Graduation to Nowhere

I’ve spent no small amount of time thinking about how my life could have been different if I had graduated in another year.

From the first day of senior year in the fall of 2007, (like all seniors) we avoided mentioning the “G word” and cringed when anyone asked what our plans were for the next year. We were still safely ensconced inside the safe, dependable collegiate bubble. The outside world, where concerns over subprime mortgages were slowly mounting, hardly penetrated. Besides, people we knew had graduated and gone to get jobs. Just as we expected we would.

When I did finally graduate in May 2008, Bear Stearns had already collapsed, but I couldn’t see how my experience could fold in on me: I was a double major, graduated magna cum laude, had put in my time as an unpaid intern, and was an editor of a campus magazine at Syracuse University. I expected success and moved to New York so I would be here to interview at a moment’s notice. I signed a one-year lease on an apartment and waited for the interviews and offers to roll in…

Borderline Personality Disorder – Illness for Uncertain Times?

The postwar trauma of the 50s brought on widespread anxiety. The suspicion and paranoia of the ‘60s and ‘70s caused schizophrenia to capture the public imagination. In the ‘90s, patients were popping Prozac to cure what seemed to be an epidemic outbreak of chronic depression. In the 2000s recession? It might be Borderline Personality Disorder.

If the Recession era and BDP are finding each other, we Americans shouldn’t be surprised. We identify so completely with work that when we lose our jobs, we don’t know who we are. We leave little time in our busy lives for the things that can guard against emotional shocks, like maintaining social bonds, exercising, playing, and just having some downtime. We are transient and often unsure of our place in the scheme of things….