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I have fallen into many pits of depression over almost 20 years now, even now I am struggling to get out of a deep one. Seems this is just a cycle in my life, unfortunately.

You can't logic yourself out of beliefs, I completely get that. Once you realize how depressed you are, you're usually also mired in terrible thoughts and negativity.

But in my experience, I HAVE to try to logic myself out of patterns of behaviors. I also need to fight those beliefs, as futile as it seems. Hear me out here:

I think one of the most toxic things was when I thought it was a chemical imbalance completely out of my control -- so there was nothing I could do but take pills and passively wait for my brain chemistry to correct itself.

I have recovered from like 4 or 5 episodes of major depression now, and the key for me every time has been a) realizing I'm depressed b) waiting for/creating a day when I have the energy to think and address this, and then c) reflecting on and fighting against thoughts and behaviours extending/reinforcing the depression.

Obviously this is a messy and inefficient process with a lot of slippage. And maybe it doesn't work for other people, or maybe I've got something else wrong with me than just major depression, and that's why it works.

Anyways, not trying to invalidate your experience, just sharing what I've found works for me.

No, I'm with you here.

The meds are there to help you change the circumstances that drove you into that state. One still has to the work.

That's to say, the meds may make step (b) easier. The rest is the same.

That way out, at the moment, might feel illogical because your logic is ill. Or at least to me it does; for the same reasons it felt "messy", inefficient, and slippery to you.

What use is logic when the axioms are flawed? But I digress.

I'm not aware of any other way. That a-b-c of yours is what the meds and therapy may help with, but otherwise that's the path, messy and slippery as it is.

I can relate much more to the other quote about depression than your take. There's plenty of logical reasons to be miserable. Spending too much time thinking can cause depressing realizations. "A wandering mind is an unhappy mind."

Here's a thought: no matter what I do, I'm going to die someday and not too long after will likely be forgotten. The most likely way I could be remembered for longer is to be hated by lots of people. Even if for some reason I was remembered as a liked person, I'll either be forgotten in the fall of civilization and, unrealistic but best-case-scenario, the heat death of the universe.

That's not a voice in my head lying to me, that's all true. If you want to get into the argument of "none of that matters, the enjoyment to find in life is all the experiences along the way," that's something else entirely. But it doesn't mean those upsetting thoughts are a voice in my head "lying" to me.

I find the quote fairly fitting as well.

Well what you resonate with is melancholy, sadness, misery — not depression.

Depression is knowing that, say, being stuck in that relationship/job/location makes you miserable, knowing that you can and should get out or otherwise change the environment that's crushing you — and still believing the voice telling you that you should lay low and do nothing about it, that nothing you do matters and you shouldn't try to change it.

>enjoyment to find in life is all the experiences along the way

Depression is not enjoying anything anymore. Imagine all your favorite food suddenly tasting like paper. It's the same, but with everything you've ever done.

Depression will tell you that this is just how things are from now on, and forever. That it's pointless to even try.

Depression is not lack of happiness. Sadness, melancholy, even misery and pain aren't depression.

I sincerely wish that nobody would resonate with what I'm writing here. But I know that there are many who would.

And I want them to know that the voice telling all these things isn't you and is just fake news that your lizard brain broadcasts as a protective response to something that isn't even there.

Being trapped in a bad job isn't the same as being trapped in a literal lion's den, but your lizard brain can't tell the difference.

I don't disagree with your interpretation of depression, but I do find fault with this statement:

> Depression is not lack of happiness. Sadness, melancholy, even misery and pain aren't depression.

I'd argue that melancholy, sadness, and misery can all be the essential framework of other types of depression. Just because you don't experience that kind personally doesn't mean that others don't.

I suffer from aural migraines that cause temporary blindness. Some people get migraines without the blanking of vision. Even though someone else with a mind-splitting headache doesn't have the classic visual aberrations with it doesn't mean that they aren't having as painful or incapacitating of a migraine as I am.

Agreeing with this as well, I should have said "aren't necessarily".

All those are symptoms of depression.

Is it?

While my mother sees life as the gift, I don't.

Is there any viewpoint which makes it valid to accept that existence might just not be worth it in every case?

Might we as a society not start talking about it in a way that perhaps lifing as long as possible might just not be the right thing for everyone?

Does it make my life any better or worth having played even more games? Have been drunk over and.over again? Going to bed the 12801th time? Ha ing to stay fit? Seeing another movie?

Yes I get it. The social norms is being alive otherwise our society would not work.

But there could be a society were not necessarily lifing for ever might just not be stigmatized and become more normal.

I'm at the point we're I have the feeling that I starve for new/different stimulation. Perhaps my way of thinking (ADHS) might just not be that compatible with the avg?

> Fucking bullshit

No it's not. The quote is true. People who are not depressed treat it as a disease. But life truly is a trauma for most people, yet we are supposed to be optimistic disregarding the truth. It takes some medicine/chemical or copium that makes it look beautiful and everything is ok. Lots of people just never think too much and do whatever they are supposed to do, so not depressed.

Have you ever taken antidepressants? Are you speaking from experience?

Because I haven't heard of antidepressants making everything look beautiful.

What they do is give you some control over the "play dead" response to give you an ability to get out or at least do something about that life of trauma.

The meds aren't for coping. They are for helping you do the work needed to be in a better place.

There's just no fucking way that the voice that tells people that they may only ever be a burden is coming from outside reality.

There is zero truth in the voice that tells you that your untimely death will not negatively affect anyone else.

There's zero truth in the voice that tells you that it's your duty to the world to make that happen sooner rather than later.

>People who are not depressed treat it as a disease

So do people who are depressed. Illness is what it is.

We're talking about different things.

I meant saying life is beautiful like non-depressed people.

Yeah may be different types of depression. I'm talking about the quote. Life is not all happy thing, some people know this and want out of this; which they are forced with to live until dying horribly, most time it's horrible sad death honestly. Acknowledging true nature of life and not wanting to continue the misery is not illness.

There's a huge gap between "acknowledging true nature of life" (that it's not all roses and ponies, that there's pain and misery) and "not wanting to continue the misery".

What gap exactly? Are you saying continuing misery is okay and opposite is illness? This is what copium is.

It’s very similar with anxiety. You have the specific fears preventing you from doing something, know that they’re nonsense rationally and yet you continue to believe them completely. It’s difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced it.

This is why exposure can help. You face the fear and prove to yourself it’s nonsense. Next time you will believe the nonsense a little less and with repeated exposure you eventually only believe the rational belief or at least the belief will have swung enough in that direction you are joking inhibited.

It’s a pity there isn’t a similar technique for dealing with depression.

I fully agree. Hitting rock bottom (in a given situation) can make one realize that it isn't that bad.

It's still not perfect; e.g. the anxiety over being fired can be overwhelming even if you know that it's not the end of the world, and that the state of anxiety is worse than the state of not being at that job anymore.

Depression and anxiety go hand in hand though, so exposure helping anxiety can have a positive effect on depression.

> Depression lies to you. And, once you live with it long enough, you know it lies to you.

This is why people with depression suffer, because they do not want to see the truth depression unveils. So they fight and fight and fight.

Can you be ok with nothing ever bringing you happiness? I asked that question to myself, I finally said yes. It was a spiritual moment. Joy at last! No more happiness!

Why do you think happiness is a truth and depression is a lie? That is only your preference.

"Can you be ok with nothing ever bringing you happiness? I asked that question to myself, I finally said yes. It was a spiritual moment. Joy at last! No more happiness"

It seems like you tricked yourself, to put the pressure away of "must getting happy again" and felt the joy (which is happiness, no?) of being relieved of that stress.

I would argue that joy and happiness are not the same thing. I have difficulty articulating it, but I think Ursula Le Guin expresses it well (because of course she does) in The Left Hand of Darkness:

"I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, and often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy."

It was not a trick, it was a deep understanding that changed me permanently.

Understanding that it's OK to be broken and sad, even if it's always like that, is something everyone needs to learn, and the culture is changing to this understanding being the norm.

Have you read Winnie-the-Pooh? I think the book, more so than the cartoon, reinforces that.

Eeyore is perpetually and, seemingly, irreparably sad and unhappy, and yet it's just a trait that Eeyore has, not a flaw. Other characters are there for him, but his sadness is accepted.

Some of us are like Eeyore; and we should treat ourselves the way Eeyore was treated by others.

That lesson was, sadly, ignored.

Your solution is anecdotal but it does sound similar to the process described occurring in people whose depressions are cured by MDMA or psilocybin treatment. A cure induced by a staring into the abyss kind of thing.

>Why do you think happiness is a truth and depression is a lie?

My enteri point is that depression is not absence of happiness, even perpetual.

>This is why people with depression suffer

What makes your qualified to speak on their behalf?

I’m qualified to comment on it because I am a human, and it’s a human condition.

No credentials, then.

Is it a condition that you have been diagnosed with / treated for?

Yes. I have schizoaffective bipolar disorder, surviving with it for 45 years. 20 plus years of therapy as well.

To say I have no credentials is an immature way to evaluate the knowledge of others and us a logical fallacy.

For the last 10 years I have been working with UNC Medicine decoding both my own and my family’s genomics. And I have taught my self, by auditing UNC classes, in genetics, psychology, and nuerochemistry as well as nutrigenomics.

I survived three suicide attempts and was hospitalized five times. The last five years I have been able to go off all my medications but one I use occasionally.

I would guess it gives me some credentials but these days if it’s not a diploma on your wall you’re not worth a thing.

Lack of credentials doesn't mean lack of knowledge, but their presence is at least some signal. Your story is a stronger signal, that's why I asked about credentials or personal experience.

What you wrote above puts what you say in perspective; because it adds qualifications to the statements that you make (i.e. that yes, you are not taking things out of thin air). Without your story, it's not possible to evaluate where you're coming from, and how to take what you say.

Thank you for sharing your story, and sorry that the journey has not been easy. I'm glad and thankful that you made it through to this day.

That said, I respectfully and strongly disagree with your assessment "this os why depressed people suffer". Perhaps it's cultural, but I'm from Eastern Europe, and happiness was never supposed to be the default; the culture is rooted in misery and suffering.

The cult of happiness seems to be a Western thing, resulting in a culture of toxic positivity which is definitely not conducive to mental health. The Eastern culture of never-happiness isn't healthy either, but "the truth that depression reveals" is just the narrative of that culture — and it's just as false, and, furthermore, easily accepted.

The entirety of the Russian-speaking population of former USSR starts off on the assumption that things suck and will suck forever, and do not conclude that there's nothing to live for because of that. That can't be the why.

When I was at a conference in Belgium, a Polish person in the group asked me when we were coming back from a day trip to Liege: "Why are you smiling?". See, unless there's a good reason, a an outward expression of positive emotions sticks out as odd. Things are supposed to be grim.

And yet neither it is depression, nor a cause of suffering.

I'm also Jewish, and again, suffering and persecution is a part for the culture. My birth certificate says "Jew" (yay USSR keeping tabs on who's who!), so I have a very formal reminder of being a target for those who still look for them (as Pittsburgh has shown). My father's father went through the War being a target in much more direct way.

So there was no "truth" that depression has revealed to me. If the horrendous life experiences you went through have helped you get rid of the rose-tinted glasses, well, it's not the worst side-effect. If losing them was painful, you can thank the culture for that (go figure: telling children early on that they can do anything and always succeed and be happy if they try hard enough creates some highly unreasonable expectations both internally and externally).

That pain is not why people with depression suffer. That pain is why people affected by the cult of toxic positivity (aka "live, laugh, love") suffer. It just adds extra work and pain on top of dealing with depression.

And yet, going through these realizations is neither the cause of depression, nor the fundamental reason of suffering.

Because through all the pain and suffering, a healthy mind still sees finds something to live for, and a depressed mind does not.

And while it's natural to not be sure what it is, the dead-sure confidence that there is nothing worth living for that depression gives is not "truth" in any way.

If only because that's making a call about the future (i.e. that nothing going forward would be worthwhile in retrospect), but nobody can tell future for certain.

Externalizing depression as an entity that's not speaking truthfully is a way to start pulling yourself out of it.

You have enough resources to evaluate the above by reaching back into what you learned in psychology classes. My experience with depression has been personal — by being depressed for years, and then being in and out of depression. My understanding has been corroborated by experiences of my friends, people who talk about depression online, popular psychology, experience with therapists and coaches, and numerous bloggers and book authors who write about depression (Allie Brosh, if I had to name just one).

And the consensus is universal: depression lies.

PS: depression tells me that everyone hates me and that I'm worthless when I forget to eat and sleep, and suddenly it seems to not be the case after I eat and sleep. Any "truth" about the external world that depends on how full my stomach is, well, isn't truth at all, and it would be foolish to accept it as such.

> Lack of credentials doesn't mean lack of knowledge, but their presence is at least some signal.

Why not just hear what I say on the merits? Think about it on your own?

>the culture is rooted in misery and suffering.

Misery and suffering are NOT a diagnosis for clinical depression. Psychologists take culture into account when diagnosing depression.

> And the consensus is universal: depression lies.

No, depression tells the truths no on wants to hear. The truth is that is ok to be worthless. Do you get that? That is what the therapists I had taught me. And it relieves the pressure of my mood disorder. I have dismantled the cultural imagined hierarchy of worth that existed in my head.

>That pain is not why people with depression suffer.

I would say pain is the only reason why anyone suffers.

>Externalizing depression as an entity that's not speaking truthfully is a way to start pulling yourself out of it.

Please, I have tried it, it does not last. Sadnees is the ego fighting against the truth of our worthlessness. Once you accept that you are worthless and are ok with it, what is there to be sad about?

I'll stop there because this is what the problem is with the whole thread. No one understands the clinical definition of depression and they keep conflating sadness with depression.

And thanks for your thoughts.