Depression Is Ours
Very few things are as isolating as depression. This should raise eyebrows, as the rising generations have the highest rates of depression in recorded history.
GWF Hegel posited concepts like zeitgeist and volksgeist to describe the pervasive spirits that governed eras and people. It is a stretch to say the spirit of our time is itself depressed, but there is no question that the millennial volk are depressed.
It may be tempting to ascribe the rise in depression rates to the changing of the stigma surrounding mental health awareness and under-diagnosis in previous generations, or to nearly an entire year of Social Distancing. However, this explanation ignores the material conditions these rising generations experience: the vice grip of falling wages and increasing costs within which the millennials and our Gen Z colleagues are pinched. This also exaggerates the role of Covid-19 in millennial depression; Covid-19 has been a force multiplier on existing depressive trends, but depression in the rising generations predates the era of Social Distancing by a great deal.
While many of the causative factors cited in our depression diagnoses are endemic to our generation, we understandably tend to personalize our depressive experiences. Despite groaning under the collective weight of our student loans, we experience enormous guilt when we struggle to pay off our debts. Despite rising rents and falling wages, we internalize our embarrassment when we cannot scrape together enough to survive every month. Despite healthcare costs ballooning out of control, we often speak bashfully of medical debt and medical procedures.
Put simply, we too often treat this public health crisis as a source of personal shame. Our struggles are unique, our individual experiences valid. However, many of the sources of our struggle are not unique, but shared. We frequently speak of “my depression,” and it is useful to do so to communicate our pain to our loved ones. Our next step to address the generational problem of depression is to recognize it as a cultural phenomenon; something that is a part of us, a collective experience in which we are all participants.
Depression is not yours, it is not mine…it is ours.
This revelation walks a dangerous line. No one’s individual experience should be invalidated, no one’s struggle should go overlooked. The recognition of Depression-As-Ours cannot replace the validation of any individual pain. Depression-As-Ours must be a means by which we bridge our respective painful experiences and recognize their common causes.
Depression-As-Ours has the potential to lighten the burden of shame that our individual trials place upon us. It can help us recognize that being co-sufferers empowers us to be more. We can be co-combatants in the fight against depression. Deaths of despair are on the rise, and we need comrades in this struggle.
The tough part is that depression makes it difficult to reach out. The good news is that our generations are filled with people who are more likely to understand our struggles, and how our depression impacts our ability to function. We have to consistently remind ourselves that our struggles are accessible to our peers.
The biggest potential contribution of Depression-As-Ours, however, is starting to be realized already, in an outpouring of (predominantly class-based) solidarity among millennials and Generation Z. If our depression has a common cause, then it is likely to have common solutions. Depression-As-Ours isn’t just solidarity to help each other weather the storm of depression. Its solidarity is potentially powerful enough to attack many of the causes of youth depression at their material sources.
Take heart, you are not alone.
