My sister yelled at me for not knowing the directions to Century 21. After this incident, I remained depressed for the whole day. Even when I seemingly had fun in the Swedish Mid-Summer festival later in the day, I still remained depressed. And the feeling carried on to the next day. Waking up til 11 AM and then laying on my bed after, I am immobile. I know I had to do the errands, but I can still hear my sister's yelling and decided that I shouldn't. I hate myself this much. Judging by I just put, you can conclude that I got depression from family trauma. You can say that. But I also got depression from a cause more major and maybe realer than a serotonin imbalance: capitalism.
This cause is not something that a loony college student would say. It, in fact, has been observed in a growing body of literature. The most prominent observer, Mark Fisher, claimed that capitalism occupied "the horizons of the thinkable" to the point that people cannot imagine a life without capitalism and thus couldn't think of an alternative. Writing for Paste Magazine, Tom Syverson builds up on Fisher's claim and argued that mental illness shouldn't be individualized and rather, be politicized. By doing so, the rising suicide rates might see an effective solution. Because capitalism wants us to produce so much, we feel hopeless when we cannot work 24/7 and opt for death when all else seems bleak.
After my sister yelled at me for not knowing the direction, she quickly switched her attention to internships. She furiously asked what internships I am applying to. Because she is just as angry as Adolf Hitler after the Battle of Berlin, I lied. Despite so, she compared me to a little kid and told me that people my age are grown-ups. I felt hurt, and the hurt feeling still persists as I type this article. But I am not hurt because of my sister: I am hurt because I cannot work. My sister wants me to produce as much as possible. But I know that I cannot possibly do this. I, instead, want to spend my time in the summer relaxing and preferably not getting yelled at. But now, here I am: quickly typing cover letters, getting myself rejected, and then getting depressed because there is someone better than me. Capitalism doesn't care that you feel all of this sad cr*p. It wants you to feel sad, so you can do better and appease your boss who will most likely have a better salary than you and will have great pleasure in ordering you to do the dirty work. Yeah, this experience sounds like hell, but to my sister, this experience is necessary. But, on the contrary, it can suck the living soul out of you. And when you look around and see no alternative, you feel hopeless that you suddenly feel death is a good idea. My sister never considered that, but I am sure she represses the emptiness and translates it into anger onto me.
Overall, you experience depression before you get the job, but you still experience depression after the job. Unemployed or employed, you cannot win. As I continue typing this, I have not got an internship, and my depression tells me that I won't even get one. Maybe it's right. I won't get an internship, so I cannot even work and I know my sister will yell at me yet again. That is unhealthy. Capitalism is unhealthy. But we cannot find an alternative to it.
