Depression

[Gringotts Bank]

Surrounding circumstances and a sense of justice plays a big role there too.

A loss due to natural or otherwise unavoidable circumstances is one thing.

Being a victim of some sort of injustice, either perceived or real, is entirely different and especially so if whatever is lost is something that matters.

If there's injustice, then there's a desire for justice or retribution. If there's something lost, then there's a desire for its return. Every single human problem can be defined in terms of thwarted desire or more specifically, the clinging/yearning it tends to create. Why define human suffering in terms of clinging/yearning? Because a precise definition of suffering allows the possibility of a solution.

Clinging/wanting/yearning is what creates anxiety, and anxiety is what creates depression. Both are suffering. It doesn't matter if you yearn for world peace, the well being of others of a huge pile of cash - it's all suffering and all feels the same. It's damaging.

There's only two approaches - 1] get what you want (or at least enough to maintain your chemical balance of neurotransmitters), or 2] do something to the mind to prevent clinging/yearning. The second option generally involves spiritual techniques which I don't think anyone is interested in. Sometimes it can be achieved with distraction, but that's always problematic. There's nothing new in any of this, but clarity is essential. No topic is more important to understand than human suffering because it happens to everyone to some degree or other.

 

[Wysiwyg]

I think we can only really feel the bumps in a road we have ourselves travelled.

Your story will help others feel not alone with their own dealings. Onlookers can empathise, try to examine ones head and postulate reasons why but only the individual knows the truth. Let it be, let it be, there will be an answer, let it be.

 

[basilio]

Perhaps a joke on depression ?

 

[SirRumpole]

Perhaps a joke on depression ?

Some good chemistry there.

 

[basilio]

This story might not seem to fit the thread but in fact the relentless searching for lost objects, communicating with people, exercise and achievement seem to be a very therapeutic fit for Tim.


Tim started tinkering with a metal detector two years ago, now he specialises in finding 'lost treasures'
By Megan Macdonald
Posted 1hhour ago, updated 29mminutes ago

Tim Chandler's hobby quickly bloomed into an obsession.(ABC News: Megan Macdonald)

Tim started tinkering with a metal detector two years ago, now he specialises in finding 'lost treasures'

When residents of a Tasmanian beachside suburb lose precious items in the sand, they often turn to metal detector enthusiast Tim Chandler for help.

www.abc.net.au

 

[basilio]

Came across this story. Thought it might be interesting/useful in the discussion. Got me thinking about the 4 in the morning mind whirls where everything looks very dark.

On anxiety, well being and a potentially better relationship with life:

Some thoughts arrive at our door with a sense of urgency, and insist that we be aware of them, post-haste. They seemingly most often enter the mind through the stomach or solar plexus and they demand our quick attention with a certain sense of heat or vibration. They can quickly gather a crowd of other thoughts and sensations around them as they announce the urgent necessity of their presence, creating a ripple of importance through the abdomen, like wildfire. The attention is naturally drawn to this outburst, and attempts to triage the situation with gauze and bandages of oppositely polarized emotion - soothing or positively charged countermeasures to contain the spread before it gets out of hand and burns down our entire world. Or worse...causes something unknown to happen. Something we've not anticipated or predicted because it lies outside of our current inventory of experience. Something so unthinkably horrid that we dare not even entertain its possible existence. Suddenly, our own imagination has turned against us, as it has the potential power to tip us further into desperation and despair. Our only recourse seems to lie in increasing the potency and frequency of soothing self-talk, which quickly loses credibility and power in the face of this overwhelming assuredness of impending doom.

Tiny, almost imperceptible bodily sensations suddenly carry with them a massive existential threat as we wrap this experience in a deepening narrative. We are suddenly required to address any and all thought and sensation with hyper-vigilance, effectively transforming our state of mind into that of a soldier or a warrior, forever on guard against an invisible threat.

This is fertile ground for false beliefs and bogus narratives to take root. The frantic mind develops so many stories in such a short time, we don't even notice it happening. Stories and beliefs we don't like get countered with stories and beliefs we do like, which then get scrutinized for fallibility, pitted against the bad stories/beliefs, revised or discarded until they seem to hold some power and durability to hold back the bad ones...which in turn get revised and strengthened, requiring another countermanding set of revisions to the existing sooth story/belief, or even an entirely new positive paradigm in which to desperately invest hope and faith. It's an endless cognitive bloodbath that drains us of our vitality and well-being.

And after some time in this amplified state, we no longer recognize it as an exception...it now appears as the very world we look out at. It externalizes itself as much as it internalizes itself, and we forget that it arrived in the form of a lens that we were quite suddenly seeing through, thrust upon us in response to a seeming 5-alarm threat. After more time passes, we even forget that our perception has been adjusted to accommodate this new view, and we simply refer to this new galvanized state of being as 'life'. We accept and identify with this new programming and deal with it from within the state it has created, playing by its rules.

I'm describing Panic Anxiety here (from my own experience), but much of the same phenomenological appearances occur with the slower onset Generalized Anxiety. Probably Depression as well. There are many many books, videos and various therapies to help with these conditions and most of them hold some form of value, depending on how the subject relates to them. I'm not here to endorse or discredit any of them. In my ongoing experience however, what lies at the heart of these issues (likely for many others as well) is the false belief/narrative. The compounding and cascading stories I told myself (or was told by others) years ago, which I forgot to go back to and test the fiber of their fabric. Buried under the rug of despondent acceptance and taken as word and bond in a time when I needed any old kind of life raft at all. Desperate times call for Ativan and a believable bedtime story.

These stories/narratives/beliefs serve a purpose for a time, but become problematic during growth when they aren't seen for what they are, and become a foundation upon which new traits, mechanisms and identities are built. Errors get carried forward, thus making all future calculations inherently inaccurate. It's like a complex set of math equations where some of the data at the outset is erroneous...it's impossible that the solution to the equations will be accurately realized.

For me personally, the investigation into the false beliefs I've built myself upon has been eye opening, to say the least. Not just in terms of anxiety or other unpleasant emotions...in terms of almost everything I think and feel. Staggering isn't even a strong enough word. The realization that 98% of what my mind throws at me is utter bull****, is both terrifying and liberating.

The trick is to just see it. See the whole thing. For what it is. Don't judge it or try to get rid of it or attempt to change it (awareness itself will do that for you)...just see the big picture as a composite of small pictures and examine the validity of all the components. Be pragmatic about it, and regard it as an experiment. It doesn't need to be a dramatic and emotional experience (though, you will most definitely experience some buried emotions, pleasant and unpleasant). It won't happen overnight – it's more like slowly letting air out of a balloon you've been breathing into your entire life. But once you start to feel the relief of that pressure escaping, there's no turning back.

Society, and even some of your friends and family will not encourage this in you because we have formed an unconscious brotherhood and sisterhood of stress and unease. Our very culture thrives on everyone being under the same garbage net. 'Treatment, not cure' is the order of the day, and maintaining a steady state of 'just barely thriving' seems to be what is called for. Nobody is at fault...we all do it to each other unknowingly. An obvious manifestation of this can be seen as the 'crabs in a bucket' syndrome that is quite prevalent and evident in interpersonal carryings on.

I digress! For now.
Take this as you will and if sharing this helps even one person feel more in touch with themselves, others and life, then I'm glad I posted it.
If you don't like it, that's fine too.