Schreiner’s Media Landscape

Utahns sit alone in their living rooms with the lights off trying to understand how this reddest, whitest, American, western, family value-conscious, pro-Bush, pro-war, Republican, fossil fuel-loving state could be the most depressed in our tenuous union. This is not a recent phenomenon. Utah has been depressed for a long time. Previous studies and articles show a long pattern, especially among women and youth, of suicide, drug abuse and other exercises in self-loathing. Maybe men are the cause. But as the saying goes, you can’t live with them or without them so killing them off is not a solution.

I’ll confess a personal interest in this topic because my father suffered from serious clinical depression for the last 25 years of his life. He was drugged, shocked, hospitalized, psychoanalyzed and counseled until the day he finally gave up. All that time, I read, discussed, watched and wrote as much as I could about depression in a way of helping both him and me understand what was “wrong” with him- or us. 

After Dad died, I became less interested in the problem. But the subject comes back to me every once in a while when new studies come out or I’m feeling down myself. Dad’s mother and sister also suffered from depression making the rest of our family wonder who’s got “the black dog” (to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, also a depression sufferer).

My current conclusion is: there is such a thing as depression as an illness but I don’t think it can be controlled as a medical condition, though the TV ads by the drug companies will tell you different. Drugs sort of worked with my father but the real source of his “illness” was his attitude toward people and life. I’ll spare you the details but suffice to say that, except for an unwavering dualist belief that organized religion was the source of all evil, Dad could ironically and easily qualify as a religious fundamentalist.

Rules, discipline, functional knowledge (none of that music, liberal arts, MBA crap), honesty, integrity and austerity were all words Dad lived by, not just used in everyday conversation. His four kids tried to emulate these admirable traits though his act proved impossible to follow- at least, for me. I believe it was his strict adherence to rules, austerity and, mostly, disdain for those did not adhere that led to his depression and ruined his life.

The reason: UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS FROM LIFE AND INEVITABLE DISAPPOINTMENT. This list is long. Human perfection, cosmic justice, honesty, a divine and benevolent God and eternal reward, happiness, peace are just a few of beliefs that all of us see dashed as our lives unfolds. The cheeriest optimist either learns very soon in life that these things do not or may not exist, and adjust well (normal?) or not (the depressed), or they live their lives in a dangerous fantasy. You know the latter type: filtering all Earthly activities through the Bible or strapping plastic explosives to their bellies and walking into a crowded marketplace in Baghdad.

Much is written about how the growing detachment of humans from Nature, Richard Louv’s concept of Nature Deficit Disorder, which he admits is not a real illness, is causing more depression especially among children. At the same time, Louv and other researchers are proving that children, hospital patients, even jailed prisoners, all benefit from regular exposure and interaction with Nature. The difficulty in “getting out more” is understandable in more developed areas. But here in Utah, we enjoy a comparative abundance of Nature, mountains, lakes, desert, forest. We have no excuse.

My family tells me I’m the most like Dad of all the kids. I consider that both a tribute and a warning shot. Like Dad, reading a book, praying, or believing it will all ultimately get better by itself don’t work for me. So whenever I’m feeling down, I get out into Nature and walk, ski, hike or video my troubles away. I wonder about Dad and whether I could have saved him by just getting him outside more. 

Think about the great natural places and resources we have in Utah and how we are squandering them in favor of more mansions, highways and strip malls- things that don’t make us happy but merely enable us to survive. Recognizing the special role Nature has in the human existence is a key to understanding the differencing between living and feeling alive. And feeling alive is the definitive opposite of depression- feeling dead.

We may not be able to explain what its causing Utah’s depression. But we already know the antidote.