This is what those who have never experienced genuine depression will never understand. Everything can be going perfectly in your life, but you still can’t find the energy to bring color back into your world no matter what you do. The overwhelming numbness just eats away at you, and you withdraw even further. Some of us may even turn to substances to just feel SOMETHING, regardless of how fleeting the escape may be, and how much worse we know we’ll feel afterwards. You are unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the future is bleak, and you will die alone in a world that doesn’t give a fuck, so what’s the point?
So you finally find the courage to confide in somebody, and they tell you that you just need to “get past it, think positive!” and that they also “get depressed too”… and the worst part is, you are unable to describe to them in any way how it truly feels, because they’ve genuinely never felt it themselves, so now you worry that you’re just coming across as dramatic, furthering the desire to withdraw and keep your thoughts to yourself.
I’m currently going through a depressed period, if it isn’t obvious. I’ll be okay in another week, but it’s fucking horrible, and I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.
What I hated most about my depression is it would take anything that happened and make it terrible. I got a promotion? Great, more work to do. My wife cooked my favorite meal? Great, now there’s a ton of dishes to do. I’m gonna take a break and play a game? I’ll probably lose, why bother playing.
And this fatalism morphed into anxiety that made it so I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I’d lay there paralyzed with fear about failing at everything that day, to the point where I’d set my alarm to go off early just so I could have time to have a panic attack.
One thing that helped me a lot was to give that little voice a name, and then tell it to fuck off every time it spoke up.
another good trick is to give the voice a stupid cartoonish voice: make it say things like goofy… it disarms it if it sounds ridiculous
(also works for intrusive thoughts about yourself: they’re late because they don’t want to spend time with me, they say they like my thing but they sounded sarcastic, etc)
it’s not a different voice to start with: i hear it as… my inner monologue i guess?… sometimes not even a voice exactly; it’s just a feeling… but if you repeat it, or put the feeling into a voice and say it in a ridiculous way then that, for me, overrides the original feeling
maybe it’s acknowledging it exists, thinking about it, and then turning it ridiculous makes you consciously put it into a “fuck you that feeling is false” category… i’m not really sure beyond here :p
I would go as far as to argue that if your life sucks and you aren’t happy about it that probably isn’t mental illness. That’s just having a shit life, and is a healthy response to your shit circumstances.
Not to say that can’t cause depression, of course. But just being unhappy about your shit life is not in of itself depression.
I had even more than him, and I was suicidally depressed at one point.
It’s literally your brain being broken. What’s happening outside doesn’t really matter.
This is what those who have never experienced genuine depression will never understand. Everything can be going perfectly in your life, but you still can’t find the energy to bring color back into your world no matter what you do. The overwhelming numbness just eats away at you, and you withdraw even further. Some of us may even turn to substances to just feel SOMETHING, regardless of how fleeting the escape may be, and how much worse we know we’ll feel afterwards. You are unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the future is bleak, and you will die alone in a world that doesn’t give a fuck, so what’s the point?
So you finally find the courage to confide in somebody, and they tell you that you just need to “get past it, think positive!” and that they also “get depressed too”… and the worst part is, you are unable to describe to them in any way how it truly feels, because they’ve genuinely never felt it themselves, so now you worry that you’re just coming across as dramatic, furthering the desire to withdraw and keep your thoughts to yourself.
I’m currently going through a depressed period, if it isn’t obvious. I’ll be okay in another week, but it’s fucking horrible, and I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.
What I hated most about my depression is it would take anything that happened and make it terrible. I got a promotion? Great, more work to do. My wife cooked my favorite meal? Great, now there’s a ton of dishes to do. I’m gonna take a break and play a game? I’ll probably lose, why bother playing.
And this fatalism morphed into anxiety that made it so I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I’d lay there paralyzed with fear about failing at everything that day, to the point where I’d set my alarm to go off early just so I could have time to have a panic attack.
One thing that helped me a lot was to give that little voice a name, and then tell it to fuck off every time it spoke up.
another good trick is to give the voice a stupid cartoonish voice: make it say things like goofy… it disarms it if it sounds ridiculous
(also works for intrusive thoughts about yourself: they’re late because they don’t want to spend time with me, they say they like my thing but they sounded sarcastic, etc)
Ooo, that’s a good one! Like “yoUr cowoRKeRs DOn’t ACTUALLy LIke YOU” or “yoU’Re GONNA gO BrOKE anD LIVe On tHe STrEET.”
Gawrsh, my buddy Donald has better luck working than you do! Guess you’re gonna keep being nothing! A-hyuck!
…actually yeah. This is helping. I’ll keep this in my back pocket.
So question: does it feel like another voice to you? For me I just feel like I’m talking to myself, or no voice at all, just first-person thoughts.
Is part of the work kinda externalizing that part of you, and giving it a voice?
it’s not a different voice to start with: i hear it as… my inner monologue i guess?… sometimes not even a voice exactly; it’s just a feeling… but if you repeat it, or put the feeling into a voice and say it in a ridiculous way then that, for me, overrides the original feeling
maybe it’s acknowledging it exists, thinking about it, and then turning it ridiculous makes you consciously put it into a “fuck you that feeling is false” category… i’m not really sure beyond here :p
Thank you, that is a helpful exercise. I’m going to try that
It’s a classic incel viewpoint.
“Girls talk to you because you talk to them! Don’t give me some bullshit it about being depressed!”
I would go as far as to argue that if your life sucks and you aren’t happy about it that probably isn’t mental illness. That’s just having a shit life, and is a healthy response to your shit circumstances.
Not to say that can’t cause depression, of course. But just being unhappy about your shit life is not in of itself depression.
EXACTLY. These people think sadness = depression. Unhappiness is depression.
Depression is depression. It can happen to anyone. Even those with seemingly plenty of goodness in their lives.