That's beautiful, Scott. I love it when you get sentimental.
To answer your question, no, I don't think you're depressed. Like she said in the blog post, depression is like that but with the awesome stuff too. Imagine coming across a perfect field all by yourself, and you realized how awesome it was but felt nothing.
Walker: That may be true, but I don't think it's as prevalent as this guy's article makes it out to be. His article has a tone of "hey, the people who have these issues are actually fine, you just don't understand them." I'm sure that's true for some, but for those who actually need the help it is ONE MORE THING reinforcing the stigma on those illnesses and the attitudes of the people who don't understand them. It is like the people in the above comic who insist that the fish are just missing and can be found. Unfortunately, a lot of us legitimately have dead fish.
Articles like this give the impression that these illnesses aren't real: they are just labels for people who don't conform. That's doing more harm than good.
It's a strong and aggravating tendency of anti-authoritarians to exaggerate. This guy's not very good at writing articles.
I just wonder what it means, if it means anything at all, that I can strongly identify with the first symptom of depression when it comes to most things in life, but have the absolute opposite feeling when it comes to the severe symptoms.
It means, I think:
1) You're probably not depressed 2) You understand the root of it and how it can progress.
The part that's insidious is that way that depression really manifests - and I have to go by how I've heard it described, since I'm not depressed - and that is a pronounced lack of feeling.
So you play a game that is boring, from which you feel detached. Yet you can still muster enough emotion to dislike it. In the throes of depression, there's not even a feeling of dislike - it's just an absence.
Now imagine playing a game that you intellectually understand is awesome, and that by all rights you should enjoy - and you feel exactly the same way about the boring game. No change in emotional state. No shits given. Even though you empirically understand that you should be giving a shit, you just don't.
It's a lack of control over your responses and the way they manifest.
You know how atheism is a religion the same way that bald is a hair color? Depression is like that - it's not a feeling, it's an absence of feeling.
Depression can be a feeling. Namely anger. That absence thing? That's what I call recovery. I didn't start getting that until I was on antidepressants. I had very strong feelings in the depths of my depression, and they made everything even worse than when I felt nothing.
I've heard some people describe it to me as something like wanting to feel angry because it was something they could still feel. Was it like that, or more like anger being your only response to anything?
It seems the principle of both is a lack of ability to control one's responses.
I've heard some people describe it to me as something like wanting to feel angry because it was something they could still feel. Was it like that, or more like anger being your only response to anything?
It seems the principle of both is a lack of ability to control one's responses.
I wouldn't say so. When I drive myself to anger or grief in spite of numbness I am in complete control. It's an act of desperation that is very reasonable from a chronically depressed point of view. Some adrenaline junkies have the same issue; only mental extremes produce any real feeling, so they chase it like a dragon.
I've heard some people describe it to me as something like wanting to feel angry because it was something they could still feel. Was it like that, or more like anger being your only response to anything?
It seems the principle of both is a lack of ability to control one's responses.
I wouldn't say so. When I drive myself to anger or grief in spite of numbness I am in complete control. It's an act of desperation that is very reasonable from a chronically depressed point of view. Some adrenaline junkies have the same issue; only mental extremes produce any real feeling, so they chase it like a dragon.
Yeah, this. The same with people who cut themselves. Also, don't fall into the trap of trying to define depression symptoms specifically as though it manifests the same way in every person. For me it is paired with an anxiety disorder, which is actually probably the more powerful of the two. They trigger each other and spiral into a cycle. It's not that way for everyone.
I definitely agree with Nuri. I suffer from a mixture of depression and anxiety, and the two of them alternate in various unhealthy ways. All mental illnesses are just umbrellas for people who's brains work differently enough from the "norm" that they are obviously different.
The worst thing is not that people don't know what a thing means. That's totally fine. Not knowing is perfectly acceptable. It's that they act as though they do.
I definately grock on the whole "grabbing onto hatred as feeling something" bit. When you lose the love of anything else, really, honestly hating something, even yourself, gives you drive. When I was really bad, some mornings, I used to think "If you don't get up, you'll never get to take revenge. That fantasy you have about finding the building the personifies everything you hate about the world and burning it down will never happen if you just lie here."
Honestly, frustration and anger are still the biggest emotions I experience. On my off days, just thinking about everything I know about the unfairness and shittiness of the world can give me the motivation to not just sit down and try to will myself into a coma. I try to channel it productively, turn it into work ethic by becoming frustrated by lack of progress, turn the hate on people and systems I believe are evil, which I know isn't healthy. But it hard to let go of it, because it's infinitely better than the feeling of utter powerlessness that comes from apathy.
The worst thing is not that people don't know what a thing means. That's totally fine. Not knowing is perfectly acceptable. It's that they act as though they do.
This is a problem with many things. When my uncle was teaching me how to shoot a gun, for example, he was very impressed that I didn't think I knew anything because most people act like it -- even though I do possess enough knowledge to be on the peak of Mt Stupid.
You know how atheism is a religion the same way that bald is a hair color? Depression is like that - it's not a feeling, it's an absence of feeling.
Yep. David Foster Wallace puts this stuff better than I can.
On symptoms of the disease:
"A level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it"
"a double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible"
"A nausea of the cells and soul"
On suicidal depression & the difficulty in teaching people about it:
“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
So, I do not know where to write this, and since this let to some depress moments I will actually put it here.
First, let me tell you that I have never felt excluded in my life, I am proud of who I am. I worked in construction, and put myself through college without the help of scholarships. I could have easily gotten one due to my grades, one but since I was not a legal resident at the time I missed out. Once I got my worker's permit I was not allowed to pay in-state tuition since I was not a permanent resident. So, I paid three times what any person would pay for school, luckily was able to get my green card just in time for graduation. It took me a while, but I finished college. I worked hard in order to be where I am, and I am proud of my accomplishments. I have never felt belittle or discriminated before (even though working in construction one can find very racist people). However, there is always a first time. I used to think we were a close group at work, that we had no problem hanging out outside of work and chill.
Nevertheless, a couple of weeks a go a co-worker of mine organized an event for "Gold Cup" and she invited almost of all the group except me. I never asked why I was not invited. It still hurt to be excluded, it really did. Like, a lot! I decided to exclude myself from the people that went to the event, I needed to be alone. It takes a lot for me to open up to people. They noticed that I was acting distant towards them. Eventually, I decided to forgive and try to forget, and I got there. However, a friend of mine asked me today what was wrong with me last week. He is very close to me, and he was one of the people that was invited to the event. So, I told him how I felt and he basically told me that I was not invited because the girl that organized the event thought that I "would not fit in with her friends and/ or family". I was sad, disappointed, and hurt that fitting in would still be a "thing" during adulthood.
When she first started working, I was the first to introduce myself to her and help her out at work. I though that we were friends, and I only wanted the best for her always. I guess she just saw me like another dude, or co-worker more. A co-worker to whom she would only approach in order to get train and nothing more. It sucks, when you think the world of a person, and turns out to be something else completely. Specially, since I truly believe that she and I were friends.
I am in a much better place now, I know who is my friend and who is only "using" me for personal gain.
I went to the doctors again today just to check and see how the Zoloft was working. She said that the initial mania is pretty normal and so is the antsy-ness and that it may go away in time. It does seem to help though. It can still vary day by day, but the feeling of hopelessness is much lessened overall. A lot of the things I think about when I'm depressed are still there, but they aren't on my mind so often.
I know that some of you have struggled with suicide, whether it be actual attempts or just a passing thought. I've never been actually suicidal, but I'd be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind. I know I wouldn't do it, but I think most people at least have a "what if" in the back of their mind. I have a certain mentality that I've constructed to keep it there. If you're at the point where you wish you were dead, whatever the context, just think about it for a minute. You're accepting that if you just died right then all of your problems would go away. Instead of acting on that, accept it and try to move on. I know you're probably worried about a bunch of things that just keep piling up. Just try to live your life and realize that if you fuck everything up as bad as you're afraid you will, the worst (relatively) thing that could happen is all your problems could go away so you might as well keep living and see what happens. Now I know this doesn't work for everyone and that in many cases its not a lack of the fear of death but just that it seems to be the less scary option, but its just kind of a thought I had.
And on a more serious note, if you really have thrown away all fear of death then do something awesome instead. Move across the world and be a mercenary. Become a daredevil. Save some starving kids in Africa. Go do a shitload of drugs in Europe. If you really truly don't care if you die, then make the most of it. And just getting the idea in your head to go do some awesome thing might get you out of that dark place.
Yeah, so I've got a lot of shit going on lately. My best friend is undergoing a DCF investigation, and I'm finding out tons of shit I didn't know he'd been through before. There's the usual end-of-the-year "da fuq am I doing with my life" blues, AP tests exhausting me (not stressful, just draining), and as it turns out my uncle's getting deployed to Afghanistan in November, so naturally today was the day that Ms KP showed us a documentary on Afghanistan and its vets.
This post brought to you by crying in the 1st floor bathroom for all of 2nd period listening to transcendental folk.
Don't worry, Greg, it's going to be alright. I went through some very similar stuff during my junior and senior year of high school: I had an overachiever AP load that regularly caused massive panic attacks, a friend I couldn't help who was dealing with an abusive parent, and lots of "kick him when he's down" moments between my depression and the content of our curriculum. Similar problems plagued me through the first two years of college, mainly because I wasn't treated; you're already strides ahead of where I was in the Depression Game when I was your age.
It sucks sack when it's happening, but if you fight through it and think critically about the events later, you'll grow up much, much faster than most of your peers. The only silver lining to depression in high school is the rapid realization that most things you are going through that you find emotionally crushing or immensely stressful are, in the final analysis, ultimately transient and rarely world-shattering.
You're already a very cool teen, and you're going to be an even cooler (and likely astoundingly well-adjusted) adult. Just do the things that need to be done, and remember: this is water.
Thanks. Posts like that really help. I figure I'll be stronger for all this in the end. I'm just worried about getting there.
Funny you link to that. My English teacher showed it to us last week, and she pointed out one clear flaw: we are not fish and we do not have to live in water. If you don't want to wait in line at the grocery store, ordered the groceries online. If you don't want to wait in that commute, take the train. I find that instead of telling oneself that this is water, they should ask "what is air?" You may find it worse than water (which I usually do), but it gives you perspective.
Also, quote of the day from my inner monologue: "There's no time to cry, Greg. We need to Madoka."
I'm manic-depressive, myself. It makes for weeks of everything seeming to be great, and making promises that I could certain fulfill if I stayed that way ... followed by months of depression in which nothing seems very worthwhile or good, and I just forget about all the promises I made while manic. I've pretty well ruined my life in its short 28 years.
Bro, don't worry about it. Based on what little I know about you, I'm already fairly certain that I know people who fucked themselves up and over more and in less time. You can't ruin a life until it's over, so don't say that you have yet.
Well Greg, that was actually a very helpful thing to say! And you're right ... life isn't over, so there's no way to have already fucked it. That's wonderful, thank you.
My English teacher showed it to us last week, and she pointed out one clear flaw: we are not fish and we do not have to live in water. If you don't want to wait in line at the grocery store, ordered the groceries online. If you don't want to wait in that commute, take the train. I find that instead of telling oneself that this is water, they should ask "what is air?" You may find it worse than water (which I usually do), but it gives you perspective.
This is why the video left me with an unpleasant feeling. Not everyone has an unlimited ease of choices, but the participants of that particular audience potentially have more choices than the talk allows. Although DFW can be interpreted to have hinted at this, the video did not present that interpretation.
Most things you are going through that you find emotionally crushing or immensely stressful are, in the final analysis, ultimately transient and rarely world-shattering.
Whenever people say that "this too shall pass" or "suffering makes strength", it always feels like bullshit rationalization. But when I think about it, the brain's ability to forget, adapt, and rationalize is rather comforting. Sometimes you need things like therapy to catalyze the process, but the capacity is there. My worst moments are gilded with the soft-focus of memory and retrospection. There is no end of the world, no absolute destiny or purpose, no absolute failure. This has been an intensely soothing thought throughout my depressive experience -- not that circumstances will necessarily get better (they certainly might), but that towards the future, today fades. Even in death, you forget yourself.
The most startling of human traits is our amazing ability to adapt and overcome. A lot of "this too shall pass" is bullshit rationalization - but there is truth there too.
Comments
To answer your question, no, I don't think you're depressed. Like she said in the blog post, depression is like that but with the awesome stuff too. Imagine coming across a perfect field all by yourself, and you realized how awesome it was but felt nothing.
1) You're probably not depressed
2) You understand the root of it and how it can progress.
The part that's insidious is that way that depression really manifests - and I have to go by how I've heard it described, since I'm not depressed - and that is a pronounced lack of feeling.
So you play a game that is boring, from which you feel detached. Yet you can still muster enough emotion to dislike it. In the throes of depression, there's not even a feeling of dislike - it's just an absence.
Now imagine playing a game that you intellectually understand is awesome, and that by all rights you should enjoy - and you feel exactly the same way about the boring game. No change in emotional state. No shits given. Even though you empirically understand that you should be giving a shit, you just don't.
It's a lack of control over your responses and the way they manifest.
You know how atheism is a religion the same way that bald is a hair color? Depression is like that - it's not a feeling, it's an absence of feeling.
It seems the principle of both is a lack of ability to control one's responses.
That said, anxiety can be symptomatic of both depression and mania.
I think I can say that with confidence, right?
Although I think that starts to become true of most identified mental illnesses when you really dig into it.
Honestly, frustration and anger are still the biggest emotions I experience. On my off days, just thinking about everything I know about the unfairness and shittiness of the world can give me the motivation to not just sit down and try to will myself into a coma. I try to channel it productively, turn it into work ethic by becoming frustrated by lack of progress, turn the hate on people and systems I believe are evil, which I know isn't healthy. But it hard to let go of it, because it's infinitely better than the feeling of utter powerlessness that comes from apathy.
On symptoms of the disease:
"A level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it"
"a double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible"
"A nausea of the cells and soul"
On suicidal depression & the difficulty in teaching people about it:
“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
EDIT: Full article here.
First, let me tell you that I have never felt excluded in my life, I am proud of who I am. I worked in construction, and put myself through college without the help of scholarships.
I could have easily gotten one due to my grades, one but since I was not a legal resident at the time I missed out. Once I got my worker's permit I was not allowed to pay in-state tuition since I was not a permanent resident. So, I paid three times what any person would pay for school, luckily was able to get my green card just in time for graduation.
It took me a while, but I finished college.
I worked hard in order to be where I am, and I am proud of my accomplishments.
I have never felt belittle or discriminated before (even though working in construction one can find very racist people).
However, there is always a first time.
I used to think we were a close group at work, that we had no problem hanging out outside of work and chill.
Nevertheless, a couple of weeks a go a co-worker of mine organized an event for "Gold Cup" and she invited almost of all the group except me. I never asked why I was not invited. It still hurt to be excluded, it really did. Like, a lot!
I decided to exclude myself from the people that went to the event, I needed to be alone. It takes a lot for me to open up to people. They noticed that I was acting distant towards them. Eventually, I decided to forgive and try to forget, and I got there.
However, a friend of mine asked me today what was wrong with me last week. He is very close to me, and he was one of the people that was invited to the event. So, I told him how I felt and he basically told me that I was not invited because the girl that organized the event thought that I "would not fit in with her friends and/ or family". I was sad, disappointed, and hurt that fitting in would still be a "thing" during adulthood.
When she first started working, I was the first to introduce myself to her and help her out at work. I though that we were friends, and I only wanted the best for her always.
I guess she just saw me like another dude, or co-worker more. A co-worker to whom she would only approach in order to get train and nothing more.
It sucks, when you think the world of a person, and turns out to be something else completely. Specially, since I truly believe that she and I were friends.
I am in a much better place now, I know who is my friend and who is only "using" me for personal gain.
I know that some of you have struggled with suicide, whether it be actual attempts or just a passing thought. I've never been actually suicidal, but I'd be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind. I know I wouldn't do it, but I think most people at least have a "what if" in the back of their mind. I have a certain mentality that I've constructed to keep it there. If you're at the point where you wish you were dead, whatever the context, just think about it for a minute. You're accepting that if you just died right then all of your problems would go away. Instead of acting on that, accept it and try to move on. I know you're probably worried about a bunch of things that just keep piling up. Just try to live your life and realize that if you fuck everything up as bad as you're afraid you will, the worst (relatively) thing that could happen is all your problems could go away so you might as well keep living and see what happens. Now I know this doesn't work for everyone and that in many cases its not a lack of the fear of death but just that it seems to be the less scary option, but its just kind of a thought I had.
And on a more serious note, if you really have thrown away all fear of death then do something awesome instead. Move across the world and be a mercenary. Become a daredevil. Save some starving kids in Africa. Go do a shitload of drugs in Europe. If you really truly don't care if you die, then make the most of it. And just getting the idea in your head to go do some awesome thing might get you out of that dark place.
This post brought to you by crying in the 1st floor bathroom for all of 2nd period listening to transcendental folk.
It sucks sack when it's happening, but if you fight through it and think critically about the events later, you'll grow up much, much faster than most of your peers. The only silver lining to depression in high school is the rapid realization that most things you are going through that you find emotionally crushing or immensely stressful are, in the final analysis, ultimately transient and rarely world-shattering.
You're already a very cool teen, and you're going to be an even cooler (and likely astoundingly well-adjusted) adult. Just do the things that need to be done, and remember: this is water.
Funny you link to that. My English teacher showed it to us last week, and she pointed out one clear flaw: we are not fish and we do not have to live in water. If you don't want to wait in line at the grocery store, ordered the groceries online. If you don't want to wait in that commute, take the train. I find that instead of telling oneself that this is water, they should ask "what is air?" You may find it worse than water (which I usually do), but it gives you perspective.
Also, quote of the day from my inner monologue: "There's no time to cry, Greg. We need to Madoka."