for my depression, much less taken drugs for it, so I can't comment from a position of experience...but I think if you're that unsure about going back on meds, then you shouldn't do it. I do medical transcriptions as my job, and one of my accounts is a psychiatric rehab center, and I know that some of those drugs can have strong side effects.

As for the fic thing...if I was writing an AU A/B shipper fic, and the canon show also had characters C, D, and E, and I had a little bit part or two, I would probably use C, D, or E's name and/or physiognomy for that bit part. Just because it's an AU of that fandom and I like to be inclusive. It wouldn't mean that I didn't have enought respect for C because I only gave them three lines. It would just mean I had a three line character and wanted to see C's name included in my story.

Granted, the author could have replaced driver!Teyla with, say, Jessica or Mabel and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference, but I don't think that means Tayla's being oppressed or anything. And as someone who was completely ripped into the very first time I posted a fic I wrote in a public forum, I can totally understand being on the defensive. Being attacked tends to make some people overcompensate while defending themselves, especially against something as hot-button as racism.

I hope that made sense. I've been typing all day and still have three hours of work left...at 9pm. *sigh*

[jolinar.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind me butting in here, but I just wanted to sympathise on the whole depression thing. I've had fairly bad depression all my life, mostly related to a plethora of anxiety disorders. I've been put on many, many, many drugs and for some reason most of them would make me ill and would leave me hugging porcelain for a number of days. Eventually I just gave up and had to learn to deal with my anxiety/depression troubles myself.

One thing that has worked for me, and may be an alternative for you too, is St. John's Wort. Its a simple herb, and although there is all the drama over how it may interact with other drugs, I have been using it for years and have never had a problem. I had seen a Naturopath at one period and she had given me some St. John's Wort herbal tea to drink, particularly during the lead up to PMS or any stress-inducing event, like exams and such. My father, who believes all this stuff is bullshit, says it may have a placebo effect, and it very well may be, but its still an option if you wanted to try it.

In the end, its your choice if you want to see a Dr. or not, and if they tell you to go on anti-depressants even after you have strictly told them you don't want to, then its time to find a new Dr. me thinks.

Secondary characters

[paradise-city.livejournal.com]

Best of luck on the depression/medication issue. I'll second equusentric on the readiness bit. We're seeing the beginnings of a trend reversal when it comes to medicating depression now (I think this little Time article (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653643,00.html) is great), and I think it's long overdue. If you do decide to go that route (or just want some more specific info), this (http://www.psyd-fx.com/html/quick_reference_chart.html) is a great guide to meds and dosages. It's updated every week or two, so it always has current info.

On to the character bit now. I'm glad you brought this topic up, because I'd really like to get your opinion on secondary characters -- mainly, how much of a person's opinion of a secondary character is dependent on TPTB's portrayal of that character?

In the midst of the race wank, I saw quite a few people equating dislike of Ronon and Teyla to racism and I think that's inherently unfair. If you like geekiness in your characters, or playful banter, or leadership qualities, etc., etc., you're more likely to find those in leading characters, who are overwhelmingly of majority culture. In that case, it's not so much a reflection of the fan's opinion as it is TPTB's opinion and the fan making use of his/her limited options in terms of character preference.

That's my take on it, at least. Do you see it differently? Because I'm thinking that if people could just not shoehorn Ronon and Teyla into stories and say, "Hey, sorry, they're not my favorite characters" and not have that extrapolated to racism and failure to be a decent person, we'd probably have less of Teyla and Ronon in service roles than we would otherwise. It's sort of like we've created our own monster here.

Also, bonus points for giving me an opportunity to use one of my favorite icons. :)

[kaaatie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the birthday wishes! It was a nice day! :)