Depression and why we are more depressed today than in middle ages

 Middle ages were tough. I don't know much about it but, for a start, just living without medications, pain killers and dentistry today sounds rough enough. I am sure people had very difficult lives, there is no doubt about it. However, I am wondering, was depression and anxiety on such high level as today? Were people so apathetic, anxious, sad and lonely as people today? I hope some history research can find that out.

Why people today are so depressed, lonely and sad? As an individual I can only guess, as everyone has their own reasons and their own circumstances. Life is never easy. Problem could be...

We have too much information

We know too much. We know everything about all diseases, we can even search our own symptoms which only provoke further anxieties. Sure, it could save lives, sometimes, but in majority of cases it will cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety and fear. We also have access to all news. A lot of portals, news and tabloids live and feed on scandals and spreading panic, but some also just want to warn us of what is happening, albeit that is almost always fruitless effort. We can approach and read daily doses of dark prognosis for humanity and our planet (some of it unfortunately close to truth), dark numbers of sick people, dark truths about state of ecology of our planet, wars and reportages of what one human can do to another to make you sick in the stomach etc. We can also see dark, dark sides of human nature where people torture other people or innocent animals, where lives are sold as nothing, where people bully some individuals to get them to the edge, and most of all, people hiding behind their internet persona uncovering their worst sides which now we can see. We can clearly see now how much hate is in this world, how much meaningless fights, meaningless hatred, anger and sadness is all around us, how many truly scary or truly sad people are out there. It's not something that is good for our mental health.

We are constantly reminded what we are missing

Of course, there is the other side. People who seemingly have it all. Beautiful people, impossibly great, meaningful lives, happy couples and group of friends that remind us how alone we are, people who did something great and meaningful in life which makes us feel useless and like we didn't try hard enough, even though we did or we don't need to. It constantly reminds us that there are people who are rich, beautiful and lucky, people who are successful and how that all should be most important thing in our lives. This is devastating for most people who feel like they didn't achieve what they wanted. Instead of giving those people more chances in lives, instead of trying to make world better place and giving a chance to everyone to feel achieved and successful, we are forced to think that there are only few ways to be "important" and "achieved" and it sucks! Instagram, tabloids, people showing off in multiple ways, people showing their immense beauty which is now forced upon us as one of the values individual "must have", it all makes us feel "not enough". A lot of people feel unnecessarily "ugly" or "useless" or "not achieved", just because they compare themselves to all internet "stars" who seemingly have it all.

We compare

Socializing is in really bad state

The fact is, people don't socialize as they used to. We see people who are great friends in movies and sitcoms, and it feels like that would be great having in real life, but when you don't have it you can't help but to feel something is wrong with you. Why your life is not like life of influencers or like life in tv shows? Where are your trusty friends? The truth is, most of us are so scared of rejection in real life that we all live online, hoping we will find our group of friends or partner which never happens. Because internet is not life. Because you have to be outside meeting people to have friends, but that doesn't happen anymore, especially for people who are not in their 20s anymore. With aging it just gets more and more difficult. People also have low threshold of what they can tolerate. Most people think they can always "do better", because this world gives us that illusion and people are prone to prejudices to others and judging on the spot without getting into knowing someone for real.

It's exceptionally hard for introverts, because they lack socializing capabilities to start with. You need to actually approach someone and keep their interest and that is too much work. If you have low confidence you won't even try. You will just stay alone and suffer. And others will not help because people now have so many options to keep their interests, so many ways to meet other people, no one needs you. They can do whatever.

People are very lonely, more than ever.

You know too much bad stuff about people and world around us

It's so easy to hide online. It's so much easier to post hateful, ugly messages, to spread hate and to bully others. You can pretty safely be misogynistic, racist, nationalist, hateful and deeply intolerant of everything you personally "don't believe in". You can be really ugly if you want. And everyone can see all that ugliness, hate, prejudices, ignorance, even pure evil. We now know those people exist, and they are all around us, they are hidden between us. You are fully aware there is someone who hates you just because you are, for example, born as a woman. Or born as certain nationality. Or whatever. You are aware more than ever that there are dozens of meaningless wars and fights around the world because everything is online. You are aware of crimes, you degeneracy, everything! More than you want.

We have only illusion of help

Helping someone who is depressed or has other problems should come from friends and family and people who care, a lot. Sometimes, that's not possible and then help should be provided by professional. But that's not always the option. It's not easy to find the right professional, although in theory, every educated person in that area should be "the right professional". But, we all had experience with therapists or psychiatrists that we just didn't feel like it was working for us. And it costs money and our time! So, help is not always easy to find. Sometimes, and maybe this is just my experience, even professionals can't find the way to help you and you are feeling like you are just wasting your time and money. Sometimes, they just make loads of prescriptions for various meds as solution for all my problems. You can reach, ask for help, but in real world, you just might reach into empty space.

Women against feminism

 What is feminism? By one short definition I found it is "feminism, the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.". Simple and clear enough. I believe it also enabled women to have much more choices in life and how they would want to live. With feminism, not only they were socially equal, could work respectful jobs and earn much more money than before and could vote and be respected as equal members of society, they also got freedom to decide how they want to live their lives. Will they marry or not, will they work or not, have children or not, whatever life they wanted and couldn't have before. So, what is wrong with that?

Nothing. Really, it doesn't take away anything from men, rather it gives them a lot, like an equal partner who also can work and earn, someone they can have great conversation without society telling them that women are basically just decorations that can birth children, they are humans! And have feelings, and intellect and artistic talents and knowledge. Again, what is wrong with that? No one is forcing you to work, no one is forcing you to be a business woman, you can chose not to. You can chose to live like like before feminism and that's ok too.

So, why so many young women online hate feminism so much?

Are they aware how different all their lives would be without feminism? That they would not earn money on social media, or be on social media at all? That they would have determined lives they would have to live and no rights whatsoever. I feel like there could be few explanations why do they declare they hate feminism.

First, they have no idea what feminism is. A lot of people think feminists are some dirty, ugly women, dressed in rags, who go around yelling that they hate men. Or some privileged women who go around yelling that men are inferior to women. Or that it's something that forces them to work and be a "boss babe" whatever that is. Or something like that. It isn't. It doesn't even fit the definition. None of that is feminism. I have no idea what it is, but feminism? No.

Second, they are "pick me" women who want to be liked by men at any cost. Those are women who will easily throw other women under the bus (figurately speaking) presenting themselves as girls who believe women do not need rights, they just need smart and capable men to lead them through life. I mean, if that's what YOU want, fine. But, please do not push that ideal on others, we might not want it.

Third, it's just ignorance. Most young women today grew up on social media and have no idea how the world works neither they care. They have no idea there are still parts of the world where young boys under 14 are forced into wars, where little girls are sold or married under age of 12 or where people, men and women have no basic rights. Women like those don't care, all they see in life is social media, and what it tells them. They have no idea of history, or fights people had through history, many horrors of humanity, misery that still rules in some parts of the world, those women only know what they see online and that is truth to them. They do not care. They see that people, especially men, react very positively when a girl says "I hate feminism" so they will say it, and repeat it and look cute, and think they are so smart.

Now please, no one should hate anyone, especially not based on gender, whatever it is. That's stupid. No gender should lose rights, that would be fascism. If you personally don't like your rights you should just not use them instead of bragging how you don't like the rights that make you money just to gain followers or get male approval. Also, please, educate yourself, stop on meaningless hate, stop posting nonsense where you are trying to get rights away from half of the planet because YOU don't like the idea! Stop being hateful to any gender or any group of people. EOUGH IGNORANCE AND ENOUGH HATE ALREDY!

Why is Hollywood obsessed with high school children?

Once upon a time, I tried watching Riverdale, and failed. It started so-so, then went and become weird, and quality went way down. I tried watching Euphoria and it was a torture from beginning to the end. I am fully aware I don't like to watch anything that is about high school and teenagers and children. As soon as I see the words "teenagers" or "high school" in movie or series description, I totally lose interest in it. I am fully grown up person, middle aged woman and nothing about schools or teenagers or children isn't in any way relatable or interesting to me anymore. To me, those are just children and I can't relate to them anymore, I don't find them attractive or particularly interesting, which is, I guess, normal for an adult. While I like horror genre, which also likes to "use" teenagers as characters, I am not fond of that part of genre either. I am much more comfortable watching horror or any other genre with full grown adults. Why would I enjoy watching fictional kids being fictionally slaughtered?

Recently, I started watching "One of us is lying" as it was on cable, and it looked like a decent thriller and... surprise, surprise! It's about high school kids! All main characters are 16 or 17, I have no idea, because they are clearly played by adults. That's supposed to calm down viewers during sex or murder scenes, and make them not to feel like total pervert when those "kids" are dressed and made up like grown up super models. Same problem as with Euphoria or Pretty Little Liars, Riverdale and many other series which happen in high school is the same pattern. High school children are played by very good looking adults, ages 20 or 25 and even over 30! Problem with that is that those characters, which are supposed to be children, are clearly sexualized over the top, not only in their looks, but also in numerous sex scenes and other scenes of clearly very adult behavior. In Euphoria, most "teen" girls wear heavy make up, dress in super tight super short revealing clothes which would make porn stars blush, and sex scenes are quite revealing, steamy, and ironically, often R rated! One of us is lying is also presenting child characters as attractive full grown people who look, think and behave like adults. Since, in all those series, "kids" are played by clearly adult actors (children of that age NEVER look like that), I guess that is supposed to make viewers more comfortable with hyper-sexualization.

But question is: why does it always have to be a high school? Why any of these series couldn't happen in college? Or, I don't know, anywhere between adults? Why is Hollywood so obsessed with high school and teenagers? I went to high school once long time ago, I see teenagers in the streets or in buses all the time and they don't look anything like that. They look and behave like kids. Boys don't have large muscular bodies and chiseled face of 30 year old man, girls don't really look like women, well.. most of them don't. There are always those who wear too much make up and dress like adults, but I think, hope, that's minority. Children should be just children. There is nothing sexy in teenagers. Those two words should not be even i same sentence! Kids should never ever be even fictionally, played by adults, in sex scenes! Ever! Why not put "One of us is lying" in college? What would change? Would the story suffer so much? I don't get it. Why encourage constantly sexualization of children? That's so sick. Not even the fact that they are played by adults can make that acceptable. That is just the way to make all feel "better" creating or watching such abominations. To makes us feel less as pervs.

Is it so hard to make high school series where children are not over sexualized? Like try it with '90s Heartbreak high. Yes, there are some dark themes in this series, and some really tough explorations of difficult situations that can happen to teenagers. But they are not sexualized. Not even when they are played by people who are over 18. It's much easier to watch. I used to watch that when I was young, and there was always valuable lesson in each episode, and troubles, struggles and problems were tough and real, and we got to identify with these adolescents. I don't know if I were teenager today, how the hell would I identify with some 28 year old woman, dressed in super tight glittery dress, which shows her ample cleavage, legs, tight flat stomach and pretty much everything else, all perfect with no single pimple or greasy hair, wears tone of make up and has super professionally done hair, who walks in 5 inch heals into school and has sex with 10 boys before dinner, while having huge hunk of boyfriend, also played by some 30 year old man who is constantly forgetting to put a shirt on? And yes, they all drive expensive cars and have adult problems.

For which audience are those shows made? For teenagers? Hardly. So many R rated scenes, not for kids. For adults? To watch "underage" adolescents problems about sex, relationships, drugs, crime, and to watch uncomfortable sex scenes between two who are supposed to be kids (but luckily are not)?

Why is Hollywood so obsessed with high school?

Read my horror novel "The Vortex" free of charge

 I wrote my novel "The Vortex" circa 2005-2006 so translating it to English requires next to name adapting also adapting it to be more up-to-date. Translation is going as fast as I can do it, so far Five chapters are uploaded and you can read it Free of Charge on this link:

https://www.inkitt.com/BiljanaM

Five people, three young men and two young women, accompanied by mysterious deformed man who apparently lives for hundreds of years, step into a woods with no exit. From the outside, on the maps, the woods are small area, but once you get in, there is no end in sight. Strange things start to happen, and strange blood thirsty creatures are appearing in the woods, threatening to kill and dismember the group. Even things that appear harmless can kill you in this place. It's never safe. Cars are starting to lose gas, people are starting to get tired and apathetic, will they ever get out?

My novel is online with new COVERS!!!!

Mima and life on planet Inferno

My novel "Mima and life on planet Inferno" is online in paperback and kindle version with new covers, made by professional artist Mladen Oljaca (listed as illustrator on page). I wrote hopefully better "blurb" (description) this time, and trying to find ways to promote. It's sf novel about two different worlds and tough choice for protagonist Mima, a high-school teacher living her not-so-best-life, of where to chose to live: safe, comfortable but a bit boring and too sheltered world on her home planet, or crazy, interesting world full of action but also dangerous, dirty, uncomfortable and violent world on another planet. What will she choose? Check it out on Amazon, paperback and Kindle version available!

https://www.amazon.com/Mima-Planet-Inferno-Biljana-Malesevic-ebook/dp/B09PLQHQKB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

A tiny little gallery by Biljana Malesevic

 

Liberal or conservative

 It seems a lot of people online (probably IRL too) are dividing into two groups: leftist and conservatives. It's all usually so that one side presents the other as extreme. I doubt that is really the case. Sure, there are always extremist out there, on both sides, but I surely hope they are not in majority.

What I personally think is that the middle, as always is the best way to go. Not too far left, not too far right. I watched a lot of very liberal videos on youtube, and a lot of conservative right wing videos too, mainly from people who are objectively intelligent and have reasonable arguments. But... but still it's a bit too much on both sides. I feel the biggest issue with both sides is that that hate and mock each other. There is no tolerance on other people's preferences and no understanding on human diversity and differences. You can't make a mold for all people to fit in. That's just horribly controlling and even fascist.

Problem with extreme conservatives is that they tend to be intolerant, controlling and angry. There is so much anger in there. It's hard to be understanding of people who project so much anger and tend to have little or no understanding for someone who just doesn't want to live in the same mold. Women should be such and such, men should be such and such. And if you are not, just comply or die. That's not the way to go. Life is only one, and if you are not hurting anyone with your way of life, why is that a problem? For example, if woman wants to work and man wants to take care of children and everyone is happy, what's the problem? Why such cases make conservatives so angry? Once, I saw video where conservatives praised woman who made a whole show of how she gets up at 4am, makes breakfast for everyone, takes care of home and "her man" etc, like real Stepford wife or '50s housewife. While I have no problem with her at all, she is happy, her family is happy so go for it!!!, I have a problem with people pushing this "ideal" on literally every woman. We are not all the same. There are women married to men who are highly problematic persons and in no way anyone sane would advice such women to be completely dependent in every way from a man who is violent, psychopaths, narcissists or have drink, gambling or drug issues. There are also a vast majority of families who can not survive on one salary. Even if you can, there are sad cases when man can die and woman should surely be prepared to survive on her own. Life is unpredictable and we can not control it. Also, life is super short and you should live it the way YOU want, providing you don't hurt anyone, not the way someone dictates you should. I tried to write this, as kindly as I can, as a comment on that video and of course, almost immediately, an incel wrote me a comment full of hate and a lot of insults, trashing me as a person with a lot of hate and anger which just shows what kind of people are into this conservative things. I can not take those insults seriously, though, as obviously I wrote anonymously so that person has no idea who I am or how I look like (lucky for me!) though it didn't stop them to write how horribly ugly and unwanted I am. That is the kind of answers I get when I "dare" to comment on conservative texts or videos with my own opinion, without insulting anyone or trying to impose some "rule" or mock anyone. These people are angry, and they don't tolerate any opinion except their own. Also, God, those women! They create dozens of videos of how white men are most endangered people on Earth, and while they (those women) enjoy all the things feminism brought to them, they claim they "hate feminism" without having slightest idea what feminism is and obviously confusing it with misandry which is completely different thig. That makes ME angry! You enjoy all the privileges you get from brave feminists in the past yet you hate them? how vile and ungrateful!

So, I turned to liberals, which I thought from the start I am. I like liberalism, I like the idea that you can chose who you want to be and live your lie the way you want and not how society dictates. Life is bloody short, to why not enjoy it to the fullest? But... Well, it turned out, there are extremes in there too. Liberals like to be victims, everything is offensive, I am afraid to write anything as literally anything can be highly offensive, and that is exhausting! I can't watch out my every single word, I have social anxiety as it is, I don't need more of it. While proclaiming freedom and liberalism, in the same time, leftist started to make same amount of hard rules as conservatives and confuse chaos and desperation for attention with liberalism. Someone who wants to be recognized as horse or fairy is not a liberal, it's just a mess! While I don't care what you personally identify as, there is no doubt that if law would recognize and adopt all those genders and pronounces bureaucracy would be even more hellish that it already is. Imagine how just airports would look like if you need to process every single gender and pronounce! Or getting driver license or anything! It's just too much. Not to mention exhausting with trying to communicate with someone who gets insulted and angry (again!) every time you called them in wrong way or say something they don't really agree with or find insulting. I can't walk on eggshells all my life! Get some balls! Sorry, but not sorry. And no, children should never ever decide if they should get any surgery at all, not even a tooth, let alone non-reversible life changing surgery. It's just not ok. Also, no one wants to look at naked breasts on the streets, men's or women's. Sorry, cover it up. Not just because it's not something I want to look at, but also I really want some mystique left on woman's body to men. Not everything has to be on display. There should be a mystery, please. Don't ask for women's right to "bare breasts" because no one needs that and for God's sake, men should be intrigued by us, not everything should be available to them on the streets. They already have it all on internet. And get some class, not every woman's value is in her body. We can be smart, intelligent, created, educated, amazing, with clothes on. Our value is not in getting naked and asking strangers online to validate us. Please.

In conclusion, these two streams are just made to divide people in one more way. People are already so divided, between genders, religions, nations, political streams, etc, not we need to divide on individual life choices??? Why? So we can have more wars and hate? Because... there is not enough of it? Why the hell? Just freaking be YOU.