Reflection
[x-posted to unusual_minds]
I noticed two things yesterday.
1) Chris and I were talking about music. He asserted that all metal is about Satanism, violence, and suicide, whereas I took the stance that the sound, not the topic range, defined metal and that it was possible for a metal song to be positive and upbeat. I cited a few of my favorite Nightwish songs as examples.
Chris said, "Are you joking? Nightwish's entire discography is Tuomas's attempt to deal with his crippling depression through music. Dark Passion Play is literally the story of how Tuomas tried to kill himself in 2005." (Contextual footnote: Dark Passion Play is Nightwish's best album.) I re-listened to the Nightwish songs I previously thought were happy and realized he was right.
Then I thought, hang on... years ago I used to hear suicide in absolutely everything I listened to, whether it was there or not. I even interpreted every pop music song on the radio as being about suicide in some way or another. From this, I've progressed to not even noticing that about seventy songs in my music library, all of which I listen to and enjoy, are rather blatantly about suicide... because suicide never even crosses my mind anymore.
Celexa 1, depression 0.
2) Lately, I've been thinking. My mind has been active with original thoughts, questions, and hunger for knowledge. The quality and frequency of my writing, which had dropped off dramatically -- I even stopped updating my LiveJournal, a habit I'd faithfully kept for eight years -- are on the up. My dreams, which had for a little over a year all followed the same basic formula, started being interesting again. For the past couple weeks, I haven't bored myself to tears. My creativity is returning.
And I notice... the reason I was driven to write and think and analyze and ask and have so many ideas, in the past, was my depression. Back when I was suicidal and static-filled all the time, the whole world was within my power to explain... I invented systems such that everything made sense to me, even though anyone looking at my brain chemistry alone would conclude that I couldn't have possibly made sense of anything. Though I didn't know it at the time, my creativity was fueled by my mental illness. And when I started taking 60 mg Celexa, I thought I was just getting old - of course I wasn't going to be as creative or original at 21 as I was at 12; my life just wasn't that interesting anymore; I'd thought everything already when I was younger and had just run out of things to think. I did not consider the possibility that getting treated effectively for my depression might have any negative effects - I was too busy being over the moon about the positive ones. (And I don't mean to discount them at all, either - being medicated has improved the quality of my life by about seventeen thousand percent. I'm no longer suicidal, I sleep normally, I'm capable of relaxing.)
But now I can see a possible correlation between the return of some of my mental activity and the reduction of my dose from 60 mg to 40 mg. I never understood why anyone would resist their meds, complain about their meds, willingly go off their meds... and now I start to get it.
What a pity that being both happy and interesting is so difficult.
What a joy that, while rare, it's not impossible.
~If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.
I noticed two things yesterday.
1) Chris and I were talking about music. He asserted that all metal is about Satanism, violence, and suicide, whereas I took the stance that the sound, not the topic range, defined metal and that it was possible for a metal song to be positive and upbeat. I cited a few of my favorite Nightwish songs as examples.
Chris said, "Are you joking? Nightwish's entire discography is Tuomas's attempt to deal with his crippling depression through music. Dark Passion Play is literally the story of how Tuomas tried to kill himself in 2005." (Contextual footnote: Dark Passion Play is Nightwish's best album.) I re-listened to the Nightwish songs I previously thought were happy and realized he was right.
Then I thought, hang on... years ago I used to hear suicide in absolutely everything I listened to, whether it was there or not. I even interpreted every pop music song on the radio as being about suicide in some way or another. From this, I've progressed to not even noticing that about seventy songs in my music library, all of which I listen to and enjoy, are rather blatantly about suicide... because suicide never even crosses my mind anymore.
Celexa 1, depression 0.
2) Lately, I've been thinking. My mind has been active with original thoughts, questions, and hunger for knowledge. The quality and frequency of my writing, which had dropped off dramatically -- I even stopped updating my LiveJournal, a habit I'd faithfully kept for eight years -- are on the up. My dreams, which had for a little over a year all followed the same basic formula, started being interesting again. For the past couple weeks, I haven't bored myself to tears. My creativity is returning.
And I notice... the reason I was driven to write and think and analyze and ask and have so many ideas, in the past, was my depression. Back when I was suicidal and static-filled all the time, the whole world was within my power to explain... I invented systems such that everything made sense to me, even though anyone looking at my brain chemistry alone would conclude that I couldn't have possibly made sense of anything. Though I didn't know it at the time, my creativity was fueled by my mental illness. And when I started taking 60 mg Celexa, I thought I was just getting old - of course I wasn't going to be as creative or original at 21 as I was at 12; my life just wasn't that interesting anymore; I'd thought everything already when I was younger and had just run out of things to think. I did not consider the possibility that getting treated effectively for my depression might have any negative effects - I was too busy being over the moon about the positive ones. (And I don't mean to discount them at all, either - being medicated has improved the quality of my life by about seventeen thousand percent. I'm no longer suicidal, I sleep normally, I'm capable of relaxing.)
But now I can see a possible correlation between the return of some of my mental activity and the reduction of my dose from 60 mg to 40 mg. I never understood why anyone would resist their meds, complain about their meds, willingly go off their meds... and now I start to get it.
What a pity that being both happy and interesting is so difficult.
What a joy that, while rare, it's not impossible.
~If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.