depression sux

I think I was the last person in the world to watch Girl, Interrupted. Now that I've caught up with everyone else, here are my thoughts.

I am glad the movie showed the salty side of mental disorder, and how a lot of times, though not easily or fully, it can be controlled. In the beginning, Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie's characters' disorders made them dark and sexy and smart and unique. You begin to think that anyone who knows how the world really works should have a mental illness. As the movie progresses, though, you begin to realize how god damn consuming mental illness is, and how it can just completely take you over if you don't put it in its place. And then you'll miss out on the whole fucking world. Does that make you cool and dark and edgy? Or does that just make you a coward?

Winona's character ends up putting her foot down. As her therapist, played by Whoopi Goldberg (yes!), says, she has to make a choice between letting her eccentricities rule her, or channeling them in a way that will let her offer something to society.

Angelina's character doesn't, and she ends up in a straightjacket. She's still damn beautiful and has a lot of great ideas in her head, but they're suffocated in that straightjacket.

Of course, in certain cases and with certain disorders, where reality is continuously blurred, such a choice may not be possible. But sometimes, I believe it is. I'm nowhere near an authority on these things, but as a sufferer of depression and anxiety myself, I know how tempting it is sometimes to just jump down the rabbit hole. That's why this blog is so great for me -- it helps me get some of that energy out. It lets me empty a bit, and then I can face the world.

*photo credit here and here