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Nov 24: Meeeeeeeeeh & The "Kinds" of Depression
11 years ago
|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Case of the blahs
|██████████|Will To Art
█ This is just sort of a dump journal, so apologies in advance; I kinda need them now and then to try and climb out of 'that' mood. That being depression. Though a short thought on that word is that it's simply misleading, and that a new word... no words, plural. I suppose I'll maybe do a brain dump in regards to that at the end of this posting.
Right now I'm sitting on almost a dozen images I should post up into my gallery, but I just lack the energy to do it. The first normal reaction one should have is "Why would that take energy? It's only a few clicks and not even a minute's time to upload!" and I understand that sentiment completely, but that's were the sense of understanding parts ways. It's a thing that depression does, and it's why depression needs more than one way to define it. Now mind you sure, there can be some anxiety behind posting images: People might not like it, or personally don't think it's good enough, or if it's ugly and shouldn't be posted; and those reasons can be understandable, yet none of those are the reasons. The reason is simply a plain "I don't feel like it."
It's illogical, it doesn't make sense; and that's a lot of what depression can be (at least the kind I'm currently experiencing). It's also why I need to type this stuff out, so I can see that ridiculousness and let the logical side of my brain take over and drag me out of that mental pit. Depression for me I suppose is climbing out of a pit, in the dark; and maybe writing a journal is like having a flashlight, gives me a better idea of a way out, instead of blindly scratching at the walls hoping for something to grab on to.
That all said, it's not as bad as it's been in the past; so I am a bit better about it. Though in what sense? Mostly that I'm still managing to do some art. It's been relatively better for awhile now I think, since based on my journals the biggest gap was about two years ago where I disappeared for about 4 months. Basically my low points aren't as low.
█ Now about the 'kinds' of depression. This will be a sort of... a list based on my own perceptions, of what I've seen people think it is, and what I experience it as; it's not going to be a dictionary definition by any means, but really it's way to broad a definition anyways. The dictionary definition tending to be some flavor of "persistent sadness"
So here's the kinds of 'depressions' that seem to exist.
"Sad" Depressions:
- Personal Attack (Someone/something that hurt you deliberately) Leading to anxiety in having to deal with it again in the future, leading to preoccupied thoughts on the subject; even if you don't have to ever again, or even if the situation was resolved in a good way.
- Personal Loss (Losing someone/something you care about) Leading to anxiety in how to live without what you lost, leading to preoccupied thoughts on the subject; which persists even as life goes on.
- Personal Failure (Being unable to achieve a goal despite your best efforts) Leading to anxiety about repeating the failure or about being unable to ever achieve success, leading to thinking repeatedly about the regrets in the choices you've made; even if you make better choices down the road, never allowing yourself that 'win' even when you do have it.
These kinds of depressions can for the most part be dismissed as "well that's life, suck it up." and maybe it is; but it's a pretty short fall into depression. Certainly people can and do suck it up, lead 'normal' lives, but they wouldn't consider that life 'happy'. Some people can let things slide into the past easily, others can't; that's an important difference that a lot of people don't get. Additionally, it's hard to separate 'that's life' from the depression, if 'that's life' happens to you on a daily basis. You only get to know after you've been able to separate yourself from the situation and actually get that chance to move on with your life.
"Empty" Depressions
These ones are... harder to explain, because they lack a cause, and don't require thought to exist. It's not something that's thought, but rather felt; and there's a few ways those feelings can exist.
I suppose as an artist the best way to explain it as such: With colours there's contrast, brightness, saturation; things that can make an image pop-out or blend together into a samey grey. A parallel exists with feelings, I suppose with 'purpose', 'motivation', 'fulfillment'. Like with colours, if one thing is out of whack, the rest of the image falls apart. If there's no contrast then everything fades to white, if there's no brightness everything ends up black, and if there's no saturation everything turns to grey. It should be noted, that this only matters if you have an image to work with.
When it comes to people, that image are people's hopes and dreams.
The primary attack on most hopes and dreams is that it's a waste of time. That the thing you enjoy won't amount to anything. Even if you're motivated to work towards that dream, and even if you personally find it fulfilling, because it lacks a purpose (aside from making you happy); you probably should abandon it.
The other angle of attack is that it's too hard. That no matter how much time and effort you put into your dream, you will never amount to anything; as such you shouldn't try to spare yourself the humiliation. This would be the attack on one's motivation. This despite it having a purpose, and despite it being fulfilling; you just lack the finesse and skill.
The third attack is that you are actually a fake and a fraud. That you have no true ownership of what you accomplished. That thing you did or created was because of the efforts of someone else. Your successes are not your own, and you are simply the tool of someone else.
Now I didn't state a source for the 'attacks' because most of the time, they will come from the person themselves. Granted a third party will also lump on those attacks as well which of course makes things worse.
These 'empty' depressions come as a mixture of those three 'feelings'. Sometimes all three are in play, sometimes it maybe just one; but even if it's just one, then you on a whole won't feel happy in what you're doing. Keep in mind people's hopes and dreams are different from one another. Course, some people just don't understand that sometimes a person's hope and dream is simply "I want to be left alone." Though think of the implication of that, of how when you see a person what goes through inside their head is that they are a waste of time, who will never amount to anything, and even if they do it was only because people felt sorry for them. Think of how people confuse that level of depression with "Oh he's just feeling sad" and such is the reason why I think there really needs to be a better way to define 'depression.'
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Case of the blahs
|██████████|Will To Art
█ This is just sort of a dump journal, so apologies in advance; I kinda need them now and then to try and climb out of 'that' mood. That being depression. Though a short thought on that word is that it's simply misleading, and that a new word... no words, plural. I suppose I'll maybe do a brain dump in regards to that at the end of this posting.
Right now I'm sitting on almost a dozen images I should post up into my gallery, but I just lack the energy to do it. The first normal reaction one should have is "Why would that take energy? It's only a few clicks and not even a minute's time to upload!" and I understand that sentiment completely, but that's were the sense of understanding parts ways. It's a thing that depression does, and it's why depression needs more than one way to define it. Now mind you sure, there can be some anxiety behind posting images: People might not like it, or personally don't think it's good enough, or if it's ugly and shouldn't be posted; and those reasons can be understandable, yet none of those are the reasons. The reason is simply a plain "I don't feel like it."
It's illogical, it doesn't make sense; and that's a lot of what depression can be (at least the kind I'm currently experiencing). It's also why I need to type this stuff out, so I can see that ridiculousness and let the logical side of my brain take over and drag me out of that mental pit. Depression for me I suppose is climbing out of a pit, in the dark; and maybe writing a journal is like having a flashlight, gives me a better idea of a way out, instead of blindly scratching at the walls hoping for something to grab on to.
That all said, it's not as bad as it's been in the past; so I am a bit better about it. Though in what sense? Mostly that I'm still managing to do some art. It's been relatively better for awhile now I think, since based on my journals the biggest gap was about two years ago where I disappeared for about 4 months. Basically my low points aren't as low.
█ Now about the 'kinds' of depression. This will be a sort of... a list based on my own perceptions, of what I've seen people think it is, and what I experience it as; it's not going to be a dictionary definition by any means, but really it's way to broad a definition anyways. The dictionary definition tending to be some flavor of "persistent sadness"
So here's the kinds of 'depressions' that seem to exist.
"Sad" Depressions:
- Personal Attack (Someone/something that hurt you deliberately) Leading to anxiety in having to deal with it again in the future, leading to preoccupied thoughts on the subject; even if you don't have to ever again, or even if the situation was resolved in a good way.
- Personal Loss (Losing someone/something you care about) Leading to anxiety in how to live without what you lost, leading to preoccupied thoughts on the subject; which persists even as life goes on.
- Personal Failure (Being unable to achieve a goal despite your best efforts) Leading to anxiety about repeating the failure or about being unable to ever achieve success, leading to thinking repeatedly about the regrets in the choices you've made; even if you make better choices down the road, never allowing yourself that 'win' even when you do have it.
These kinds of depressions can for the most part be dismissed as "well that's life, suck it up." and maybe it is; but it's a pretty short fall into depression. Certainly people can and do suck it up, lead 'normal' lives, but they wouldn't consider that life 'happy'. Some people can let things slide into the past easily, others can't; that's an important difference that a lot of people don't get. Additionally, it's hard to separate 'that's life' from the depression, if 'that's life' happens to you on a daily basis. You only get to know after you've been able to separate yourself from the situation and actually get that chance to move on with your life.
"Empty" Depressions
These ones are... harder to explain, because they lack a cause, and don't require thought to exist. It's not something that's thought, but rather felt; and there's a few ways those feelings can exist.
I suppose as an artist the best way to explain it as such: With colours there's contrast, brightness, saturation; things that can make an image pop-out or blend together into a samey grey. A parallel exists with feelings, I suppose with 'purpose', 'motivation', 'fulfillment'. Like with colours, if one thing is out of whack, the rest of the image falls apart. If there's no contrast then everything fades to white, if there's no brightness everything ends up black, and if there's no saturation everything turns to grey. It should be noted, that this only matters if you have an image to work with.
When it comes to people, that image are people's hopes and dreams.
The primary attack on most hopes and dreams is that it's a waste of time. That the thing you enjoy won't amount to anything. Even if you're motivated to work towards that dream, and even if you personally find it fulfilling, because it lacks a purpose (aside from making you happy); you probably should abandon it.
The other angle of attack is that it's too hard. That no matter how much time and effort you put into your dream, you will never amount to anything; as such you shouldn't try to spare yourself the humiliation. This would be the attack on one's motivation. This despite it having a purpose, and despite it being fulfilling; you just lack the finesse and skill.
The third attack is that you are actually a fake and a fraud. That you have no true ownership of what you accomplished. That thing you did or created was because of the efforts of someone else. Your successes are not your own, and you are simply the tool of someone else.
Now I didn't state a source for the 'attacks' because most of the time, they will come from the person themselves. Granted a third party will also lump on those attacks as well which of course makes things worse.
These 'empty' depressions come as a mixture of those three 'feelings'. Sometimes all three are in play, sometimes it maybe just one; but even if it's just one, then you on a whole won't feel happy in what you're doing. Keep in mind people's hopes and dreams are different from one another. Course, some people just don't understand that sometimes a person's hope and dream is simply "I want to be left alone." Though think of the implication of that, of how when you see a person what goes through inside their head is that they are a waste of time, who will never amount to anything, and even if they do it was only because people felt sorry for them. Think of how people confuse that level of depression with "Oh he's just feeling sad" and such is the reason why I think there really needs to be a better way to define 'depression.'
Thanks for explaining these better and thanks for telling us.
It is easier to not have 'Sad' depressions when you know you are prone to such things and the problem is not necessarily external circumstances. That does not change that it sucks of course when you get in such phases (Mine usually last 2-6 weeks).
'Depression' has other connotations that lean on the side of sadness, which is unfortunate since we as a society are only starting to recognize this problem.
You've described several different types of depression really well, I don't think I've ever seen it expressed as well or ever managed to do so myself. I hope it's helpful for you to write it all down.
For what it's worth, I doubt any of your watchers are ever disappointed to see a new upload from you!
Alas the brain is an extremely buggy piece of hardware, as is the rest of the body, and it seems we're still a very long way off from fixing those bugs with any reasonable degree of competency. I wish you the best of luck with feeling better soon, that this bout of the bleh passes quickly, and if nothing else sometimes it can help just knowing that other people out there can sympathise with what you're going through, I've certainly found that in my battles with chronic problems of various kinds.
It sucks because you can get over a "sad" depression on your own and be back to where you were before (most of the time), but those empty ones tend to just suck you down and then keep you there even when you get over the majority of the effects.
Also worth mentioning, those empty depressions? They mess your sleep cycle up so badly sometimes. It's 7:30 am here right now. I am about to go to bed. I woke up at 9am yesterday. I went to bed at 6 pm the day before. It's a sleep yoyo haha
Much strength to anyone struggling at the moment.
For what little it may be worth, you've proven to be a very capable and productive artist these past few months. Sorry if this comment comes off rather disjointed and hug-box-ish, I'm a bit incoherent myself lately, not much sleep too much work. Best of luck with overcoming such depressions.
The multiple kinds of depression that you mention, I think they have enough of definition to understand what they are.
Keep making these journals, so long as they help you in whatever way that is, we want to see you be well.
I'm always a bit wary when responding to these kind of journals as I don't know how it feels and I don't want to pretend I know what I'm talking about. However, for what it's worth, reading them does help me understand which then makes things easier for those around me with depression.
Most people will go through some form of loss or "sad" depression, that's actually rather common.
The second type of emptiness is more descriptive of MDD or Major Depressive Disorder. Your body has an overall mood, that's a "baseline" of where your emotions regularly fall, MDD sufferers just have a lower than normal mood on any given day in addition to being pushed down by negative events occur in one's life which can make it even worse. Generally depressive mood can also be descriptive of dysthymia, which is largely depression that is more engrained as a characteristic of one's personality.
While one can plumb the depths of the DSM-V for days to look for the answer, it is hard to "put a finger on". I've heard it described as attempting to peel a potato with another potato, someone criticizes you for attempting to peel a potato with another potato and says "why don't you use a knife" followed by handing you another potato.
Medication really does work for this, depression can be thought of as one of the body's many defense mechanisms, but to get functioning sometimes it's critical to shut them off artificially.
As far as posting new images, I totally understand you on the the energy part. I have yet to post pics from Comikaze which took place earlier this month, and it has nearly been a month that they have been sitting in a folder on my laptop desktop. I will finish down sizing them and make collages eventually <^.^'> .
I make every effort to keep myself from falling into a hole of depression. Activities keep my energy levels up, varying from: going for a run, playing with my dogs, work in my veggie garden, go treasure hunting at the local swap meet or thrift stores, do some personal art, cook something new, etc. It's when I sit and do nothing that my mind then wonders and get's my emotions into trouble. Embrace the VERBS
.
Don't THINK (about depression and what defines it), DO what counteracts it.
Plus I don't like the idea that I have to rely on a regular drug dose to act moderately normal.