2024 was marked by many of what some may term ‘canon events’. I attended my first protest, independently stayed at the encampment for four weeks (shout out Otis), was able to grow a non-patchy beard for the first time, got heavily involved in student activism, and had my first major depressive episode in five years. I’d love to eventually talk about all of these and their unique esoteric intersections, but this article will primarily be focused on the last two points.
I never planned to get involved in activism. There was no sophisticated marxist framework or rationale for doing so either. My analysis was the following: children are getting bombed, shot, and starved in the concentration camp of Gaza and I need to do something. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t. This started with the encampment, but quickly progressed into joining other actions. It felt like if I wasn’t going to SOMETHING I was failing as a person. But here is the thing: there is always something to attend. Always a reading group to go to. Always things to learn. I have been blessed with comrades that understand and prioritise my health and wellbeing over what I can do for them or ‘the movement’, but it has personally been hard to internalise this. It’s interesting looking back on my behaviour and attitude at the time. Some of my most cherished hobbies such as song writing (plug: @vincetafea) felt like a waste of time because it didn’t do ‘something’. So I didn’t do it. And, after months of unsustainable participation, I had my first depressive episode in 5 years.
It is somewhat abstract if you’ve never experienced it before, so let me try to give you insight into my personal encounters with DSM-5-TR Depression™. Most people have a notion of feeling ‘burnt out’, or going through a ‘rough patch’. Imagine that, but:
- Some of the most cherished activities and hobbies you have simply do not bring you pleasure. Your favourite songs can no longer be differentiated from white noise.
- The simplest of tasks, even things like getting out of bed, now require herculean amounts of effort. Instead of you sitting on the world it feels like the world is sitting on you.
- You feel worthless despite any evidence to the contrary (wait, I’m goated).
- You constantly think of killing yourself and the philosophy of suicide suddenly becomes one of your niche academic interests.
Let me introduce you to a model that can help make sense of it all that I learned in therapy and my psychology major.
The Diathesis-Stress Model
In psychology, we have something called the diathesis-stress model. Broadly, it posits that everyone has the capacity to experience things such as depressive episodes and other psychopathologies. However, whether these develop or manifest is a function of vulnerability (diathesis) and stress.
Think of yourself as a cup.
How much that cup is initially filled can be thought of as vulnerability. This is determined by things such as developmental factors (e.g., growing up poor, abuse, neglect, trauma), heritability factors (e.g., family history of mental illness), physiological factors (e.g., chronic pain, illness), and more.
How much that cup gets filled in addition is through stressors (i.e., things that cause stress). This is a very broad category, and one person’s stressor may not be another’s. For example, you might find public speaking very stressful, and someone else might not. Some fairly generalisable stressors can include things like overworking, social ostracisation, poor sleep, carer responsibilities, life changes, academic pressures, an economic system based on exploitation, talking to your reactionary relatives, and more. Most of these examples are quite grand, but a stressor can also be something small too, like seeing a person you sorta know from a tutorial 3 semesters ago, but being unsure whether it’s the move to wave to them or not. All of this is to say, stressors fill up and are emptied from your cup as you move about in the world.
Where to next?
It’s not really implied in my explanation of the model, but yeah, most people’s ‘burn out’ periods don’t involve suicidal ideation. In a way I don’t really have to spell out, it’s not healthy or conducive to a long experience on earth in this mental state.
That is, the consequences of the cup overflowing can be a bit idiosyncratic across people. I would like to reiterate that the major stressor of attending everything and ‘showing up’ to everything was not externally driven. It was internally motivated.
But, I’ve learned a hard lesson that it can be counterproductive. You can’t help or contribute anything when your cup is overflowing. Sacrificing your own health in the short term is not a great service to any sort of goal.
My disability and predisposition make it both easier for my cup to overflow, and the consequences of such overflowing quite debilitating.
So, if you see me around a bit less, I’m focusing on my cup!
