depression

A Story About Expat Depression and How I Might Be a Wizard

January 25, 2018November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

When you move to another country, the whirlwind of emotions begins to wreak havoc before you even take the suitcase out of the closet. Anticipation. Fear. Sadness. The entire spectrum from a childlike eagerness all the way to paralyzing despair. Trading in home, friends, family, your native language, and all that is safe, comfortable, and familiar for a strange and uncertain future is scary, but exciting. Profoundly exciting. I often deal with complex emotions and challenges in one of three ways: 1) writing about them 2) completely avoiding them with chemicals and escapist entertainment 3) Googling the shit out of every aspect and detail until I fill my brain with enough information to comfort myself, or ignite a full-on freak out.In 2005, I scoured the Internets and found mountains of bullshit about what moving to Paris is like for an American. Intimidating bullshit that made me feel like a sewer rat. These blogs and sites were written by people very...

Stories, Meat Sacks and Pagliacci Suspenders

August 25, 2014October 5, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

“What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.” -Patch Adams * * *I used to have a really cool pair of suspenders. I wore them whenever I had the chance and along with my Wonder Woman Underoos, they were probably one of the most special items in my wardrobe. Maybe, if you were a kid in the late 70s, you had the same pair.If you did have a pair, or even if you didn't, you probably knew why some of those weird kids were into rocking the rainbow suspenders.Because Mork rocked the rainbow suspenders. And Mork was awesome.In 1982, the year that Mork and Mindy came to an end, my mother and...

People Are Full of Shit, So Don’t Let Facebook Bring You Down

May 21, 2014November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I keep seeing these articles all over the place. You've probably seen them, too. Using various combinations of words and pictures, they all say the same thing: Facebook is making people feel sad. Depressed. Unsatisfied. Unhappy and lonely. The list of negative sentiments goes on and on.My knee-jerk reaction to the headline was, "Okay, this is just more whiny, paranoid bullshit about the evils of the internet." Then I decided to actually read the article. It doesn't matter which variation of this article you read - the gist is the same. Facebook makes people feel bad because of our absurd human tendency to measure our failure by our perception of other people's success.But here's the thing: we're comparing ourselves not only to everyone else's highlight reel, but to their bullshit, too. We're often looking at our real selves, our real lives and holding them up against personas that are not real. A social media profile might be a window into...