Depression

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Haven't you been professionally diagnosed as an asshole?

Yes, but that was by a military psychaitrist, who - as everyone knows - cannot be trusted.

I'm in an indeterminate state.  A quantum taint, if you like.

[Juana]

I remember that.

[LMNO]

Schrodinger's colon.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Schrodinger's colon.

You can't tell if it's poop or not until you open the sphincter.  Then the universe has to make a decision, and - in my case, anyway - the whole thing collapses.

It's not a pretty sight.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Schrodinger's colon.

You can't tell if it's poop or not until you open the sphincter.  Then the universe has to make a decision, and - in my case, anyway - the whole thing collapses.

It's not a pretty sight.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Schrodinger's colon.

[Lenin McCarthy]

The bolded pretty much sum what it actually feels like. You don't even feel like dying because that's also doing something, whether you're the agent for it or not. No, you want to stay in that trench, in that nice bit of oblivion between your last waking thought and your first dream.

Exactly. I'm in a better place now, but in the last month I've had three or four days when I never even got myself to school because of that.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The bolded pretty much sum what it actually feels like. You don't even feel like dying because that's also doing something, whether you're the agent for it or not. No, you want to stay in that trench, in that nice bit of oblivion between your last waking thought and your first dream.

Exactly. I'm in a better place now, but in the last month I've had three or four days when I never even got myself to school because of that.

It was like that for me too. I wouldn't go to work until Friday sometimes.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Haven't you been professionally diagnosed as an asshole?

Yes, but that was by a military psychaitrist, who - as everyone knows - cannot be trusted.

I'm in an indeterminate state. A quantum taint, if you like.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I had depression once. I've had The Fear my entire life, and I've had long periods where I was gripped with grief and despair, but grief and despair are feelings. They're feelings that suck, and feelings that can motivate insanely self-destructive behavior, but they are feelings nonetheless. Depression is so completely different, and so completely impossible to really describe to anyone who hasn't had it. For me, someone who has lived her entire life balls-to-the-wall whether I'm madly in love or madly heartbroken or in a creative frenzy or destroying myself with whiskey, it was terrifying. Eventually, I pulled out of it, and I'm not entirely sure how or why but I think it was a combination of therapy and serotonin precursor supplements and being too sick to drink and changing my entire life by going back to school, but my personality seems to have been permanently altered. Not in a bad way, but sometimes I really miss the exhilarating rush of being the old me all the time, TAKING IT TO THE WALL. THIS LOOKS BAD, MIGHT AS WELL JUMP IN WITH BOTH FEET WOOOOOOOO JUST HOW WRONG CAN THIS GO?

On the other hand, now I can sleep.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I had depression once. I've had The Fear my entire life, and I've had long periods where I was gripped with grief and despair, but grief and despair are feelings.

This is a HUGE distinction.  Being unhappy or afraid != depression.

Not that I have to tell anyone here that.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I've been horribly, horribly miserable but never quite at that apathetic depressive place.

I keep snapping back. This is a blessing and a curse. I can be happy with very little, and I'm not a person people feel sympathy for. When I was laid up I had visions of myself as one of those fucked up crippled people on the sidewalk that nobody even talks to, and how people would say "She's HAPPY like that." :P

[P3nT4gR4m]

I've been depressed. I've been hypomanic. A lot of people hate hypomania. Not me - I fucking love it! There is no better high available anywhere. Don't even try. There's no point. Nothing comes within a billion light years. I know this. I also know better than to indulge it. It is something I could make happen very easily. That notion makes me, not exactly nervous but very very aware of mental RPM.

Depression, on the other hand, isn't something I do. It's more something that happens to me if I don't do enough. It's quicksand but thick like glue. I need to keep moving or I'll get stuck in it and sink. So I keep moving, living, laughing, crying, screaming. Keep the revs high. But no too high.

[McMegaDeff]

I will say depression has led me to places I'd have never gone had I been content with life more often. In a way I think I've liked more intensely. For ever low there was an equal high, that sort of thing...

and then there's medication and the horrid state of american psychiatry....

This all sparked in my a healthy distrust for alot of things...at times full on hallucinatory and paranoid, but now after some time distilling it all I've come to a very self created freedom. I learned that standard medication is weird, ineffective and just way more harmful than any authority will tell you...

I learned about nutrients and herbs and alechemical medicine...all because of my initial disatisfaction with life...

I think it was plato who wrote about the splinter in his mind...the feeling that something wasn't righjt that kept him ever searching...

- -I'm mild high horsing having two weeks off psyche meds and a year off dope, but whatever it is that makes me the way I am...I've gotten better at it...Like a bird that learned to fly...

*the more you know*~~*shooting stars*~~* unicorns ~~* pixie dust

[Dildo Argentino]

I've been depressed. I've been hypomanic. A lot of people hate hypomania. Not me - I fucking love it! There is no better high available anywhere. Don't even try. There's no point. Nothing comes within a billion light years. I know this. I also know better than to indulge it. It is something I could make happen very easily. That notion makes me, not exactly nervous but very very aware of mental RPM.

Depression, on the other hand, isn't something I do. It's more something that happens to me if I don't do enough. It's quicksand but thick like glue. I need to keep moving or I'll get stuck in it and sink. So I keep moving, living, laughing, crying, screaming. Keep the revs high. But no too high.

Funny thing is (and I'm sorry if simply being addressed by me is cause for offence), that's a description of my life. Too. Except that I'm not sure I've stopped doing depression, because every time I am hypomanic I tend to think so, to hope so, to even congratulate myself on, and then...