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Oct 28: How I View Depression
9 years ago
|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: A bit better at fighting the blahs
█ I suppose it's been about half a year since I've written about my status, and I keep semi-consider writing one up but it would just be me writing about the 'same old same old.' Sure there's various current event stuff that I could write about, but in all honesty all that's going to do is flare up emotions over things that we have very little control over.
Depression on the other hand is something that we do have some influence over one way or another. Those who have followed me over the years knows that I'm rather open about the state and nature of my depression through my journals (I'll link them at the end of this post for those curious), and the main reason why I'm open about it is that I'm comfortable with people knowing. Though I'm quite certain that I'm the exception and not the norm. If someone is depressed and don't want you to know about it, they won't.
One of the biggest problems with mental health is that there's a lot of emotion loaded into every term, and the word 'depression' will be used to describe so many things like sadness, loss, pain, emptiness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, suicidal, self-destructive, weak, lazy, unmotivated, so on and so forth. When a word can mean so many things it becomes a meaningless and powerless word.
Furthermore, because people self-define what depression is for them; they decide that definition applies to other people as well. So when someone gets over a bout of 'sadness' they view it as recovering from depression, which is completely different than someone suffering from low self-esteem, and is different from someone who is self-destructive.
So what is my own personal definition of depression? Well it's none of the things I've listed. You might wonder what else depression could describe, but I think the core of being depressed is this: Being unable to find the joy and happiness in the things you love. It's the core thing because when this happens everything else associated with depression can happen.
This is where people jump to the wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution is to find the joy in life again. That's not the problem. The problem is when they do the things that are supposed to make them happy, they feel nothing. Most people would describe this feeling as 'burn-out' when you get tired of experiencing something even though you really liked it in the past. Something that's stimulating and exciting eventually becomes mundane and boring, but most people will recover from this feeling rather quickly and they can enjoy the experience again. For depressed people this isn't the case, it's perpetual "burn-out" that will last for weeks, months, years.
Though here is where people will jump to a different and still wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution here is to find a new thing to enjoy and have fun with. This feeling is applied to all things, and is a general malaise. That people don't understand this causes problems for all the people involved because you'll have a non-depressed person trying everything to 'cheer-up' a depressed person, who get frustrated and angry because nothing works; and the depressed person will just feel worse because they can't change how the feel about their own situation, let alone explain why they're a stick in the mud.
Perhaps at this point you might wonder how I came to this particular conclusion about depression, the answer is simply that I currently don't really experience most of the associated negative things associated with depression that I mentioned: The sadness, the low-esteem, the self-destructive impulses, suicidal thoughts. I can honestly say that for the most part I'm comfortable with who I am and with my life. Can I say that I'm happy though? Not really as I find myself just going through the motions. Going through the motions is easy, even when you're preoccupied with horrible thoughts and negative feelings. Most of the the time the only thing expected of you is to show up and do the minimum (if even that).
So I go through the motions, and sometimes yes that applies to me creating art here on my gallery. Being creative is something I genuinely enjoy, well most of the time... sometimes it becomes very hard to pick up my pen and get to drawing. Some days it feels like an impossible task, a burden. This feeling can last for months at a time, which is pretty traceable throughout the history of my gallery uploads. Which is to say if you go through my gallery you'll find months long gaps in upload dates book marking the times where I was extremely depressed. Though keep in mind when I say extremely depressed I don't mean 'extremely sad' as those are different things, but I feel the need to keep reiterating the point. Far too many people view depression and sadness as equal things.
Certainly a lot of words just to define what "depression" is.
Now you can say that I'm no professional or trained expert on the subject, but to that I say "So what?'" I say it because when it comes to mental health we're still in the stone ages, using proverbial leeches and bloodletting to solve every kind of health issue. If trained people actually knew anything then there would be far fewer people hurting and killing themselves day to day. I'd argue they're part of the problem for being unable to define the nature of the problem they're trying combat, let alone be able to solve it.
█ So where am I going with this? Well the other day I had an epiphany, a realization, to one of the facets of my depression. For me it doesn't matter how much or how little, or how 'correct' of an amount of time of sleep I get; a lot of times I would just feel tired. This feeling of tiredness is extremely hard to differentiate from actually being tired, but for the past week I've been deliberately messing up my sleep schedule; only going to bed when I was tired enough to pass out within 10-30 minutes of laying down. I do have the understanding that this is unhealthy and a sign that I'm not getting enough sleep, but for me the alternative was to lay in bed tossing and turning for an hour or more alone with my thoughts (which can be unpleasant when you're depressed because you'll think about negative things rather than positive ones)
At this point I asked myself a very important question: "Why do I feel tired? It's certainly not because I don't get enough sleep" And then I realized that I felt tired because it made a horrible day more tolerable, and I had so many horrible days in the past. That being tired meant I didn't have to focus on the pain and suffering, that it could just roll over me instead of hitting me squarely.
These days I don't need that mechanism anymore, but I came to the realization that it never went away when my life got better; that it's always there tanking my mood to brace for a horrible day that doesn't really come anymore. Even as I write this it's still on, that feeling of sinking back into a state of tiredness; and it's really easy to sleep back into that state of mentally shutting down. Though I've been pushing back against it since I'm aware it's there, and why it's there. Part of the reason why my streams have been pretty much all day for the past few days as well.
I don't think there has been really anyone who has talked about the various mental coping mechanisms people develop to cope with being in stressful situations, how to recognize them, and how to dismantle them once they're not needed anymore; because they're just going to keep working and bracing you for expected stress and suffering even when you're removed from the stressful elements after the fact. I mention dismantling them because some people do have the ability to turn them off, but if they get turned on again people will relapse back into the same old habits. That's probably how I've been for the past several years, able to force my coping mechanisms into an off position; but easily triggered back into an on position. This time around I'm trying to dismantle it instead of just trying to turn it off.
This is ultimately why 'helping' a depressed person with encouragement and trying to make them happy doesn't really do anything, it doesn't change their state of mind. I imagine most depressed people have numerous mental coping and self-defense mechanisms that are in place, but the only ones truly able to take them apart is the person who put them up in the first place; though I doubt they know that they're even there. I certainly didn't know I had them setup for myself. I more or less dismissed it as me giving the sentiment of "I don't care" but I didn't know that my subconscious was actively setting my mood to 'tired' so that the events of the day would easily wash over me.
█ I suppose one last thing I'll touch on is 'knowing' if a person is depressed, as it's somewhat relevant considering recent events...
You won't know. Take myself as an example: How many of you reading this would think I'm a person who suffers from depression? Someone apparently full of energy and creativity right? Doesn't seem to fit the bill. Some of you might not even believe I suffer from depression at all, which of course adds to the problem people who struggle with depression.
You have so many people saying that depression is curable, with so many people who have 'gotten over it', and all this does is tell a person who is deep in depression that they don't want to be happy. That something is horribly wrong with them when it's an 'easy fix'. Why would a depressed person subject to themselves to that kind of negativity when it's far easier to fake a smile and act normal? They won't.
In addition to that a lot of depressed people don't want to burden others with their negative experiences and emotions as well, they're willing to share happy times; but the internal suffering? That has to be private, they don't want others to hurt; and they don't want to see people feeling sad because of their miserable state.
Which is in the end why I decided to write this journal, and why I wrote past journals in regards to this subject: That it shouldn't be private. I can't promise a healthy or even a comfortable environment where you can share the kind of pain you keep deep inside yourself, all I can do is just share my experiences and struggles; maybe providing a little bit of comfort to those who have had or still have similar feelings.
█ My past depression/mood-based journals, with different titles to relate directly more with what people might be feeling. (Ordered from oldest to newest). If you're struggling with something on your own, feel free to look at how I expressed myself on that subject.
"Attacks on the soul" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/533321/
"Suicide and pain" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/827807/
"Responsibility and abusive relationships" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1657865/
"Hope is evil" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2170977/
"Bully gets what he fucking deserves" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2182111/
"Struggling with self worth" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2283793/
"Cursed with empathy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2329194/
"Money vs values" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2460828/
"Alone and rambling" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2799127/
"It doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2829155/
"If you build it they will break it" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3223413/
"Screaming silently" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3354561/
"Fragile state of mind" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3721216/
"Should I stay or should I go?" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3928961/
"Futilely explaining depression" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4690511/
"You're not helping" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058852/
"People are selfish jerks" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5490093/
"Pretending to be happy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6021943/
"I don't like passive aggressive people" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6263947/
"How I defined depression 2 years ago" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6294113/
"Being with people is exhausting" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6727125/
"It still doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7214189/
Man I've done a lot of 'emo' journals over the years... Though it does strike me that what I said 8 years ago still rings true:
"I implore you not to deny your own pain, should you have it. It's real, and you're not weak for feeling it. Being a tough guy when you're bleeding to death calling out proudly "It's only a flesh wound" only will end up in you dying. Maybe your heart won't stop beating, but your soul might just wither away and die."
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: A bit better at fighting the blahs
█ I suppose it's been about half a year since I've written about my status, and I keep semi-consider writing one up but it would just be me writing about the 'same old same old.' Sure there's various current event stuff that I could write about, but in all honesty all that's going to do is flare up emotions over things that we have very little control over.
Depression on the other hand is something that we do have some influence over one way or another. Those who have followed me over the years knows that I'm rather open about the state and nature of my depression through my journals (I'll link them at the end of this post for those curious), and the main reason why I'm open about it is that I'm comfortable with people knowing. Though I'm quite certain that I'm the exception and not the norm. If someone is depressed and don't want you to know about it, they won't.
One of the biggest problems with mental health is that there's a lot of emotion loaded into every term, and the word 'depression' will be used to describe so many things like sadness, loss, pain, emptiness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, suicidal, self-destructive, weak, lazy, unmotivated, so on and so forth. When a word can mean so many things it becomes a meaningless and powerless word.
Furthermore, because people self-define what depression is for them; they decide that definition applies to other people as well. So when someone gets over a bout of 'sadness' they view it as recovering from depression, which is completely different than someone suffering from low self-esteem, and is different from someone who is self-destructive.
So what is my own personal definition of depression? Well it's none of the things I've listed. You might wonder what else depression could describe, but I think the core of being depressed is this: Being unable to find the joy and happiness in the things you love. It's the core thing because when this happens everything else associated with depression can happen.
This is where people jump to the wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution is to find the joy in life again. That's not the problem. The problem is when they do the things that are supposed to make them happy, they feel nothing. Most people would describe this feeling as 'burn-out' when you get tired of experiencing something even though you really liked it in the past. Something that's stimulating and exciting eventually becomes mundane and boring, but most people will recover from this feeling rather quickly and they can enjoy the experience again. For depressed people this isn't the case, it's perpetual "burn-out" that will last for weeks, months, years.
Though here is where people will jump to a different and still wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution here is to find a new thing to enjoy and have fun with. This feeling is applied to all things, and is a general malaise. That people don't understand this causes problems for all the people involved because you'll have a non-depressed person trying everything to 'cheer-up' a depressed person, who get frustrated and angry because nothing works; and the depressed person will just feel worse because they can't change how the feel about their own situation, let alone explain why they're a stick in the mud.
Perhaps at this point you might wonder how I came to this particular conclusion about depression, the answer is simply that I currently don't really experience most of the associated negative things associated with depression that I mentioned: The sadness, the low-esteem, the self-destructive impulses, suicidal thoughts. I can honestly say that for the most part I'm comfortable with who I am and with my life. Can I say that I'm happy though? Not really as I find myself just going through the motions. Going through the motions is easy, even when you're preoccupied with horrible thoughts and negative feelings. Most of the the time the only thing expected of you is to show up and do the minimum (if even that).
So I go through the motions, and sometimes yes that applies to me creating art here on my gallery. Being creative is something I genuinely enjoy, well most of the time... sometimes it becomes very hard to pick up my pen and get to drawing. Some days it feels like an impossible task, a burden. This feeling can last for months at a time, which is pretty traceable throughout the history of my gallery uploads. Which is to say if you go through my gallery you'll find months long gaps in upload dates book marking the times where I was extremely depressed. Though keep in mind when I say extremely depressed I don't mean 'extremely sad' as those are different things, but I feel the need to keep reiterating the point. Far too many people view depression and sadness as equal things.
Certainly a lot of words just to define what "depression" is.
Now you can say that I'm no professional or trained expert on the subject, but to that I say "So what?'" I say it because when it comes to mental health we're still in the stone ages, using proverbial leeches and bloodletting to solve every kind of health issue. If trained people actually knew anything then there would be far fewer people hurting and killing themselves day to day. I'd argue they're part of the problem for being unable to define the nature of the problem they're trying combat, let alone be able to solve it.
█ So where am I going with this? Well the other day I had an epiphany, a realization, to one of the facets of my depression. For me it doesn't matter how much or how little, or how 'correct' of an amount of time of sleep I get; a lot of times I would just feel tired. This feeling of tiredness is extremely hard to differentiate from actually being tired, but for the past week I've been deliberately messing up my sleep schedule; only going to bed when I was tired enough to pass out within 10-30 minutes of laying down. I do have the understanding that this is unhealthy and a sign that I'm not getting enough sleep, but for me the alternative was to lay in bed tossing and turning for an hour or more alone with my thoughts (which can be unpleasant when you're depressed because you'll think about negative things rather than positive ones)
At this point I asked myself a very important question: "Why do I feel tired? It's certainly not because I don't get enough sleep" And then I realized that I felt tired because it made a horrible day more tolerable, and I had so many horrible days in the past. That being tired meant I didn't have to focus on the pain and suffering, that it could just roll over me instead of hitting me squarely.
These days I don't need that mechanism anymore, but I came to the realization that it never went away when my life got better; that it's always there tanking my mood to brace for a horrible day that doesn't really come anymore. Even as I write this it's still on, that feeling of sinking back into a state of tiredness; and it's really easy to sleep back into that state of mentally shutting down. Though I've been pushing back against it since I'm aware it's there, and why it's there. Part of the reason why my streams have been pretty much all day for the past few days as well.
I don't think there has been really anyone who has talked about the various mental coping mechanisms people develop to cope with being in stressful situations, how to recognize them, and how to dismantle them once they're not needed anymore; because they're just going to keep working and bracing you for expected stress and suffering even when you're removed from the stressful elements after the fact. I mention dismantling them because some people do have the ability to turn them off, but if they get turned on again people will relapse back into the same old habits. That's probably how I've been for the past several years, able to force my coping mechanisms into an off position; but easily triggered back into an on position. This time around I'm trying to dismantle it instead of just trying to turn it off.
This is ultimately why 'helping' a depressed person with encouragement and trying to make them happy doesn't really do anything, it doesn't change their state of mind. I imagine most depressed people have numerous mental coping and self-defense mechanisms that are in place, but the only ones truly able to take them apart is the person who put them up in the first place; though I doubt they know that they're even there. I certainly didn't know I had them setup for myself. I more or less dismissed it as me giving the sentiment of "I don't care" but I didn't know that my subconscious was actively setting my mood to 'tired' so that the events of the day would easily wash over me.
█ I suppose one last thing I'll touch on is 'knowing' if a person is depressed, as it's somewhat relevant considering recent events...
You won't know. Take myself as an example: How many of you reading this would think I'm a person who suffers from depression? Someone apparently full of energy and creativity right? Doesn't seem to fit the bill. Some of you might not even believe I suffer from depression at all, which of course adds to the problem people who struggle with depression.
You have so many people saying that depression is curable, with so many people who have 'gotten over it', and all this does is tell a person who is deep in depression that they don't want to be happy. That something is horribly wrong with them when it's an 'easy fix'. Why would a depressed person subject to themselves to that kind of negativity when it's far easier to fake a smile and act normal? They won't.
In addition to that a lot of depressed people don't want to burden others with their negative experiences and emotions as well, they're willing to share happy times; but the internal suffering? That has to be private, they don't want others to hurt; and they don't want to see people feeling sad because of their miserable state.
Which is in the end why I decided to write this journal, and why I wrote past journals in regards to this subject: That it shouldn't be private. I can't promise a healthy or even a comfortable environment where you can share the kind of pain you keep deep inside yourself, all I can do is just share my experiences and struggles; maybe providing a little bit of comfort to those who have had or still have similar feelings.
█ My past depression/mood-based journals, with different titles to relate directly more with what people might be feeling. (Ordered from oldest to newest). If you're struggling with something on your own, feel free to look at how I expressed myself on that subject.
"Attacks on the soul" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/533321/
"Suicide and pain" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/827807/
"Responsibility and abusive relationships" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1657865/
"Hope is evil" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2170977/
"Bully gets what he fucking deserves" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2182111/
"Struggling with self worth" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2283793/
"Cursed with empathy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2329194/
"Money vs values" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2460828/
"Alone and rambling" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2799127/
"It doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2829155/
"If you build it they will break it" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3223413/
"Screaming silently" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3354561/
"Fragile state of mind" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3721216/
"Should I stay or should I go?" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3928961/
"Futilely explaining depression" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4690511/
"You're not helping" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058852/
"People are selfish jerks" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5490093/
"Pretending to be happy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6021943/
"I don't like passive aggressive people" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6263947/
"How I defined depression 2 years ago" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6294113/
"Being with people is exhausting" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6727125/
"It still doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7214189/
Man I've done a lot of 'emo' journals over the years... Though it does strike me that what I said 8 years ago still rings true:
"I implore you not to deny your own pain, should you have it. It's real, and you're not weak for feeling it. Being a tough guy when you're bleeding to death calling out proudly "It's only a flesh wound" only will end up in you dying. Maybe your heart won't stop beating, but your soul might just wither away and die."
Gah, I'm at work right now so I can't really give your words the attention and followup thought they deserve. But I will go for walkies today. Even when I am depressed/sad or subsequently angry, walkies help me.
This touches on another thing that happens too much in our community. Just the other day, someone I barely knew left us. I was sad because be had contributed so much to so many here on FA. From his journals he seemed happy although in physical pain. Exactly as you wrote, people will avoid talking about their pain … and then that happens.
Be well, Endium. Do what you need to do; take care of yourself.
I had a psychologist describe it pretty well. Saying my depression was like a roller coaster. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down, other times it's stable, though stable is much more rare.
We know our demons the best. Most choose to not face them, like myself. It's difficult when all it takes to make them go away is some rest and a bit of distraction. The problem is, they never go away, they never quit clawing at your sanity till you are nothing more then a shell of who you really are. That's what depression is to me. People are really resilient things. They can survive shot gun blasts to the stomach, being thrown a mile and a half from a tornado, even survive a week or more treading water till rescue comes out in an ocean where drinking the water will kill you. Yes, we are all amazing things that can be undone easily, by our own mental barriers. I think the biggest problem is knowing when you are treading water in a kiddie pool, and when you are treading in the ocean.
A year now, I'm living an intricate state of uneasiness. I haven't had the courage to call it "depression" for several months, until I asked myself why was I getting used to this new steady condition. I couldn't remember how I felt usually years ago, especially in my boyhood. Decreased alertness, less motivation and easy demotivation, less mental energy, inability to be happy for more than a few hours, poor endurance to stay together with friends, apathy in place of sadness and anger, and so on. I realized that all these features were not me, but yet they are part of me now.
Another reflection that made me aware of being depressed is that I wasn't feeling in love anymore. I have a wonderful boyfriend to whom I would never like to do anything hurtful. But yet, I risked a lot of times to hurt his feelings because of the apathy and the lack of empathy I gained with depression.
On the contrary, he's not helping me very much, if I must be sincere, because he finds hard to recognize my depression and he always claims that I'm just too lazy, or too apprehensive, or too spoiled, I don't know.
The fact is that it's going on for too much time to be only a matter of mood.
I identify a lot in what you've written here and I agree with everything. I believe that we should try to express ourselves more openly. Avoiding to hide what's in your mind will embolden others to do the same, I hope.
And I also want to underline another thing you've said. Depression is a too vague word. Moreover, it's misused. You can hear everyone say: "I'm depressed", even if they just want to mean they are sad, bored or lazy. So there's no other solution than to tell explicitly what we feel. Using more words instead of just one. We should remember that even if there's a particular term for a common condition, that word doesn't make common the personal experience of that condition. Each of us develops a different kind of depression, depending on the individual concerns, fears and disappointments.
Listening to things like this seems to remove an unconscious tension, at least in my case. One of the fundamental facts of depression, from my understanding, is that what's in your head at that point is more important than anything in your environment. Your brain wants to be depressed, and will work to stay that way. Thus the mental filter, and why we always focus on negative things and find a cloud in every silver lining. And if we're in a cheerful or positive environment? It just makes us feel -worse-, because our environment does not fit what our brains are wanting to feel.
It's perhaps like being in a cool room while enduring a fever. Even though our temperature may be unhealthily high, we seek out warmth to help fit the temperature our bodies want to be, and it makes us feel better. The same thing to see and hear sadness when we're depressed, and our brains want only to be negative. That's my take on it anyway.
If nothing else, I find it helps me to burn through the negativity faster.
From my own personal experience, I believe that the biggest improvement to my mental health came from sleep consistency (both in duration and time range, meaning going to bed and waking up at the same time every day of the week). I must be sensitive to changes in circadian rhythms or something.
at one pint where I wasl farily robot like. Its hard to get out of the cycle. Being tired is one of
the ones that still affects me. Having been hurt and not getting the operation (Denied by Workers comp)
I spend days without sleep and have random crashes to sleep and none of it is restful.
Hugs Endium I hope it gets better.
Our brain, like any other part of our body needs to conserve energy. When placed under stress, all that task-switching/working memory is a luxury that can be expended in favor of addressing whatever the ruminations at hand are about. So we lose flexibility and just focus on a narrow range of neural processes that are just barely able to get us through the day.
I went to college to try and figure this all out, I don't fully understand it, but it's a moving target.
I've been reading as of late that the intermediary for many psychiatric problems like MDD is actually neuroinflammation. Regardless of the underlying cause, whether stress, genetics etc. the inflammatory processes can be managed to provide a sort of band-aid and alleviate the symptoms. Maybe that's too simplistic, but I have some hope that more research in this direction will yield fruitful results.
Inflammation can be quite beneficial and protective in the right amounts, but there can be genetic predispositions which exacerbate normally helpful processes. NSAIDs are showing to be very useful in many different respects so follow your doctor's advice. It sounds like he knows what he's telling you.
That's the physical part anyway, the mental, your description is enlightening. I'm reminded of Hamlet.
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on it, ah fie, 'tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.
I'm definitely going to think back to this when that day comes. Again, thank you for sharing.
All the best. o7