On depression
Mar. 3rd, 2022 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marginnotesVioletcabra writes about depression as one of the stages of the grieving process, where, "processing depression leads directly to the final stage of acceptance." In this context, depression looks like a painful but ultimately healthy reaction to a difficult situation. The depressed person moves through the darkness to a better state.
In a previous post, though, the depressive state does not seem to lead anywhere. A "useful delusion" of metaphysics puts the depression in context and makes it endurable.
Depression is a word, associated with emotional states, maybe not the same states for each depressed person. Theories about depression exist, and they are also codified in words. So here's a small theory from someone who regularly lives through depressive episodes: There are emotional states that can lead to depression. For those who fall into depression often, these emotional states combine with reactions that amplify the raw feelings into a melancholic mood and corrosive mental haze. The amplification can be reinforced through body language, self-talk and half-formed negative slogan-like thoughts, fairly rational extrapolations from the initial emotional states, the sense that these emotional states are more real than others. The sense that other states are deluded and escapist.
It's difficult to describe the emotional states faithfully. Feeling the raw horror of existence is melodramatic, already heading towards amplification. A dull negativity is maybe closer to the mark. The opposite of love seems too abstract. (Hate is too passionate to be the opposite of love.)
Depressed people can still do quite a bit. Books have been written about Abraham Lincoln's melancholy, which he endured through the US Civil War, when he presided over the fight to impose a northern vision of the country on the southern leadership (and their subjects) who wanted out.
You might not even realize that a depressed person is suffering. Years ago when in high school preparing a play, probably Harvey, one of the players went home after practice one day and shot himself in the head with his Dad's shotgun. Not long before his suicide he was sneaking a cigarette in the makeup room, chatting with other players. He was never buoyant, but neither was he ostensibly overwhelmed.
Healers see depression as something to treat or at least to manage. The depressed may see it as a state to endure or to escape. (Depending on your metaphysical assumptions, suicide might look like it will resolve the problem, or it might not.)
It's possible that depression is a challenge. Can you overcome this disability in your weakened condition without turning away from reality?
Or perhaps it is "a grinding torture" to be experienced for no particular reason, a sort of flip side to feeling good. By random distribution, some get more grinding torture and some get more feeling good.
In a previous post, though, the depressive state does not seem to lead anywhere. A "useful delusion" of metaphysics puts the depression in context and makes it endurable.
Depression is a word, associated with emotional states, maybe not the same states for each depressed person. Theories about depression exist, and they are also codified in words. So here's a small theory from someone who regularly lives through depressive episodes: There are emotional states that can lead to depression. For those who fall into depression often, these emotional states combine with reactions that amplify the raw feelings into a melancholic mood and corrosive mental haze. The amplification can be reinforced through body language, self-talk and half-formed negative slogan-like thoughts, fairly rational extrapolations from the initial emotional states, the sense that these emotional states are more real than others. The sense that other states are deluded and escapist.
It's difficult to describe the emotional states faithfully. Feeling the raw horror of existence is melodramatic, already heading towards amplification. A dull negativity is maybe closer to the mark. The opposite of love seems too abstract. (Hate is too passionate to be the opposite of love.)
Depressed people can still do quite a bit. Books have been written about Abraham Lincoln's melancholy, which he endured through the US Civil War, when he presided over the fight to impose a northern vision of the country on the southern leadership (and their subjects) who wanted out.
You might not even realize that a depressed person is suffering. Years ago when in high school preparing a play, probably Harvey, one of the players went home after practice one day and shot himself in the head with his Dad's shotgun. Not long before his suicide he was sneaking a cigarette in the makeup room, chatting with other players. He was never buoyant, but neither was he ostensibly overwhelmed.
Healers see depression as something to treat or at least to manage. The depressed may see it as a state to endure or to escape. (Depending on your metaphysical assumptions, suicide might look like it will resolve the problem, or it might not.)
It's possible that depression is a challenge. Can you overcome this disability in your weakened condition without turning away from reality?
Or perhaps it is "a grinding torture" to be experienced for no particular reason, a sort of flip side to feeling good. By random distribution, some get more grinding torture and some get more feeling good.
