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I've had depression for 20+ years and the best way I would describe it is like this: Think of that little "kick" you get when you think of something you want t

• xapata 5y ago
  It took me a while to realize that most people don't consider suicide as one of a few strategies to deal with everyday problems. Thought process: I don't want to do my homework. I could (A) get up and do it, or (B) kill myself. Happily, I've learned to dissociate myself from the part of my consciousness that thinks that way.
  • 1MachineElf 5y ago
    I'm dealing with something like this too. It's come up a lot while watching shows where some protagonist's friend turns psychotic and they suddenly must fight to survive. I keep thinking to myself, "just give up and let them kill you, it will be better that way!" I can't quite pinpoint the theme that seems to permeate all of these and how much of it is my own perspective versus some specific genre. I think of it a lot while watching The Future Diary, and also Higurashi: When They Cry.
  • beginnercounter 5y ago
    • DJBunnies 5y ago
      Or, you could try to be nicer when somebody makes themselves vulnerable to you.
    • totololo 5y ago
      So indelicately put.. Comes across (to my Euro mind) as an order doubled with an insult.
    • ctdonath 5y ago
      When the target of your objectively reasonable directive is self-admittedly of the mindset "I could (A) get up and do it, or (B) kill myself", you may want to reconsider the wording.
      • xapata 5y ago
        Don't worry, I'm pretty stable these days. And seeing a therapist helped. To your point, it was someone else who booked the first appointment for me. So, if you know someone who might benefit, it'd be good to help them out with the process of finding a therapist.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • ornornor 5y ago
    > suicide as one of a few strategies to deal with everyday problems. That’s as much a solution to everyday problems as nuking the entire planet and the human race out of a existence is a solution to, say, Covid or hunger.
    • xapata 5y ago
      Indeed. Thus we describe that experience as mental illness.
      • birksherty 5y ago
        Why is wanting to stop pain and trauma is illness and wanting to continue in more of that useless suffering is normal? I am not talking about privileged here but most people who struggle whole life in world.
        • xapata 5y ago
          Because if suicide were typical, humanity wouldn't exist. Mental illness is merely abnormality, not necessarily something ethically wrong or illogical given one's a priori beliefs.
          • deleted 5y ago
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          • birksherty 5y ago
            > Mental illness is merely abnormality, not necessarily something ethically wrong or illogical given one's a priori beliefs. I agree, but what you're saying is not how the world see it. Many things that make humans exists are not necessary or makes life difficult now anyway. Like phobias, vomiting while travelling by car, allergies etc.
    • birksherty 5y ago
      Nuking planet is different as it will nuke all other species. Removing only humans is a solution that actually works for better of everything else things. Life is constant struggle for most humans (not talking about privileged here). In the end we all die horribly going through all that trauma, so peaceful suicide like hypoxia may be a solution to stop the suffering.
  • fouc 5y ago
    Given those two options, I'd end up choosing A. So thinking of B would actually be motivating. It wouldn't feel suicidal to think of both of those options.
    • xapata 5y ago
      The mental illness is when option B in this example seems preferable to small inconveniences and embarrassments, and when one doesn't think of things like, (C) forget about it and go hang out with some friends.
      • birksherty 5y ago
        Life is full of small inconveniences and big ones time to time. It's not just one small one. So wanting to stop all that should not be considered illness, but forcing to continue the pain and trauma should be. Life is ultimately a meaningless thing, and most people suffer for it. Some people are privileged and they decide what is illness and what is not based on their own life. One has to work 9-5 whole life that slowly kills their health and die horribly. That's normal, but if one does not want to continue that, it's illness. One must suffer. There is no other way whatever people here says, the real world does not work in any other way.
        • xapata 5y ago
          You're just arguing the semantics of "illness". Call it atypical thought if you prefer.
          • birksherty 5y ago
            Semantics changes everything here and that's how everyone perceives things.
  • Archien 5y ago
    My thinking is slightly different in this case then yours: Ending it today will stop having to do x today, tomorrow and rest of my life. So it's not just the homework of the day. But due to my thinking I would also not just go without consuming my money and doing only what I want as long as possible as it also freed me from certain social boundaries. Like suicide is bad, you need to work, lifing as long as possible is good etc.
    • foobarian 5y ago
      My thinking was always comparing it to a crappy movie at a middle of nowhere theater. Sure the movie may be bad, but it still beats getting up and leaving.
      • Archien 5y ago
        How many bad movies you gonna watch until standing up and leaving becomes the better choice? One problem might also be that in my opinion lifing as long as possible is not the right answer. I'm not life positive like independent how shitty your life is as long as you are alive is good. Now the question arrives what is a good time to leave.having already seen and done more than any other human who lived 50 years ago already puts me ahead on a experience level . So determine this answer is open for me to decide. Not having kids and not planning some right now also makes me more 'flexible'
• d1lanka 5y ago
  "You asked me how depression felt, and this is all I could come up with. It feels like I’m walking upstream through a current strong enough to pull me under four times over. There are others with me but they are walking along the banks telling me to “just get out of the water.” But instead of extending a hand in help, they just move on and leave me behind. Every once in a while I find a rock that is strong enough for me to lean on, And I can rest for a bit. But the rocks always get tired of holding me up, and when they let go, I’m left drowning, thrown 50 feet back again. And nothing is harder than standing up in that current when everything in you is telling you how much easier things would be if you just let yourself get dragged under." —Unknown
• fy20 5y ago
  Does that apply to things you 'have' to do as well? I don't really like shopping for groceries, but I'd rather do that, than order take out that's expensive and probably not very healthy. If I'm going to cook something, I'd rather cook something with a different taste than eat pasta again. I don't really want to do laundry, but I do want to have clean clothes that don't smell. If I could afford to do so I wouldn't work, but until I retire that's not possible, so I might as well make the most of it and increase my earnings/time ratio. I don't really want to go see my family, but I feel I have a duty to do so.
  • rubicon33 5y ago
    Yes. I am the same way. My depression isn’t severe enough that I CANT do the things that need to be done, but rather, they take immense effort and personal discipline. Of course everyone (even non depressed people) sometimes struggle to do things they have to do, but don’t want to do. It’s all about how severe that struggle is, not whether or not that struggle exists at all.
  • serverlessmom 5y ago
    I just wanted to follow up on this as well. I also have my groceries delivered because grocery shopping is incredibly overwhelming for me and I suffer from several mental disorders. Something that I have learned is part of learning to live with mental disorder is giving yourself the grace that even if you can force yourself to do something that is very hard on you it is totally valid to find a hack to help you out(like getting your groceries delivered). This might sound like a no brainer for a neurotypical person but allowing myself access to tools to alleviate stress was seriously difficult for a long time because I felt like to be a "healthy" person I had to force myself to do things for myself that I thought "normal" people did. I forced myself to do things that were actively destructive to my mental wellness in part as punishment to myself for not being neurotypical.
  • eru 5y ago
    I'm not a doctor, but from what I've heard and seen: many depressed people manage to put up a good facade. (Of course, that doesn't mean that putting up a facade means that you are depressed. Also going out and doing stuff is probably better for you than sitting at home, no matter if you are depressed or not. And if that drive to make you go grocery shopping or meet people is less than healthy, that's still better than losing all motivation for everything, I guess?)
• lexapro 5y ago
  That's just one of many symptoms you're describing here (loss of interest). For me the main symptom is depressed mood, which essentially feels like someone you cared about a lot died recently.
• julian_sark 5y ago
  This. And also a gazillion other things. Years ago I was recommended a book written by a Dutch psychiatrist who had developed depression himself. The tagline was sort of "here's a professional who suffers from it, this will be insightful." I couldn't relate to his condition for one iota (let alone finish the book); as he had mostly feelings of guilt and shame, and dark, weird mental images. I guess depression is a sort of blanket term by now for many things, which probably complicates diagnosis and most of all, treatment. Plus, I recently discovered the term "sh*t life syndrome", which is apparently getting to be known as a well-known term in the US/UK psychiatrics system (at least it has a Wikipedia page claiming that). It describes people who are poor or lonely because of the system surrounding them (prime example: they live in an area with raging unemployment). In that case, it's argued, symptoms of depression might actually be the logical response to an outside stimulus (or lack thereof). Yet, it appears many of these people are referred to psychological treatment because, well, society doesn't come up with any better option. But what rubicon33 describes is certainly one way of depression, and I think a common one. But I'd go one step further even: Yes, people lack that little "kick" to get them going and do something entirely. But I don't think that's the root cause. The root cause, to me, is that this kick has been subconciously "unlearned". Because when people with this sort of depression DO force themselves to do some of these things (and man, do they need to force themselves, with rational arguments and all sorts of tricks), they are not enjoying it. To stick with the example of playing tennis: Non-depressed people come back and say: "That was fun! I powered myself out on the tennis court, maybe I even won, I feel good.". People with this particular sort of depression come back and say: "That was physically, but mostly mentally exhausting. I want to sleep or procrastinate now and reset my thoughts to the baseline of being emotionless." Disclaimer: Yes, I think I can also kind of speak on this subject. I've been repeatedly diagnosed with childhood PTSD and depression possibly ever since that (which makes it 30+ years); which doesn't mean that I'm not questioning this all the time, because the biggest trick played by depression is to make you think that everything may be just normal sadness/exhaustion/"not trying hard enough" ...).