Life span.

[Triple Zero]

Okay, we can all agree that all this shit is subjective.   

Great, then maybe you could stop saying shit like this:

And since most people don't seem to benefit at all from depression,

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Forgive me for not e-priming that enough.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Okay, fine.  There appears to be an issue of semantics.  When I talk about depression I'm talking about the severe kind, that lasts for years and is very nearly living death.  You and Net seem to be talking about something not quite so relentlessly and unendingly horrible.  I've never been blessed by the latter, so it seems like a magical unicorn of impossibility and probably not at all the same thing since it doesn't apparently involve thoughts of suicide and months of incapacitation.  If only I could be so lucky as to be occasionally afflicted by a bad mood instead of struggling to carry on day-to-day activities like feeding and dressing myself for months on end.

[Kai]

woah, didn't see this last night.

Depression, for me, is not "down time". It's not being a little sad. Depression is struggling to even live, like a psychological exhaustion. And it's crippling.

Kudos to those who don't experience it. You miss out on nothing.


Maybe van Gogh wouldn't have made so many paintings, but I'm sure antidepressants would have done him a world of good. Fuck you for selfishly coveting his art over his own well being.


Also, yesterday I cleaned the hell outta my toilet. I had a hell of a lot of appreciation for how dirty it can get, and how clean it looks when I finished. All in all it wasn't an experience wasted.

for more information, cf. Dirty Jobs. Especially the episode about the guy who works for the Madison Metropolitan Sewarage, cleaning out septic tanks.

[Reeducation]

I have suffered heavy depression and it ruined my life for many years. So it was shit.                                                  
After the depression my life has been better than before the depression. So it's not all negative.

The outcome can be positive product made from negative material.

[LMNO]

I don't think I've ever had Depression (capital D), but I'm sure I've been depressed (lowercase d).

My brother, on the other hand, has been Depressed (capital D).  And it was horrific.

Almost an entire year spent in his basement studio apartment with the shade drawn on only window.  Bottle of whiskey strewn about the floor, the smell of rank sweat and stale cigarettes, unwashed sheets and half-eaten food stuck to dishes tossed in the general direction of the sink.

He was a musician, one of the more creative guitarists I have known, and in that period of time, his musical output was exactly ZERO. 

So, anectdotes.  Here's another.

I can understand whoever said that they create when they're depressed. When I get depressed (lowercase d), I also seem to find myself at the computer or with a guitar, writing music.  But the creativity doesn't come because I'm depressed.  The depression makes me want to avoid everything that's happening in my life, it makes me want to disengage, and escape.  When I'm creating, I shut out the entire world.  I can do it when I'm not depressed, too; it's just when I'm depressed, it's easier to shut things out than it is to engage the real world, and its problems.

So, anectdotes.

[Cramulus]

Maybe van Gogh wouldn't have made so many paintings, but I'm sure antidepressants would have done him a world of good. Fuck you for selfishly coveting his art over his own well being.

yeahhhhhh well its not like I know the guy

is this a "fuck you" to me specifically? or to everybody that likes van gogh's blue period?


This is clearly a very emotional topic, and a lot of people are marginalizing or dismissing other people's experiences, which is kind of insensitive. And apparently liking art made by people who were depressed is incredibly selfish too. So I'm just going to baaaack awaaaay.

[Kai]

Maybe van Gogh wouldn't have made so many paintings, but I'm sure antidepressants would have done him a world of good. Fuck you for selfishly coveting his art over his own well being.

yeahhhhhh well its not like I know the guy

is this a "fuck you" to me specifically? or to everybody that likes van gogh's blue period?


This is clearly a very emotional topic, and a lot of people are marginalizing or dismissing other people's experiences, which is kind of insensitive. And apparently liking art made by people who were depressed is incredibly selfish too. So I'm just going to baaaack awaaaay.

Nahh. Fuck you to Net. He's the one who called me a "bliss ninny".

[East Coast Hustle]

I don't think he did, actually. I think he used the term to describe what he thought of as an attitude that was counterproductive in the long run and you let your ego get in the way of seeing what he was trying to say. Don't feel bad, though, you certainly weren't the only one ITT who was guilty of that.

I really have no opinion on the OP because I've never really been depressed, but I do have an opinion on kneejerk reactions and peoples' tendency to marginalize any viewpoint on a subject that isn't in line with their own.

[Eater of Clowns]

There's a little known book called Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process by a little known psychologist named Lawrence Kubie.  In it he examines why it is that those of a depressed mindset appear to have a higher creative output.  It's been a few years since I read it, but I recall his argument being that creativity and depression can be correlated but aren't inextricably linked.  The brightly burning moments of clarity within what is understood to be a depressive cloud might really be creativity making the beautiful more clear in the mind without necessarily altering the rest, and it's the juxtaposition that makes it seem like a depressed state.

[Triple Zero]

Okay, fine.  There appears to be an issue of semantics.  When I talk about depression I'm talking about the severe kind, that lasts for years and is very nearly living death.  You and Net seem to be talking about something not quite so relentlessly and unendingly horrible.  I've never been blessed by the latter, so it seems like a magical unicorn of impossibility and probably not at all the same thing since it doesn't apparently involve thoughts of suicide and months of incapacitation.  If only I could be so lucky as to be occasionally afflicted by a bad mood instead of struggling to carry on day-to-day activities like feeding and dressing myself for months on end.

There's loads of different kinds and there's loads of different people dealing with it in loads of different ways and getting loads of different types of therapy and/or drugs.

Such are the woes of the DSM-IV.

Let's not one-up one another on severity.

though I don't think anybody counts "occasionally afflicted by a bad mood" as a depression (certainly not any physician). that's being depressed. it's also kind of condescending to compare whatever I went through as a blessing, magical or being lucky. regardless of whether it's really real depression for realness or not. i can understand my description probably pales in comparison to what you know you went through. but I didn't tell you the whole story. I don't like to talk about it, or rather to dig up all the memories.  Though even if I did, you probably had it worse anyway from the sound of it. Doesn't matter. Still not cool to say that.