Wednesday - Struggling With Insurance, Writing About Depression

I went to work annoyed, and I stayed annoyed over the insurance problem. Then CC let me know she sprained her ankle and could not drive. I got off about 1:40, got the #2 back down town, then the 2:30 out to the courthouse. In between I had a nice tuna salad from The Bloom Downtown. From the courthouse, I walked to Family Services. I got a number to call. Then 3:30 #2 was late, so I walked down to Memorial and Tillotson to catch the #17 back down town. I had a little wait for the #3 home. That bus got me home close to 5 pm.

I attacked the e-mail. I started this post.

The Missouri Review rejected me:

Thank you for letting us consider "The Local Boy Who Made Good" for publication in the Missouri Review. We enjoyed reading your work, and though it doesn't quite fit our needs at this time, we wish you excellent luck with it and hope we will have the chance to read more of your writing in the future.

Sincerely,

The Editors

Same with The Georgia Review and "True Love Ways Gone Astray":

Thank you for your submission to The Georgia Review. We have considered your manuscript carefully and decided against publication. Best of luck in placing this work elsewhere. 

Sincerely,

The editors of The Georgia Review

Neither depressed (see below for more on depression) me. In part because I refused to be depressed over these rejections, and partly because I have re-rewritten them. I was saying to KH the other night, it is the very act of submitting the stories that gets me thinking of them at a different angle than when I am typing them up. The rejections are part of that process. It also helps to know that if I had been a more successful suicide, these stories would never have been written and having no expectation of ever being published does not leave me vulnerable. On the other hand, no one has rejected any of my stories by also telling me I had to have been a moron to write such a story in such a way.

 I will not put in the actual title of an article by Abbey Wright I read these evening from The Guardian, only is subtitle, Young people are growing up online, just a few clicks away from explicit content. As part of a theatre project, I asked them a simple question - what do you think about it?. Scoff, laugh at me, these things do appall me. I am supposed to have this pathological problem, when truth is I never had much interest in the subject. I did read Xaveria Hollander's books – we wanted to know what to do, not just look at naughty pictures. A fellow I knew in college got a Playboy subscription, I remember us saying we'd never seen anyone looking like that at her age and lots of comments on airbrushing. I think we had a better idea on reality and fantasy than do the current crop of kids. You should be worried about that.

I wonder if putting these two toge

And from that to On the Enduring Popularity of Marvel’s Fantastic Four. I guess I missed the boat here, too. I did not buy comic books until I was in college. They were what I looked at in the drug store while my mother bought things.

I wonder if  putting these two articles from Indiana Capital Chronicle together is just how mind works, or if there is something going on here. First is One year of 988: Indiana reports high in-state response rate, but progress ongoing by Whitney Downard:

Indiana hasn’t been immune to this increase, according to the health care policy organization KFF. Between 2011 and 2021, the age-adjusted suicide death rate per 100,000 residents jumped 22% in the Hoosier State, from 13.5 deaths to 16.4 deaths.

At the same time, Indiana reported one of the highest in-state response rates for calls to 988, meaning that Hoosiers in crisis were more likely to connect with a local counselor than their peers in other states. 

“The state is using this as an opportunity to build an infrastructure that will change the way Hoosiers access behavioral health and crisis care, with a goal of building a system that can prevent and respond to mental health crises through the expansion of pilot programs to demonstrate their efficacy and cost-effectiveness,” said Michele Holtkamp, director of the Office of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs at the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

Which, I think, points to there exists a problem with Indiana where people think there suicide is the only solution. Having been there, having survived a desire for self-destruction, I can say there is a better solution. It hurts, it is difficult, but life can be better. That said, I know in 2009, I probably would not have called. I hope anyone reading this does make the call. 

Secondly, Hoosier girls are facing an ‘unprecedented’ mental health crisis, according to new report by Casey Smith reports:

    More than 6,000 Indiana girls in high school not just considered suicide, but began to engage and think about the details of how they would carry it out, according to the report.

    At least 16,835 Hoosier girls in grades 7-12 indicated they experienced depression from 2021-2022. Nearly a quarter of female respondents indicated that they had seriously considered attempting suicide sometime in the past year.

    More than 8,000 middle school and high school girls further reported they had “seriously considered” taking their life during the same school year. About 17.5% of high school girls surveyed said they made a plan to attempt suicide.

    Girls, especially teenage girls, are more likely to develop mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, researchers said. They’re also at a higher risk of experiencing symptoms at earlier ages.

I might suggest any teenage girl read ‘People who were affected by punk still are’: Pauline Murray on rage, life on the road and doing things her way:

“I didn’t know what it meant,” she says, in an era where mental health struggles were still taboo. “But I cried and shook from head to foot, all the time. It was all aspects of life. Leaving me husband, nowhere to live, no money, new relationship. And the music business is very unreal, there’s expectation, you’re criticised, rejected. You’ve got to be really strong; I was up to a point and then just let go.”

She deemed herself “a burden”, developed suicidal thoughts. Mercifully, in the mirror one day, “I had a word with meself,” she says. “‘Are you gonna do this, or not? No, I’m not.’” After years of a debilitating, touring lifestyle, living on “Greggs cheese and onion pasties, Cadbury’s Smash, Findus cod in butter sauce in a bag, sweets and cigarettes”, she says she saved her sanity through healthy eating. Full recovery, she adds, “took years”.

If there’s a thread through Life’s a Gamble it’s of struggle and stress, of fighting through poverty, turmoil and bad luck. Murray is an unexpectedly delicate character with lifelong anxiety, her childhood shyness still detectable today through her sincerity and warmth. In a 1979 NME cover story with Paul Morley, she confessed she was a glass-half-empty personality. “Pessimistic,” she nods. “But without the struggle and stress I might not have done anything. Struggle and stress is what propels you to get out of the struggle and stress, do you know what I mean? I’m a high-functioning depressi–” She stops. “I’m high-functioning.”

Breaking for a trip to McClure's (6:28) 

Back at it at 8:24. 

I have been thinking about suicide. Not mine, actually Hemingway's. I noted an article a few days ago about this. I cannot remember the exact remark, but its gist was the despair that comes when one feels useless. Yep, been there and done that. Reading Marlowe and Shakespeare by H. Rohrman (1952) may have also contributed to my thinking. So did catching a few minutes of a boxing movie last night.  We all want that moment when we stand up and show the universe what are our talents and that rise up to the challenges thrown upon us by life. It is not that we might lose that we fear. What we fear is losing as in the sense of defeat only happens when we do not exert ourselves to our fullest. What terrifies us is never having such a moment in our lives. I did not exert myself when the challenge came to me. I failed the standard set by Kipling.

I have blogging to do. The fiction, I will put off for a while. I plan on being to bed earlier this night.

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