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Depression

Mrs Migs said:
Ha! This is me, too - the horror of deciding anything some days is just… unbearable. I read a sci-fi book once, where one of the characters had a psychic “talent” where he could not only see the future outcome of an action, but all the potential outcomes (a bit like the character Merlin in MIB 3), and it left him absolutely paralysed by his fear of getting it wrong. I think it was one of the Darkover novels, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I’m unlikely to read it again (reasons…) But it depicts the feeling so well.
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Sounds similar to The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg.
 
Frideswide said:
So, a question. Is it easier to communicate to another human the reality of your joy or the reality of your despair? And how? And why?
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A really good, difficult question.

Eloquence helps, certainly, but isn't the only factor in effective communication - a wordsmith like Wilde can sometimes be less effective than someone famously terse; Hemingway, for instance.
 
Frideswide said:
So, a question. Is it easier to communicate to another human the reality of your joy or the reality of your despair? And how? And why?
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Short answer. I don't think you can express to another your reality of either state unless that person, too, has experienced it.

This is obvious to me when I hear someone sharing to another that they are depressed. When the listener responds with any answer like "you can just snap yourself out of it", I know that person has never experienced that emotional state.

No matter how clearly the person is expressing their feelings, the person who has never had experience with the emotion will not understand.

You might run into an empathetic person who may not have experienced the state themself, but I can guarantee that they've had a close friend or family member who has had the experience and they've witnessed firsthand how it affects that person.

I may have just contradicted myself, but I'm too tired to try to figure it out.:) I just got home from work.
 
brownmane said:
Short answer. I don't think you can express to another your reality of either state unless that person, too, has experienced it.

This is obvious to me when I hear someone sharing to another that they are depressed. When the listener responds with any answer like "you can just snap yourself out of it", I know that person has never experienced that emotional state.

No matter how clearly the person is expressing their feelings, the person who has never had experience with the emotion will not understand.
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This! Unless a person has experienced it they can never understand, no matter how much they care.
That said, I hate the “snap yourself out of it” attitude but… I firmly believe that you have to take responsibility for yourself and only you can decide to take the necessary steps to move forward. No one else can help you unless you’re prepared to do something. That can be asking for help (which can be HUGE, I know) or trying things that work for others (exercise, fresh air, whatever you can do to make yourself feel better). It’s a nightmare for those who can’t.
 
Frideswide said:
So, a question. Is it easier to communicate to another human the reality of your joy or the reality of your despair? And how? And why?
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I think people are far more likely to listen to, and empathise with, joy rather than despair. Having someone express utter joy can inspire a rising joy in the listener, whereas trying to communicate despair - people don't always want to listen, let alone empathise, for fear that you might invoke despair in them too.
 
catseye said:
I think people are far more likely to listen to, and empathise with, joy rather than despair. Having someone express utter joy can inspire a rising joy in the listener, whereas trying to communicate despair - people don't always want to listen, let alone empathise, for fear that you might invoke despair in them too.
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And don't want to remind themselves of what the experience is like, having gone through it themselves.
 
catseye said:
I think people are far more likely to listen to, and empathise with, joy rather than despair. Having someone express utter joy can inspire a rising joy in the listener, whereas trying to communicate despair - people don't always want to listen, let alone empathise, for fear that you might invoke despair in them too.
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Thinking about this, that is very true. Listening to someone's joyful experience does bring joy to the listener because they are delighted by the person's happiness. You can immerse yourself in the total experience.

Imo listening to someone's expression of despair takes much more work for the listener. You have to emotionally prepare yourself. You have to work to distance yourself from experiencing any emotion brought to you from personal experience which is how people learn to empathize. You do have to establish a level of protection for your own emotional wellbeing and can't immerse yourself in the story.
 
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brownmane said:
Thinking about this, that is very true. Listening to someone's joyful experience does bring joy to the listener because they are delighted by the person's happiness. You can immerse yourself in the total experience.

Imo listening to someone's expression of despair takes much more work for the listener. You have to emotionally prepare yourself. You have to work to distance yourself from experiencing any emotion brought to you from personal experience which is how people learn to empathize. You do have to establish a level of protection for your own emotional wellbeing and can't immerse yourself in the story.
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Well put.
 
The University of California at San Francisco followed 20,000 people and found if a person body temperature ran a little higher than usual then these people were prone to depression.

UCSF claims that they are not sure how to apply this found information to help depression.
 
This surely goes without saying & is very obvious but, nevertheless, please be careful as regards your choice of reading and viewing matter:

Years ago, I had to give up reading about the Holocaust. I'd began reading about it because I've always been interested in history and because I struggle to understand cruelty and the motivations of those who perform it. I mean that literally - I actually can't understand it, and felt it necessary to learn in order to be a less naive person. (This 'innocence' doesn't necessarily iindicate that I am a good or virtuous person, only that cruelty just doesn't occur to me and the pleasure some others apparently take in it seems so bizarre to me that it's too puzzling and strange for my mind to take in.)

In any case, I was reading some newspaper features about Oscar-nominated films and, in one, The Zone of Interest was highlighted. Of course, there are many movies and books about the concentration camps which are far more graphic - in fact, the absence of such graphic horrors is arguably the whole point of the film - but the secondary horror is centred on emotional detachment, that of the 'by-stander's' and the participants'. This is an especially cold or cold-hearted horror, so much so that I've been depressed for some days. Though that might appear an indulgence on my part - how could my 'suffering' even begin to compare to the camp's inmates'? - but it happened anyway because depression simply occurs, sometimes without a trigger, let alone one so utterly devastating as this subject.

The subject is too vast for (doubtless) many of us to cope with. I read that the revelation of the camps, its cruelties, slaughter and the perpetrators' cynical, clinical madness consisting of both unimaginable malice and compartmentalised banality is beyond our ability to bear the reality of what in actual fact happened. I read also that a part of humanity's loss of faith in itself issues not only from the horror of it all but that this was when civilisation fractured and fell apart:

'That, ultimately, the film has less moral force than numerous documentaries involving perpetrators and survivors, particularly Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, rather underlines the singularity of the Holocaust in world history. It is simply too monstrous a crime to fit easily into any kind of narrative treatment. There is no conventional storytelling structure that can do it justice; it is where civilisation, and thus storytelling, breaks down. And yet most us need stories to bring these events to life.'

It's good to educate and inform oneself; it's not good to simply shy away from horror, as upsetting as it is; but it's not good to dwell on it, especially for people who are prone to depression. And the Holocaust, singularly, might be a void whose dimensions are just too great and limitless to contemplate safely.
 
Yeah I used to be interested in reading about the Black Death because as I see it we all live in a post apocalyptic society already and lots of our culture still seems to be wresting with it, subconsciously. However, during Covid, I stopped because I was terrified and depressed. I didn't want to get worse and apart from being interested in latest discoveries about the early origins of Yersinia Pestis I haven't really taken it back up. The world is scaring me too much now.

I've been suffering from depression since I was about 13, interestingly that is when my interest in Black Death began.
 
Steven said:
This surely goes without saying & is very obvious but, nevertheless, please be careful as regards your choice of reading and viewing matter:

Years ago, I had to give up reading about the Holocaust. I'd began reading about it because I've always been interested in history and because I struggle to understand cruelty and the motivations of those who perform it. I mean that literally - I actually can't understand it, and felt it necessary to learn in order to be a less naive person. (This 'innocence' doesn't necessarily iindicate that I am a good or virtuous person, only that cruelty just doesn't occur to me and the pleasure some others apparently take in it seems so bizarre to me that it's too puzzling and strange for my mind to take in.)

In any case, I was reading some newspaper features about Oscar-nominated films and, in one, The Zone of Interest was highlighted. Of course, there are many movies and books about the concentration camps which are far more graphic - in fact, the absence of such graphic horrors is arguably the whole point of the film - but the secondary horror is centred on emotional detachment, that of the 'by-stander's' and the participants'. This is an especially cold or cold-hearted horror, so much so that I've been depressed for some days. Though that might appear an indulgence on my part - how could my 'suffering' even begin to compare to the camp's inmates'? - but it happened anyway because depression simply occurs, sometimes without a trigger, let alone one so utterly devastating as this subject.

The subject is too vast for (doubtless) many of us to cope with. I read that the revelation of the camps, its cruelties, slaughter and the perpetrators' cynical, clinical madness consisting of both unimaginable malice and compartmentalised banality is beyond our ability to bear the reality of what in actual fact happened. I read also that a part of humanity's loss of faith in itself issues not only from the horror of it all but that this was when civilisation fractured and fell apart:

'That, ultimately, the film has less moral force than numerous documentaries involving perpetrators and survivors, particularly Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, rather underlines the singularity of the Holocaust in world history. It is simply too monstrous a crime to fit easily into any kind of narrative treatment. There is no conventional storytelling structure that can do it justice; it is where civilisation, and thus storytelling, breaks down. And yet most us need stories to bring these events to life.'

It's good to educate and inform oneself; it's not good to simply shy away from horror, as upsetting as it is; but it's not good to dwell on it, especially for people who are prone to depression. And the Holocaust, singularly, might be a void whose dimensions are just too great and limitless to contemplate safely.
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MrsF, who loves animals more than life itself, watched something recently, apparently called Pignorant.
I couldn't have done so.
 
Today the government gave a company called Mind Medicine, Inc. a green light to continue to have experimental trails of treating depression and anxiety with LSD.

The trials has shown 48 % improvement of a medical problem that seems to particular affects age group 18 year old and older.

Imperial College London and University Health Centre Montreal are watching closely at the progress.
 
charliebrown said:
Today the government gave a company called Mind Medicine, Inc. a green light to continue to have experimental trails of treating depression and anxiety with LSD.

The trials has shown 48 % improvement of a medical problem that seems to particular affects age group 18 year old and older.

Imperial College London and University Health Centre Montreal are watching closely at the progress.
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I've tried treating myself with LSD. Can't recommend. Sooner or later one has a bad trip and that undoes anything positive because for some reason the bad trips - which can be worse than any horror movie - stick

I guess its the same as remembering all the things you could have done better in your marriage while not giving the full value to the good times.

Multiplied by about a hundred.

I repeat, do not recommend.
 
Steven said:
This surely goes without saying & is very obvious but, nevertheless, please be careful as regards your choice of reading and viewing matter...
It's good to educate and inform oneself; it's not good to simply shy away from horror, as upsetting as it is; but it's not good to dwell on it, especially for people who are prone to depression. .
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Definitely be careful of what you read, and more specifically imo, watch. Years ago when I realized that I needed help with depression, I couldn't even watch any news, and even some commercials depending on what they portrayed. News was not possible at all as I couldn't control what story might come up. I would spend sleepless nights trying to figure how to right ALL of the wrongs in the world. Even now, I don't watch news, I read some if it and this allows me better control of how much and what type of content I want to peruse.

I, too, cannot understand mindless cruelty and disdain that humans show to others, animal or people. It saddens me.

I do, occasionally read some darker topics, but I am very aware of my limits. I know there is unimaginable nastiness in the world and in no way want to have anything to do with it, but it exists.

You can acknowledge that these things exist. It is not naivety. Distancing yourself mentally is necessary for your own wellbeing. I have had friends tell me that I maintain good boundaries. That is, I can empathize, but I distance myself and understand that someone else's experience is not my own. It takes a lot of work to do this, but it is necessary.
 
On the topic of reading, I read a lot of horror fiction as well as watch horror movies. I've been asked how I can do this because (to the other person) it is scary or horrific.

My answer is that I enjoy horror because it is not real and I like to see how the protagonist comes through and how they handle the situation. I like to believe that if something like that ever happened, that I would have strength to act and not run away.

I rarely read non-fiction and am not really interested in true crime or whatever other atrocities happen in the world because I am quite aware of what humans are really like. I think I have already expressed this somewhere here before.

I do think that people who experience depression are more empathetic. Whether the experience of depression brings about empathy, or being more empathetic brings some depression, I don't know.

Though, when someone is depressed, they cannot be empathetic. It takes too much energy.
 
brownmane said:
On the topic of reading, I read a lot of horror fiction as well as watch horror movies. I've been asked how I can do this because (to the other person) it is scary or horrific.

My answer is that I enjoy horror because it is not real and I like to see how the protagonist comes through and how they handle the situation. I like to believe that if something like that ever happened, that I would have strength to act and not run away.

I rarely read non-fiction and am not really interested in true crime or whatever other atrocities happen in the world because I am quite aware of what humans are really like. I think I have already expressed this somewhere here before.

I do think that people who experience depression are more empathetic. Whether the experience of depression brings about empathy, or being more empathetic brings some depression, I don't know.

Though, when someone is depressed, they cannot be empathetic. It takes too much energy.
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Interesting point about the link between empathy and depression. I guess you have to have perception to have empathy and I generally find that people who have no perception never seem to get depressed.
 
charliebrown said:
My wife and I try not to watch sad movies and sometimes news programs particularly in the evening.

We find that this cuts down on our depression.
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I watch very few movies that are "sad" (most are only sentimental dross), but if I think that a movie is more one from which I can learn (usually about people), then I will watch, but I prepare myself mentally before watching.
 
DrPaulLee said:
The absolute worst time is when I wake up early in the morning. It takes hours to get back to sleep and during that whole time there are these thoughts preying on my mind.
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I think if you got some more sleep, you might begin to feel less depressed. Set aside a bit of time for meditation and sleep.
I do a bit of deep breathing/hyperventilation before I go to bed, and I make sure I don't have anything with caffeine in it for about 2 hours before bedtime. Even so, I still wake up during the night, but that's not down to thoughts buzzing about in my head.
 
I have the same problem with the black dog/blind space chicken. I would say the problem at night is the lack of sensory input. I have taken to keeping the light on in the next room, so I don't wake to complete darkness. Listening to a podcast might also help.
 
DrPaulLee said:
The absolute worst time is when I wake up early in the morning. It takes hours to get back to sleep and during that whole time there are these thoughts preying on my mind.
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I don't sleep well. Never have. All I need is one random thought about what I have to do that day, or what happened the evening before (if I was affected negatively) and that's it. No depression to do that to me.

One question, do you have any low level pain?

I have learned that I sometimes have sore muscles somewhere that I don't realize are bothering me. I have very subtle achiness in my hips, shoulders and back at different times. I won't realize that I have been tossing and turning because I just can't get comfortable.

Once I take a pain pill, it just takes the pain away and I can then relax enough to get back to sleep.

Pain is not the only thing that keeps me awake or wakens me early, but it is one thing.

Chronic pain is more difficult to deal with when you are depressed. And then no sleep...It's a difficult circle.
 
No, no lower level pain. The only pain I feel is in my head. During the day I have enough distractions to numb the thoughts.
 
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