Depression, computers - Trying to explain depresssion in computer terms

The other day my friend Eduardo, a computer "tecnico" said something like "It seems you get depressed very easily." Feeling a little judged and defensive I said, "Yes, that is true" and then tried to explain. But how do you explain something like feelings and depression to a computer guy? Later I thought about this some more. I realized he really doesn't understand and would have no way of understanding unless he has lived my life. So I thought about how to put it in computer terms.

I thought about how easy it is to erase a whole hard disk with one command. And how easy it is to erase files. Or how easy it is to shut down a computer by pulling the plug so it has no source of energy. And I thought about how easy it is for a virus to infect a computer. And about how vulnerable a computer is to someone who knows the ways to erase files and corrupt data and programs.

So this all seemed to have much in common with depression. For example, I thought about how easy it is to kill the energy in someone and kill their motivation by just a few words or even by just a look or with silence. And how if they have been programmed by someone to feel insecure and afraid and to lack self-confidence, this person will be very vulnerable to hurtful or negative or discouraging words. For example when I was hiking with my friend in the mountains and I told him that it would be a good place to bring the homeless boys I have been trying to help, he joked and said, "But they would probably start a fire and burn everything down." These kinds of small comments can discourage a vulnerable person just like a few keystrokes can wipe out many files in a computer.

I also thought about how computers are not programmed to know what is good for them and what is not. This is a very interesting thing to think about. What if a computer knew that something a human did was not good for it? I suppose this is a little like installing virus protection programs. But do we humans also have some kind of protection against harmful words? Or against harmful commands? For example, what about when a teacher orders a young child to do something which is harmful for the child, such as sit still and be quiet when the child has a need to run around and talk or shout? What then? Does the child have some kind of built in protection system to tell the teacher, "But I need to run around and talk and shout. This is what is healthy for me right now." And does a teenager have a built in protection system which would be activated when a parent said something like "Get off the phone" or "Get off the computer, you need to do your homework"?

I think children and teenagers do have this built in protection system. It is their feelings. Their feelings tell them what they need for their health. The problem is they don't have the physical power or the legal power to follow their feelings or do what is in their best interest. Almost everyday here in Otavalo I talk to a teenager who cuts because of her dysfunctional and emotionally incompetent mother. She would be welcome to say here with me but her mother could and probably would call the police and force her to go back to her "home". And recently two children came here to stay a few days with me because they felt safe her and afraid of their mother who beats them, but the police told the mother to take them back so they could be beat some more. Other teenagers want to leave the country they are in, but they can't because someone has deciced they are "minors" and thus their feelings don't for anything when it comes to the laws which are enforced by people with guns.

But I am getting off track. That's because I feel sos strongly about the problems with the laws that give so much legal power to some humans called "parents", not to mention others called "teachers" and "school directors" and "principals.

So what if we could raise children to use their built in protection system, and what if we respected it, in other words what if we respected their feelings and taught them to honor their feelings rather than to discount them in favor of behaving as the majority of unhappy adults want them to? This would be something like making computers that knew when someone was erasing needed files or shutting off the electricity.

Which reminds me. There is more I wanted to say about energy.

Computers need energy. So do humans. Energy is a result of chemical reactions. Somehow the human body makes electricity, I guess in sort of the same way batteries do. But our feelings change the chemical reactions. If someone says something negative or discouraging, our chemicals change and we probably will have less energy. If enough people do this for long enough, we might have no energy. And thus we are in a state called depression - ie no energy. On the other hand it is also possible that the same words when received by another human, or even the same human on a different day, could serve to create energy. For example, when my teen friend Sasha's mother said some negative things one day it just made me more determined and actually gave me energy. And my friend Fabio once told me that when people criticize him it just makes him fight harder for what he believes in. Often though, for me, the negative words have a depressing, energy killing effect on me. I almost never got depressed till I started really thinking about the way I was raised and the way things were in the USA, but since then I have been depressed and felt suicidal many times. The the human body is different than either a computer or a battery, it shares many things in common. A human can, or at least has the potential to know what is healthy and not healthy for it. And unlike a battery a human has the potential to create its own energy and recharge itself. It is possible to create energy by merely thinking. I have experienced this many times. On the other hand it is possible to kill energy by thinking as well. That is why it is so important how we teach or train or program young people to think. Do we teach them to think positively, in ways that will create energy, or at least not kill it, as many parents and teachers do? Or do we teach them to think negatively? And do we teach them to honor their feelings? Sadly, I believe the adults in control of the major social systems are teaching children and teens to think negatively and to not honor their feelings. I believe we really have a huge mess to work out before we can live in peace and security.

So what can we do? As I have said before on this site, we can do several things. We can start asking children and teens how they feel and really listening. We can learn to stop invalidating them. We can teach them the names of their feelings. We can teach them that their feelings matter, that their feelings are important. We can help them learn to stand up for themselves when someone is doing something to them or making them do something which doesn't feel good. And we can start working to change the laws which limit the rights of children and teenagers. It becomes more clear to me all the time that children and teens have many needs, but they don't have many legal rights. And even when countries make a big deal about children's rights, they don't really do much to see that each individual child or teen is free to do what they need to do in order to fill their own natural needs.

But back to depression. I do get depressed easily. And I wish I could help all the teenagers who also get depressed easily. I wish I could help them understand that it is the environment which is depressing them and it is not something wrong with them. I wish I could help them learn to think in ways that keep their energy levels up and in ways to give them hope to change things in the future. And I wish I could get the parents and teachers and psychologists and psychiatrists to stop putting teens on medication and to start looking at what is wrong in the society they are so deeply invested in.

S. Hein
August 11, 2004
Otavalo, Ecuador

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