Depression Treatment

*note this is one of the old posts I actually wrote a long time ago– just FTR*

*…But as I am writing it now, I’ve modified it significantly so as to blend better with current thought, and also to incorporate recent concepts when relevant…*

As I explained in Playing the Victim, one of my co-workers was suffering from acute depression, and asked for advice. The solution I gave her was *obviously* to stop “playing the victim”, and accept responsibility for her life – thus empowering herself and providing the psychological leverage needed to deal with the other issues, and begin progressing with life again. Although this solution is logically valid, I’ve become to realize more and more how much truth cannot be logically justified -so, for lack of better feelings, I should  “be more considerate of her feelings”- for lack of better phrasing – So this depression needs to be handled more gradually, using “gentler” methods :P

Due to the ever-constant chaos already eminent in her life, dealing with it logically would be impossible, because logic has already become irrelevant. I assured her that I would see what I could do in finding a [irony alert!] more *reasonable* solution, and fortunately, I think I’ve found one. Well, from the looks of things the *best* solution is a work-in-progress, but at the very least it’s something to work off of. Of course the solution has nothing to do with drugs. I was medicated for several years in the past, and although I definitely had, and *have* the illnesses I was diagnosed with, I found I did far better without them. Come to think of it, the several different medications I was given did little more than sedate me. As far as I can tell, that was about it. Don’t ask why, I have know clue :P

As I mentioned in that same post (“Playing the Victim”) I was able to deal with my psychological issues best (by an overwhelming margin) without medication; if anything the medication just made things worse. So although I cannot speak for anyone else, From my person experiences I would definitely recommend against the ingestion of psychological drugs of any kind. Treatment is frequently contrasted with “Cure”, being only a temporary/partial solution (i.e. to minimize symptoms)- Cures are permanent.

I think the fact that medication only minimizes symptoms is particularly interesting- after all, “Symptoms” are the proof that the body/mind/etc. is fighting against the disease/etc. If the symptoms disappear, that doesn’t mean the person is better. In fact, if the disease/etc. still exist despite symptoms, that should be considered a bad thing, since the immune system is essentially being suppressed, allowing the disease freely roam, resulting in far worse [in this case] mental health. Well, that’s just speculation on my part, but such an opinion is also implied in “I Never Promised you Roses”. In the cases of depression, the “cure” might well be to deal with the problem as described in “Playing the Victim”- however, for now, a temporary solution [*treatment*] should suffice.

Among many– more minor illnesses, I have Bipolar- previously known as “manic-depressive” disorder. The previous name is much more descriptive, but I guess they’re trying to be more politically correct :P I regularly go through cycles- between depressive and more manic states; I maintain a more “normal” demeanor in-between. The upside and downside of Bipolar is the same: the cycles are predictable. That is- I only get depressed or manic “when I’m supposed to”- this makes cycles very predictable, and I can schedule accordingly, since it works like clockwork. But of course, no one likes getting depressed– well, I’m sure plenty of people like getting manic though :P Then again, I don’t ever get anxious (for certain reasons that I’ll cover in later posts) so I don’t have to deal with that part of the manic cycle…but for whatever its worth, that’s the downside.

A while ago I realized that I could completely thwart the depression cycles (although the manic isn’t so bad) by making a habit of automatically rejecting the logical validity of all negative thoughts. Although I did not realize it then, I had already been doing such a thing for a few years now. But I have also realized that, in accordance with balance, to disregard any emotion logically, I had to lose my emotions; this is because to logically get rid of emotions, one must believe any previous emotions to never have existed- this is necessary because emotions are the backbone of passion and desire- no decision can follow through without one’s emotions backing it.

Getting back to habits though, as I detailed in [insert post], it’s possible to force oneself to change the perception of anything you want, even if it is the exact opposite of the original and natural perception. In that experiment, as I was walking in the freezing cold (of last winter, to be exact) I decided to imagine the pain as being pleasure, and concentrated on the cold being a good thing, setting aside all “common sense” in favor of this perception. The result was a bit surprising- by concentrating the pain completely went away- it was very exciting seeing how perceptions can be manipulated this way.

The only thing lacking with this is that one must concentrate to experience the conversion. That’s where habits come in. The purpose of habits is to keep of memory of thing that are done often, and usually require a degree of concentration. It is an adaptation that allows us to perform tasks better the more that we do it, because those things we’ve already concentrated on a lot are stored in our “cache“, which frees up our “memory” to focus on the finer details, or other tasks. Although perhaps I’m a bit partial due to my hobbies, I think that the human brain is strikingly similar to the computer- or, even more likely, the other way around.

As a result of these habits, I have not felt depressed for a few years now.

*Note “felt”- “depression can mean more than one thing; “felt” meaning that I have not had any sad or depressing thoughts for a while. In retrospect BTW this is not a good thing- to accomplish this required “unbreacheable” psychological walls to be put up, resulting in an almost completely nonchalant perspective towards everything; the root meaning of depression (“to slow down”/ “fall” / “be undone” /etc) is still true even now- the depression just does not include the emotional components (i.e. sadness/melancholy/etc.)*

There was one brief period a while back (see Self-Awareness post ) but that only last half an hour. I was thrust into a terrible depression, due to not being able to prepare a decent resume (I had no work experience at the time). But, seeing that I needed it to get done, I forcibly moved myself forward, and was able to pull off what had appeared to be impossible, thus effectively ending that “episode“. Recalling this incident has also played a key role in determining another, more “reasonable” solution to my coworker’s problem.

All of “today” (*see top*), as expected, I experienced the usual wave of depression. Well, I say depressed, but (as explained above) the only symptom I still experience is a complete lack of motivation to do anything productive. On these days I might normally do nothing but watch anime- and in WCS even lack the motivation to play games. But even when I have such days, going to work is not a problem. Actually, on these days going to work is actually more of a vacation, anyway. Much of the reason for this is explained in Opportunity– that is, working each day with the awareness that half my pay is not in the salary, but in the opportunity to work. As I’ve discovered over time, the reason why working can be so fulfilling- is because of expectations- knowing that our coworkers and supervisors expect us to do the job well, and fullfilling those expectations, fills us with a wonderful sense of pride. The way I see it, this is “running away from ourselves”- here’s why:

Who we are- that which we perceive ourselves to be, and also who and that which we perceive others to be, is dependent on memory, which also means that we can only see ourselves and other people as we were in the past. That is because we are contantly changing and growing, clarifying and building upon who we are every second, although the changes may not be noticed for years. Because of that, the person we perceive ourselves to be, is actually the past, and is not entirely accurate. The irony (and amusement) of this, is that we are able to change in the first place for this same reason. See, to move forward and grow, we must leave our past behind us, which I believe is a necessity due to balance. Interestingly enough, it is also a central theme for reincarnation. So “running away” from ourself in essence means “leaving behind the past” to move towards a better future. So perhaps a more optimistic phrasing would be “running to” (although that would totally kill the visual)

Since I am a restless individual, lacking in patience (although I have aquired a significant patience these past few months, in recognition of the need) I first dealt with my lack of motivation by being confrontational (i.e. a complete ass) with my roommates. Thinking about it now, that initial approach is strikingly similar to Linkin Park’s song “Breaking the Habit”. From what I can tell, this journey I’m going through has an extremely close likeness that the journey that Linkin Park depicts in their music, so I often listen to the words of their songs for guidance. As the contributers (of that song) in Linkin Park did though, I realized that there were better ways of dealing with it, that I needed to ‘break the habit’.

So I started settling down, and played games with them instead. Here I realized another way of self-treating depression. Summing it all up, a person’s psychological health is primarily dependent on one factor- pride. This is why it’s important to not play the victim- depression is caused by insecurity. The opposite of insecurity is self-control. Taking control of a situation is an active way of alleviating insecurity (and thus depression), but it’s likely that in most cases of depression, the person’s state-of-mind renders them incapable of taking the initiative- thus a passive response is necessary. By playing games with my roommates that I knew I would win, and by following through with that expectation, I am able to alleviate my insecurity in a passive manner. That is, it required no initiative, because they already wanted to play- I only had to say “yes”. Thus, one of the best ways to alleviate depression passively, without initiative, is to put oneself in an environment where we will succeed, and have the expectations of others to drive and support that success.

With both the resume incident and the days that I played games to relieve depression, the key factor is power. In one way or another, empowering oneself plays a vital role in allowing us to move on. To put in another way, the most efficient way to get over depression is to “pet your ego” by showing off your strengths to others. Pride is, after all, one of our greatest needs as humans, making this a reliable “quick fix” for depression