Dear Leah [Eskin]:
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You proudly display your ignorance in your very first sentence. You’re not an “adherent” of depression. Gee. I’m not an adherent of brake failure at high speeds, either, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can never happen to me. Your word choice, which I trust was carefully executed, implies that one can choose whether or not to subscribe to the conditions of depression. Wrong. You confuse depression with pessimism.
By your third paragraph, when you profess to trying to do your part for depression by wearing black, you completely dismiss yourself as a competent and credible writer. Attitudes like yours are what keeps this illness a stigma, affecting only “sad sacks” or “sticks-in-the-mud.” Those two terms sound pretty dated and stupid, huh? Hey, like you! Oh, was that cheap and callous of me? Sorry, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Hey, like you again! Just to clear the air, however, depression is not restricted to the noir-draped subculture. Your description of all the different kinds of people at the hospital shows this. Unless, of course, the old ladies in their faux leopard hats were just new wave vamps, hip beyond their means.
Elmhurst
