Depression

[SoulQuest1970]

But what of the man who has no children? Should the same restriction apply? Or what of the man whose suffering makes his children suffer? Would it not be more moral to eliminate the cause of their suffering?

Sometimes I think that things would be easier if my ex (who is suicidal fairly consistantly) were to off himself, but then I think of the reprecussions. Should my kids find out it was a suicide they would likely figure out a way that it was thier fault... especially Alex. I've decided that if he should actually do it, I will not tell them it was suicide. Alex doesn't need that. I feel for anyone that is suicidal and hope that they can find strength to not only go on, but find a way to love living. Donaldson mentioned that abyss... looking into it. I was in it hanging on to the edge to dear life... more like I couldn't fall due to a tree branch snagging my shirt lol. Now I stay far from that abyss and say, "Hiya, abyss... thanks, but I will stay way over here. Have a nice day."

[lucimay]

SoulQuest, you aren't rambling. I find your posts in this thread very moving. I'm constantly amazed by - more like in awe of - your capacity to cope with so much crisis in your life. Maybe we all have in us the strength or sheer stubborness to just carry on no matter what, but your resilience is still remarkable to me.

Wow. uh... thanks. I really don't much think of it to be honest. Hmm... I say I had to grow up so I could be a kid. me too!

There is truth in that. I play and enjoy life more than I ever have. I wish I could say the same for my brothers. me too!


They are 5 and 7 years older than me, so some of my resilience probably has a lot to do with me being the youngest. My eldest brother suffered the most. My other brother has schizoeffective disorder and epilepsy.Oddly, my mom likes him the most. I think they are very much alike. mine are 7 and 13 years younger than me.


Both of my brothers still have somewhat destructive lives. The oldest is sober, but chain smokes (and the goof has allergies and asthma). The other is a hypochondriac and is... well... lazy. I love them both and wish they could lead happier lives, but I learned that you can't make someone change. yeah...i tried dragging both my brothers to every kind of meeting imaginable. no dice. luckily, only ONE of my brothers has illnesses and physical problems.

Something that is often hard is realising that as an adult you are no longer a victim. Kids have no say in who thier parents are or how they are raised. When you grow up it is important to realize you are the one in control of you. You make the choices now. Not everyone realises this. My eldest brother does, but he has so many scars and healing left, but he is doing it and getting to where he can be happy. exactly. my oldest brother and lives with my mom. they are helping each other i think.


I would not change my past and have no regrets. Those experiences made me who I am now.

i WOULD change some things if i could, but i do agree that my life experiences have made me who i am and guess what! i'm pretty HAPPY with who i am (ok...i'm a LITTLE neurotic, but happy nonetheless)

The most important thing is that I have learned the importance of giving my kids the love and support I never had. I'm not perfect. Sometimes I yell and sometimes I slip up and call one of them a brat or something, but as soon as I hear those words come out or realise I am being unfair or even childish I apologize. The kids know I am not perfect, but they also know I will admit when I am wrong.

i solved this problem. i didn't have kids.

My dad only recently started admitting that he was wrong... and I am 36!

mine too.

It took a while, but I admire him for seeing it now and speaking up. My dad is a good man and always has been. Even good people make mistakes and no one is perfect.

the same with my dad.

wow. how bizarre. i haven't read enough of the posts in this thread so i don't know whatever it is that Matrixman knows, SQ (parts of your story i missed no doubt) but i THINK you've accidentally had to live with MY family...and for that i truly apologize...i didn't mean to inflict them on anyone else when i wished (eight million times) that they would just GO AWAY!!

having made as much of a joke as i can of it...the parallels are sorta SCARY.

[Fist and Faith]

I assume that, in nearly all cases, a person's suicide will cause pain for others. But I don't think the others have a right to avoid that pain by forcing the suicidal person to continue enduring his/her pain. My life is mine. Attempt to force me to do or not do what I want with it at your own peril.

And as Av said, in the end, the choice always is the individual's anyway. Even with his meds, dAN's brother is not happy. But they - I don't know how to say it - take the edge off? Do they make death seem less attractive? Do they allow him to see the shadow of how great life can be, so he keeps hoping and working for happiness?

But what about the person for whom that isn't enough? Do we force a higher dose on him? Do we force different drugs on him? Are there people who can never achieve a chemical balance with which they don't want to die? If so, do we medicate them into a stupor for the rest of their lives because they attempt suicide every time they are conscious enough to make an attempt? Do we wire Million Dollar Baby's jaw shut so that she must endure her Hell for decades to come?

Donaldson mentioned that abyss... looking into it. I was in it hanging on to the edge to dear life... more like I couldn't fall due to a tree branch snagging my shirt lol.

The One Tree?



And MM is absolutely right. Your posts reveal some wonderful qualities in you.


Now... What are we gonna do about Emma?


As for getting back to depression in general, as opposed to a common result of extreme depression... Well, I don't know what to say about it. Others know more about it, whether because of personal experience or greater education than I have. Without feeling it myself, I've come to believe that depression can be absolutely pervading and entirely uncontrollable.

[SoulQuest1970]

wow. how bizarre. i haven't read enough of the posts in this thread so i don't know whatever it is that Matrixman knows, SQ (parts of your story i missed no doubt) but i THINK you've accidentally had to live with MY family...and for that i truly apologize...i didn't mean to inflict them on anyone else when i wished (eight million times) that they would just GO AWAY!!

having made as much of a joke as i can of it...the parallels are sorta SCARY.

LOL You crack me up! I guess our families were channeling one another. I honestly beleived I was adopted despite the fact that I strongly resemble my mom have had my dad's hair and eyes. Well the way his hair was... it's all gray now. I never felt like I fit in with them.

[SoulQuest1970]

Donaldson mentioned that abyss... looking into it. I was in it hanging on to the edge to dear life... more like I couldn't fall due to a tree branch snagging my shirt lol.

The One Tree?



And MM is absolutely right. Your posts reveal some wonderful qualities in you.


Now... What are we gonna do about Emma?


As for getting back to depression in general, as opposed to a common result of extreme depression... Well, I don't know what to say about it. Others know more about it, whether because of personal experience or greater education than I have. Without feeling it myself, I've come to believe that depression can be absolutely pervading and entirely uncontrollable.

Hahahahaha... yeah it may very well have been the One Tree.

About Emma.... Once I thought my depression was uncontrollable. It seemed like it was. Some of it is time, determination to grow, I guess stubborness helps too. I came a long way with therapy and meditation, spiritual growth. I sought these things out myself determined to not pass my problems to my kids by example. If she wants to find a way to be happy, encourage this. If she can get through this, it will make her a stronger person. Also consider massage therapy (I did this once a week while I was pregnant with Nick and during my seperation) as well as acupunture. I was very skeptical about it, but it did help tremendously. The only thing I needed medication for was for my panic attacks and acid reflux. Now I don't need it. My depression was a cycle thing where I would have panic attacks triggering acid reflux making me nauseous triggering panic attacks that made me berate myself that made me depressed, more anxious, more nauseous, etc, etc. If she doesn't have anxiety issues, she may not even need medication. The most important thing you must remember is you can't make her work toward being happier. This is something she has to do for herself. The most you can do is make sure she knows you are there for her and encourage her. Sometimes the most important thing for someone depressed is just knowing that someone loves them no matter what and will not leave thier side.

[SoulQuest1970]

This song is one of my new favorites and it does apply to this topic. Just wanted to share it.

Artist: Superchick
Album: Beauty From Pain
Track: We Live

There's a cross on the side of the road
Where a mother lost a son
How could she know that the morning he left
Would be their last time she'd trade with him for a little more time
So she could say she loved him one more time
And hold him tight
But with life we never know

When we're coming up to the end of the road
So what do we do then
With tragedy around the bend?

Chorus:
We live we love
We forgive and never give up
Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above
Today we remember to live and to love
We live we love
We forgive and never give up
Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above
Today we remember to live and to love

There is a man who waits for the tests
To see if the cancer has spread yet
And now he asks, "So why did I wait to live till it was time to die?"
If I could have the time back how I'd live
Life is such a gift
So how does the story end?
Well this is your story and it all depends
So don't let it become true
Get out and do what we are meant to do

Chorus

Waking up to another dark morning
People are mourning
The weather in life outside is storming
But what would it take for the clouds to break
For us to realize each day is a gift somehow, someway
So get our heads up out of the darkness
And spark this new mindset and start to live life cuz it ain't gone yet
And tragedy is a reminder to take off the blinders
And wake up and live the life we're supposed to take up
Moving forward with all our heads up cuz life is worth living

Chorus (to fade)

[Avatar]

...Anyway, medicine might be a shortcut in some cases, but I believe it's the proper treatment in some cases, too...

See, this is all I've been saying all along. Sometimes it is warranted. But sometimes it's a cure-all shortcut. It's just that I suspect that in this day and age, it's too often been prescribed as the cure-all.

As for the rest, I think that Fist pretty well summed it up for me.

--A

[duchess of malfi]

Av, I think you may not be seeing the difference between a crushing black clinical depression and a bit of melancholia or the blues. I don't think I've ever been clinically depressed but panic attacks, which started inexplicably, in college may have pushed me very close. I take Zoloft as a maintenance medication because it has effectively eliminated the attacks.

At first I was vehemently opposed to medication as it seemed that even seeing a doctor was admitting to a weakness. I felt I should be able to will myself better as anxiety is nothing more than a mental function which I should have total control over. After intermittent bouts with panic over two or three years I finally got to the point where I was ready to try anything.

If you've never experienced panic you can't appreciate how debilitating it is. It is the inability to control something as fundamental as your very thought processes and reactions. It is not something any sane person would want to accept, learn to live with, or incorporate into oneself. I've sinced gained a much greater appreciation of those who suffer with clinical depression. I used to think that they should just "not feel blue" or some other B.S. but I now realize that simple solutions like that are not realistic.

In my opinion, thoughts and emotions are fundamentally chemical reactions occuring within the brain. These reactions can be reliably modified with the use of medications. In that respect, use of SSRI's is no different than a diabetic taking insulin. I would certainly not tell a diabetic that they shoudn't use insulin on the basis that their lack of insulin is natural for them.

Brinn, this is a fantastic post.

Panic attacks are horrible. I started having them while suffering from undiagnosed Grave's Disease. They were caused by thyroid hormones and resulting adrenaline running amok in my body. Obviously, they were nothing could be controlled by trying to be more upbeat or by deciding not to have them anymore (as a disturbing number of people seem to think about such disorders).

The worst thing is that initially they would always happen in public and when I was excited and happy. At Comerica Park watching a Tigers game - panic attack. At an expensive French restaurant eating an anniversary dinner? Panic attack. To the point where it was hard to not faint dead away from hyperventilating and rapid heart rate. Would get up and walk around until my body would mellow out a bit and I could sit still without freaking out.

Eventually they started happening at other times, too. The worst one was when they were running a bunch of tests on my thyroid. I was in an xray machine, with a huge piece of equipment right up against my throat. Ugh. All I could do to keep still. Had to keep counting numbers in my head to try to keep in control of my body, which was in full panic mode due to feeling trapped.

I am on anti-depressants now due to a couple of medical conditions.

I went through a rough time for years with the Grave's Disease. I did not have the usual symptoms of a thyroid disorder so was very sick for years before they finally figured out what was wrong. Oddly enough, they were at the point of putting me on anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants because they had not found anything wrong with me when my nurse practitioner ran a thyroid blood test "just in case" and it turned up that I was pretty damned messed up. So no anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds, as all of the symptoms had a clear cut medical cause.

So they have been treating me for the thyroid condition for over a year now - and supposedly the synthroid dose is getting to where it should be - but I have still been feeling like utter shit, exhausted and stressed out and aching in pretty much every part of my body everyday (to the point where some days it is simply not safe for me to work or drive due to extreme fatigue).

So they decided to run some more tests on me a couple of months ago to see if there was something else wrong other than stress from a crappy job (and thyroid issues) that is causing the exhaustion and other problems.

And they tested me for depression - and I am not depressed. I was actually pretty surprised by that given what I have been going through the last few years!

It turns out that on top of the Grave's Disease, I also have severe obstructive sleep apnea, which means that whenever I fall asleep I stop breathing.

This time, while waiting for the second sleep study and the fitting for a CPAP device, they have put me on an anti-depressant called bupropion. It is not for depression per se, but to help give me mental alertness and more energy so I can attempt to live a more normal life, which I have not been able to do for years.

While I do still have some very bad days, the medication has helped a great deal. I have missed fewer days from work, and am rarely frightened to drive anymore due to mental and physical fatigue. It is an honest to God gift from the heavens.

So while not suffering from a clinical depression, I can vouch that psych drugs can be positive life changers if used and prescribed correctly.

[Harbinger]

Depression is anger without enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong, I've been depressed before. I'll openly admit that I have been a fucking Looney Tune a time or two. A couple of diff exes told me, "You think too much." I'm like, how can you be awake and not be thinking about something?

What it boils down to, like everything else in your life, is your habits. I've talked about this before. More than most people realize, their habits truly define them and control their destiny. The bitch about it is that good habits require effort, and bad habits do not. Take obesity for instance. It's a lot easier to hand over five bucks for hot fatty beef, oil soaked potatoes, and sugary liquid fat than it is to go to the gym for half an hour. I'd wager many, if not most, of us spend more annually on fast food than a gym membership costs. And you don't even need the gym to exercise. You could keep the five bucks and have 320 of his friends join him in 30 years at a rate of 15%.

You are what you think you are. Train yourself to think good, uplifting, proactive things. Negative or positive, it's your choice.

[Avatar]

You are what you think you are. Train yourself to think good, uplifting, proactive things. Negative or positive, it's your choice.

I pretty much agree with that. However, it's also possible for there to be biological reasons for depression for example, in which choice is either not a factor, or significantly diminished.

--A

[Orlion]

You are what you think you are. Train yourself to think good, uplifting, proactive things. Negative or positive, it's your choice.

I pretty much agree with that. However, it's also possible for there to be biological reasons for depression for example, in which choice is either not a factor, or significantly diminished.

--A

Never mind biology, outside circumstances are usually enough to accomplish this. If negative things continually happen to you, you come to expect the negative because to you that's what happens. Hope that things will work out in the end only has any force if such a thing has all ready happened.

[Harbinger]

Never mind biology, outside circumstances are usually enough to accomplish this. If negative things continually happen to you, you come to expect the negative because to you that's what happens. Hope that things will work out in the end only has any force if such a thing has all ready happened.

Did you hope to get laid before it happened? Did you hope to make a par, hit a basket, make an A, whatever, before it happened. There had to a first time.

Hope is a good thing; maybe the best thing. As far as negative and positive, a lot of that is perception. And if it is seen as negative, you have a choice whether or not to dwell on it. That's how you get into a downward spiral. I maintain that what you think, you will get.

[Vraith]

Depression is anger without enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong, I've been depressed before. I'll openly admit that I have been a fucking Looney Tune a time or two. A couple of diff exes told me, "You think too much." I'm like, how can you be awake and not be thinking about something?

What it boils down to, like everything else in your life, is your habits. I've talked about this before. More than most people realize, their habits truly define them and control their destiny. The bitch about it is that good habits require effort, and bad habits do not. Take obesity for instance. It's a lot easier to hand over five bucks for hot fatty beef, oil soaked potatoes, and sugary liquid fat than it is to go to the gym for half an hour. I'd wager many, if not most, of us spend more annually on fast food than a gym membership costs. And you don't even need the gym to exercise. You could keep the five bucks and have 320 of his friends join him in 30 years at a rate of 15%.

You are what you think you are. Train yourself to think good, uplifting, proactive things. Negative or positive, it's your choice.

This is ridiculous. [as far as depression, for obesity it may be true provided the obesity isn't attached to depression]
Thinking positive, focusing on goals/relationships/other yada yada does not cure depression. It can give you tools for managing it and living anyway, for some people, but it doesn't make you un-depressed.[assuming it's an actual condition, not sadness about something you should be sad about]. Some people are so depressed that "choosing" to do those things is, quite literally, beyond them.
And most drugs do not make you un-depressed, either...they may make it possible to live despite being depressed, but they don't fix it [and often not feeling depressed means only "I don't feel as bad...but I don't feel anything at all]
If you're actually depressed, all you can do is dress up like a normal person, play the role, and pray that when things get too dark someone or something is there to keep the gun [or the pills] out of your hand for a little while.
For some the only thing keeping them alive is the terror that being dead won't help anyone, least of all themselves.

[Harbinger]

Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.


EDIT: No choice is still a choice.

2nd EDIT: I really don't want to leave a record of some of the things I've gone through, but I wanted to put it out there. if you got to read it, great. I wouldn't want one of my kids, for instance, to discover my watch identity and read that. I'll share things about my life that I am not proud of if I think it will help them. I'm not the most positive person in the world, but I truly believe that you can achieve anything you put your mind to. I don't think I would be a happy individual who could get on with life if I lost a limb, for instance. But lots of people do, even become more successful that before their accident. I agree that if your mind is imbalanced (for whatever reason) it may be a little hard to do- but it can be done. Baby steps if you have to- whatever it takes.

If there is one thing that you have complete control of- it's your thoughts. Not limited by gravity or any other physical features. (Assuming you're not schizo or something). And I submit that any adversity can be overcome if you want to bad enough.

[Vraith]

First, in all seriousness, good for you, glad things worked out.
Second, also in all seriousness, that shit doesn't work for everyone, or even most.
Maybe you got lucky.
Maybe you've got super will.
Maybe your depression had other, temporary causes [or the depression was a symptom, as it sometimes is, not an illness itself]
Maybe you've just boxed up and buried certain emotional affects.
"Quit whining and get rich" isn't going to cure anybody.

[Avatar]

And most drugs do not make you un-depressed, either...they may make it possible to live despite being depressed, but they don't fix it...

Much as I do think "positive thought" is a good thing, I also agree with the quote above...medication in this case treats the symptoms, not the cause.

However, if the cause is biological, say, impaired seratonin or dopamine production, then medication is the best one can probably hope for, and probably can be seen as treating, or ameliorating, the cause.

If it's psychological, then medicating could be the equivalent of taking a painkiller, and then assuming everything is alright because you can't feel the pain anymore.

But, as Brinn pointed out to me in this thread or another, if we have the right to alter our consciousness, then we have that right under any circumstances. And if you want/need to do it for functionality, rather than recreation, you probably have even more right.

--A

[Holsety]

I noticed this thread at an appropriate time and therefore spammed it with a superlong self-centered post, without responding to anyone else's thoughts or even reading them.

I don't think I've had any extended periods of depression. However, it is true that I am pretty much always critical of myself in certain aspects of my personality that most people would lead to negative self esteem. Perhaps through effective rationalizing, I recognize that I have traits many would deem negative without feeling that they actually are negative, and ultimately my main concern is that people will discover these traits and view me in a negative light.

TLDR: There are certain things about me which I don't think are bad, but I think others will think are bad, so I am guarded about them.

I have certainly had very short periods of extreme depression. Yesterday I was unable to sleep between about 2 AM and 5 AM because my brain was in a kind of "hyperintensive introspection" I fall into on occasion, where nearly every single memory of past actions etc is recalled and criticized, so that nothing in my life can be explained in any positive sense. This generally evolves into a different framework, in which what I thought of as positive is also critiqued so that in any set of choices, there is the wrong act and at best the hypocritical "right" act. Although this is reminiscent of Wilmot's poem "Satire Against Reason and Mankind" I believe I had these feelings before I read that poem (though I did not make the connection when reading the poem, despite finding it extremely compelling).

Additionally, any sort of anxieties I have about my "path" seem to be amplified tenfold. For instance, a class I took last semester (intermediate micro) was very challenging to me primarily because I was inexperienced in calculus, and constant hours with the teacher were barely enough to catch me up to the point of passing. I have had problems with classes before but not because I put in lots of work and am still perform with a markedly inferior performance to most other students. Feeling like a lack of math was a block was a huge error, and realizing that my adviser and the other professors in the department never made any attempt to diagnose my math know-how before letting me take intermediate micro caused me to have negative feelings towards them as well, where previously there had been pretty much only trust and respect. (I am taking calc A right now and am enjoying it, and I now wish I had been taking math courses all through college so I could do Calc B and differential equations before graduating). And having any kind of negative feelings towards others tends to be a cause of stress in myself, where I end (for reasons I can't understand) rationalizing things so that I am at fault for disliking other people. The math problem seems somewhat resolved now, .

However, it is true that my most intense periods of self-hate seem to originate from hating the fact that I even mildly dislike others. The best explanation (more like analogy) I can come up for this is the idea of "ahimsa" as used in Zindell's "Requiem for Homo Sapiens" trilogy (I know it is also a tenet of certain eastern religions but I do not know how Zindell's use compares to the uses those religions find for it). To Danlo, violent thoughts or impulses are also undesirable. If I treasure human beings for being human, I should try and show people the good in them and not cow them with their flaws. The contradiction is that my way of dealing with these violent thoughts does involve a positive re-evaluation of the disliked party which allows me to deal with them on better terms, it is only because I redirect the anger and violence towards myself of all people. Additionally, it's not so much that I try to focus on the good and dismiss the flaws as that I realize that I see another person as flawed, and then instead conclude that I am flawed for being so concerned with the other person's flaws.

It's not that I actually swore a vow of ahimsa and have problems dealing with it (though I do find nonviolence an extremely compelling philosophy, I do not think I could live up to its full ramifications). It's just that the idea seems somewhat useful in explaining a state of mind that existed in me prior to reading his books.

My real blessing is that I am actually a laid back guy, and I generally run into someone I find a reason to dislike less than once a year.

Back to the "insomnia depression" nights. (I would guess I have them no more than five times a year but I do not record them)
When I woke up at 7 Am I did not recall that I had been depressed until around 11 AM today. I then reflected (for the first time) that although I have had such periods of depression before, I have never actually reflected on the periods of depression themselves. They seem to be instants of another viewpoint of myself that bursts to the fore every so often and then mostly disappear. Even though the suspicions of that self remains, they are not seen as certainties; essentially, I instead see it as POSSIBLE that I have never done anything for a good reason, but I view my self as utterly unknowable and un-understandable.

I feel that it qualifies as depression. Even though I am able to generally out-argue myself during these periods of depression, the arguments that I view as illogical still dominate, which makes me feel that there is some kind of non-thought-influenced cause of the sadness. However, it is also true that breaking apart a depressed thought w/ logic does not bring one to happiness.

For instance, I once thought that many suicides could be "disproven" as rational if they left a suicide note. After all, if the person takes the time to write some sort of testament for others to find, they do care about how their death is viewed after it has completed. From this POV, I think that SOME suicide notes can be viewed as a realization that attachment to the world still exists. Admittedly, there are "rational" reasons to commit suicide even with this being the case (there are things I like or care about, but the bad outweighs the good and I do not see this changing), but I thought at least some might find themselves persuaded by this argument. However, when I thought about it some more, I realized it probably would not suffice. How does a suicidal person feel if they realize that their suicidal impulse is potentially contradictory, hypocritical, trouble-ridden, etc? Possibly even more depressed and confused, even more likely to commit suicide.

[Avatar]

The best explanation (more like analogy) I can come up for this is the idea of "ahimsa" as used in Zindell's "Requiem for Homo Sapiens" trilogy (I know it is also a tenet of certain eastern religions but I do not know how Zindell's use compares to the uses those religions find for it). To Danlo, violent thoughts or impulses are also undesirable. If I treasure human beings for being human, I should try and show people the good in them and not cow them with their flaws.

While I approve of the principle, I disagree with the philosophy in the sense that I don't think violent or uncharitable thoughts/impulses are bad in themselves. For me, it's always the action that counts. (Whether it's words or physical action.)

As long as you don't act on the impulse, having had it doesn't matter. Indeed, I think it's more positive to experience the impulse and not act on it, than it is to never feel the impulse at all.

The impulse itself is a perfectly natural psychological/biological response. Overcoming it is the positive achievement.

--A

[Holsety]

While I approve of the principle, I disagree with the philosophy in the sense that I don't think violent or uncharitable thoughts/impulses are bad in themselves. For me, it's always the action that counts. (Whether it's words or physical action.)

As long as you don't act on the impulse, having had it doesn't matter. Indeed, I think it's more positive to experience the impulse and not act on it, than it is to never feel the impulse at all.

The impulse itself is a perfectly natural psychological/biological response. Overcoming it is the positive achievement.

Well, ya, I agree with all that too. That's why I'm saying that relating it to ahimsa is an imperfect comparison (as are all comparisons). It's not a way of life I swore to follow, or even one I agree with, but a mental pattern I follow that I am able to understand and communicate to others through comparisons with ahimsa. The difference is that this seems to be some kind of mechanism which I can't really explain the reason for, only the existence of it, whereas Danlo had a rationalized explanation for following ahimsa.

Of course, I'm inevitably reshaping what's going on in my head by attempting to understand it, especially by doing so by comparisons to words that are already used to approximate other ideas. But hey, go approximations! It's going to happen no matter how you go about understanding the world.

[duchess of malfi]

Depression is anger without enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong, I've been depressed before. I'll openly admit that I have been a fucking Looney Tune a time or two. A couple of diff exes told me, "You think too much." I'm like, how can you be awake and not be thinking about something?

What it boils down to, like everything else in your life, is your habits. I've talked about this before. More than most people realize, their habits truly define them and control their destiny. The bitch about it is that good habits require effort, and bad habits do not. Take obesity for instance. It's a lot easier to hand over five bucks for hot fatty beef, oil soaked potatoes, and sugary liquid fat than it is to go to the gym for half an hour. I'd wager many, if not most, of us spend more annually on fast food than a gym membership costs. And you don't even need the gym to exercise. You could keep the five bucks and have 320 of his friends join him in 30 years at a rate of 15%.

You are what you think you are. Train yourself to think good, uplifting, proactive things. Negative or positive, it's your choice.

This is one of the biggest crocks of shit I have lately seen anywhere.

This sort of thinking over the centuries has stigmatized people suffering from very real physically based mental and emotional disorders.

You cannot "train yourself" to get over post-partum depression or post-partum psychosis as they have a physical cause.

How on Earth can someone who has a hormonal or chemical inbalance in their body that leads to panic attacks or clinical depression or psychosis "think themselves happy"?

Sure, this pop light school of though might work for those suffering a bit of the blues after a breakup with their casual girl/boy friend or a bit of stress at work, but will not do a fucking thing for people with serious disorders that are caused by (in too many cases) little understood physical problems.