(no subject)
I think the word which best describes the "opposite" of depression is "fulfillment". For myself, at least, depression is the inability to be fulfilled by those things by which I would otherwise be satisfied. This explains (in principle) the concurrence of depression and loss of/severe increase in appetite and sexual drive...Biologically speaking, this (I believe) is a feature of imbalances of dopamine and/or serotonin and/or norepinephrine.
I find myself reaching for those things which give immediate or calculable pleasure: sex, alcohol, caffeine, drugs (no longer, but at a certain point in my life)...I've also felt sated by the enactment or fulfillment of more primal and infantile emotions and/or behaviors: (being the subject of) attention, ("") pity, self-pity, explosive anger, arguing/arguments/conflict, etc...
More than my own emotions I see that the ways in which I attempt to maintain a certain level of fulfillment and alleviate the "symptoms" of depression, rather than the actual feeling of hopelessness, worthlessness, and worst of all, meaninglessness, is just as if not more destructive than the latter itself. I have become aware enough of my own actions that any means to remedy the self has really just become a means of alleviating symptoms... in other words, if depression is lung cancer, then I'm sucking on cough drops rather than getting chemo.
I just inadvertently transitioned into my argument for antidepressant medication... in which case I am in fact both sucking on cough drops AND getting chemo. I will save myself the effort of explanation and allow you to play with the metaphor if you so choose...it does not extend far enough to allow for your possible counterargument: if you are still miserable half the time, why bother at all?
(Because) I wouldn't measure misery in terms of "now I am" and "now I'm not" but instead as a sort of feeling and sense of the world that extends itself into my every action and thought and emotion and affects my ability to live.
Quite ironically, my experience has been one drug keeping me from the others. After having relapsed after two years of post-rehab sobriety, I got into therapy and on antidepressants. I haven't picked up any "illicit" drugs since.
I can only to a small degree understand your fear of antidepressants. Because of the massive amount of far more dangerous and habit-forming drugs that I put into my body from the ages of 14-19 and the absurdly quick decline of my mental health during the binges that occurred therein, taking a pill that keeps me at baseline seems the natural thing to do. I see antidepressants (SSRI's, SSNRI's and drugs such as buproprion (wellbutrin) that affect levels of norepinephrine and dopamine) as the missing component of an equation, rather than something that is added or given to my body in order to create a desirable effect... I realize this is not a very clear distinction. It is true that things like changing one's diet and exercise and therapy can over time change brain chemistry...though they are also easy excuses not to do anything else that might http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_AO1wsGDEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_AO1wsGDE. Note Cruise's comments around 3:17. He sees the world in completely black and white terms. I hate to cite popular culture, but I think that (Cruise's citation of) Brooke Shields' bout with postpartum depression is a good EXAMPLE of the OPPOSITE of what I'm trying to illustrate...I by no mean to suggest any correlation between your fears and beliefs and Cruise's (I need to dig a little deeper into your journal and, of course, speak about it with you in person). The indomitable Mr. Cruise is not wrong, but nor is he right. His views are based on the assumption that brain chemistry is a myth.
It occurs to me that your fear may be based on an actual resistance to getting better. Though wallowing in one's own shit is smelly, it is also warm, and it is understandable that one might not want to leave the close confines of misery so as to venture out...into what?...into possibility?...into health?...into more misery?
I apologize on that note if I have assumed too much. As I have noted, much of what I have said is not a direct response to your past couple posts but just a general commentary on the issue.
I will say this: there is a point where one must stop theorizing and hypothesizing and do the goddamn experiment already.
I find myself reaching for those things which give immediate or calculable pleasure: sex, alcohol, caffeine, drugs (no longer, but at a certain point in my life)...I've also felt sated by the enactment or fulfillment of more primal and infantile emotions and/or behaviors: (being the subject of) attention, ("") pity, self-pity, explosive anger, arguing/arguments/conflict, etc...
More than my own emotions I see that the ways in which I attempt to maintain a certain level of fulfillment and alleviate the "symptoms" of depression, rather than the actual feeling of hopelessness, worthlessness, and worst of all, meaninglessness, is just as if not more destructive than the latter itself. I have become aware enough of my own actions that any means to remedy the self has really just become a means of alleviating symptoms... in other words, if depression is lung cancer, then I'm sucking on cough drops rather than getting chemo.
I just inadvertently transitioned into my argument for antidepressant medication... in which case I am in fact both sucking on cough drops AND getting chemo. I will save myself the effort of explanation and allow you to play with the metaphor if you so choose...it does not extend far enough to allow for your possible counterargument: if you are still miserable half the time, why bother at all?
(Because) I wouldn't measure misery in terms of "now I am" and "now I'm not" but instead as a sort of feeling and sense of the world that extends itself into my every action and thought and emotion and affects my ability to live.
Quite ironically, my experience has been one drug keeping me from the others. After having relapsed after two years of post-rehab sobriety, I got into therapy and on antidepressants. I haven't picked up any "illicit" drugs since.
I can only to a small degree understand your fear of antidepressants. Because of the massive amount of far more dangerous and habit-forming drugs that I put into my body from the ages of 14-19 and the absurdly quick decline of my mental health during the binges that occurred therein, taking a pill that keeps me at baseline seems the natural thing to do. I see antidepressants (SSRI's, SSNRI's and drugs such as buproprion (wellbutrin) that affect levels of norepinephrine and dopamine) as the missing component of an equation, rather than something that is added or given to my body in order to create a desirable effect... I realize this is not a very clear distinction. It is true that things like changing one's diet and exercise and therapy can over time change brain chemistry...though they are also easy excuses not to do anything else that might http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_AO1wsGDEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_AO1wsGDE. Note Cruise's comments around 3:17. He sees the world in completely black and white terms. I hate to cite popular culture, but I think that (Cruise's citation of) Brooke Shields' bout with postpartum depression is a good EXAMPLE of the OPPOSITE of what I'm trying to illustrate...I by no mean to suggest any correlation between your fears and beliefs and Cruise's (I need to dig a little deeper into your journal and, of course, speak about it with you in person). The indomitable Mr. Cruise is not wrong, but nor is he right. His views are based on the assumption that brain chemistry is a myth.
It occurs to me that your fear may be based on an actual resistance to getting better. Though wallowing in one's own shit is smelly, it is also warm, and it is understandable that one might not want to leave the close confines of misery so as to venture out...into what?...into possibility?...into health?...into more misery?
I apologize on that note if I have assumed too much. As I have noted, much of what I have said is not a direct response to your past couple posts but just a general commentary on the issue.
I will say this: there is a point where one must stop theorizing and hypothesizing and do the goddamn experiment already.