<aside> 🔴 Summary: Brain is evil.
</aside>
This was done as a joint homework response for both Story of Illness and Hello Computer.
The digital experience consist of a linear slider that can be moved back and forth, with each interval triggering a sound. Even though the options/steps are different, they all trigger the same automated, robotic voice that says “lazy”. The linear slider represent the way I have been viewing life thus far, as well as how narratives about mental health are often presented: clear-cut, black-and-white with no in-between.
“Am I depressed or am I just lazy?” is a half-joking half-serious question I often bring up to my therapist, with other alternative versions include “Do I really have ADD or am I a hoarder?”, “Am I really traumatised or am I just looking for attention?”, and "Do I really have mental health problems or am I just using them as crutches to avoid responsibilities?"
While I openly accept the diagnosis that I’m depressed (it started feeling legitimate when my psychiatrist suggested anti-depressant), I do have the tendency to downplay how extensively it affect my standard of living. For the longest time, I was dismissing my experiences as hormonal teenage angst, and the ongoing feeling of helplessness made me question my judgment. It’s hard to unlearn behaviors that are traditionally and commercially labelled as “lazy”, when they are actually products of declining mental health. It’s hard to have to constantly ask for external validation and confirmations, because those are the only labels that counts. It’s hard to be rationally aware of what’s happening, and still choosing to suffer in irrationality.
It's hard to live in a body that keeps you alive, just so the brain can tell you to die.
It’s hard, so I choose to joke about it, because even though I'm fully aware of my depression, the voice in my head will always call me “lazy” instead.