Depression

[Peyote&Syrup]

Anybody else deal with it? I find myself questioning a lot of things daily, but often coming up empty handed and depressed. As much as I enjoy experiencing the depths of my consciousness and the constructs of what is society, I often find myself, while not under the influence of a psychedlic, in a deep state of depression. This has been the case for quite a few years, even before I ever tried any drugs. I've come to realize it is most likely a chemical imbalance or some such biochemical nonsense, but there is also part of me that is depressed simply because the every day world is such a terrible place. Murder, war, famine, poverty, close-minded issues made worse by close-minded peoples. Also depressing is the inability to relive or remember fully the things experienced and learned while under the influence.

I don't think I'm alone here...am I?

 

[????????]

Please remember that you wouldn't be happy if you hadn't been previously sad.
Laughing would hold no meaning without crying.
It is not any of the extremes that really matters (not "evil" nor "good"), it's the relationship between them. You're thinking about their relative antagonism... but please remember that because they are perfect contraries they are in ultimate harmony. For there could be no real conflict when opposite pairs are reciprocally interdependent.

edit: if you focus in "what's wrong with the world" you suffer. If you focus in the "good things" you can be at ease. Which is better? neither. In the first you become depressed and hateful, in the second you block out things in order to achieve peace of mind (kind of like cheating). Both are counterproductive in the long run. What to do? Don't root for any, realize this conflict is necessary (above paragraph); sanity to me is being aware of this, taking the lows and the ups. Crests and troughs.

I don't want to preach, I know you could think "is easy saying all this but another thing is to feel it" and you would be right. But I've in your position and it's always silly in retrospective. You can always look things in 2 ways but neither are the true side (not even the good side) because they both make the truth.

 

[druglessdouglas]

ive suffered from depression on and off. there are a lot of things to be depressed about- the way we treat each other, the things we are doing to our only planet, personal relationship issues, our health problems.
i keep reminding myself im not starving to death. i have a home(there was a time i lived in a tent, psychotic and hungry). i can drink fresh water. comunicate with people in as diverse places as Auatralia, America and even Germany at the flick of a switch. no one is hitting me with sticks.
mind you, if you have a chemical imbalance, telling yourself all these things wont make you feel better.
there is no shame in asking your doctor for antidepressants if you need them. sometimes a chemical holiday will lift the cloud.
either way i wont give you advise. im just saying yes, i get depressed.
i hope yours lifts soon

 

[Guest]

1

 

[BrainEater]

nice replies! i agree with all of em! depression is a serious issue... especially when you feel deppressed because of the circumstances like society etc.
because you can't change those circumstances and therefore you will stay deppressed.

well actually you can change somethin but still it's sometimes frustrating and deppressing.

i can reccomend that you deal with it. ask yourself why you feel that way and then ask yourself why you should feel that way and if you come to the conclusion that it isn't of any use you can think of how you wanna feel and go for it.

i'd say a deppression points towards inner sadness or similar negative emotions and if you discover this and set it free you will probably feel better.

it isn't always easy but you can do it by the way. maybe try to focus on things you enjoy and enjoy doing them. meanwhile you can watch your thoughts and emotions and get deeper into the source of your deppression..

meditation can be useful also, but if you do things that you enjoy it might be similar to meditation with the advantage that you feel good because you enjoy what you are doing.

maybe your deppression would distract you if you meditated. but if you had practice meditating you probably could deal with it and solve your deppression issue.

peace

 

[tryptonaut]

Well, you all say you are depressed because of something, like war in the world, and other bad things. That is not real depression, that is just a bad feeling.
Real depression (of which I've had a bit here and there, luckily not enough to put me down) is something not based on anything. Real depression means you just can't get up in the morning. Not because of anything, but you just can't make your body move because all motivation is gone. It's really not something you want to experience, it's like a bad trip become real...
Imagine you really want to do things, you know you have to do them, and you know you usually enjoy doing them, but you just can't get up - like some invisible force is holding you down in misery. That is depression. Feeling bad about bad things in the world is sad, but it's not depression.

I know that people with depression often hear things like "think positive" and "try to motivate yourself". Well, that helps with bad feelings, but it helps shit with real depression. Somebody who suffers from real depression usually tries to motivate themselves a lot, and they try to think positive as good as they can, but it just doesn't help if their brain chemistry isn't working along. You can tell a person with paraplegia to think positive and get up from their wheelchair - it just doesn't help. It's the same with depression, only people tend to confuse it with their own bad feelings which they call "depression", but which are not remotely the same as the real medical condition.

 

[BrainEater]

What is the difference between feeling bad because of something and feeling bad because of no apparent reason, tryptonaut ???

 

[silv]

What is the difference between feeling bad because of something and feeling bad because of no apparent reason, tryptonaut ???

Well, if I may answer this I'll say the following.
The difference is that when you feel bad because of something, there's numorous solutions to think of to cheer you (at least slightly) up. When everything in the world (despite it being a quite sunny day) seems gray, and everyone seems to look at you with a mix of disgust, anger and annoyance and if even (as tryptonaut said) the things you love to do can't make you happy anymore, it seems like the number of solutions keeps crawling closer to one specific one.
I've always felt that when I feel depressed (even if it's because of some simple hormonal balance) it helps to try to talk to it about someone you love. It might be a friend, it might be a family member. Just someone you would fully trust and who will always support you. It might not always seem useful, but at least try it. It usually makes Me feel better.