Is depression a natural reaction to an insane world?

[Unbeliever]

This is a thought I have been pondering for a while.

The default to view depression as "something wrong", or a "brain chemical imbalance" or as "a disease" or something that "needs to be fixed" or requires "medication" or "therapy" appears to be the most common response of practically everyone. 

From doctors, to psychiatrists, to therapists, to the general population, to the depressed individuals themselves... the universal belief appears to be that "the person needs to get help".

But what if... the living in depressed state is correct? What if it isn't an "imbalance" or isn't something "wrong"? What if being depressed is the only natural state to be in for an intelligent, empathetic, compassionate, informed, thinking individual to exist in the current state of our world?

What if to NOT be depressed about is the true indication of mental sickness?

I'm not saying that being depressed is fun in any way... most people on this forum would be well aware that it sucks. But that is not what I'm saying. 

What I mean is... could existing in a state of depression be completely natural for someone living in a place where so many things are obviously terrible... both on a personal level and in the world as a whole?

My reasons for this perspective are numerous. Far too many to write in only 2500 words. But basically...

The real world is an extremely depressing place for any person that cares at all about anything outside of themselves.

Eg. If you care about animals... the reality is many beautiful species are already lost forever, many others are so close to the verge of extinction that even if everyone worldwide decided to do everything they could to save them... they would still be lost. At home there are people that still buy people animals as christmas gifts, refuse to desex their pets, the massive amount of pets put down in pounds annually. There is backyard animal cruelty, the dog racing industry using live bait, shooting race horses with legs, women's hormonal treatments for menapause, the meat industry, birds choking on our plastic half a world away, overfishing. The list goes on and on.

It is reality and it is depressing. Care about animals and feeling "depressed" about it IS correct. And that is one tiny subject in a plethora of subjects.

3 billion people in starving poverty, the water wars, religious fanatics, corrupt governments, womens rights violations, slavery, wars, child rape, etc etc

It's the people that are not depressed that worry me.

[Just Sara]

Reading thru a few more of your posts, the picture is beginning to become clear. You mention philosophy; I once had thoughts of doing a degree in that field. However, my broken brain wouldn't allow such efforts.

I guess I've warmed to you because I see a little of myself in your words. You see humanity as a cancer in a beautiful Universe. I've dwelled on those thoughts until I cried. I 'feel', therefore I 'am'...

In my world, and I say that tentatively, (to you) men are the cancer that invaded my eco-system; my space on the planet. Then I decided, it was me who was at fault for being born and choosing to live in such a destructive environment.

Many theories later, I found 'me' among the dysfunction and seemingly 'unfixable' totality. I found individualism, choice and personal power.

You describe your plight as being static sadness; immutable, yet know you're loved and cared about. Your view of life for us humans shows empathy, insight, balance and sensitivity, yet you fail to give this to yourself.

I don't disagree with any of what you've said about humanity. But there's more; much more. You seem to take the whole as being more important than the singular. This separates us and our views...

You acknowledged my efforts as a productive positive influence, yet it wasn't enough to sooth your negative outlook of the whole. A single cell, unless an amoeba, requires other cells to survive/create/sustain the whole. Without each other we don't exist. That's science, not philosophy.

As such, every positive action/thought/word we create as singular entities, produces energy; ripples in a pond. Mine might seem insignificant, but still must be acknowledged as being relevant no matter how small.

I think you're avoiding yourself UB. That big world out there keeps you from looking in the mirror at an 11 yr old boy; one that can't save humanity from killing itself and taking everything down with it.

I have a mass of words inside me; maybe because your sadness still resonates inside me. There are times I feel useless; 'what's the point?'. Yes, it's emotional and intrinsic.

You say how lucky you are to have had a wonderful childhood. Yes you are indeed. Why is that statement from you followed by a 'but'?

I'm sorry if I'm being confronting. Unlike Nigel, I can't seem to walk away from your negativity.

Sad Sez

[Just Sara]

I'm sorry...

Now I feel sad along with you. Ripples...

[Nigelpm]

Just Sara'..your prose and execution of language is exquisite and your understanding of others is acute. I love how you can stay with Unbeleivers trauma and interpret it so succinctly....I actually like his writing...but I cant envelope any more darkness for my own well being...as I said ,I am trying to recover..it is beyond my capabilities of a worthy response..I am desperate to recover so can really only respond to hearts and flowers..the darkness I have felt is comparable to Edvard Munch-The scream or Prodigy-music for the jilted generation album cover...for me to recover requires gardens,Handel sonata's and Bach (even though Bach is mechanical and dark) he is marrying the darkness with light in his prettiness..

[Unbeliever]

Rats... I apologise Sara.

What you are talking about is why I was hesitant to engage in this website forum in the first place. Initially I joined only to be a background silent observer, not to be interactive.

I learned a while ago that I can use words too powerfully, a little too effectively. Most people seem to be able believe things adamantly without ever giving them much thought simply because it is currently a popular opinion, or because their parents or someone they respect thinks that way, or simply because they NEED to believe it or their whole world will fall apart. But I was never like that.

My point of view is refined, it was not a sudden overnight conclusion, nor a regurgitated unconsidered belief system inherited from someone else and it certainly doesn't exist because I want or need it to be true.

It was a slow painstaking slog of self analysis, observation of others, study of human history, and the carefully considered dismissal of my own previous opinions that did not hold up to scrutiny when I tested them in the real world.

In fact, most of my perspectives and theories failed my own strict criticisms over my lifetime for me to reach my current set of beliefs.

I cannot claim that the result is "the" truth. I'm not entirely sure that such a thing even exists. However, it does mean that I have considered my beliefs to a degree they few people I meet ever dare to do with their own.

Which means that more often than not even if they believe something that is correct and I have an alternative belief that is wrong, they are rarely àble to voice their opinion and the reasons that they believe it as detailed or as strongly as I can.

As a good friend once pointed out to me, because of this I must be very careful with my words. My perspectives are so refined by comparison to most other people that it can get under their skin too easily, make them doubt themselves and their beliefs, because we have been trained since we were children to think that the person who can argue more effectively than another is "the winner"... which is simply not true.

Please always remember this Sara (especially in regards to me) because this is something I absolutely believe.

There is an exceptionally good chance that EVERYTHING I believe, every single thing, is wrong. Without exception.

And this will always be true no matter how strong my or anyones elses arguments are compared to yours or anyone elses.

Please never forget that.

Perhaps it is better if I stop interacting.

[Just Sara]

Please don't...

I'm entitled to my sadness. I had a choice to write about it, so I did. That choice made you uncomfortable right? What you've done is accept accountability for my emotional response and that's not on. Nigel wrote his mind and you joked about it.

I'm sad because I allow myself to feel...I feel; therefore I am! It's not rocket science. I get that you're an intellectual, I do. But you lack 'connection' in your words/phrases. If I was just here to understand your perspective, I'd be long gone because I got it in your first post.

I'm connecting with you; a like minded person, but you don't get it. That's why I'm still here! If I 'feel', it's mine to deal with. The issue here seems to be your inability to accept that I'm separate from you.

You took my opportunity to connect, talk or debate by walking away. That's rude. 😞 Ask me something instead of assuming ok...is that emotive enough for you or would you like me to quote something from Freud?? (Cocaine addicted lunatic he was) That was supposed to be facetious, not nasty.

I was enjoying our back and forth. I'm an emotional person because I've been to Hades and back. Gimme a break ok!! I'm intelligent and love that because I thought I was dumb my whole life until recently.

Play nice! Stay...

Sez

[Just Sara]

Hey! The cat's got her claws out dude!! Bar ha ha ha...

[Unbeliever]

You thought you were dumb? That's pretty impressive. Can't fathom how you would even manage that.

I actually meant that perhaps I should stop being interactive because of other people that might read the thread, not you. I was confident that you would be resilient, but I have a bad habit of forgetting that others can be less so. Aha, both guilty of assumption. 😛

I wasn't joking with Nigel. What he wrote really did remind me of a script from a foriegn tragedy play.

I wasn't uncomfortable, I just prefer not to spread my sadness around like an infectious disease. That thought doesn't make me happy. I'd prefer to "ripple" alternative thought pathways to others... not sadness.

Yeah, I'm never completely happy with the posts I put up. I write what I want to say quite quickly and then spend three times the amount of time cutting what I wrote back down to 2500 words. Unfortunately, more often than not that comes at the expense of adverbs and modifiers... which makes my posts far more sterile and cold than I would like. It is regrettable, but in the end the raw information is more important than relaying my personality into the text... and splitting posts breaks the flow too much.

I love philosophy, but I never considered a career in it and studying it as uni seemed worthless as the majority of the greatest philosophers works are available to read for free at our local library. I spent a large chunk of my teenage life reading these.

Never a fan of Freud though. Too much of him trying to rationalise his own weirdnesses by assuming that everyone had the same weirdnesses. A flawed perspective.

It is a shame that you allowed your "broken brain" to prevent you from studying philosophy... it might have given you unique perspective that is unattainable by "unflawed" brains. Perhaps this is something worth looking into now.

BTW, I never said that I thought you or your perspective was "insignificant". I wouldn't waste time responding if I regarded your words as insignificant.

The mirror thing. I didn't have issues with mirrors before my "medication incident". I didn't exactly kiss my own reflection before, but it posed no problem to 11-27 year old me. Afterwards though, it just never looked like "me" anymore. My reflection became some unfamiliar foreign thing, like a weak impersonation of myself.

11 year old me was dark, but not depressed. I was confident that my generation could see what I see and it would inspire us all to finally change it. But I was so very wrong.

[Just Sara]

Hi Nigel;

You wrote;

'Just Sara...your prose and execution of language is exquisite and your understanding of others is acute'

That's about one of the nicest things anyone's said to me. 🙂 We talk a lot on here about accepting praise. I'm not one to feel unworthy these days, so to put it accurately...I'm grateful and pretty stoked actually! So thankyou..

Now, I have a confession for both you and UB. Due to you guys not having avatars, I've confused a post you did thinking it was UB. My bad! 😛

I responded to him about me liking a bunger too, and having a loaded coffee instead of wine. UB wrote back saying he hadn't been drinking/smoking for yrs. I couldn't understand his response and just let it go to the keeper.

Ha! Is my face red? Um...yeah! Your post was a little disturbing re living and um, yes, shitting, and thought I'd lighten things up a bit. Sigh...please guys, put a pic up. 😕

You've depicted a dismal existence and this gets my support juices flowing. If you want flowers, then here goes.

What strikes me time and again, is the incidence of intelligence appearing on this forum. It'll be your saving grace Nigel. The reason why's simple; you comprehend complex concepts.

Cognitive function, although overwhelmed by emotional oversensitivity, will improve once your nervous system rests and begins to heal. Psychological Trauma damages us physically too.

We're animals at our core. When animals feel threatened, they go into fight, flight or freeze. The first 2 are necessary for survival, the latter prepares them for death.

Trauma's a result of 'not' exercising responses 1 and 2 when we're attacked etc, and instead prepare to die, which doesn't occur. So because we don't fight or run away, we stay in a perpetual frozen state. Ergo, depression/anxiety/panic/PTSD.

Most of the trauma work I've done has been alone as my therapist and I have an agreement. I only go to her when I'm stuck. In the first days (Oct '14) it was twice or once a week. That was for about a yr, I haven't seen her since April this time.

I have a glass overflowing with hope Nigel. Would love to share some of it with you if you can grasp what I've been talking about above.

I've spoken a lot on here about Trauma work and the concept of primal, reptilian and rational brain function. I read all I could about it as CBT etc only worked to a degree. I'm happy to reiterate this for you.

Let me know ok. Looking forward to hearing from you;

Sez

[Just Sara]

PS...'all' Four Seasons by Vivaldi is my fave. 🙂 They're my flowers...

[blondguy]

Hi Unbeliever Nigel and Sara

I have been reading your posts and this really is a great thread Unbeliever!

Nigel mentioned re Sara "prose and execution of language is exquisite and your understanding of others is acute" Nigel.....you are spot on. Sara does possess an innate gift where intellect and understanding is concerned..

My brain hurts....

My kindest

Paul