There are many paths into depression, and many paths out of it. But as someone that once fell into a decade+ of depression and could not get out, I think that one key is to try to get back on top of it quickly.
It's a bit like getting further and further out of shape that way, because of the changes of thought patterns and self-image and socialization patterns etc - the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut.
(And yet, just like that example, you can always start where you are at, and sometimes even a bit of change can be more dramatic and exhilarating than you think it would be - perhaps walking up the stairs without getting winded feels like a huge victory, if you aren't focused on how long it will be until you run that marathon)
In my own experience, and in working with people with severe depression, I have found two things to be almost universal. One is that the pathway out involves better noticing of small shifts in consciousness in the present moment - depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on.
The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world.
> the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut.
One specific part of this is the difficulty of finding a therapist (in the US). I've had to go through that recently on behalf of a family member. It involves a lot of effort to find and contact providers, talking to strangers about personal things, having most of them reject your case, etc. This has been difficult enough even for me. The people who most need help - especially those with executive function or social anxiety issues - are also most likely to be defeated by the difficulty of getting it. That's a sick system. Schools and employers, who are often the sources of stress inducing or exacerbating mental health problems, could and should do a lot more to make the process easier.
This problem is worsened by the pandemic btw. The demand for mental healthcare has never been higher, but the healthcare system is breaking under they strain as workers are also dealing with burnout. (Also, hospitals and insurance rarely give due to psych it deserves.)
What is worse, so many therapists in the USA are barely competent to handle even basic issues and there is no way to weed out the bad apples if you even get to choose. Insurance doesn't cover adequate care. (Usually 2-3 sessions a YEAR) Also, since it's a part of our horrible medical system it's usually suffering from the same opaque billing and corruption that our hospitals do.
This is incorrect. The passage of the ACA required insurance companies to lift the limits on visits for mental health.
As someone who has dealt with the mental health system in the U.S. for 20+ years, I remember the time before the ACA and after — a big difference.
But even with insurance, it’s not a guarantee to find someone who will treat you. I’ve had the experience of calling a long list of providers who accepted my insurance, but weren’t taking new patients.
In my early twenties I had a virtuous flywheel effect going, and didn't realize it until it abruptly stopped. It was shocking. Now I take very seriously how dependent I am on my external circumstances for what might look like intrinsic motivation.
COVID lockdown totally messed up my life momentum on that front - I had a pretty carefully constructed routine and losing that was bad - I'm not so robust otherwise it turns out. Still haven't gotten my shit back in order. Flywheel is a good metaphor!
On the contrary, lockdown helped me get off liquor. I had left my previous gig due to burnout and had taken alcohol as a coping device. For some reason, the monotonous routine and long commute took a lot out of me personally.
Still not sure what caused it exactly. Lockdown made me get some control of my life, schedule it on my terms and it was liberating. I literally felt lighter and more at ease, back to balanced normality as some might put it.
I'm afaid I still have no full grasp of what is going on in my own mind and body. At least not in terms that would be scientifically acceptable.
> *For some reason*, the monotonous routine and long commute took a lot out of *me personally* [emphasis mine]
I want to make sure you don't have any lingering feelings of ambivalence or shame from that conclusion: Long commutes take a lot out of everyone (or at least the average person). It's one of the most consistent happiness findings.
- "we find that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being." [0]
- "Couples in which one partner commutes for longer than 45 minutes are 40 percent likelier to divorce." [1]
- " a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office. " [2]
You're not weird, and it's certainly not your fault. As we all get back into normal life, I want to make sure that we're clear on that. Maybe you have to do it, and we all have to do painful things, but it's not your fault that it sucks.
Lockdowns messed me up real bad too, and with hindsight I actually noticed how our whole beings adapted subconsciously to this nothingness.
And this is equally matched by the difficulty to re-adapt when we reopened. Still rough after a month already.
It's funny, because lockdown actually helped me get out of a funk. I wasn't having to wake up any more to go into work at half five, and was able to get into good sleeping/eating habits, as well as exercise habits both at home and when the gym reopened. Granted, I was blessed to have a job that kept me paid without doing a lot of work, so I had plenty of time to pursue interests and exercise and healthy lifestyle. Going back into the school full-time in August killed me.
> depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on.
Nothing but toxic positivity. I have depression and three suicide attempts. What stops me now? Not caring if I am depressed and learning from the lessons it gives me.
Depression is only a disease or a disorder because our society does not give you the time to understand it and listen to it. Nope, got to get back to work otherwise out on the street with you!
I love my depression, it lets me see a world so few others see. No less true than the common or manic world. And that depressive world still acts upon the other worlds but you all just do not see it.
I would agree with you that most of our mental and emtional health conditions are both within us and within a context, and that being “crazy” can be a perfectly good and even useful and healthy response to an insane world.
But I assure you, I had no desire to stay in the state I was in which was dull grey, numb, dissociated, and isolated. I spent enough years meditating with it that I wasn’t intensely suffering without exactly, though i can’t say I ever got to acceptance and peace. But I wanted something different for my one finite life.
It’s not about desire. It’s about acceptance. You don’t desire to be in it or out of it, you accept it and understand it. What I’m getting at I can’t really describe in words because it’s more of an experience. But for people who have depression (not sadness) It is a therapy in an understanding that works.
When you accept something you don’t need to be different. And the burden you are released of is immense. And that is when you’re suffering goes away. You’re still depressed, but you’re not suffering.
Plenty of other people do not love their depression, and find it painful and limiting. Dismissing that experience as rooted in "toxic positivity" isn't fair: it's perfectly legitimate to desire a feeling of well-being.
I don’t love it in a way that I crave it. I love It’s because it is. It’s a total acceptance. It can come and go out of my life and I don’t care. It’s just depression. I am not depressed, there is depression.
And I wanna make the clear distinction between what most people here are calling depression is not depression but is in fact sadness.
> The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world.
I second this. To me it makes a big difference but it has to be kept up; it's not a "done and you'll feel better for a few weeks" but a daily step to take. If it works for you and you haven't explored Peter Levine and somatic experiencing, that can be a good next step to see what your body responds to.
Unfortunately none of this helps with my seasonal depression which hit last week. Tried light boxes and vitamin D in previous years - no relief through any. Only 4-5 months to get through...
Can move somewhere it’s always sunny? Not that that really helps if my experience is any indication, but I’m only one person.
I tried a sunlight lamp at 10000lm, which was impressive while it was on, but stepping out of my room in the evening messed with me so hard that I never used it again.
I'd recommend continuing to play with it - I use sunlight lamps and there are definitely levels that work for me without wrecking my night vision for the rest of the house. Of course, you can also brighten the rest of the house, even during the evening!
The felt experience of exercise is incredibly important. Not just the feeling aspects but the results on the physiology, which are not completely distinct from psychology. Though you can be enormously depressed even while hitting the gym hard 4 times a week.
I see a stupid principle in nature. Never let any system deviate out of the mean.
The sooner you invest in restoring good habits, good spirit, even if life sucks even if you dont feel like it it really is the shortest path to normalcy. Once you're too far off the middle there seems to be no end to the bottom, thing only get worse, and your brain stays in negative rationalisation mode potentially forever. Also our minds are very relativistic and you can always find a reason why your pain is impossible to fix.
It makes sense: pay attention to your body if you're injuring yourself, and stop moving forward if you keep injuring yourself blindly-unskillfully moving forward in life continuing to injure yourself (and likely others). And the reason negativity feeds pain seems to be at least two-fold: everything in the body is connected and so emotional pain uses at least some of the same pathways as physical pain, and this is perhaps how or where the mind-body connection interfaces - being able to read off eachother via biofeedback loop; think a negative thought that stresses the body, the body tightens causing discomfort that then stresses the body-mind - and the reverse: learning to visualize an infinitely fast beam of healing light encompassing you and forcing its way through whole being as part of self-directed positive reinforcement visualization practice; in part this is a practice of getting as much of your mind active and flowing at once, which can be tough from a longtime stagnant-depressed mind due to suppressed or repressed feelings or sensations or unprocessed trauma.
TL;DR - Mind-body: "Pay attention to me or I'm going to force you to [learn why you're in pain, how to heal it, and how to stop from continuing to hurt from it]!"
I think one of the huge milestones is getting someone who is in a depressive state of mind to recognize that their lived experience is a function of this cognitive state and may even, in many situations, be a manifestation of an actual condition. I think especially really smart folks who become depressive can easily fall into a trap of rationalizing their depression. One of the toughest things is getting to a point to recognize that the entire body of "data" that your mind is using to make those rationalizations, and the rationalization itself, doesn't fall "outside" the depression. It's such a tricky thing because of it.
When I was depressed, I distinctly remembering having discovered: "I cannot think myself out of this!"
Unlike most things in my life, which I could think myself out of (quite successfully!), this one I could not. That had a pretty profound effect on my core epistemology thereafter.
The thing which really helped me was retreating to my friends and family (who, thankfully, could get me out of my own head).
Congratulations on discovering that great truth on your own. You are more than your brain/mind. The sooner anyone experiences (not derives or speculates) that truth the better. It is a vaccination of sorts against a whole host of mental maladies, including depression.
The brain/mind by itself can’t deeply heal the brain/mind. But the heart, soul, spirit, etc. (topics rarely mentioned on HN) can. If you can’t solve a problem in the original mind space, transform the problem into another non-mind space where it is more easily solved, then return to the original mind space. See, it’s just math.
That presumes you can connect with your heart/soul/spirit/ elan vital/etc.. Probably the first place to start. If you’ve lost that ability, you really need to reclaim it. The rest often follows pretty naturally.
There are lots of paths to follow to reclaim the connection. Choose wisely. (Hint: they won’t ask for a CC number up front)
And I will now take my robe and staff and depart. :-)
I think what they may have meant is, don't wait until you are certain you have hit rock bottom and then start to work on the things that will make you feel better, do it now. Not five minutes from now. Now now. Because there is no bottom. Your inner void in infinite. And the longer you fall the longer is the climb upwards.
Or I just read too much into what they said and then projected my own knowledge of my personal misery onto the topic at hand.
And to this point, why do we fear depression so much? Why is it not something to welcome instead of fighting and trying to control? Maybe the fighting is what is causing the problem?
I will tell you when I ended my battle with depression, my suffering ended. My depression as still there but my suffering was gone.
Not a native speaker either, so take this with a grain of salt. I read it as acting promptly, staying ahead of the problem, do not postpone remedial action.
> To “stay on top of” something means to be continuously aware of it and give it your regular attention.
Oh, cool, didn't know it! Yeah, giving regular attention to one's mental health, and being proactive in treating things as they appear, is a good advice.
> the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world.
Outdoors activities that might not quite be exercise, but that offer sounds, smells, feelings such as the wind in your face.
Exercise is extra nice because it tends to occupy the mind, keeping dark thoughts out. But things like playing music or drawing can offer similar escapes from thoughts.
I live in a area where most people seem to live close on depression most of the time and I found them to look the most happy, when it is raining and everything washed away.
Literally anything, in my experience. When I was in this situation I did not feel like doing anything, I was lying at home in bed, so I’d just say yes to everything that people wanted to do with me.
It’s easier if you have people around to pull you along. I can’t imagine motivating myself to do something.
But for example, just carrying groceries counts like a win, since it got you out of the house.
Because if that stuff helps them they do not have depression, but they are experiencing sadness. They are not the same but everyone in this thread is treating it the same.
Your source does not support your claim ("if that stuff helps them they do not have depression"). In fact, it contradicts your claim since it says "Lifestyle changes can also help you feel better if you’re experiencing depression."
For me it was contact improv, which had the benefits of other humans and touch as well as continual challenges to proprioception and balance and gravity as well as some flow state (which then become a journey of using somatic experiencing and other modalities to do trauma work)
But literally any bodily sensation can be helpful - one of the most usual reasons people give for self harm and cutting for example is that they can feel something. When i was at my most depressed, I used to walk around in the middle of winter with light clothes on (not in a freezing to death dangerous way, just in a wanting intense sensation to focus the mind on something immediate way)
I would say anything that encourages you to pay attention to your body in the moment (requires coordination) and also gets some exercise in can be a good doorway. But so can the breeze on your skin.
I am not in the target demographic, but I started swimming this year. It feels ... ehhh ... intense. Can't find the right word.
What I like especially is that you can get yourself really tired, but you don't overheat or sweat. Also it feels more complete than cycling or running. Copious showering is part of the experience.
How do you withstand the cold contact of the water? Part of the depression is the intense lack of bravery to the most comical point, and yet very real.
So I went to Australia and started farming, and after a few rage moments (over 6 months), I was back to happy and 15% body fat (ie excellent). But it’s hard to isolate the root cause since travels imply many moving parts, sun, outdoor exercise, one of them being the absolute constant flow of good news, getting hired as a farmer for the same price as a French engineer, getting hired in a startup and receiving yearly bonuses after 3 months at the same time as everyone, having stock options that keep on rising. Of course I felt better, but I’m afraid it was just the ridiculous sudden wealth. Which is very different from having found happiness.
Back to France and I have been in the horrible mindset for 8 more years, intensely angry at friends family and life…
Yoga, massage, Wim Hof method, saunas, acupuncture, water fasting, hiking, etc.
And then there are a number of plant medicines (or other chemicals/entheogens like MDMA, ketamine, Ayahuasca/psilocybin/DMT, kambo, hape, etc) that temporarily alter your sensitivities, your connection or experience with sensory systems - which in part can be healing due to providing you a strong new perspective via the contrast and memory of that contrast opening up new possibilities - leading to the opening of your mind and heart; Ayahuasca and other are also known to have compound(s) in them that perpetuate or facilitate neuronal growth, meaning new pathways more rapidly being able to form, allowing possibility that if deeply entrenched, stuck in say a state of depression, new pathways and logic gates can or will open; this is where the current spiritual-ceremonial-psychedelic community fails currently, in adequately supporting the integration work - as with temporary separation from ego (arguably eventually possible to lead to ego death or ego dissolution) you can tap into unhealed/unprocessed emotional trauma that's been being suppressed at or fully since a childhood trauma (that you likely didn't beforehand understand as being traumatic) - which you may be able to process partly to fully on your own - but you may have extreme difficulty at some point, or not have the precise guidance to allow you to quickly get passed a block; for example there's a specific sound therapy developed nearly 70 years ago in France that is perhaps the only therapy to unblock a certain type of energetic flow/processing block. And in my own brutal experience with healing to reconnect to my body, in the process of opening my mind and heart, I also reconnected to my physical body and the immense level of physical pain from injuries I had accumulated throughout my life - now 38 - the pain level being overwhelming for my nervous system only soon after getting LASIK eye surgery 7 years ago, the damage caused to everyone's corneas that get it as the corneas can't heal properly contrary to the propaganda by the industry - where it was LASIK that finally "broke the camel's back" - initially causing a strong tension and pain down the right side of my neck, along with a strong-constant general agitation, but where that evolved to central sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain, where all sensations in my body were amplified to 100% of my mind or consciousness' ability to perceive pain - severe enough that my executive function has been fucked for the majority of the last 5 years; it's been a rough 5 years, to say the least, however as I've had dozens of stem cell treatments to heal all the sources of pain, injuries, I've gradually been able to reduce the severity of dysfunction and limitations that pain has put on me - though I have more work to do - I'm able to more often to connected to hope.
I was depressed for years due to two things: a bad relationship and bad jobs.
Once I moved on from the hoarder ex with 3 un-treated mental health problems, whose clothes literally covered the entire bedroom, floor and bed and all surfaces, well damn: I was a lot less depressed! Imagine a 1500 sqft apartment where 90% of the possessions are not yours, where if you see a piece of her garbage and toss it out, she'll get mad at you, even if it's a rotting, blackened orange peel. This sort of toxic relationship has to end, do not cling, do not "care for them" if they refuse professional help. This will sap your energy, it will sap your life, and you'll become depressed, unable to muster the energy to "fix" them or to leave the relationship. It was only when she went away for 3 months one summer, and I was marvelously not depressed and I didn't miss her one jot, I knew it had to end when she returned.
On top of that, I was in high-stress teaching jobs, $11/hr with no benefits in inner-city schools: this was important and impactful work, but brutal on the self. We actually got called racists by a very rowdy student, who wasn't allowed to jump on the desk and scream "I LOVE TACOS!" I'm not kidding, he called us racist for not allowing that. Never-mind the constant fights, religious students telling me science is fake, or having 35 kids in a tiny classroom. Teaching is a very important and undervalued field.
Once I actually got a $30/hr job with benefits and gained my freedom from toxic relations, suddenly I was the happiest I'd ever been. Add onto that, being in a relationship with a good match, with someone who had no undiagnosed/untreated mental health problems.
You are telling other people that their subjective experiences are wrong, which is just rude. Point-blank correcting anyone’s personal experience, regardless how much you might disagree with it, is usually found to be very offensive.
If you are trying to correct someone’s usage of words, please try to be a lot more thoughtful about how you approach that. Different people use words differently, and you are not the arbiter of truth.
To agree with OP: I was in a bad situation, and was diagnosed by a nurse as clinically depressed. I fixed the situation, and I was happy again.
Being sad is like being depressed, but the causes are different. That’s what’s important.
And if you were diagnosed by a “nurse” as clinically depressed I would say you are probably suffering from situational depression, or sadness in other words. And Nurses shouldn’t be Diagnosing mood disorders.
That’s my point, depression is a mood disorder, sadness is not. Neither is situational depression. You don’t treat situational depression with anti-depressants.
I’m not blaming them down your throat I’m having a discussion about them. Did you ever think for a moment that you were wrong? I’ve been going to therapists for 20 years, I’ve suffered mental illness for 45 years.
If you met you had a psychiatric nurse practitioner you should say that, because a nurse is an overly broad generalization.
Your original comment was “That is sadness, not depression.”. Saying they are not depressed is a diagnosis, which you have no right to do, probably no training to do, and would be wildly unprofessional to do if you were a specialist. For all we know they could have been diagnosed with depression and treated - you lack context to be able to say either way - so take them at their word. You have experience as a sufferer but that gives you no right to make sweeping statements about anyone’s mental health - I am sure you would dislike anyone jumping to conclusions about you based on this conversation?
Then you said “COVID lockdown made you sad, not depressed”, which appears to be your own imagination, since they didn’t even mention COVID.
I responded strongly to your original comment, because I feel it breaks multiple guidelines of this site, and I feel a community should moderate itself for the most part.
Perhaps you are 100% correct, but your delivery needs to be a lot more caring and considerate, especially when somebody is revealing something so intimate and personal.
> I’m having a discussion about them
Your original comment was not a discussion: you wrote as though your opinions are facts, which came across to me as though you were denying their own reality. You then proceeded to do the same thing to me, which I am reacting poorly to.
Edit: also, the original comment implied the commenter has high social, emotional and mental capabilities. Stressful personal life and still teaching children at inner-city schools: passing that proof implies high ability. Teachers absorb a massive amount of practical psychology by caring about their students, and interacting with problem students all the time.
Well friend, I'm sorry to say your comments were hurtful to me. Do you really think an internet comment I scribbled out in 2 minutes is enough to un-diagnose me? Do you think someone diagnosed with depression by both an MD and a psychiatrist doesn't know the difference between sadness and a disorder?
First, I didn't mention COVID lockdown, this relationship and job occurred in the mid 2010's, long before COVID.
Second, depression is a family illness on both sides for me. I experienced a lot of bad times, went to an MD and a psychiatrist, both of whom diagnosed me with mild depression. I wasn't a severe case, maybe you're conflating mild depression vs. severe depression.
My friend, just take a deep breath and ask yourself: have you clinically interviewed me? Are you a psychiatrist? If not, you really can't say whether or not I have had depression or not, you have no data to make any claims.
> You don't think in depression that you've put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you're seeing truly.
Yeah, let's spread this out-of-context take on depression from someone who is not a mental health professional.
Fucking bullshit.
Depression lies to you. And, once you live with it long enough, you know it lies to you.
You know that the voice that tells you that nothing is worth doing is not speaking truly.
You know that the voice that says that there's nothing, absolutely nothing that will ever bring joy to you, and that there is nothing to look forward to, neither tomorrow nor any time in the future - you know it's not speaking truly.
You know that the voice that tells you that you are worthless, that you are a burden, that you are nothing but a disappointment and a waste of everything that was given to you, and everyone would have been better off if you removed yourself from that equation because all you do is let everyone else down - you know that that voice is lying to you.
Often enough you know it's lying, in particular, about you being not just unworthy of love, but inherently unlovable because people who love you tell you they do, and you know they are speaking the truth.
You know that voice is lying, and yet you believe it, you believe it as strongly as anything can be believed, and you wave away everyone else.
That's the bitch part of depression: you can't logic it away. You know your brain is sabotaging you, and you just roll along until, for whatever reason, you can't anymore.
And yet even after bouncing up from that abyss, the next time you end up there, that voice will sounds as convincing as it ever did.
I have fallen into many pits of depression over almost 20 years now, even now I am struggling to get out of a deep one. Seems this is just a cycle in my life, unfortunately.
You can't logic yourself out of beliefs, I completely get that. Once you realize how depressed you are, you're usually also mired in terrible thoughts and negativity.
But in my experience, I HAVE to try to logic myself out of patterns of behaviors. I also need to fight those beliefs, as futile as it seems. Hear me out here:
I think one of the most toxic things was when I thought it was a chemical imbalance completely out of my control -- so there was nothing I could do but take pills and passively wait for my brain chemistry to correct itself.
I have recovered from like 4 or 5 episodes of major depression now, and the key for me every time has been
a) realizing I'm depressed
b) waiting for/creating a day when I have the energy to think and address this, and then
c) reflecting on and fighting against thoughts and behaviours extending/reinforcing the depression.
Obviously this is a messy and inefficient process with a lot of slippage. And maybe it doesn't work for other people, or maybe I've got something else wrong with me than just major depression, and that's why it works.
Anyways, not trying to invalidate your experience, just sharing what I've found works for me.
The meds are there to help you change the circumstances that drove you into that state. One still has to the work.
That's to say, the meds may make step (b) easier. The rest is the same.
That way out, at the moment, might feel illogical because your logic is ill. Or at least to me it does; for the same reasons it felt "messy", inefficient, and slippery to you.
What use is logic when the axioms are flawed? But I digress.
I'm not aware of any other way. That a-b-c of yours is what the meds and therapy may help with, but otherwise that's the path, messy and slippery as it is.
I can relate much more to the other quote about depression than your take. There's plenty of logical reasons to be miserable. Spending too much time thinking can cause depressing realizations. "A wandering mind is an unhappy mind."
Here's a thought: no matter what I do, I'm going to die someday and not too long after will likely be forgotten. The most likely way I could be remembered for longer is to be hated by lots of people. Even if for some reason I was remembered as a liked person, I'll either be forgotten in the fall of civilization and, unrealistic but best-case-scenario, the heat death of the universe.
That's not a voice in my head lying to me, that's all true. If you want to get into the argument of "none of that matters, the enjoyment to find in life is all the experiences along the way," that's something else entirely. But it doesn't mean those upsetting thoughts are a voice in my head "lying" to me.
Well what you resonate with is melancholy, sadness, misery — not depression.
Depression is knowing that, say, being stuck in that relationship/job/location makes you miserable, knowing that you can and should get out or otherwise change the environment that's crushing you — and still believing the voice telling you that you should lay low and do nothing about it, that nothing you do matters and you shouldn't try to change it.
>enjoyment to find in life is all the experiences along the way
Depression is not enjoying anything anymore. Imagine all your favorite food suddenly tasting like paper. It's the same, but with everything you've ever done.
Depression will tell you that this is just how things are from now on, and forever. That it's pointless to even try.
Depression is not lack of happiness. Sadness, melancholy, even misery and pain aren't depression.
I sincerely wish that nobody would resonate with what I'm writing here. But I know that there are many who would.
And I want them to know that the voice telling all these things isn't you and is just fake news that your lizard brain broadcasts as a protective response to something that isn't even there.
Being trapped in a bad job isn't the same as being trapped in a literal lion's den, but your lizard brain can't tell the difference.
I don't disagree with your interpretation of depression, but I do find fault with this statement:
> Depression is not lack of happiness. Sadness, melancholy, even misery and pain aren't depression.
I'd argue that melancholy, sadness, and misery can all be the essential framework of other types of depression. Just because you don't experience that kind personally doesn't mean that others don't.
I suffer from aural migraines that cause temporary blindness. Some people get migraines without the blanking of vision. Even though someone else with a mind-splitting headache doesn't have the classic visual aberrations with it doesn't mean that they aren't having as painful or incapacitating of a migraine as I am.
Is there any viewpoint which makes it valid to accept that existence might just not be worth it in every case?
Might we as a society not start talking about it in a way that perhaps lifing as long as possible might just not be the right thing for everyone?
Does it make my life any better or worth having played even more games? Have been drunk over and.over again? Going to bed the 12801th time? Ha ing to stay fit? Seeing another movie?
Yes I get it. The social norms is being alive otherwise our society would not work.
But there could be a society were not necessarily lifing for ever might just not be stigmatized and become more normal.
I'm at the point we're I have the feeling that I starve for new/different stimulation. Perhaps my way of thinking (ADHS) might just not be that compatible with the avg?
No it's not. The quote is true. People who are not depressed treat it as a disease. But life truly is a trauma for most people, yet we are supposed to be optimistic disregarding the truth. It takes some medicine/chemical or copium that makes it look beautiful and everything is ok. Lots of people just never think too much and do whatever they are supposed to do, so not depressed.
Have you ever taken antidepressants? Are you speaking from experience?
Because I haven't heard of antidepressants making everything look beautiful.
What they do is give you some control over the "play dead" response to give you an ability to get out or at least do something about that life of trauma.
The meds aren't for coping. They are for helping you do the work needed to be in a better place.
There's just no fucking way that the voice that tells people that they may only ever be a burden is coming from outside reality.
There is zero truth in the voice that tells you that your untimely death will not negatively affect anyone else.
There's zero truth in the voice that tells you that it's your duty to the world to make that happen sooner rather than later.
>People who are not depressed treat it as a disease
So do people who are depressed. Illness is what it is.
I meant saying life is beautiful like non-depressed people.
Yeah may be different types of depression. I'm talking about the quote. Life is not all happy thing, some people know this and want out of this; which they are forced with to live until dying horribly, most time it's horrible sad death honestly. Acknowledging true nature of life and not wanting to continue the misery is not illness.
There's a huge gap between "acknowledging true nature of life" (that it's not all roses and ponies, that there's pain and misery) and "not wanting to continue the misery".
It’s very similar with anxiety. You have the specific fears preventing you from doing something, know that they’re nonsense rationally and yet you continue to believe them completely. It’s difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced it.
This is why exposure can help. You face the fear and prove to yourself it’s nonsense. Next time you will believe the nonsense a little less and with repeated exposure you eventually only believe the rational belief or at least the belief will have swung enough in that direction you are joking inhibited.
It’s a pity there isn’t a similar technique for dealing with depression.
I fully agree. Hitting rock bottom (in a given situation) can make one realize that it isn't that bad.
It's still not perfect; e.g. the anxiety over being fired can be overwhelming even if you know that it's not the end of the world, and that the state of anxiety is worse than the state of not being at that job anymore.
Depression and anxiety go hand in hand though, so exposure helping anxiety can have a positive effect on depression.
> Depression lies to you. And, once you live with it long enough, you know it lies to you.
This is why people with depression suffer, because they do not want to see the truth depression unveils. So they fight and fight and fight.
Can you be ok with nothing ever bringing you happiness? I asked that question to myself, I finally said yes. It was a spiritual moment. Joy at last! No more happiness!
Why do you think happiness is a truth and depression is a lie? That is only your preference.
"Can you be ok with nothing ever bringing you happiness? I asked that question to myself, I finally said yes. It was a spiritual moment. Joy at last! No more happiness"
It seems like you tricked yourself, to put the pressure away of "must getting happy again" and felt the joy (which is happiness, no?) of being relieved of that stress.
I would argue that joy and happiness are not the same thing. I have difficulty articulating it, but I think Ursula Le Guin expresses it well (because of course she does) in The Left Hand of Darkness:
"I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, and often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy."
Understanding that it's OK to be broken and sad, even if it's always like that, is something everyone needs to learn, and the culture is changing to this understanding being the norm.
Have you read Winnie-the-Pooh? I think the book, more so than the cartoon, reinforces that.
Eeyore is perpetually and, seemingly, irreparably sad and unhappy, and yet it's just a trait that Eeyore has, not a flaw. Other characters are there for him, but his sadness is accepted.
Some of us are like Eeyore; and we should treat ourselves the way Eeyore was treated by others.
Your solution is anecdotal but it does sound similar to the process described occurring in people whose depressions are cured by MDMA or psilocybin treatment. A cure induced by a staring into the abyss kind of thing.
Yes. I have schizoaffective bipolar disorder, surviving with it for 45 years. 20 plus years of therapy as well.
To say I have no credentials is an immature way to evaluate the knowledge of others and us a logical fallacy.
For the last 10 years I have been working with UNC Medicine decoding both my own and my family’s genomics. And I have taught my self, by auditing UNC classes, in genetics, psychology, and nuerochemistry as well as nutrigenomics.
I survived three suicide attempts and was hospitalized five times. The last five years I have been able to go off all my medications but one I use occasionally.
I would guess it gives me some credentials but these days if it’s not a diploma on your wall you’re not worth a thing.
Lack of credentials doesn't mean lack of knowledge, but their presence is at least some signal. Your story is a stronger signal, that's why I asked about credentials or personal experience.
What you wrote above puts what you say in perspective; because it adds qualifications to the statements that you make (i.e. that yes, you are not taking things out of thin air). Without your story, it's not possible to evaluate where you're coming from, and how to take what you say.
Thank you for sharing your story, and sorry that the journey has not been easy. I'm glad and thankful that you made it through to this day.
That said, I respectfully and strongly disagree with your assessment "this os why depressed people suffer". Perhaps it's cultural, but I'm from Eastern Europe, and happiness was never supposed to be the default; the culture is rooted in misery and suffering.
The cult of happiness seems to be a Western thing, resulting in a culture of toxic positivity which is definitely not conducive to mental health. The Eastern culture of never-happiness isn't healthy either, but "the truth that depression reveals" is just the narrative of that culture — and it's just as false, and, furthermore, easily accepted.
The entirety of the Russian-speaking population of former USSR starts off on the assumption that things suck and will suck forever, and do not conclude that there's nothing to live for because of that. That can't be the why.
When I was at a conference in Belgium, a Polish person in the group asked me when we were coming back from a day trip to Liege: "Why are you smiling?". See, unless there's a good reason, a an outward expression of positive emotions sticks out as odd. Things are supposed to be grim.
And yet neither it is depression, nor a cause of suffering.
I'm also Jewish, and again, suffering and persecution is a part for the culture. My birth certificate says "Jew" (yay USSR keeping tabs on who's who!), so I have a very formal reminder of being a target for those who still look for them (as Pittsburgh has shown). My father's father went through the War being a target in much more direct way.
So there was no "truth" that depression has revealed to me. If the horrendous life experiences you went through have helped you get rid of the rose-tinted glasses, well, it's not the worst side-effect. If losing them was painful, you can thank the culture for that (go figure: telling children early on that they can do anything and always succeed and be happy if they try hard enough creates some highly unreasonable expectations both internally and externally).
That pain is not why people with depression suffer. That pain is why people affected by the cult of toxic positivity (aka "live, laugh, love") suffer. It just adds extra work and pain on top of dealing with depression.
And yet, going through these realizations is neither the cause of depression, nor the fundamental reason of suffering.
Because through all the pain and suffering, a healthy mind still sees finds something to live for, and a depressed mind does not.
And while it's natural to not be sure what it is, the dead-sure confidence that there is nothing worth living for that depression gives is not "truth" in any way.
If only because that's making a call about the future (i.e. that nothing going forward would be worthwhile in retrospect), but nobody can tell future for certain.
Externalizing depression as an entity that's not speaking truthfully is a way to start pulling yourself out of it.
You have enough resources to evaluate the above by reaching back into what you learned in psychology classes. My experience with depression has been personal — by being depressed for years, and then being in and out of depression. My understanding has been corroborated by experiences of my friends, people who talk about depression online, popular psychology, experience with therapists and coaches, and numerous bloggers and book authors who write about depression (Allie Brosh, if I had to name just one).
And the consensus is universal: depression lies.
PS: depression tells me that everyone hates me and that I'm worthless when I forget to eat and sleep, and suddenly it seems to not be the case after I eat and sleep. Any "truth" about the external world that depends on how full my stomach is, well, isn't truth at all, and it would be foolish to accept it as such.
> Lack of credentials doesn't mean lack of knowledge, but their presence is at least some signal.
Why not just hear what I say on the merits? Think about it on your own?
>the culture is rooted in misery and suffering.
Misery and suffering are NOT a diagnosis for clinical depression. Psychologists take culture into account when diagnosing depression.
> And the consensus is universal: depression lies.
No, depression tells the truths no on wants to hear. The truth is that is ok to be worthless. Do you get that? That is what the therapists I had taught me. And it relieves the pressure of my mood disorder. I have dismantled the cultural imagined hierarchy of worth that existed in my head.
>That pain is not why people with depression suffer.
I would say pain is the only reason why anyone suffers.
>Externalizing depression as an entity that's not speaking truthfully is a way to start pulling yourself out of it.
Please, I have tried it, it does not last. Sadnees is the ego fighting against the truth of our worthlessness. Once you accept that you are worthless and are ok with it, what is there to be sad about?
I'll stop there because this is what the problem is with the whole thread. No one understands the clinical definition of depression and they keep conflating sadness with depression.
Yes, 'normal' people see the world through a pink veil, built by the 'drugs' that their body produces. Most depression treatments seek to artificially provide those drugs.
"People never like to hear they are controlled by chemicals since it makes trash of the notion of free will"
I do not think so, because the system of chemicals and electromagnetic fields that makes us us, are likely indefinitely complex.
"I" am the sum of it. And I can freely decide in that moment now, no matter that the "decision" can also be desribed as countless chemical and physical reactions (and that you can influence that).
I saw a piece of research saying that it is true, that depressed people see outcomes more realistically, while non-depressed people are in a state of constant self-delusion where they convince themselves things are better than they are
The corollary is that most people confuse realism and rational thinking for pessimism.
People that don't know me will initially assume that I'm the negative one on the team. A year later I'm the one dragging the others across the finish line, telling them that it's not that bad, even though my predictions did come true, right on schedule.
I was just being accurate, and a successful outcome despite predicted failures along the way is a pretty good result, even if it seemed negative to naively a optimistic person.
We foresaw the traps, stumbled, and yet we overcame! What's not positive about that?
As someone who fills a similar role on my team, I've learned to be careful about my tone and to pick my battles (and I'm still far from perfect). Of course, bottling up the frustration of knowing about the oncoming train wreck is its own challenge, which I'd certainly appreciate ideas on.
"Pessimists, on average, are probably smarter than optimists. They're also poorer."
Given the complexity of the universe, it pays to be self-deluded...you may experience more failure than the pessimist, but you will most likely benefit from a completely chance encounter that works out positively, when the pessimist will have written off the outcome and lost out on chance.
Not really. Self-delusion is so-called "soldier mindset" while realistic evaluation is the "scout mindset". You can be pessimistic or optimistic in both cases, they are orthogonal. I recommend a book by Julia Galef with the same name [1].
The optimist that experiences more failure has the chance to learn from failure, and eventually succeed either because of that experience or because they have run out of ways to fail.
Both optimism and pessimism can be healthy or self-destructive, but on average it's probably easier to have healthy optimism than to have healthy pessimism.
Some study said we try to avoid losses 2.5 times more than we value gains.
If these traits were balanced, then we could be better prepared for the modern world.
At the same time, it can be argued this bias would provide some protection against having nothing to eat for far too long in the wilderness, which could prove fatal.
> "Pessimists, on average, are probably smarter than optimists. They're also poorer."
This is only true, I feel, under capitalism.
Pessimism saves lives when you are living close to nature. Only the positive idiot does not tread lightly over a frozen lake or a bear infested forest. And they usually end up dead.
I have seen this too and my theory is that we humans are most motivated and positively engaged when we see an augmented reality of wonderful possibilities "overlaid" on top of the world. We aren't great at distinguishing the possibilities from what's real, so the overlay leads to a mild distortion of perception. But on balance, it's healthier for you to have the overlay.
I think I saw the same research, but that was more about seeing how bad things are going globally, right? Bet that trend breaks down when it comes to evaluating the quality of your own life.
My experience suggests to me that there is a strong perceptual component to depression: It is a sort of blinkering of the internal eye.
The world does not literally become black and white, but nothing in the world is capable of engaging the mind enough to elicit even the briefest saccade and fixation upon it. Attention must be forced upon objects in the world, laboriously and painfully, and the entire perceptual experience is dull and muted, as if the internal emotional pain has become so overwhelming that it has cast a grey fog over the landscape.
The symptoms are profoundly physical; physiological in nature. It is without doubt a disease of the physical body; albeit one which often seems driven by a fractured and injured psyche throwing out discordant, disordered and malign thoughts.
Recovery from depression feels like waking up. The blinkers withdraw, and the world expands, becoming larger, richer and more engaging. The brilliant yellow of a flower is quantitatively still the same, yet draws the eye and becomes an occasion for delight whereas before there would have been nothing.
This experience makes the most sense for me when I consider perception as an active process. Information does not simply fall into the eyes to be passively consumed. Our perceptual experience is a dynamic thing - a continual act of the imagination, only just held in check by our senses. Depression distorts and undermines that part of our imagination which we use to see the world.
> Depressed people often say it involves a fundamental shift, like entering a different ‘world’ – a world detached from ordinary reality and other people. Depression seems to be a more totalising kind of experience than some others. Perhaps it is even a distinct state of consciousness, and can, in turn, reveal something about the nature of consciousness itself.
If depression wasn't seen with a negative valence then its prevalence in contemporary society would be much more obvious. Most people, at least the ones that can't afford to live close to green spaces, are far removed from nature and surrounded by mostly artificial constructions. There is research that indicates this is generally not good for mental health and is probably a causal factor for the rise in mental illnesses and associated over-medication in dealing with low moods and anxiety. [1]
The other issue is the following:
> Seeing depression along with other altered global states of consciousness is a theoretical rather than a clinical shift – but it could make a difference to how we treat depression further along the line. In particular, the idea can shed light on the success of psychedelic psychiatry, a recent and growing research field, which looks to treat various mental disorders with psychedelics such as ketamine, mescaline and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms).
It's great we can give people drugs to reduce their suffering but this doesn't address the systemic and environmental issues that force people to seek the medication in the first place. There is a clear signal that even though the human built environment has reduced much physical suffering it has nonetheless also had several unintended consequences like increased incidence of various psychopathologies.
Like most articles about "consciousness", they're going to have to define consciousness more precisely.
> Neuroscientists and philosophers of consciousness have recently coined a new term – the global state of consciousness – to describe the structural properties of experience that varies between ordinary wakefulness, dreaming, the psychedelic state and the minimally conscious state. These states are called ‘global’ because the whole of conscious experience is altered, not just a particular element.
Well, which is it; consciousness that's altered, or conscious experience? It would seem that a change in conscious experience doesn't necessarily make any difference to consciousness itself - i.e. consciousness isn't altered by the experiences and sensations it's observing and conscious of, it's a buffer in which sensations are known and experienced.
As someone who previously wrestled with depression, dabbled in psychedelics, and has a long-term insight meditation practice, it doesn't matter whether I was severely depressed or tripping balls, my consciousness of those experiences remained the same. That's actually one of the insights that psychedelics quickly revealed. Experience comes and goes, and consciousness itself doesn't seem to be coloured by it.
If the headline said that "depression is a change in mental states and perceptions", well that's obvious, we've known that for probably centuries. Throw the "consciousness" buzzword in and ooh, it's exciting now! But kind of meaningless imo. I don't really see how the article differentiates between "consciousness" and "mental states and perceptions".
Here is a definition of consciousness by world-renown Indian yogi, goes quite a bit deeper than what science can understand: https://youtu.be/w7irEcQHChw?t=410
While I don't think anything in the linked article is wrong per se, it's a very brief look at a complicated and interesting topic. I'm slowly working my way through Ratcliffe's Experiences of Depression (mentioned in the article), which is basically "the" volume on this topic. It's a highly technical book (surprisingly so given the wide variety of people I've seen talking about it), so be prepared for a lot of psych jargon, but it's rewarding if you want to take a deeper dive into how depression feels than you get through reading the dry definitions in the DSM and similar resources. It probably helps with comprehension to have had depressive experiences yourself and possibly even more to have experienced a wide variety of conscious states (through psychotropic medication, psychedelics, other mental illnesses, shocking life experiences or otherwise).
I'd say the book is so important that I wish the author would write a book on the same topic but in simpler language (popsci-esque, except less superficial than the typical popsci book) that could be read by a wider audience than Experiences of Depression. I think a lot of people have severe difficulties understanding depressed friends or family because the nuances of the experience of a depressed person are so difficult to convey in words. Such a book could help bridge the gap.
I'm suspicious of any "mood" discussion that isn't based on brain chemicals and the different receptor sites in the brain. Concepts like "consciousness" are unscientific, subjective and open to such a wide range of interpretations as to be at best useless or worse, damaging to people's perception of their condition and/or progress. How do I know if I'm conscious or at the right level of consciousness or too conscious? One finds the same sort of discussion in religion.
Brain chemicals and receptors are real. Brain chemicals and receptors are real
Given that everything we experience in this life is through our consciousness, equating depression to a shift in consciousness isn't heavy lifting. This is an association where I would like to see some hard science backing the link between our conscious experience and the underlying function of our wetware, the brain.
As far as subjective experience, I've witnessed myself slowly slip into a depression toward the end of a relationship I knew wasn't going to pan out. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but I slowly remembered sex becoming less enjoyable with my ex, the pull of my hobbies less exciting and rewarding, my global outlook on life and the vibrancy of my future becoming more dim and... depressing. This was anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. I felt like I was wading through a dark cloud. The ability to smile organically through enjoyable interactions and activities all but disappeared, or at the very least, felt forced and somewhat "empty", like I was a poor actor. I had to give a best man's speech around this time and was shocked to hear how monotone my voice had been while delivering the speech.
Throughout all of this, I more or less kept the same routines. I was spending more time alone but still managed to schedule time with friends, I kept working out, and never slipped into a dark hole.. but I'm not ashamed to say I wasn't able to solve it alone, in fact the shift was so subtle that by the time I had become aware of what conscious state had become, I was dismayed to find that I was already doing what most people recommend to get out of a depression - stay active, spend time with friends and family, spend time in nature, exercise, etc. Which leads me to what ended up working... therapy.
I can't say I've had any major trauma's in my life aside from losing my father as a teenager, but talking over my life with a therapist helped me come across some events that triggered me emotionally to revisit, and over several weeks I started to feel the cloud of anhedonia lifting and started to enjoy life as it appeared to me again. The major conclusion being the functioning of the subconscious mind on our conscious experience plays more of a role than I expected.
YMMV, but if you are experiencing depression, consider therapy.. this is coming from someone who was already experienced in the trendiest news grabbing headlines for treating depression before I realized I had become depressed, including meditation and psychedelics.
In Ayurveda (comes from hindu sages, invented yoga etc) they say that some forms of depression come from the gut brain axis. THere are 3 types of body type and eating the wrong foods for each body type can make your mind inbalanced. Whilst in comparision western nutrionists/dieticians say have a balanced diet, Ayurveda says eat foods depending on your body type its not as simple as calories, protein, carbs. It depends on the food itself.
I think there is something to be said about modern food recommandations. It seems that some people think that we will find at some point find an "ultimate diet" that will work for everyone in the world. But that's probably not true. Some people react very well to keto, others not well at all. Some people are fine with high carbs diet, others are not. We're all different in some ways, and there is value in exploring how your body reacts to different types of food.
Why are these Asian pseudo scientific ideas so tolerated here? I wouldn't expect people being on board when some 3000 year old earth Christians start talking about how your body reacts through the lens of some old judoeo Christian values.
I think the reality is closer to different dysbiotic states can cause depression. Depending on the the specific dysbiosis, the interventions will be different.
I'm sure you could - but if you went about it scientifically there would easily be thousands (not just the 3 in Ayurveda). That being said, I do think Ayurveda is mostly about manipulating the microbiome, and I think there are probably real nuggets of truth in its approaches. For example the use of Triphala to improve motility will help in numerous dysbiotic states.
Agree (in terms of the kind of formal evidence I imagine you would accept). However it doesn't need to be "true" in any objective sense, to provide relief or improve wellbeing.
Is an interesting thought, would love to see clinical trials of various spiritual and traditional medicine practices.
The combo of say, CBT and (dubiously effective) antidepressants doesn't seem wildly different, except traditional practices are often better "socially integrated" and have less stigma.
Someone should conduct those researches, the thing is people who do it and who benefit from it they don't need any proof, any acceptance from others or anything like that.
I like the global state of mind idea, however, I feel that it isn't purely due to this state - I think the depressive state is something that comes around due to lots of other factors such as your life, your health, your physical brain composition. So it's almost like, if your environment and health are bad your consciousness will be more "magnetised" towards a global depressive state, and whilst psychedelics may help awaken you, you'll be more likely to slip back into it in time without fixing other stuff.
Psychedelics may be a temporary cure to crushing hopelessness, a kick in the mental butt, but for a one that is long lasting you have to have things to be genuinely hopeful about.
Depression I think is a complex, multi-dimensional issue that has to be solved by giving yourself the best chance across the board - sorting out health, sorting out meaning and purpose, sorting out social and support networks, and once those things are in place, taking your shot at it on a brain chemistry and consciousness-altering level with something like psiloscibin etc.
Psychedelics can also be harmful for mental health. They tend to create flexibility in terms of thinking about things in new ways - and that can include self harm as well. As in, making it seem easier or more enticing or less of a big deal to end one's life.
The way I understand it, depression is a disease like the flu, or whatever thing that made you feel like shit.
With the flu, you can't just wish the virus away, and you will feel like shit until your immune system and whatever treatment you received has done its job and your body has recovered. I tend to think it is the same with depression, your lungs may not be under attack, but you are still sick and it has to be treated like a real disease, possibly with medication. And I wouldn't be surprised if many depressions could be explained by conventional pathogens like viruses and bacteria.
There's a great video from a professor at Stanford, Robert Sapolsky, about depression, where he dives into the biological and psychological aspect of depression. [1]
> If I had to define major depression in one sentence, I would say, it’s a lot biochemical disorder with a genetic component, and early experience influences, where somebody can’t appreciate sunsets. And that’s what this disease is about.
What Sapolsky was talking about was correct, but the fundamental driver seems to be oxidative stress imbalance. And the genetics part might be highly associated with the mitochondria:
Thinking about the world and why we are here is exhausting.
I'm happy for everyone who either believe in a god and just accept this as it is or accepted that we just don't know and continue there life's as is.
For me I do struggle with all the implications that we just don't know, life in a rock and fly through an empty universe.
Living in a time we're out imagination is so good (scifi movies) and living in a totally 'boring' world in comparison, makes it even harder.
When thinking through all of this it's even getting more frustrating as I sometimes think we could ourselves make our all life's so much more comfortable by just thinking on the same plane but we don't. We still have wars different worldviews and rules. Homosexual people still get hangt in some countries, obesity is a real issue and cutting female parts is also still a thing.
And I'm already in theory in a very very comfortable position.
And I even hate that. I don't want others to work from mo-sa 10h for my shoes while I don't even wanna work 40h in my well paid job.
I have always had minor depressive tendencies, and living near the arctic circle has not done me any favours (mainly due to seasonal affective disorder) during the long dark winters.
However there are psilocybin containing mushrooms (liberty caps I believe they are called) growing wild here, and so I've had the opportunity to try these on a few occasions.
And the effects did wonders for me. There were never any hallucinations only mild bodily effects (felt mild pressure on my skin, similar to being submerged in water) and then this feeling of "one-ness" with everyone there. I guess that was my eco reducing or going.
After having experienced this around 4 times with many months inbetween I can say it had an immense lasting effect on me.
I am more open, relaxed and sensative. My mind feels free. But not without worry. Just better than before.
There's a new musician, Reggie, who is remarkably talented and deals with mental health in his music. Most of his five songs come from the perspective of overcoming his issues/environment/demons, but I Don't Want to Feel No More is similar in theme to Heroin by the Velvet Underground. Anyway, his attention to detail - lyrically and musically - makes for very relatable, enjoyable experiences, and if you're going through it, I could def see it helping.
NOTE: I have Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder, Aspergers, hospitalized five times, with three suicide attempts. This will sound ranty because, uhm, I am in a different state of consciousness. I also consider myself a Shaman by heritage, not by choice, my mother's lineage comes from the Sami people.
I hate these articles. Why? Because first, they make money off of my lived experience while I am forced to live in a van on disability. There should be a law that if you write about a group of suffering people a portion of the profit should go to the group you are writing about. But these articles do nothing to help people like me. And please do not tell me they increase sympathy because my situation has only gotten worse over the last 15 years, before getting better on my own accord, and I have read countless of these articles. What would help these other lost shaman is housing to lower our stress so we do not have to keep taking trips into these other consciousnesses that no one cares about. But oh well.
Second, why just talk about depression? Why not mania, or being drunk, on ecstasy, drinking coffee, or being on meth? They all change your consciousness. What world or realm you perceive is based on what genetics, diet, pollution, stress, drugs, etc to which you are exposed. But for some reason everyone loves depression, it is the most romantic and safest of the mood disorders.
Third, the reason mushrooms work is the same reason prozac, lamictal, or lithium work. It changes the neuro-chemistry of the brain. Psilocybin is an extremely potent serotonin 2a (HTR2A) receptor agonist. It has nothing to do with your experience from the trip, that is all just a romanticized notion lefty over from the 60s. The "trip" is just a side effect. These same receptors casue pain disorders and the are researching Psilocybin for pain as well.
When I was younger I tripped without using mushrooms, certainly more when I was manic. Why? Genetics. I know, I have my genetics, it's all there.
Fourth, this is not a revelation to anyone who has spent time with the disorder and dabbled in any eastern religion. The consciousness we share is based on a delicate balance of a somewhat similar functioning brains. Even slight deviations of that and our consciousness is split from crowd, even from your closest partner. When I became as serious mediator under the Theravada branch of Buddhism it was very easy for me to trip while meditating. The studies that have been done on mediators found they had an increase amount of the metabolites of serotonin.
Finally, the people who described depression were right on. Our change unconsciousness allows us to see the different worlds that lay outside the realm of the common consciousness. So maybe instead of making us poor and saying we have a disorder, how about return us to our correct place in the social structure as spiritual seers and shaman. Instead of being scared of us or tryingt o fix us, listen to the stories we have to tell about what surrounds all of you but none of you can see. There is plenty to be depressed about that you all do not see becasue of all the coffee and alcohol.
As a shaman, I will tell you, Psilocybin is not the answer for people with depression. The answer for depression would entail changing the entire socio-economic structure. All Psilocybin will do is MAYBE help you see that truth, but usually it is just a vacation from your current consciousness. The answer to depression is welcoming it and listening to it. (Yes, this is hard because our culture does not care if you have a change in consciousness. You will lose you job and become homeless. But do you think it is a coincidence that Buddha, Jesus, and St. Francis all talked about being homeless?)
I no longer take medications to control my changes in consciousness (Well, sometimes klonopin) and I mostly welcome my homelessness. But now I just let these changes happen, they tell me stories of what I need to do, what to fix in my life, and what should be fixed in others lives.
I have taken psychedelics and frankly I'd say it does feel like that, just in a non-enjoyable, "bad" way.
One makes you notice tiny details and the beauty in them, the other paints everything as grey and uninteresting, one makes you thing about the greater scope of things, the other barely lets you think much outside your circumstance. I really think it does translate.
Depression for me is mostly being disengaged, not noticing anything, not wanting to think about anything, wanting to sleep 16 hours a day, feeling only low or neutral valence thoughts.
"State of consciousness" is a technical term that describes a mode of your experience. Sleep is a state of consciousness. That trance-like hyperfocussed flow experience is a state of consciousness. You can induce a state of consciousness by meditation. Depression may just be a state of consciousness.
States of consciousness can usually be measured and distinguished from each other with standard brain-scanning methods.
Not all shift in these states need to be as flashy as a LSD trip. In fact, very few are.
Lot of behavioral claptrap in the comments here. Depression is a disorder of neurochemistry. It has physical causes.
Yes our current toolset to fix the malfunctioning system is limited but we are not limited to shaking the case. Behavioral interventions are external, indirect, poorly targeted and broad spectrum. Really turn-it-off-and-turn-it-back-on-again thinking.
Instead of bringing in further poorly defined ideas like consciousness, let's keep the conversation focused on 1. Direct physical interventions and their methods of action and 2. The known limitations of the above.
E.g. If the below effect of psilocybin holds up the question is why?! It too is poorly targeted and broad spectrum. Is this down regulating a dopamine reuptake pathway, or is it upregulating some countervailing transmitter?
“Depression” isn’t one disorder it is a convenient diagnoses for a cluster of symptoms with many underlying causes.
Don’t lean too hard on a dichotomy between what is just “chemistry” and what is not. Do not lean too hard on neurotransmitters, they are sold to the public as one dimensional “serotonin does X, dopamine does Y”.
Your brain is more or less the most complicated feedback system in the universe. Depression is a high level dysfunction of this system, it doesn’t have a simple cure like turning up the thermostat on one variable.
Behavioral interventions are physical interventions. What isn’t reasonable is expecting a “do this it’s good for you” solution, regardless of what that solution is.
Usually the solution is many things, and it will take a very long time to understand them well unless you want to volunteer for experimental brain surgery.
If there was neurochemistry that was uniquely and consistently associated with depression it still would not follow that "direct physical intervention" is the best treatment approach. Lifestyle modifications and behavioral interventions also change the brain. It is standard to combine both approaches.
No one really disagrees that depression has physical causes. What other causes are there? I am guessing you are not a Cartesian dualist.
If I am not unaware of some brand new research, the cause of depression is still either unknown or multi-factorial, depending on how cynical you want to be. The Wikipedia section on this reflects this:
"The biopsychosocial model proposes that biological, psychological, and social factors all play a role in causing depression.[5][28] The diathesis–stress model specifies that depression results when a preexisting vulnerability, or diathesis, is activated by stressful life events. [...]" [0]
Similarly, Cognitive Behavioral therapy which, well, focuses on behavioral interventions and has had astonishing successes with medium as well as major depression, often on par or exceeding drug therapy - and absolutely shining in combination with drug therapy.
As I said, I might be out of date on my information, but IMO depression is a bit too important too take weirdly partisan stances like "external treatment is claptrap" just because...
It's a bit like getting further and further out of shape that way, because of the changes of thought patterns and self-image and socialization patterns etc - the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut.
(And yet, just like that example, you can always start where you are at, and sometimes even a bit of change can be more dramatic and exhilarating than you think it would be - perhaps walking up the stairs without getting winded feels like a huge victory, if you aren't focused on how long it will be until you run that marathon)
In my own experience, and in working with people with severe depression, I have found two things to be almost universal. One is that the pathway out involves better noticing of small shifts in consciousness in the present moment - depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on.
The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world.