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=   F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K.   =
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                           Out of the Closet
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(For Aurelius: I never knew you, but you were one of us.)


I'm writing this file for a few reasons. One of them is that just about
everybody in 303 (and 970) who's on IRC knows I hang out in #depression. 
Another is that several people probably know I wrote the "anonymous" FUCK 
file concerning suicide some time ago (mailed from a hacked account on my
school's mainframe; there are only two other people in the scene who
attend the school in question). The main reason I am writing this, though,
is because I want to shed some light on things that people--even those who
have clinical depression--might not realize yet.

I am currently on 40mg of Prozac per day. I've been informed by my
psychiatrist that I will have to maintain this level or higher of the drug
in my bloodstream every single day for at least five more years in order to
get the seratonin levels in my brain back to some semblance of normality.
Seratonin is a neurotransmitter, which is a substance in the brain that
helps send electrical impulses across the synapses. In most people who are 
diagnosed as clinically depressed, the brain abosorbs excess seratonin 
too quickly, which lowers the amount of synaptic activity associated 
with seratonin, which gives rise to a host of symptoms associated with 
depression: excessive crying, sleeping disorders, eating disorders, 
fatigue, feelings of hopelessness, and suicidal inclination. This is my 
understanding of clinical depression, which I've been studying first-
hand for 25 years now. I'd appreciate any comments or corrections to 
this information.

That is the medical side of clinical depression, which does nothing to 
explain how depressed people actually *feel*. I hope I can give you a 
sense of what we feel nearly every day of our lives.

Hello. My name is Steve. I was diagnosed with clinical depression 
(commonly known as major depression) in 1992. I was diagnosed at Baylife 
Acute Care Center in Florida, where I checked myself in for suicide 
intervention after slicing my forearms with a knife. I was started on 
Prozac in the hospital and they kept me for two weeks against my 
will--when I found out that they wanted to keep me, I tried to leave, 
but Florida state law requires crisis units to hold suicide risks for a 
minimum of one or two weeks.

Since my visit to Chez Baylife, I've had several more "episodes" of 
depression, that usually end in me going to a shrink and doing whatever 
I can to stay alive. One of the things I do to get the pain out of me is 
to externalize it; I'm what's known colloquially as a "cutter," or 
formally as a "self-harmer." When the hell of everyday life begins to 
hurt me too much inside, I slice myself with a knife I keep at my desk. 
I sharpen the knife often with a diamond sharpener, and it is literally 
sharp enough to shave with--if you look closely at the insides of my 
forearms, you'll notice that there is no hair on them for a width of 
about half an inch on each side of the veins. my upper arms (usually 
hidden under t-shirt sleeves) are masses of scars both new and old, and 
they aren't something I'm particularly proud of. Kids, don't try this at 
home. It's not "cool" to be a cutter, it's just a way to get the pain 
out. 

I recently met someone from the hacking scene on irc who is also a 
cutter. He was surprised when I told him that I was a cutter; he didn't 
think anybody else did it besides him. So this is written in part as a 
nod to him and to inform other cutters who might read this that you are 
not alone.

"Hope is an illusion" is a topic I set on #depression every so often, 
and most of the time that's how I view life. I've learned not to accept 
hope because every time I do, something happens to remove that hope, and 
another part of me dies with it. Depression has been likened to a dark
cloud over the mind, but I feel it more as a crushing weight that I must
carry every day. 

Sometimes I go without eating for three or four days at a time, and
sometimes I deprive myself of a full night's sleep just so that I can
*feel* something, anything. This is also another reason why I slice my
arms; I want to know if I am still capable of feeling. Sometimes I can feel
the physical pain and sometimes I can't. The mental and emotional pain are
always with me, though.

I've had a traumatic past. I'm not ready to write about much of it yet, and
I don't think I'll ever be ready, but there it is. I don't try to use my
childhood as an excuse for my behavior, but sometimes it's hard not to
wonder if it contributed something to my depression. Most of the seratonin
problems I have are hereditary, but hey, you never know. I grew up in an
extremely violent environment. I've been held hostage by a man with a 30-06
who raped my stepmother in my presence. That "man" was my father back when
alcohol had changed him into a demon. He shows none of the deadly traits he
used to since he stopped drinking six years ago, but he still has a
tendency to smash things (fortunately not people anymore) up when he's
angry. I firmly believe that this country created his dangerous side during
the Vietnam War, in which soldiers were encouraged to stay drunk and high
so that they wouldn't question their country's involvement in Vietnam, and
were sanctioned by Uncle Sam to fire upon anything that moved.

This is the part I can write about my past; other events involving other
people still haunt me to this day, and I still can't write about them.

I often see people on #depression talking about how they had the gun to
their head/knife to their veins/etc. but "didn't have the courage to end
it." This is a misconception I'd like cleared up right now. It takes far
more strength and courage to live on in the unceasing hell of a
depressive's life. At the same time, I do not scorn suicide as "the
coward's way out"; it is a means of escape as surely as are booze and
drugs. And if everyday life is hell, the only thing I would fear from a
Christian notion of hell would be the absence of my friends, who at least
make life bearable.

Those of you who know me personally should not take this file as a hint to
watch what you say around me or anything of the sort. Many friends and
family members of clinically depressed people feel that they have to
tiptoe around issues of depression, but that's not the case. An admission
of clinical depression is also not a play for sympathy, because it's
something that is fairly hard to do in the first place. I know people who
have been fired because they were depressed, which is a violation of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, but employers get away with it anyway.
An admission of suicidal feelings is something that should be taken
seriously, because generally the person admitting to these feelings is
asking for help.

When people I know on irc started doing a "whois" on me they saw
#depression and popped in to see what I was doing there. At one point this
alarmed me so much that I changed the channel's mode to +s (secret, so it
won't show up in a whois). One of the other regular ops immediately
switched it back to -s and said, "no secrets." I agree now. No secrets.


(Aurelius, a #depression regular, ended his life on February 28, 1997.)

-Legion

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