Storytelling

(Or: Massive Annual New Year’s Eve Note, Vol. 5)

[TMI Warning]

Many psychologists believe that it’s not what happens to us that matters, it’s the stories we tell ourselves about what happens.

Some people unfortunately interpret this to mean that we ought to “look on the bright side of life” and “find the silver lining” and all that crap.

I don’t really see things that way. Never have. Life sucks a lot of the time, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either stupid, in denial, or trying to sell you something.

But I have learned, over the past year, how powerful personal storytelling can be. This was the year I took a lot of pain and turned it into a force of energy.

~~~

A year ago, I thought I was done with this whole depression thing forever. That didn’t turn out to be the case. It came back almost as soon as the new year started, worse than ever before, seemingly undefeatable.

This has been a painful year. People hurt me this year. They lied, broke my heart, used me, and took my friendship for granted.

I was alone a lot, more alone than ever before. In fact, I spent most of the summer alone in New York. It was a fantastic experience, but a lonely one nonetheless.

It was hard, a lot of the time, not to think about all the ways depression limits me. If I didn’t have it, everything about my life would be different. I’d be outgoing, I’d go to parties, I could stay up late and take harder classes. I wouldn’t be so tired all the time, I wouldn’t have such a hard time talking to people, and, of course, I wouldn’t be so sad.

But sometime over the course of this year, I stopped thinking about all the things I couldn’t do because of depression, and started thinking instead about all the things I could.

For instance, I would never have started NU Listens, my peer-listening organization, if I hadn’t been depressed. I wouldn’t have the skills that allow me to help people. I wouldn’t write so much, or so well. I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate my family and the other people I have in my life. I probably wouldn’t know what my calling is.

Some people, knowing that, would assume that I’m “thankful” for the experience of being depressed, or that I consider it “part of God’s plan” for me, or that it was “all for the best.”

Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but no. I don’t think any God would put a person through this, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t believe in God. I’m not thankful and I don’t think it was for the best. I want my adolescence back. I want the first two years of college back.

In our culture, preoccupied as it is with constantly finding the silver lining to everything from rejection to failure to broken hearts, I think it’s bold of me to say that I’m not thankful for what happened. I know I’m expected to offer up some grand lesson to be learned from all this, but I’m sorry to say that there just isn’t one. Sometimes shit happens. It definitely happened to me.

Knowing that, I’ve given up trying to find some sort of grand meaning in my experiences with depression. I sure as hell don’t accept the Judeo-Christian notion that I somehow deserved it, and although it has had some positive consequences, I’d say it did more harm than good. By far.

So how to go on? Well, that’s a complicated question for someone who prefers to see things in complicated ways. The story I’ve decided to tell about my own life isn’t necessarily happy, but it’s empowering for me. It’s about working within my limitations to achieve great things.

After all, the truth is that I’m probably not going to ever fully recover. I live at the mercy of something I can’t fully control, and my entire being–from feelings and moods to thoughts, beliefs, and actions–is tempered by it. Some days it leaves me alone, and some days it barely lets me get out of bed.

It means I have to be on my best behavior all the time. Nine hours of sleep, fruits and veggies, not too much carbs or meat, brisk walking every day, at least. Schoolwork has to be done before 9 PM or so, or else I can’t concentrate on it. I get overwhelmed by information easily, hence all the organization–categorized to-do lists and a calendar, a notebook that I carry everywhere, everything in filing folders in a box under my desk. In class I have to write by hand because it keeps me more alert. Otherwise, I start dozing off after sitting still for five minutes, no matter how much sleep I’ve been getting, because that’s how my body is.

I have to always stay busy, because as soon as I have a moment to myself, my mind starts conjuring up nasty thoughts. You’re such a bitch. Go kill yourself. The reason I take five/six classes, work two jobs, and run two student groups isn’t for my resume. It’s for my health.

~~~

So those are my limitations. Sometimes they seem pretty extreme. Sometimes they seem like a blessing compared to what some people are given.

Regardless, I’m not going to define myself through them anymore.

Instead, I’m going to define myself through the unique gifts that I have, and that I’ve become aware of because of my experience with depression.

When I’m helping someone, my self disappears–and with it, so do all of my fears, insecurities, and dysfunctions. I feel like I’m entering the other person’s being. It’s almost a spiritual experience.

Of course, my ideas about others aren’t always correct, but I start down a path of understanding. I start to see why the love the people they love, why the fear the things they fear, why they do things I would never do, why they believe things that I don’t believe.

I’m not looking for any accolades or sense of moral superiority when I say that my calling is to help people feel better. In a way, I’m just as selfish as anyone else. Some people are happy when they make money, or when they do experiments, or when they play sports; I’m happy when I make others happy.

It’s pretty much that simple.

~~~

It’s been a year since I “came out” as having a mental disorder. Since then, my relationships have only grown stronger and my sense of being valued and respected has only increased. Sometimes people do imply–usually via anonymous comments on my blog, as they know better than to say it to my face–that I’m making people “uncomfortable.” My response to this is always the same: they’ll get over their discomfort. I won’t get over my depression.

The truth is that–and I’m terribly sorry about this–I really don’t give a fuck about your comfort. I just don’t. It’s not my job to make anyone comfortable. I don’t really care about fitting in or being cool or normal. I must be missing that gene, or whatever.

If I sound completely different right now than I did just a few paragraphs before, I wouldn’t blame you for being confused. My life’s work will be to help people find happiness, but never at the expense of my own ability to live and express myself as I see fit. My understanding of psychology is that if you’re so concerned with how I live that you’re made “uncomfortable” by my depression, it’s you who needs to change, not me.

I don’t think most people realize the extent of my lack of fuck-giving because, unlike many other young malcontents, I don’t wear it on my body. My clothes are normal. I talk like a more-or-less average educated person. I don’t have any tattoos or extra piercings and don’t plan on getting any, and my hair is dyed, but only slightly. It’s styled in a mostly average way. I don’t choose to “rebel” by doing lots of drugs or people, and I don’t smoke, drink, or listen to unusual music.

But internally, I feel like an alien in this world. There’s a thick glass wall between me and everyone else. There’s a terrible creature that has its tentacles wrapped around my brain, and every time it squeezes, I want to rip my head off.

That’s what depression is.

~~~

That’s not to say this year has been all bad. It certainly hasn’t. I made many friends this year–not just any friends, but best friends. I started working on two different research projects at school. I found a way to connect with the Jewish community at Northwestern. I made Dean’s List this past quarter, started my own peer listening group, got accepted as a columnist for the Daily Northwestern next quarter, drastically increased my blog’s readership, tried therapy for the first time, successfully navigated my first quarter in my own apartment, went on quite a few dates, learned how to make my own jewelry, was accepted to a quarter-long Jewish education program, and befriended a few professors.

I went to New York three times, growing more and more certain with each time that this is where I want to live someday. I watched my older brother get married and found out that I’ll be an aunt in a couple of weeks. I met distant family members I hadn’t even known about before. I decided to wean myself off antidepressants when the new year starts.

Depression keeps me from being truly happy, but I refuse to let it rewrite the story of my life any longer. What I’ve been able to do despite of (and perhaps because of) my limitations makes me glad to be alive. I hope to recover someday, but even if I don’t, my life is going to be worthwhile.

~~~

A few days ago. I’m walking near Union Square in Manhattan. The sun has nearly set and the wind is chilling. I hear a man begging for money.

“Can you spare some change?” he’s saying, over and over. The passerby walk past him and he says, “That’s okay. Maybe next year.”

I put a dollar bill in his cup and he says, “God bless you, miss. I really mean that.”

He says happy New Year, and I say happy New Year too.

And then I continue on my way.

Maybe next year.

Storytelling
{advertisement}

My Facial Expression is None of Your Business

I am not a cheerful person. I don’t wear my happiness on my face, and I do not consider it my moral duty to brighten the day for perfect strangers.

I am an introvert despite the fact that I’m usually pretty friendly and sociable when spoken to. Most of the time, I inhabit a world that nobody really knows. When you see me sitting still with a facial expression that is technically neutral but that many would characterize as “glum”, I’m actually anything but. Usually I’m making up music, writing my next blog post, planning out my love life or my career, or analyzing people I know, all silently in my mind.

But most people don’t bother to ask what I’m doing that’s taking up so much of my attention that I haven’t bothered to plaster a smile onto my face for others’ benefit. Instead, they assume.

And so it begins. “What are you looking so miserable about?” “What’s wrong with you?” Or, simply, “Smile!”

Some of these responses are passive-aggressive attempts to chastise me for not doing my womanly duty to keep everyone around me happy at all times. Others are genuine attempts to understand me, or genuine concern that I might be in a bad mood.

What they all have in common, though, is the shared assumption that underlies them–that there is something “wrong” with my facial expression and that this fact is anybody’s business but mine.

It’s not only people that I choose to associate with who claim the right to dictate what should be on my face. What woman hasn’t walked down a city street, perhaps on the way to work or to run errands, and encountered a random man yelling at her to “Smile!” or “Put a smile on that beautiful face!”?

Such remarks, which feminists call “street harassment” and most non-feminists call “a compliment,” represent the most glaring and offensive of non-physical intrusions into a person’s private self. My facial expression is even less the business of a total stranger on the street than it is of a person who does know me.

(Speaking of feminism, my inner feminist compels me to ask: how often are men publicly berated for the arrangement of their facial features? Quite the contrary, moody, brooding men are often considered very sexually appealing in that mysterious way. A moody, brooding woman, on the other hand, is usually called “difficult” euphemistically, or just “a bitch” if we’re really being honest.)

This issue is intimately related to something I wrote about just recently, on the concept of Debbie Downers and how sad or negative people are constantly accused of “bringing people down.” In contrast, this situation is even more absurd because the facial expressions in question usually aren’t even negative; they’re just neutral. They’re just missing that socially mandated smile. But if you read my argument for why people shouldn’t allow themselves to be “brought down” by “Debbie Downers,” you’ll see that it applies just as well for those of us who, for whatever personal reason, choose not to go about grinning like maniacs.

Furthermore, lest anyone attempt to feed me platitudes about how people who concern themselves with my facial expression are just worried about my mental wellbeing, let me ask you this: when you’re concerned about someone, do you ask them privately if everything’s okay, or do you draw attention to them in a group setting and demand to know why their face looks the way it does?

(For the sake of your friends, I hope you choose the former.)

What strikes me as most ironic about all of this is that, for all the constant blather I hear about how the unappealing configuration of my face means I’m “selfish” and “don’t care” that I’m “upsetting” people and whatnot, I’ve chosen a life that’s infinitely more helpful to those around me than many other possibilities. I’m going to be a therapist, which means that, yes, it’ll be my actual job to help people feel happy. If that’s not more important than my transient facial expression, I honestly don’t know what is.

Moral of the story (or tl;dr, for my fellow internet nerds): If you don’t like what my face looks like, don’t fucking look at it.

An example of my neutral facial expression. No, it is not a personal insult to you.
My Facial Expression is None of Your Business

Death to Debbie Downer

Made famous by SNL.

I propose a moratorium on the term “Debbie Downer.”

“But whyyyy?” you might argue. “Those negative people are so annoyinggg!”

Perhaps. But I think we need to stop using that phrase, for several reasons.

The first thing I think of when I hear the phrase “Debbie Downer” in one of the contexts it’s most commonly used (i.e. “Oh, don’t mind him, he’s just a Debbie Downer”; “Why are you being such a Debbie Downer?”; etc.), is that it’s a reflection of our culture’s dismissal of anyone who doesn’t have a smile plastered all over their face at all times.

After all, isn’t that such a dismissive thing to say? When one calls someone a Debbie Downer, they’re implying that this person’s thoughts and opinions aren’t to be taken seriously. It means that rather than taking the time to figure out why someone’s saying all these negative things, they’re just going to write them off with a convenient alliterative term.

Second–and if you read this blog regularly, I’m sure you know where this is going–“Debbie Downer” is often used as a disparaging term that basically means “person with a mental illness.” In that context, it’s not only insulting, but inaccurate. Depression and related disorders don’t simply make people “negative.” They make them hopeless, joyless, and, at times, suicidal. You don’t really know if the frustrating person making pessimistic comments all the time is actually a pessimist, or actually struggling with a debilitating illness. So why assume?

~~~

“But wait!” you might say. “How dare you tell me how to talk? Free speech!”

Absolutely. Unlike certain more Leftist people, I would never argue that one should “ban” words just because they offend people. But look at it this way–if your friend or family member is being negative and you call them a “Debbie Downer,” all you’re doing is shutting them down and making them feel like you don’t really care about how they feel. Is this really what you want them to think? No? Then choose your words more carefully.

As for how I think one should respond to overly negative people, it’s not the way we’re used to doing it. Many people respond by trying to argue with or counteract the negative statements with positive ones, or sarcastically asking “Don’t you have anything nice to say?”, or snapping something like, “Stop complaining.”

(Our culture places a huge stigma on anyone who expresses anything even closely resembling a complaint. What else would explain the proliferation of special purple bracelets given out by various groups that members are required to wear until they have stopped “complaining”? My high school band used them. Rather than feeling free and happy in all this new-found positivity, I felt shut up and silenced, like my opinions–negative or otherwise–don’t matter.)

You’ve by now probably gathered that I think all of this is not only an exercise in futility, but actually quite damaging to relationships. Unsurprisingly, people don’t like to feel belittled and rejected.

Next time, try this simple question: “What makes you say that?”

You may be surprised at the response you receive.

~~~

The last point I wanted to make regarding this phrase is that it reveals something very interesting about our culture. We view others’ negative emotions as some sort of personal insult or attack, and we respond accordingly. Rather than either addressing the person’s issues or ignoring them, we instead allow them to bring us down–hence the term “Debbie Downer.” The response that many a depressive (or simply a sad person) has encountered is, “Why do you have to ruin my mood all the time? Why do you have to bring everyone down all the time?”

My response to that is, why are you letting someone else’s problems ruin your mood?

One might argue that it’s “impossible” to be in a good mood if someone around you is not. This is pure bullshit. In fact, I’m going to propose something radical–what if it’s entirely possible to be in a good mood despite the presence of “Debbie Downers?”

I believe that unless you yourself have a psychological problem that keeps you from being in control of your own emotions, nothing can keep you from being in a good mood if you want to be. So perhaps we should stop blaming our own bad moods on other people and acknowledge that we have control over them instead.

The great irony here is that the people bitching and moaning about “Debbie Downers” are usually those very same people who tell those of us with mental illnesses that we just have to “look on the bright side” and “stop letting the little things bring you down” and all those tropes. Perhaps they should take their own advice.

A sad person isn’t a personal insult to you, nor an insurmountable barrier to your own happiness. Next time you encounter one, try a little compassion instead of sarcastically putting them down with a cliched phrase.

Death to Debbie Downer

Yes, We Need Psychiatric Labels

Recently I stumbled upon a Huffington Post article by one Dr. Peter Breggin, who lists himself on HuffPo as a “reformed psychiatrist.”

This should’ve told me everything I needed to know, but I read on.

The article is titled “Our Psychiatric Civilization” and tries to make the tired point that in this day and age, we are defining ourselves by our psychiatric diagnoses and not by anything else. It’s difficult to fully dissemble this argument because Breggin unceremoniously shoves so many unrelated arguments into the same sad little article, but his main points seem to be:

  • Psychotropic medication is overprescribed.
  • Psychiatric diagnoses (i.e. major depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, etc.) oversimplify the human condition.
  • Back in the good ol’ days, people apparently did a lot of spiritual soul-searching rather than resorting to all those damn pills.
  • The way people connect in our culture is through their psychiatric diagnoses.

I honestly don’t know which planet Breggin is living on, but it’s certainly not mine. I’ve addressed the overprescription crap elsewhere so I won’t talk about that now.

As for the second point, this is, to a certain extent, true. Psychiatric diagnoses DO oversimplify one’s psychological state, but that’s because you have to have a starting point. If you’re diagnosed with ADHD, you know that, some way–whether it’s through medication, therapy, or some combination of the two–you need to learn how to focus your attention better. If you’re diagnosed with major depression, you know that you need to somehow learn how to fix your cognitive distortions and become more active. If you’re diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder, you know that you need to do things that counteract the shortening of the days–use a full-spectrum lamp, take vitamin D supplements, etc.

Just as knowing that I have, say, asthma or the flu doesn’t describe the full state of my entire body, a psychiatric diagnosis isn’t meant to describe my entire psychological condition. Breggin seems to think that we live in a world where all we know about each other is what pills we’re popping, and nothing else. This is ludicrous. In fact, that’s something we don’t often know, given the stigma that still exists regarding mental illness.

Breggin goes on to claim in a condescending way that there’s no reason for people to connect with each other based on psychiatric diagnoses at all:

Patients ask me, “Should I join a bipolar support group?” If I were flippant, which I never am with patients, I could respond, “Only if you want support in believing you’re bipolar and need to take psychiatric drugs.”

My first thought upon reading this drivel was, Thank G-d he doesn’t say this to patients. My second was more like, What the fuck?

The idea that seeking support from others who face similar issues as you is somehow disempowering and promotes seeing oneself as a victim is quite possibly the most batshit stupid thing I’ve ever heard from someone whose profession is helping the mentally disordered. Shockingly enough, people like to feel like they’re not the only ones with problems. Perhaps this has truly never occurred to Dr. Breggin.

Quite the contrary, I have benefited immensely from connecting to other people who have depression and other mental disorders. Many of my friends have one, and together we’ve formed a sort of support network. All of us can always count on having someone to talk to, and those of us who aren’t as far along in the process of recovery as others can ask friends for advice. I don’t know where I’d be right now without that.

(Maybe in a perfect world, we could just have support groups called “Fucked-up People Support Group,” but somehow this seems counterintuitive.)

Anyway, psychiatric diagnoses can also be immensely helpful in explaining to healthy friends and family what the deal is. While Breggin seems to think that “depressed” is some sort of insulting, disempowering label I ought to reject, let me tell you some of the labels that my close friends and family described me with before they knew I had depression:

  • overdramatic
  • overemotional
  • bitchy
  • attention whore
  • immature
  • insensitive
  • selfish
  • crazy
  • weird
  • fucked up

Yeah um, I’d take “depressed” over that any day.

Not surprisingly, you don’t make a particularly strong case for yourself when you try to insist to people that, no, it’s not that you’re really overdramatic, it’s just that you have this problem with, well, being overdramatic, and you’re trying to work on it, you promise!

Trust me, that doesn’t work. What does work is saying, “I have a disorder called depression that distorts my thinking and sometimes makes me act in a way that seems overdramatic. With therapy and medication, it’ll improve.”

Apparently, though, Dr. Breggin is much too intent on destroying his own profession to allow those with mental illnesses even that small comfort. After all, he makes it pretty obvious that the reason he hates psychiatric labels so much is because they make it possible to prescribe medication, and that, of course, is a big no-no.

If I got a dollar every time some well-meaning fool tried to inform me that the medication that saved my life is unnecessary, I would have enough money to actually afford a therapist.

Yes, We Need Psychiatric Labels

I Love My Body

[TMI Warning]

I’m going to say something women aren’t supposed to say–I love my body.

My favorite part of my body are my shoulders. I’m not entirely sure why; it’s an irrational feeling. During the summer I like to show them off as much as possible with halter-top shirts and dresses.

I also love my curves, but I try to keep those more covered up. Those are for me, and for whoever else has earned the right, to enjoy.

I love my legs. I have really strong legs from years of dancing, walking, and riding my bike all the time. My legs can do just about anything I want them to.

I love my stomach, which makes rolls when I slouch like most healthy stomachs do. When I want to look thinner I can suck it in, but I think it looks fine even when I don’t.

I love my thighs. They store most of my body’s fat, so it’s often hard to find jeans that will fit them. They jiggle. When I’m naked and I draw my thighs up to my stomach, it feels warm and comforting.

I love my hands. I have long fingers that are perfect for playing piano. The nails on my fingers are strange–they’re all different shapes. Some are rectangular, some are ovular, and some are nearly square.

I love my face. My bottom lip is much bigger than my top lip, and one of my eyes opens much wider than the other. My parents asked me if I wanted to have surgery to get that corrected, and for a while I did, but honestly, I’m terrified of surgery and I don’t really care that much about how wide my eyes can open. My eyes are either brown, hazel, or green; it depends.

I love my feet, which are too wide for many types of shoes and rather ugly because of ballet. I’ve had so many blisters on so many parts of my feet over the years, both from ballet and from my habit of wearing insensible shoes, but my feet have taken it all in stride.

My body is conventionally attractive, but that’s not why I love it. I love it because it’s always been there for me, because of the good sensations it provides, because I’m so intimately familiar with it, and because it’s all mine.

It wasn’t always this way. Until very recently, I hated my body, or thought I did. It was the same story–too fat, too weird, too asymmetrical, too disproportional. I pinched my thighs and stomach all the time. Sometimes I’d stop reading or doing homework and realize that, unthinkingly, my hand had drifted to my stomach and was grabbing it and trying to hide the extra fat.

When I dieted or exercised, it felt like I was punishing my body. I took a sick pleasure in this. I liked to make myself hungry, sweaty, and exhausted. I counted calories, and some days I ate as little as 700 calories. That qualifies as a starvation diet. There, I said to my body. Take that.

Things are very different now. When I exercise, I like to think about my muscles working. Sometimes I even touch them while I’m working out so that I can feel them move. When my muscles are sore, I feel like they’re happy and exhausted. I stretch them and imagine them thanking me.

When I try to diet, I enjoy the feeling of eating well and of not having too much food in my body. I hate feeling stuffed; I prefer small portions. When I’m dieting, I’m more mindful of what I eat, and I feel my body appreciating each bite, and I like that feeling.

People think that loving your body means either thinking it’s flawless or completely abandoning the idea of health or beauty. The media perpetuates this myth–only “perfect” people (who don’t exist anyway) should love their bodies, and those who are “flawed” but love them anyway must simply be blinding themselves.

It’s not true. I don’t think my body’s perfect at all. It has plenty of flaws, some of which I mentioned above. Some of those flaws I counteract–I tweeze my eyebrows, wear makeup, diet (sometimes), wear flattering clothes, and use lotion. Other flaws I genuinely don’t care about.

But don’t we love people who aren’t perfect? Don’t we love our favorite writers, even though they might’ve written a couple books we could barely get through? Don’t we love our childhood homes despite the peeling paint and faded crayon marks on the walls?

You don’t have to be perfect to be loved, and neither does your body. I don’t think I’m the only woman who knows this. But I’m one of the few who’s willing to stick up for my body and declare that I love it despite a culture that says that women ought to be ashamed of what they were born with.

My body is there for me even when no one else is. I refuse to devalue it.

I Love My Body

Obama the Patriarch

I usually stay away from commenting on Obama’s presidency because, to be honest, I was just a kid during all the previous presidencies I’ve lived through and really have no comparison to make.

However, a recent statement by Obama has caused me to come out of my apolitical cave and rage. After the FDA made a recommendation that Plan B One-Step, a form of emergency birth control that is available over the counter to anyone over 17, be available to girls under 17 without a prescription as well, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s secretary of health and human services, overruled the FDA’s recommendation. This is disappointing enough as is, but then Obama came out in support of her and said the following:

“I will say this, as the father of two daughters: I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine….And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going into a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect.  And I think most parents would probably feel the same way.”

As usual when I write about women’s issues, I literally don’t even know where to start with this. First, and perhaps most obviously, I don’t understand why we’re having all this conversation about 10- and 11-year-olds. The change would have applied to all girls under 17, and the majority of teenage girls who might need to buy Plan B are not 10 and 11. Try 15 and 16. If Obama and Sebelius are that concerned about 10- and 11-year-olds specifically, they could’ve asked the FDA to recommend allowing only girls 12 and over to get Plan B without a prescription.

Second, and also very tellingly, if the FDA has deemed Plan B safe for over-the-counter use, who are Sebelius and Obama to assume they know better? Sebelius has a BA in political science and an master’s in public administration; Obama has a BA in political science and a law degree. Unlike many cynics, I don’t necessarily doubt that these two have the knowledge and ability to perform their respective jobs, but I would not trust them over the doctors and researchers who staff the FDA when it comes to medical issues.

Third, Obama immediately reveals what this is really about when he says, “as the father of two daughters…” Understandably, Obama would be worried for his two daughters if they were ever in a position to need Plan B. However, for all of the battling that Obama has had to do with the Far Right of this country, he clearly doesn’t seem to realize that many girls don’t have daddies like Obama who would care for them, be able to afford doctors’ appointments, support their right to get an abortion, and guide them through a decision. For many girls, it would be a choice between obtaining Plan B on their own or being shamed, abused, disowned, and/or forced to carry a baby to term.

Finally, I’m disturbed by the ageist and patriarchal notion that young women are somehow incapable of making their own decisions about sexual health. Yes, children need and should have access to guidance from adults. In a perfect world, every girl would be able to go to her parents for help with something like this. But that’s not the world we live in, and we must make do accordingly. Not only has the FDA already determined that Plan B is safe, but, unlike many medications that are available over the counter to children, you can’t overdose on it or otherwise fuck it up–when you buy it, you only get one.

Furthermore, there are other ways to make sure young teens know what they’re doing when it comes to emergency birth control. For instance, mandate pharmacists to provide an option for girls to privately ask them questions about how to use Plan B. Pharmacists know a lot. Why not use them as a resource?

Much has been made of Obama’s failure (or lack thereof) to support women’s rights, and it’s a debate I don’t normally follow because one can really spin it either way. On this issue, however, I would argue that Obama has definitively failed to support women and girls. Instead, he has promoted the antiquated notion that beliefs trump science when it comes to reproductive rights.

Obama the Patriarch

How to "Be There" for a Depressed Person

So. I’ve talked about things not to say to a depressed person before. People have often asked me how, then, one should go about it instead.

One of the nicest things that ever happen to depressed people is when one of our close friends or family members tells us emphatically that they want to “be there” for us. This is great. Depressives aren’t easy to deal with, and anyone who chooses to do so deserves respect.

However.

There are right ways to go about being supportive, and there are wrong ways to go about it. I’m going to try to illuminate some of the right ways here. Don’t worry, it’s not hard.

  • Be honest and specific about the extent to which you are able and willing to help.
  • If you’re not, one out of two things will happen–the depressed person won’t take you seriously and won’t come to you for help anyway, or they will overestimate the extent to which you can help them, and this leads to extreme frustration for both of you.
  • If you’re very busy most of the time, tell them a specific time when you’re free to talk. This is important because depressed people often feel even worse at the thought of there being nobody available to talk to them, or of people being busier than they are.
  • If you’re available to listen but have no idea what to say in response, tell them that. They might be able to suggest ways to respond, or they might tell you that just listening helps.
  • If you don’t really like hearing depressing things for personal reasons but still want to help, explain that, and offer to help them do things to take their mind off of their depression, such as watch movies or cook together. Sometimes, that helps as much or more than just listening to someone.
  • Be a bit kinder than you would normally be.
    • Depressed people are, for lack of a better word, very fragile. They get upset by things that “normal” people don’t get upset by.
    • This is not the time to make “constructive criticism” or point out mistakes that the person has made. For instance, some depressed people have substance abuse problems. Do not say “You need to stop drinking or else you’ll only get worse.” All that does is make the person feel guilty and ashamed. First of all, you’re (I’m assuming) not a therapist, so you’re not an expert on how to cure depression. Second, if you’d like to make suggestions for improvement, frame them them very carefully. Perhaps, “I’ve noticed that you tend to feel worse after you’ve been drinking. Have you thought about trying to stop?”
    • If this sounds like sugarcoating or handling people with kid gloves, maybe it is. Maybe it seems silly to you. But remember that this isn’t about you. It’s about someone else.
    • In relation to the first point I made, be really sensitive about how you tell the person that you’re busy/otherwise unavailable and can’t talk to them or help them. Don’t just be like, “I have to go to bed now. Bye.” Say something like, “I need to go to bed because I’m really tired, but I hope you feel better and I’ll talk to you again soon.” Remember that unless you specify that you’re tired but that you wish you could help, a depressed person is likely to assume that you’re just trying to give them the slip. Try not to be offended by this. It’s not because you haven’t been a good enough friend; it’s just how their brain works.
  • Remember that there are many ways to help.
    • If you’re not comfortable listening to someone talk on and on about really sad things, that’s perfectly understandable and okay. If you still want to help them, there are other ways.
    • As I mentioned earlier, one thing that really helps depressed people is getting them out of bed/off the couch and doing something. Offer a pleasant but engaging activity that doesn’t require too much social interaction or new situations–watching movies, cooking, exercising, going to see a lecture or exhibit, going to a small social gathering (NOT a huge party with lots of drinking), taking a walk, going shopping, etc. If you’re both students and have a lot of homework/studying to do, you can invite the person to do that with you. Even if you’re not actually interacting, it’s nice to be around people.
    • You can also help in very small but practical ways. Get notes for them if they miss class (but encourage them to try to go next time), tell mutual friends that they’re going through a hard time and need extra support, help them search for a therapist or psychiatrist, that type of stuff.
  • Don’t make it about you.
    • I can’t stress this enough. Honestly, the shit that can come out of a depressed person’s mouth is pretty ridiculous at times. I’m obviously not proud to admit this, but I have occasionally been known to scream (electronically or otherwise) things like “FINE GO AHEAD AND HATE ME” and “I GUESS YOU WON’T CARE IF I DIE” at people.
    • This, I’m sorry to say, is just part of the package. Depression really fucks with people’s ability to process things rationally. Although there are things you can do to avoid such a reaction (see “Be a bit kinder than you would normally be,” above), it may still happen, and it’s not your fault. Don’t make this about yourself, don’t react defensively, don’t accuse the person of not appreciating your friendship.
    • If they say something that really does bother you, it’s perfectly fine to bring it up when they’re calmer and less upset. But don’t do it while they’re freaking out about something.
  • Be really careful if you’re communicating via texting or the internet.
    • The reason I say this is because this is where I’ve most often seen things go terribly wrong. Written communication has a way of seeming much more curt, rude, and inconsiderate than it really is. Depressed people are already overly sensitive to things like this, so communicating in writing can make it even worse.
    • That’s not to say that you should rule texting and the internet out entirely. Just take care to make up for the lack of body language. You can’t smile reassuringly, touch someone on the shoulder, or hold their hand over the internet. So if you’re saying something that can be interpreted ambiguously, be very cautious. With depressed people, there’s a certain Murphy’s Law–if it can be interpreted negatively, it will be.
    • Some ways to combat this are to use emoticons to help convey emotion, to express things more clearly, and to ask the person how he or she is interpreting what you’re saying as a way of checking in.
  • Try not to offer advice unless they ask for it.
    • This is a big one. I’ve written before about the tendency of people to want to “fix” others by immediately offering them advice, but this really fails when it comes to depressed people.
    • First of all, depression is different from ordinary sadness in a qualitative, not quantitative, way. In other words, it’s not “more” sadness, it’s a “different” sadness. What works for you when you’re feeling a bit down probably isn’t going to be what works for someone with a clinical disorder. This is why all those entreaties to “just put yourself out there!” and “just smile!” and “just get some sleep!” really, really fall on deaf ears when it comes to depressed people. Trust me, we’ve tried all of that, and much more.
    • Second, advice probably isn’t what they’re looking for (unless they tell you so). When people are upset, not only are they not in the right frame of mind to evaluate your suggestions accordingly, but what they probably really want is for someone to agree that things are hard for them and to sympathize with that. In other words, don’t be like, “Oh, that’s no big deal, you can just try x, y, and z.” Try “Wow, that must be really hard for you, but I believe that you’ll get better.”
  • Never ever make the person feel guilty or indebted for needing your help.
    • This is rarely done maliciously; I think it’s usually by accident. Sometimes people who are close to a depressed person become frustrated or resentful, which is natural. However, just because it’s natural doesn’t mean you should necessarily express it–at least not in the way that most people do.
    • If you find that helping the person is taking up too much of your time and energy, that’s absolutely a fair conclusion to come to. But that doesn’t mean you have the right to blame the depressed person for it. You choose how to spend your time, not they.
    • The correct way to address this, in my opinion, is to explain calmly that you feel like you’ve been putting too much of yourself into helping this person. Explain that, since you’re not a therapist, you can’t devote as much time and energy as the person might need. Clarify that you still care about them, but that you need to focus on yourself more.
    • The reason this is so important is twofold. First of all, depressed people can’t help the fact that they need support. They just do. Making them feel ashamed of that does no good. Second, some depressed people are suicidal, and one of the biggest causes of suicidality is feeling like a burden to others. This is why you should try not to make a depressed person feel like a burden to you.

    So there you go. I’m sure there will be a followup post to this because it’s such a big issue for me. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

    How to "Be There" for a Depressed Person

    Insecurity

    [TMI Warning]

    About five years ago, we read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in my 10th grade English class. In order to facilitate our understanding of what it must’ve been like for Hester Prynne to walk around with a letter “A” pinned to her clothing, our teacher had us come up with our own biggest flaws and spend a day wearing a decorated letter to represent them. When people inevitably asked what the letters were for, we could explain in as much or as little detail as we wanted.

    Of course, most of the kids in my class chose fairly innocuous “flaws”–perfectionism, laziness, stuff like that.

    But I chose insecurity.

    I wouldn’t be diagnosed with depression for nearly three more years, but all the bits and pieces of my forthcoming diagnosis were already starting to fall into place. Just a week before our letter-wearing assignment, I’d been somewhat unceremoniously dumped by my first real boyfriend, whom I’d told several weeks before that, in tears, that I can’t be happy if I don’t like myself. (The poor guy had no idea how to respond to that–it wouldn’t be until my sophomore year of college that I found a group of friends who did–and I suppose I can’t blame him for running away from my teenage self like a man on fire.)

    Although I didn’t know it at the time, I’d accidentally stumbled upon a huge predictor of poor mental health–an unstable sense of self. I had no idea who “I” was apart from what people told me. My friends thought I was overdramatic and overemotional, so I was. My parents thought I was immature, so I was. A guy at school made fun of my big ass, so I was fat. I was pretty and intelligent only because (and only as long as) my friends and family told me so.

    Lacking my own independent and stable ideas of who I was, I ran to people for affirmation. They would provide it, and I’d feel satisfied for a short time. I thought that that’s how life was meant to be.

    When someone comes to you expressing thoughts of insecurity, it’s natural to want to “fix” everything for them by assuring them that their fears are baseless. What are you talking about, you’re so thin! Of course you’re smart! Guys would be lucky to date you!

    But here’s the problem–even if your assertions are absolutely correct, you’re not really doing the person any favors by making them. Rather than making their self-concept subject to the people who bring them down, you’re only making it subject to you and your affirmation.

    My advice? Challenge your insecure friends or loved ones to define themselves through their actions, not through arbitrary labels like “pretty,” “smart,” and “mature.” If they’re insecure about a societally-imposed value like skinniness or coolness, help them see that they’re no less of a person even if they don’t fulfill these expectations.

    That’s how I ultimately conquered my own insecurity. To this day, I really have no idea if I’m “smart enough” or “friendly enough” or whatever. I’m constantly trying to learn new things and make new friends, and that’s pretty much all I need. If I’m asked to describe myself, I try to use actions rather than adjectives. After all, one can argue whether or not I’m really “kind,” but one can’t argue with the fact that I started a campus organization dedicated to helping people.

    My blue letter “I” is still lying somewhere in my closet along with all the other high school crap I’ve been too lazy to throw away. It’s hard to believe now that I was once the sort of person who would’ve worn it.

    Insecurity

    The Myth of Everyone

    It’s right up there with Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and true love–the Myth of Everyone.

    The Myth of Everyone is invoked whenever someone attempts to justify their own or someone else’s shitty actions by saying, “Oh, come on, everyone does that.” For instance, my recent article against the Greek system generated arguments that all people and all groups of people do the sort of stuff I accused the Greek system of perpetuating, so it’s unfair to criticize the Greek system on those grounds. (I should’ve asked these people to find me examples of photography clubs paddling new members, or of a knitting circle forcing people to do keg stands, but I suppose that’s besides the point.)

    At other times, the Myth of Everyone is invoked to explain even nastier, more specific examples of human behavior. For instance, a few months ago, a 17-year-old was gang-raped by a group of college men at a party. One of the lawyers representing the group of men stated, “This wasn’t anyone’s finest moment. It was 20-year-olds at a party behaving like 20-year-olds at a party.” Clearly, the lawyer wanted us to believe that gang-raping a teenage girl is what “everyone” would do in this situation.

    Who is this mysterious Everyone? Why do they have such a hold over our collective imagination? Luckily, the field of psychology has an answer for that. It’s called the False Consensus Effect.

    The false consensus effect is a cognitive bias that most people have that causes them to overestimate the degree to which their particular beliefs, values, goals, and opinions are shared by the majority of people–hence, a false consensus.

    Psychologists believe that this effect occurs because people have a need to fit in and to believe that others share their mindsets. Feeling “normal” increases one’s self-esteem.

    The effect is particularly prominent among members of a tight-knit group that rarely interacts with non-group members, and therefore is rarely forced to encounter divergent viewpoints. It becomes really easy for members of such a group to assume that their beliefs are shared by the larger population, even when they actually aren’t. An example of this would be, say, members of a sorority or fraternity.

    This aspect of human psychology probably evolved to keep people happy and feeling accepted by society. In prehistoric times, it would’ve been adaptive to keep believing you’re pretty normal up until people convinced you otherwise–for instance, by excluding you from the tribe. But today, it’s become all too easy to convince yourself that “Everyone” shares your viewpoints, since our society is fragmented and we can choose people just like us to interact with.

    Unfortunately, this is exactly how things like sexual assault, binge drinking, and all sorts of other problems get delegitimized and ignored. I’ve heard my fellow students making ridiculously overgeneralized statements like “Everyone hooks up” and “Everyone goes out and gets drunk” and even “All guys try to pressure girls into having sex with them.”

    It would shock many of these students to know some statistics on these things. Namely, at least at my school, nearly 50% of the student body has not had sex in the past year. 23% percent of Northwestern students do not drink alcohol–AT ALL!–and 60% do not binge drink, meaning that they have four or less drinks each time they go out. (This includes the students who don’t drink at all, too.) This puts the percentage of students who do go crazy and get drunk at a little over one-third of the student body–a sizable minority, to be sure, but hardly the overwhelmingly dominant lifestyle people seem to think it is.

    I can’t cite these statistics because I received them directly from Northwestern’s Department of Health Promotion and Wellness, which does official surveys on this sort of stuff. (The surveys are distributed to a representative random sample of the undergraduate student body.) If you’re curious, though, I have contacts in that department and I could probably obtain a report for you.

    So, who is this mysterious “Everyone” who has tons of sex, drinks tons of alcohol, and pressures everyone into doing the same? It’s not the average Northwestern student, that’s for sure.

    The problem of false consensus goes way beyond the college campus. It helps explain why some people think that cheating, shoplifting, accepting bribes, or using drugs isn’t a big deal (“Oh, come on, everyone does that!”), why right-wing politicians think Americans want to stop gay marriage (when, in fact, 53% of Americans believe in full marriage rights for the LGBT community), and why some people persist in telling racist/sexist jokes, believing that everyone’s still living in the 1950s.

    Nowadays, when someone tries to tell me that “Everyone” is doing something, I take that with a grain of salt. Such statements probably tell you more about the person making them than about the majority of people, since most people don’t bother to actually go out and find statistics about things like I’ve just done.

    Reason: it’s so inconvenient, isn’t it?

    The Myth of Everyone

    Why I Oppose the Greek System

    This is a post I’ve wanted to write for years now but never have. I thought that writing it would result in my ostracism from society at Northwestern. I no longer think that that’s the case, though even if it were, I don’t really care. So here it finally goes.

    First, here are some premises on which I’m basing my argument:

    1. Just because a particular system has certain positive qualities or results does not mean that the overall system is not broken.
    2. Just because there are individual components of a system that are exemplary does not mean that the overall system is not broken.
    3. Just because a system benefits those who are part of it does not mean it is good for society as a whole.
    4. Just because a system does not cause certain issues, does not mean that it does not create an environment that allows these issues to continue.

    To wit:

    1. Just because the Greek system has some positive qualities and results does not mean that the overall system is not broken.
    2. Just because there are individual Greek chapters that are exemplary does not mean that the overall system is not broken.
    3. Just because members of Greek houses benefit from the Greek system in certain ways does not mean that the Greek system is good for college campuses or for society as a whole.
    4. Just because the Greek system does not cause issues like binge drinking, sexual assault, eating disorders, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination, does not mean that it does not create an environment that allows these issues to continue. As I’m going to argue, creating such an environment is exactly what it does.

    It won’t be possible to understand (let alone agree with) the rest of my argument if you do not understand these premises, so make sure to read them carefully before trying to shoot down my argument.

    That said, here, in no particular order, are the reasons I oppose the Greek system.
    1. Greek organizations have a long and illustrious history of discrimination on the basis of race, class, appearance, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and, obviously, gender. Whether or not they continue to do so today–and this is a subject of much debate–I don’t believe that one can support such a system without ambivalence.
    2. The very nature of a Greek organization lies in its exclusivity–the social power of current members to accept or reject prospective new members. Exclusivity has the effect of making something seem more desirable than it actually is, thus skewing potential members’ reasoning for joining Greek organizations. At a time of life when young adults should be learning how to base their self-esteem on internal rather than external valuations, the Greek system tells college students that their worth on campus is based on the arbitrary judgment of a group of older, cooler students. Desperate for validation from their peers, students are often devastated when they fail to get into their top-choice house.
    3. They lack diversity–not just racial, but mental. Every existing psychological study on the subject shows that, when given the chance, people will choose to associate with those whom they most resemble. This means that Greek organizations are essentially doomed to put similar people into boxes together rather than exposing them to diversity, because that’s how human psychology works. This is why it’s often so easy to stereotype particular Greek houses–the “awkward” house, the “douchey” house, the “slutty” house, the “Jew” house, the “prep” house, the “jock” house, and so on. Although stereotypes are usually overgeneralized, there’s usually at least a bit of truth to them, because birds of a feather flock together. And I think most people would agree that we go to college to meet people unlike ourselves, not to stick to what’s most comfortable. As regarding gender, some research suggests that spending lots of time around people of the other sex is healthy. If men lived together with women, for instance, they might gain a better appreciation for how sexual harassment and assault affects women, and perhaps they would be less likely to, say, march around campus chanting “No means yes, yes means anal.” But in Greek culture, men and women interact mostly in a drunken setting, which doesn’t exactly promote dialogue.
    4. On a related note, Greek organizations judge potential members by superficial factors. Yes, yes, I know, they all claim not to judge people by appearance. However, how on earth do you decide if you want to live with and be emotionally close to a person after making small talk with them for a few minutes? There’s something wrong with this. Even if they’re not explicitly picking people based on appearance, they are picking them based on their ability to seem cool or otherwise socially acceptable, and in my opinion that is superficial. (I often hear the argument that people are picked for Greek organizations based on “social skills,” which are invaluable for adult life. This may be true. However, I also oppose discrimination based on “social skills.” There will be a future post on this.) Regardless, this isn’t even to mention that many Greek houses, particularly sororities, do explicitly judge people in a nasty, catty way. I know of a house at Northwestern that passes around a plate of cookies to potential recruits, and automatically disqualifies them if they take more than one.
    5. Most of the recognized benefits of Greek organizations, such as camaraderie, networking, and philanthropy, could easily be achieved through other avenues. College campuses are distinct from the rest of the world in that they provide nearly limitless outlets for making friends, giving back to the community, and advancing your career. Anyone who claims that they “need” a Greek organization to find these opportunities is either lazy or brainwashed. See Premise 1 above–although Greek organizations certainly have some good qualities, I do not believe that these qualities justify their continued existence.
    6. A Greek organization relies on psychological manipulation to forge a bond between its members. If you think the purpose of hazing is to provide some entertainment for older members, you’d be wrong. Or at least partially wrong. Undergoing physically or emotionally grueling situations is known to increase emotional connection between members of a group. That super-tight bond you see between members of a Greek organization isn’t a coincidence, and it was achieved unethically. Not all Greek organizations haze, but many (if not most) do–in fact, a recent study shows that at least 90% of students who have been hazed do not believe that they have! An eyebrow-raise next time a Greek member proudly tells you “Oh, we don’t haze” may be warranted.
    7. By definition, Greek organizations discriminate against transgender, intersex, genderqueer, or otherwise non-gender conforming people. While activists are fighting to establish a vision of gender that includes more than just “male” and “female,” Greek organizations, unlike most other social clubs, are still gender-segregated. Although Greek organizations will often claim to be accepting of trans individuals, what happens when a member of a Greek house decides to transition? Or, better question–what about people who do not identify as either male or female?
    8. Greek organizations elevate social life above academics in terms of importance. I’ve witnessed professors tripping over themselves trying to schedule exams and other academic events around Recruitment, Rush, and other Greek events. I’ve witnessed mass outcries on campus because a chemistry exam coincided with Gone Greek Night. This is ludicrous. I don’t know when college students began to assume that they have some sort of God-given “right” to certain social opportunities at college. You have a “right” to an academic education. Everything else, you need to seek out on your own.
    9. Greek organizations promote an old-boys’-network style of career advancement. Many Greek organization members proudly tell me how helpful their chapter is in connecting them to alumni and job opportunities. But since whole point of going to college is to have access to such opportunities, it’s fundamentally unfair that certain students receive more access just because they were cool enough to join a social club. No, the Greek system didn’t cause nepotism–refer to Premise 4 above–but it does promote it. As I see it, there’s enough inequality in the world as is. We should not be institutionalizing it in our universities.
    10. One word–groupthink. When your entire life revolves around one organization, this creates an environment in which nobody can publicly disagree or “cause trouble.” In Alexandra Robbins’ brilliant investigation of the Greek system, Pledged, she describes how sorority women refused to let one of their sisters accuse a fraternity man of raping her because their sorority and the man’s fraternity were partnered in some way and they didn’t want to compromise the relationship. This also partially explains why sorority women (sometimes) allow each other to barf up their meals, and why fraternity men (sometimes) allow each other to sexually assault women–they’re afraid or otherwise unable to speak up. Although these problems are thankfully not as prevalent at Northwestern as they are at other schools, having your entire social life controlled by one organization is never a healthy thing, because it means that you have to keep your problems to yourself or face social exclusion.
    11. They are financially prohibitive to many (if not most) students. Yeah, yeah, there’s financial aid available. But that doesn’t erase the problematic fact that one should never have to pay money to have access to friendship. Given that Greek houses also provide access to career-related networking and, on occasion, academic resources of dubious ethicalness, the fact that all of this comes at a price of hundreds of dollars a semester is just another way that class divisions are perpetuated at universities. Furthermore, membership in a Greek organization requires a sizable time commitment, and students who have to work to pay their way through college often (not always) cannot commit to it.
    12. Greek organizations promote binge drinking. There’s not much to say on this point. Even if nobody’s literally shoving alcohol down your throat, many Greek events come with the expectation that one pregame and/or get drunk. Much like sexual assault and eating disorders, this is the sort of issue to which Greek organizations love to pay homage by having special events about how to drink safely, etc. However, unhealthy drinking habits are entrenched in Greek culture. This is another great example of Premise 4 from above–while college students are certainly going to drink no matter what, examples like Europe show us that binge drinking is absolutely not unavoidable. It’s quite possible for young people to drink in a safe and healthy way. But Greek organizations are helping to keep the binge drinking tradition going strong.
    13. Although most Greek organizations do not encourage or promote sexual assault, eating disorders, discrimination, or other issues, I believe there is something inherently wrong with a system that has still produced so many examples of dangerous, violent, and/or prejudiced behavior. It’s certainly wrong to stereotype all Greek organizations as being hotbeds of this sort of stuff, but we need to seriously ask ourselves why it’s happening at all. Every time one of these terrible incidents hits the news, a Greek member is always quoted as claiming that this is “an isolated incident.” Then why does it keep happening? (For instance, at least one student has died of hazing-related injuries every year since 1970. Where’s the outrage?)
    14. The strongest moral argument for keeping Greek organizations around–philanthropy–is fatally flawed. First of all, as I mentioned in item 5 above, one does not need to belong to a Greek organization in order to participate in philanthropy. Not only are campuses absolutely full of philanthropic events of all kinds, but it really isn’t too difficult to find such opportunities on one’s own. Second, with the exception of programs like GreekBuild, the sorts of philanthropic events that Greek chapters tend to have basically consist of people paying admission to some fun event. Why not just call it what it is–a fun event–rather than pretend that the whole purpose was to be charitable? Furthermore, throwing money at a charity rarely solves actual societal problems. What helps is meaningful, time-intensive contribution to an actual cause. But it’s hard to find that kind of time when you’re too busy partying and hosting bake sales.
    15. Another major argument for the Greek system–tradition–is just, for lack of a better word, stupid. People love to pay homage to tradition. I know plenty of people who found it very important to join the very same Greek organization that their parents did before them, even if it’s at a different school. Alumni would probably have heart attacks (or roll over in their graves) if the Greek system were abolished. But why? Why do we need to keep around an outdated system that originated in the 19th century? Somebody give me a good reason. Why don’t we create a new system, a new tradition? Why don’t we create a tradition of improving the social climate on our campuses rather than keeping them the same as they were decades ago? When someone pulls out this argument, you know they’re just grasping at straws–when you ask “Why?” and someone answers, “Because,” you know they have no real reason.

    Finally, some caveats. Do not accuse me of these things, because you will be wasting your time.

    1. I have nothing against individuals who are involved with the Greek system. I don’t judge them. I wouldn’t emulate their choice, but that’s as far as it goes.
    2. I have never been involved with Greek life in any way, not even Recruitment/Rush. I have never been rejected from my favorite sorority since I’ve never wanted to join a sorority. Nevertheless, I’m involved in many campus groups, have plenty of great friends, and have an active social/dating life. Therefore, the reason I oppose the Greek system is not because I’m “just jealous.” (To those who are unfamiliar, this is a common claim Greek organization members use to try to delegitimize arguments against the Greek system.)
    3. I fully respect the experience of anyone who claims to have had a wonderful time in his/her own fraternity/sorority. However, as you can see in Premise 2 above, just because there are some great Greek chapters does not mean the overall system is healthy and just.

    This is the bulk of my argument against the Greek system. I hope I have shown that even when the Greek system benefits its own members–which it does not always do–it is a mostly negative force in society as a whole. The positive things about it, such as philanthropy and fun, could easily be achieved through other means, and the negative things about it cannot be repaired without completely altering the Greek system as we know it.

    I believe that universities should be, and have the potential to be, spaces of equal opportunity for advancement. I believe that they can be melting pots of people with different backgrounds, lifestyles, and opinions. I believe that they are places where people can grow both intellectually and psychologically, and begin the process of becoming confident, self-motivated individuals. I believe that universities have the power to change themselves for the better, and that they can work to solve the various issues they currently face, whether concrete like binge drinking and sexual assault, or abstract like lack of intellectual openness. I believe that the Greek system undermines universities on all of these counts, and many more.

    Resolved: the Greek system is unethical and should be abolished.

    Why I Oppose the Greek System