Interesting! Thanks for sharing. What you describe as inertia sounds more like apathy to me than depression. But rather than a comfortable pillow which resists attempts to move it, it feels more like there’s nobody home in my body. I say “Move” but there’s nobody to hear, nobody to care. There’s no feelings, just the last bit of rational thought going “huh, that weird, something seems to have broken.”
Right now I’m feeling that “meh” at everything, just barely excluding the things that I need to stay alive. So by your description, I’m currently depressed, but my mood is strangely alright.
Depression to me changes my worldview entirely. Reality gains substance, it feels much more real, less superficial. The world becomes much larger, more serious and heavy. It feels cold, lonely and dark, even around people, in warm places, and with my face right next to a 1500 lumen LED light. I’m fairly sure that my vision actually loses some of its color, and even strong people seem pitiful and weak. Another interesting note is that my ‘territory’ shrinks. My environment, even my own things, become hostile and unfamilar, rather than tools which are mine to manipulate for the sake of my goals. I don’t feel sad when I’m in apathy, but I feel terrible when I’m just depressed. Just awful. At times I’d have a “good day” and only score mild to medium on the depression scale, and feel like that level of negative emotion wasn’t even worth mentioning. It’s like going from passing a kidney stone to having a mild headache.
Anxiety feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, or like there’s a sword hanging in a hair above my head. There’s a sense of impending doom, confusion, and the feeling that I’m forgetting something important. And everything feels fragile, I get this sense that everything is decaying right before me, that it can break at any moment, that everything is scarce, rare, limited.
I like depression more than anxiety, until the depression gets bad enough, anyway. I think the two blend together at some point. When I’m a bit depressed I might casually think about suicide, but when I’m even more depressed, the idea of suicide becomes extremely scary. It suddenly becomes all too real. Like I’m forcibly immersed/grounded in a nightmare or psychological horror. But the worst of them all for me is apathy. It’s worse than suffering. I have very little respect for nihilistic philosophies.
By the way, in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra he talks about “the spirit of gravity” and about how you kill it with laughter. When he says “I could only believe in a god who could dance”, what he means is a god who is light on the feet, i.e. “above” that gravity. The book feels a bit like it was written by somebody with mood swings, moving between depression and hypomania. From “Forgive me my sadness!”, forgive me that evening came!” to “Now a god dances through me”.
That’s a fascinating description of your own state, and I hope you’re working through it with your own resources.
For the post I was focusing more on a behaviorist approach to depression and anxiety, explaining what the resulting state/actions were by metaphor of how it felt internally, but I do also get the low mood and the feeling that everything is terrible.
I think I also get the ‘lose the ability to perceive gradations of color’ thing, which I think Scott’s talked about before.
(I also had a nihilistic phase I grew out of. There’s only so much ‘depressed French people complaining’ I can take!)
Thank you! Yes, I am. I’ve grown bored of suffering, and the victim mentality has lost its appeal. At this point, even being negative is difficult for me. I’d have to put effort into taking myself seriously.
But it’s a balance. Being humble and allowing oneself to be small is also important as it increases the felt weight of the world. So I should allow myself to be “just human”, i.e. a little weak. If I don’t allow myself to be weak I won’t be able to cry, and I won’t be able to feel other peoples sympathy since I can’t take it to heart. This is similar to being unable to feel other peoples compliments, which is the case when the standards you hold youself to are too high. Many people recommend stoicism or “not giving a fuck” to combat depression, I just want to warn against that. It’s better to have courage (the ability to face ones fears) than it is to get rid of the fear. If “fear > courage” one should flip the inequality instead of destroying the entire equation by reducing both sides to 0 (nihilism).
The correct alchemy here is “negative → positive” not “negative → nothingness”. Reducing yourself to rubble leaves a lot of rebuilding work (nihilism → meaning)
Speaking of which, I have a friend who doesn’t get embarrassed, she gets angry instead. I think there’s a layer of responses. If she had not allowed herself to be angry, she’d go to the next layer, which is apathy. So the ordering goes from “receptive” to “jaded”. Somebody does something which hurts you → Brain protects you from pain, it’s converted to sadness. → The brain protects you from sadness, so it’s converted to anger. → The brain protects you from anger, so it’s converted to apathy. This picture seems quite right: https://oasisenergyhealingcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Emotional-Energy-Compass-Graphic.jpg
I guess I cope well with my issues because they tie into my hobbies so well. I’m not motivated by the idea that I will stop suffering once I improve my life, but experimenting on myself is fun, and this actually motivates me.
It’s not the bad things in life which get to you, it’s the lack of good things :) ”He who has a why can bear almost any how”. As long as good things are working out for me, I don’t think it matters very much whether I’m suffering as well. But society doesn’t think like this, so it keeps trying to reduce negative things, which also reduce good things. So the mental health of society keeps getting worse despite “things getting better”
Interesting! Thanks for sharing. What you describe as inertia sounds more like apathy to me than depression. But rather than a comfortable pillow which resists attempts to move it, it feels more like there’s nobody home in my body. I say “Move” but there’s nobody to hear, nobody to care. There’s no feelings, just the last bit of rational thought going “huh, that weird, something seems to have broken.”
Right now I’m feeling that “meh” at everything, just barely excluding the things that I need to stay alive. So by your description, I’m currently depressed, but my mood is strangely alright.
Depression to me changes my worldview entirely. Reality gains substance, it feels much more real, less superficial. The world becomes much larger, more serious and heavy. It feels cold, lonely and dark, even around people, in warm places, and with my face right next to a 1500 lumen LED light.
I’m fairly sure that my vision actually loses some of its color, and even strong people seem pitiful and weak. Another interesting note is that my ‘territory’ shrinks. My environment, even my own things, become hostile and unfamilar, rather than tools which are mine to manipulate for the sake of my goals. I don’t feel sad when I’m in apathy, but I feel terrible when I’m just depressed. Just awful. At times I’d have a “good day” and only score mild to medium on the depression scale, and feel like that level of negative emotion wasn’t even worth mentioning. It’s like going from passing a kidney stone to having a mild headache.
Anxiety feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, or like there’s a sword hanging in a hair above my head. There’s a sense of impending doom, confusion, and the feeling that I’m forgetting something important. And everything feels fragile, I get this sense that everything is decaying right before me, that it can break at any moment, that everything is scarce, rare, limited.
I like depression more than anxiety, until the depression gets bad enough, anyway. I think the two blend together at some point. When I’m a bit depressed I might casually think about suicide, but when I’m even more depressed, the idea of suicide becomes extremely scary. It suddenly becomes all too real. Like I’m forcibly immersed/grounded in a nightmare or psychological horror. But the worst of them all for me is apathy. It’s worse than suffering. I have very little respect for nihilistic philosophies.
By the way, in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra he talks about “the spirit of gravity” and about how you kill it with laughter. When he says “I could only believe in a god who could dance”, what he means is a god who is light on the feet, i.e. “above” that gravity. The book feels a bit like it was written by somebody with mood swings, moving between depression and hypomania. From “Forgive me my sadness!”, forgive me that evening came!” to “Now a god dances through me”.
That’s a fascinating description of your own state, and I hope you’re working through it with your own resources.
For the post I was focusing more on a behaviorist approach to depression and anxiety, explaining what the resulting state/actions were by metaphor of how it felt internally, but I do also get the low mood and the feeling that everything is terrible.
I think I also get the ‘lose the ability to perceive gradations of color’ thing, which I think Scott’s talked about before.
(I also had a nihilistic phase I grew out of. There’s only so much ‘depressed French people complaining’ I can take!)
Thank you! Yes, I am. I’ve grown bored of suffering, and the victim mentality has lost its appeal. At this point, even being negative is difficult for me. I’d have to put effort into taking myself seriously.
But it’s a balance. Being humble and allowing oneself to be small is also important as it increases the felt weight of the world. So I should allow myself to be “just human”, i.e. a little weak. If I don’t allow myself to be weak I won’t be able to cry, and I won’t be able to feel other peoples sympathy since I can’t take it to heart. This is similar to being unable to feel other peoples compliments, which is the case when the standards you hold youself to are too high. Many people recommend stoicism or “not giving a fuck” to combat depression, I just want to warn against that. It’s better to have courage (the ability to face ones fears) than it is to get rid of the fear. If “fear > courage” one should flip the inequality instead of destroying the entire equation by reducing both sides to 0 (nihilism).
The correct alchemy here is “negative → positive” not “negative → nothingness”. Reducing yourself to rubble leaves a lot of rebuilding work (nihilism → meaning)
Speaking of which, I have a friend who doesn’t get embarrassed, she gets angry instead. I think there’s a layer of responses. If she had not allowed herself to be angry, she’d go to the next layer, which is apathy. So the ordering goes from “receptive” to “jaded”.
Somebody does something which hurts you → Brain protects you from pain, it’s converted to sadness. → The brain protects you from sadness, so it’s converted to anger. → The brain protects you from anger, so it’s converted to apathy. This picture seems quite right: https://oasisenergyhealingcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Emotional-Energy-Compass-Graphic.jpg
I guess I cope well with my issues because they tie into my hobbies so well. I’m not motivated by the idea that I will stop suffering once I improve my life, but experimenting on myself is fun, and this actually motivates me.
It’s not the bad things in life which get to you, it’s the lack of good things :)
”He who has a why can bear almost any how”. As long as good things are working out for me, I don’t think it matters very much whether I’m suffering as well. But society doesn’t think like this, so it keeps trying to reduce negative things, which also reduce good things. So the mental health of society keeps getting worse despite “things getting better”