Depression and what it's really like

better than some imaginary non bipolar version of the same author, or failing that, noted fabulist jonah lehrer.

when people advance this theory I always think "you can't be a better author/musician/comedian if you kill yourself" so

he doesnt mention him in the book but david foster wqllace did pop into mind readng it.

I think he's confusing correlation and causation.

well his premise is that manic phase fills you with ideas and the depressive phase winnows all the bad ones out and refines the good ones. does that resonate at all?

I'm not bipolar so who knows about manic phases. Being depressive sort of makes all ideas seem lousy, including getting out of bed and eating. Far be it from me to contradict his lived experience tho.

i am not bipolar but that sounds like bullshit of the most refined degree

Being depressive sort of makes all ideas seem lousy

yeah

when i'm at a certain level of depression, having an idea seems like the hardest thing in the world. the ideas only come when i'm functional enough to be "lol depressive" (instead of sitting in the dark and wanting everything to go away).

As an aside to this discussion, fuuuck I am sick of this. I seem to be missing a part of my brain that makes normal people figure out how to do stuff and live at least semi-contented lives. I don't do shit, I haven't accomplished shit. I can't seem to make myself get up and go at all. My phases of approaching normalish functionality are few and far between and are always undercut and unraveled. And I feel it's all my fault(aside from shitty genes/shitty parental modeling), because I'm essentially just a dull-brained, uncreative asshole with zero gumption or grit or anything. It hurts pretty bad, too, because it comes on the heels of me actually being pretty sparkling and charming and making someone fall for me and feeling like there was possibility in life. That was obviously just a chimera.

Chimera is such a great word, I am a sucker for anyone who uses it. I can't even read the rest of your post, I just see the last word and am delighted.

what do you mean by uncreative? in action or intent?

And I feel it's all my fault(aside from shitty genes/shitty parental modeling)

Haha. So except for...pretty much everything that forms you into the adult you are, until you forcibly un-learn those lessons? Oh sure, nbd, you can blame yourself for...well, there's not that much left, really.

Both. Like, a creative person would figure out how to shift perspective, or how to DO or become deeply engaged in something that gave her purpose. xpost

I can blame myself for shitty, further crazy-making choices, not trying hard enough to not suck etc

what youre describng as creative sounds awfully like mania.

a manic episode just multiplies whatever you are into a super brief golden age of yourself, then incoherence and soon the hospital. I would venture to say that it def helps during the manic phase but once you land back on planet depression it makes you hate / delete everything you did which is actually pretty fucking terrible but maybe this guy has a mild version of the disease that he's able to control who knows, famous people and their superpowers.

Howso? I mean, I get that being creative as in making stuff is actually a process of putting in work daily, but I'm not necessarily even talking about that. Maybe I should have chosen a different word, like resourceful. Being able to shift your perspective is not, I don't think, manic. It's realizing there are other modes of thinking, realities available. When I'm depressed I feel extremely learnedly helpless and trapped, even though the gate is actually open. xpost

oh maybe you weren't talking to me, PN

Maybe it helps to be mildly cyclothymic xpost

well this language of opening and closing gates does kind of fit into the discovery and refinement phase of innovation. id hate to think that the cure for depression turns out to be mania though.

I really don't understand how what I described scans as manic?

It doesn't to me

The dumb gate analogy just referred to the depressive distortion of thinking you're imprisoned and can't change anything in your situation xpost. Yeah, maybe I should clarify I'm derailing the thread to talk about me, not talking about the author mentioned upthread

Also want to acknowledge that I don't think depression is as simple as "perspective." For a lot of people it really is quite intractable and nearly impossible to escape. Anything mean I say about myself in no way applies to how I feel about any other depressed person.

even still the hyper focus combined with unusual productivity . it sounds like something more than just being functional.

Productive phases for me mean I'm holding a job, regularly getting out to see people, basically contented, feeling engaged and connected with the world, finding myself interested in a healthy range of things, and having thoughts that are interesting and satisfying to me. Nothing that falls under the puview of mania: staying up for hours, spending sprees, flights of idea, that sort of thing.

What I meant by deeply engaged was having something you do that you are invested in and care about, be it a hobby, a family, a career, art, whatever. I feel like being engaged and invested--with ,of course, a carefree awareness that it's all ultimately pretty meaningless--is pretty essential for a basic level of happiness.

I think you can be healthily detached and engaged at the same time...realizing there is some Self that isn't what you do, but also realizing you need to connect with and do SOMETHING.

that paints a different picture from being creative and accomplishing things. i got the sense of lars from some kind of monster still not being satisfied with being in one of the biggest band in the world,but i guess what you want is to be more like kirk hammett?

I'm drunk as fuck and I have to be up in five hours for work.

Something about the discussion of creativity and mania. I'm not bipolar, just depressed, but the absence of the depression and the normal amazing flow of ideas and jokes and plans can seem like mania in contrast.

I don't realize it is gone until someone mentions it and I realize what a sad hard slog life has been lately.

It's made diagnosis difficult in the past when they ask "Have you had times of extreme emotions or activities and made plans and been active." "Of course that is what fucking life is like what the fuck I've not suffered mania, those were just the moments that I was still alive"

I'm trying to interact with the previous posts, but maybe failing.

then the crushing realization of whatever the hell and that's how I'll feel in a few hours.

put a smile on my face, clean up, drink some water. Take some vitamins, grab the sleep available. Don't take it out on my co-workers.

yeah, yeah, I wasn't being melodramatic upthread. I mean, I really don't do SHIT. xpost

Zachary, so so otm. I totally feel this. I have worried/had it suggested by a friend that I might be bipolar (this was when I was drinking a lot and barely eating and was in love with this asshole and would enjoy music with an intensity that frightened me, but would break down sobbing a lot), but it really is hard to tell when your axis is shifting so far below normal people's. My psychiatrist dismisses the notion that I am bipolar, but that fear is the main reason I have been afraid to take the SSRI he gave me.

(serious malnutrition and limerence do confound any kind of diagnosis..fortunately I have figured out how to take better care of myself re: basic survival stuff and avoiding people who are gonna make me feel like that. I was, like, 21-22 at that point.)

Not doing shit seems to be what most people do. Just sort of maintaining.
what are you afraid the ssris will do?

ugh re zach's point, i was misdiagnosed as bipolar by the first THREE psychiatrists i saw, and i've now been taking ssris for over a year. i have fantasized about revisiting them just to shove an rx bottle in their faces and yell "DO U SEE?"

xpost

I had to google "limerence". smile.

I had a thought while I was washing my face and having an imaginary conversation with a supervisor/friend. "The only trick I have left is being better than everybody else, and I'm not very good at being better than everybody else."

Maybe the only tricks I have left are taking better care of myself and being easier on myself.

xpost again? I don't know the proper usage.

not speaking for emily, but a reasonable fear could be that an ssri could tip the balance into a full-blown mania, if you are actually bipolar. Again, I'm not, but I had a phase where a medically irresponsible combo of welbutrin, paxil, klonopin, and some atypical anti-psychotics pushed my into extremely dangerous attitudes and behaviors.

Yes, Philip, just what Zachary said. Also, I'm not really even maintaining. Not working, barely getting out or seeing anyone. Ugh.

Yeah, I'm like the last thing I need is to take something and spiral up into frank psychosis. This town is way too small for a manic episode.

can the dosage be slowly ramped to a good level or do they not work that way?

yeah, yeah that's how I'm supposed to do it. I also have ocd in the form of health anxiety, so I'm probably abnormally afeared. But yeah, my psych has said on two separate occasions that I don't need to worry about BPD.

Also, fun fact, fellow ilx depressives: you don't have to have BPD for psychosis. My dad had psychotic major depression. I think some pdocs diagnosed him with major depression + schizophrenia, but in my entirely unprofessional opinion that is bullshit because he didn't exhibit any other schiz signs besides delusions of persecution/intense guilt, which also occur with psychotic major depression.

do you feel depression is a kind of OCD as well? Or at least some aspect of it?

Can't speak for anyone, but for me, certainly. Not so much the avolition and anhedonia, but certainly the thinking you're shit and it will never change and everything has a dark cast to it. I guess the "thought" component of it is very ocd for me.

This is fun, I like being interviewed about my crazy.

Is there separate OCD treatment you could try?

Ha glad you are having fun because that's all the compensation you'll get when I use this data to invent a cure for depression. Muajjjajaa ( not manic btw)

there's definitely a connection between ocd and depression -- ocd has to do with thought cycles that don't complete, because the part of the brain that deals out "satisfaction" or "resolution" isn't working. doctors regularly prescribe prozac for ocd, and therapists use the same cbt exercises.

As it so happens OCD is usually treated with SSRIs, too. Also really wish I could do a CBT/exposure intensive to knock out the fucking panic disorder (which is also very much fueled by obsessive thinking), as it's what's keeping me in and avoidant and has got me depressed in the first place. (Though tbf I've had depression/obsessive tendencies for 17 years. The panic attacks only blossomed about three years ago.)

Yeah, what GB said. xpost

There's some weird brain tricks you can do with powerful magnets that I suspect can be used in concert or even in lieu of cbt.
Has anyone offered this sort of thing or is it still on the fringe?