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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be crushed by this assignment written by my DS...

88 replies

CallMeExhausted · 01/02/2016 21:38

... but feel so totally helpless trying to find ways to help him?

He asked me to print this monologue he had to write for his Dramatic Arts class. I read it, too. I know he is fighting depression and anxiety in a huge way, but this was just so raw (and not something he has been able to say to me personally).

Here it is. And so you are aware - he said I could share it.

"What makes me unable to go out and enjoy the world? Well, I really don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that the world isn’t meant to be enjoyed? The fact that I don’t have a single reason to find life enjoyable? Or maybe it’s just that special little mix of anxiety, depression, and self-hatred that make me terrified to leave the safety of my bed, but also guilty for staying there.

But no, the world is such a wonderful place when you go out and see it, isn’t it? The beautiful graffiti stained alleys downtown, and the sewage-polluted river? The throngs of people who seem to only exist to judge and hate the people they don’t understand. It’s almost like someone might not want to go into a building filled with thousands of people who hate, harass, and hurt the people they don’t understand.

But no, the world is such a beautiful place. It’s just an issue with you if you don’t want to go out and experience it for yourself, isn’t it? You’re broken if you don’t want to go explore the messed up shit-stain of a world we live in, it’s so special. It’s not like looking out at the world and deciding ‘I’d rather not,’ is an option we’d be allowed to choose. That would be so very wrong to do. It wouldn’t be good for society as a whole.

What if I don’t CARE about society as a whole? Why should I? Society at large doesn’t give a single care about me, why should I pay it the mind to care about it? I mean, it would be hilarious if I could just go around day to day and smile and pay mind to the way that every single person I run in to feels, while they push me to the ground and kick me. I should forgive and love all the people that hurt me, because god forbid that I fight back! If I were to fight back, why, that would just make me as bad as they are. I should tell someone responsible, so they can tell me to deal with my own issues. That is, until I do deal with my own issues. That would be so utterly wrong of me to do.

All I feel like my life is a series of rings of a bell. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong."

How can I reach out to him? Wise MNers... I need your advice.

OP posts:
CiderwithBuda · 01/02/2016 22:36

Bloody good writing. Keep encouraging him to keep that up. It's a great outlet.

17 can be a difficult time. Some 17 year olds have completely outgrown their school peers but thrive in a different environment where nobody knows them such as university. Is that likely?

And depression is an actual proper illness so a trip to the doctor and anti-depressants may help. I'm sure you know that but he may not!

Geraniumred · 01/02/2016 22:37

He might enjoy brainpickings.org which is a great website full of thoughtful pieces by famous literary people on all kinds of topics.

MamaMotherMummy · 01/02/2016 22:37

Oh yes, and I totally agree with Lorelei. Tell him to keep writing as he has a true gift.

Imustgodowntotheseaagain · 01/02/2016 22:39

Would he try writing a response to the monologue from the other point of view? Ie someone who thinks that the world is meant to be enjoyed? Even if he doesn't believe that, trying to get into the mind of someone who does, as an intellectual exercise, might be helpful?

maddening · 01/02/2016 22:43

I would want to take him to inspirational places, maybe places that inspired great writers and artists - the briar falls which inspired Wordsworth and turner for example

maddening · 01/02/2016 22:44

Bruar not briar

lorelei9 · 01/02/2016 22:44

Btw is your son sick of our culture of optimism? It can make me feel overwhelmed. Reading "smile or die" by Barbara Ehrenreich cheered me up enormously. You can also carry it with you and stuff in someone's mouth if they talk shite about lemons and lemonade.

I may be way off the mark but even at 17 I wanted to tell people to be more realistic so if that book had been around then, I'd have considered it therapy in itself. Also at 17 you get patronising guts telling you "you're too young to be negative/cynical". I have been like that since I was 8. Did me nothing but good.

ticket123 · 01/02/2016 22:45

Psycs? Counsellors?

He's 17 fgs!!

Encourage him to keep writing. Please don't dwell on this being worrying.

Orange1969 · 01/02/2016 22:53

Well, he can certainly write and it is great that he can express himself so well. However, I agree that is worrying.

Has he seen a child psychologist?

Gruntfuttock · 01/02/2016 22:57

ticket1238 "Psycs? Counsellors? He's 17 fgs!!"

Huh? What's being 17 got to do with it? Confused I was a patient in a psychiatric hospital at 16. Is that OK? Is it just 17 yr olds who don't need psychiatric help?

notquitehuman · 01/02/2016 23:03

He's a very mature writer for his age, and it's good that he can let things out this way.

At his age, I was very depressed and often used writing as an escape. I wrote some very bleak poetry, which I'm sure would have terrified my mother if she had found it. Getting it all out was one of the most helpful things in my life.

Ask him if he needs to talk. Re-assure him that he is loved, and that if he wants help or feels that he might be depressed, then there's help out there.

Geraniumred · 01/02/2016 23:04

It is very usual to be of any age, a great writer and be depressed and needing some help.

MardyBra · 01/02/2016 23:07

Don't you think it's an invasion of his privacy to post this on an Internet forum?

StuffEverywhere · 01/02/2016 23:09

Does he know how talented he is??? This is so very extraordinary! I hope he keeps writing and I hope that you can help him to establish himself as an author.

Writing is a form of therapy, a form of counseling, both for him and for his readers...

I wish you luck x

MardyBra · 01/02/2016 23:09

Sorry. Just reread and saw that he agreed to share it.

Geraniumred · 01/02/2016 23:10

He gave permission, mardy.

MardyBra · 01/02/2016 23:10

Which seems odd.

StuffEverywhere · 01/02/2016 23:11

MardyBra, OP said her DS is fine about it.

I'd say it's totally worth sharing. Publishing even!

MardyBra · 01/02/2016 23:14

Sorry my odd comment was me musing. Not a reponse in a single second to Geranium.

schroedingersdodo · 01/02/2016 23:17

That's great work!

I would be worried just like you if one of my children wrote this, but I was the one writing stuff like that at his age. All I can say is that, for some reason, it gets better. We get used to it all and life seems better somehow. I'm 37 now and I don't feel all that despair anymore.

I'm know that's not helpful but... tell him to keep writing. He's good.

ticket123 · 01/02/2016 23:17

Grunt - I meant he seems normal.

HumptyDumptyBumpty · 01/02/2016 23:21

Agree that his writing shows huge talent. I also agree with others that he's not wrong! The world is (on some levels) a bit of a shit stain, especially right now. He's expressing his views in a bleak, but well expressed and logical way.

Hope you can encourage him to keep writing.

BiscuitMillionaire · 01/02/2016 23:26

Something that your DS wrote, really rang a bell for me. He says:
I should forgive and love all the people that hurt me, because god forbid that I fight back! If I were to fight back, why, that would just make me as bad as they are.

This strongly reminds me of Dorothy Rowe's writing about depression - especially where she talks about how, if we're taught that we must be 'good' or bad things will happen to us, or that bad things don't happen to good people, and then one day something 'bad' does happen to us, we struggle to make sense of it: either we must have done something bad to deserve it (which makes us a bad person), or everything we thought we knew about the world is wrong. I probably haven't explained it very well. But I really recommend for your DS to read Dorothy Rowe's book Depression: the Way out of Your Prison

Dorothy Rowe is a clinical psychologist and writer who is renowned for her work on how we create meaning, and how the meanings we create determine what we do. Her application of this understanding to the problems of depression and of fear has changed many people's lives for the better, and has caused many mental health professionals to think more carefully about how they deal with people who are suffering great mental distress.

BumpTheElephant · 01/02/2016 23:28

I absolutely love it and can completely relate.
I'm very sorry your ds is suffering, I had anxiety/depression at a similar age. I somehow managed to pull myself out of it but it took a long time. I saw counsellors but refused to open up so it was a bit pointless! Writing helped me lots even though I was/am shit at it.
I hope your ds keeps writing, he has a wonderful talent. Thank you for sharing.

lorelei9 · 01/02/2016 23:30

I particularly like the bit re the bell, "wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong."

He's got structure, distinctive writing style clearly evoking a range of pictures, substance, flow and rhythm all there. I am not an expert, but as a voracious reader, film watcher, theatre goer (when I can afford it) and a huge fan of all kinds of writing, I love it. And when you consume as much story and general writing as I do, you read a lot of stuff that's actually not great, just because it's the nature of trawling through loads of writing (both fiction and non fiction).

Anyway, I'm not a marker, I can't give him an A* so I'll shut up now.