Depression

[Jonse]

Shit you guys...


I'm so in love right now! I'm so madly in love with a girl I met over the internet who has a personality just to my specifications...


We're separated by land though....oh so far away.


How can I make this beautiful thing a reality?

How far away, exactly, is far away?

Eh, the particular person I'm speaking of lives in New Zealand.

However, I was kind of tripping out on Ambien last night, so forget it. Definite hyperbole.

[Waterbagel]

Shit you guys...


I'm so in love right now! I'm so madly in love with a girl I met over the internet who has a personality just to my specifications...


We're separated by land though....oh so far away.


How can I make this beautiful thing a reality?

How far away, exactly, is far away?

Eh, the particular person I'm speaking of lives in New Zealand.

obviously one of the bros' wives

[BuShPuPpEt0]

This thread is beautiful. So many thoughts, feelings and emotions tightly compacted into 13 pages. It's always nice to know there are others out there and that there are unique (everyone has their own way) ways out of it.

Very ironic that "wrench foot"'s official board title is "friendly stranger." Nothing could be more fitting. Just thought I'd mention that in case anyone has noticed as well.

I look forward to reading more about everyone's struggle with life, mainly because I relate to all of it, whether when I was a teenager, 20 or even now. I can still remember how it felt and how everything played out. Thank you all for the growing experience tonight, it was refreshing. I hope to share with all of you soon about who I am and what flows through me.

[Spenner]

I love the way you look at it objectively Bushpuppet. I do that with myself, even, after I come and go from a depressive experience. It's so interesting to learn and relate and grow from things that make you a stronger human...

I've become borderline insane these days. But you know what? It depends how you look at it. One way, it could be seen as insane. The other way, it can be seen as someone with mental expansion who has extreme control over their emotions and perception. I'm going to embrace these things as gifts instead of disosorders

sorry im a bit drunk lol

[Jonse]

How far away, exactly, is far away?

Eh, the particular person I'm speaking of lives in New Zealand.

obviously one of the bros' wives

Well I'd hope not.


But, I've thought about it and it turns out I'm NOT in love with the girl from New Zealand.

[BuShPuPpEt0]

I love the way you look at it objectively Bushpuppet. I do that with myself, even, after I come and go from a depressive experience. It's so interesting to learn and relate and grow from things that make you a stronger human...

I've become borderline insane these days. But you know what? It depends how you look at it. One way, it could be seen as insane. The other way, it can be seen as someone with mental expansion who has extreme control over their emotions and perception. I'm going to embrace these things as gifts instead of disosorders

sorry im a bit drunk lol

Sometimes being drunk can actually be a good thing . A moment of clarity I believe they call it. And the only reason why I am so objective about this whole thread (after reading the whole thing tonight) is because it is a big picture dilemma we are all faced with and we are all dealing with it in our own ways. The clarity I have tonight will most likely be gone by the morning when I wake up and realize I have things I need to do but have no real appetite for. The only thing I can hope for is that when I dream tonight, I carry this feeling into it.

[pointlessdude]

Concerning all this stuff, I got an important message the other day, from a great person. I was really depressive so it helped me a lot, you guys might want to check it out:

You and I have the same problem.

And old soul occupied a young body...the burden of an unsatisfied desire is, at times, the worst thing a man can experience.
I am certainly not talking about momentary desires, but deep ones.
The secret, my friend, is to give in. To what, you may ask. Well, just give in to live. I'll epitome the situation for you.
You are nothing. You are nothing to the eyes of the universe. You are a bunch of atoms, molecules, cells, bound together in a brief being who will die before realiizing what believing in nothingness can do to a man. Is paniminimalism, or nihilism the way to go? Yes, that is the ultimate path to freedom. Death means nothing, yours or mine.

Our size, our small size compared to the great universe that surrounds us, gives us freedom. There is a reason behind the saying "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse."
Give in to all your desires, all your wishes, all your whims. For only then you can experience freedom, the freeedom to live. The money, material possesions, everything that everybody has ever taught about life is wrong. None of those things matter, the true purpose of life is living it. The way you want to.

Thus, our only problem here is lack of will. You want to see your dreams fulfilled, but you are not willing to sacrifice your comfort to reach such noble goal. Realize your size, accept it and just live.

[saturdayindex]

Concerning all this stuff, I got an important message the other day, from a great person. I was really depressive so it helped me a lot, you guys might want to check it out:

You and I have the same problem.

And old soul occupied a young body...the burden of an unsatisfied desire is, at times, the worst thing a man can experience.
I am certainly not talking about momentary desires, but deep ones.
The secret, my friend, is to give in. To what, you may ask. Well, just give in to live. I'll epitome the situation for you.
You are nothing. You are nothing to the eyes of the universe. You are a bunch of atoms, molecules, cells, bound together in a brief being who will die before realiizing what believing in nothingness can do to a man. Is paniminimalism, or nihilism the way to go? Yes, that is the ultimate path to freedom. Death means nothing, yours or mine.

Our size, our small size compared to the great universe that surrounds us, gives us freedom. There is a reason behind the saying "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse."
Give in to all your desires, all your wishes, all your whims. For only then you can experience freedom, the freeedom to live. The money, material possesions, everything that everybody has ever taught about life is wrong. None of those things matter, the true purpose of life is living it. The way you want to.

Thus, our only problem here is lack of will. You want to see your dreams fulfilled, but you are not willing to sacrifice your comfort to reach such noble goal. Realize your size, accept it and just live.

Beautifully put, good stuff.

[Julian Candy]

I just know I'm not making it to graduation.

[Julian Candy]

Concerning all this stuff, I got an important message the other day, from a great person. I was really depressive so it helped me a lot, you guys might want to check it out:

You and I have the same problem.

And old soul occupied a young body...the burden of an unsatisfied desire is, at times, the worst thing a man can experience.
I am certainly not talking about momentary desires, but deep ones.
The secret, my friend, is to give in. To what, you may ask. Well, just give in to live. I'll epitome the situation for you.
You are nothing. You are nothing to the eyes of the universe. You are a bunch of atoms, molecules, cells, bound together in a brief being who will die before realiizing what believing in nothingness can do to a man. Is paniminimalism, or nihilism the way to go? Yes, that is the ultimate path to freedom. Death means nothing, yours or mine.

Our size, our small size compared to the great universe that surrounds us, gives us freedom. There is a reason behind the saying "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse."
Give in to all your desires, all your wishes, all your whims. For only then you can experience freedom, the freeedom to live. The money, material possesions, everything that everybody has ever taught about life is wrong. None of those things matter, the true purpose of life is living it. The way you want to.

Thus, our only problem here is lack of will. You want to see your dreams fulfilled, but you are not willing to sacrifice your comfort to reach such noble goal. Realize your size, accept it and just live.

Here's a better one.

In most cases, life is not worth living. The idea that happiness is a raison d'etre logically means that nearly everyone is unhappy (after being born a blank slate). So unhappiness is the norm -the meaning of life- and the quest for happiness is merely a by-product and not our natural condition. Looking for happiness then is not that different than looking for a good drug dealer with good drugs.

99% of human beings serve no real, 'natural' purpose or reason to keep on going through the motions whatsoever. The majority of the world's population is just the means of production by which the few attain "happiness" (altho, I don't know many truly happy rich folk).

Sure most become 'necessary' thanks to manmade things like economies -to make them work- but economies would not be necessary if there were no humans. Pretty much everything we do as humans is built around the notion of perpetuating a species -to the detriment of all others- that has not shown any proof that it deserves a place on this planet as part of the ecosystem.

All the 'good', 'worthwhile' stuff people have done -and continue to do- is only 'good' and 'worthwhile' when put into the context of the human condition/experience. Splitting the atom and curing cancer is pretty useless to every other creature on the planet.

I read a book called "The Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut recently and the punchline of the story is that the entire sum of all human knowledge/achievement over thousands of years was little more than a works project by an alien race from another galaxy trying to send a message to one of their own stranded in another galaxy. The message was that they were sending help.

If only we were actually that useful.

[Magrathea]

Concerning all this stuff, I got an important message the other day, from a great person. I was really depressive so it helped me a lot, you guys might want to check it out:

You and I have the same problem.

And old soul occupied a young body...the burden of an unsatisfied desire is, at times, the worst thing a man can experience.
I am certainly not talking about momentary desires, but deep ones.
The secret, my friend, is to give in. To what, you may ask. Well, just give in to live. I'll epitome the situation for you.
You are nothing. You are nothing to the eyes of the universe. You are a bunch of atoms, molecules, cells, bound together in a brief being who will die before realiizing what believing in nothingness can do to a man. Is paniminimalism, or nihilism the way to go? Yes, that is the ultimate path to freedom. Death means nothing, yours or mine.

Our size, our small size compared to the great universe that surrounds us, gives us freedom. There is a reason behind the saying "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse."
Give in to all your desires, all your wishes, all your whims. For only then you can experience freedom, the freeedom to live. The money, material possesions, everything that everybody has ever taught about life is wrong. None of those things matter, the true purpose of life is living it. The way you want to.

Thus, our only problem here is lack of will. You want to see your dreams fulfilled, but you are not willing to sacrifice your comfort to reach such noble goal. Realize your size, accept it and just live.

Here's a better one.

In most cases, life is not worth living. The idea that happiness is a raison d'etre logically means that nearly everyone is unhappy (after being born a blank slate). So unhappiness is the norm -the meaning of life- and the quest for happiness is merely a by-product and not our natural condition. Looking for happiness then is not that different than looking for a good drug dealer with good drugs.

99% of human beings serve no real, 'natural' purpose or reason to keep on going through the motions whatsoever. The majority of the world's population is just the means of production by which the few attain "happiness" (altho, I don't know many truly happy rich folk).

Sure most become 'necessary' thanks to manmade things like economies -to make them work- but economies would not be necessary if there were no humans. Pretty much everything we do as humans is built around the notion of perpetuating a species -to the detriment of all others- that has not shown any proof that it deserves a place on this planet as part of the ecosystem.

All the 'good', 'worthwhile' stuff people have done -and continue to do- is only 'good' and 'worthwhile' when put into the context of the human condition/experience. Splitting the atom and curing cancer is pretty useless to every other creature on the planet.

I read a book called "The Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut recently and the punchline of the story is that the entire sum of all human knowledge/achievement over thousands of years was little more than a works project by an alien race from another galaxy trying to send a message to one of their own stranded in another galaxy. The message was that they were sending help.

If only we were actually that useful.

We are, when we chose to, in the end it is a matter of choice, and no one can impose a choice like that, you either "feel the draw" for something or you put yourself into it. I know there is no purpose as per se to life other than life, which makes it a bit dadaist to start with BUT there's LOTS of things you can do to empower yourself.

Some people find art and change and affect the life of others, some people trek countries and set their own goals, for themselves. Some go working for Unicef or other worthy causes, other dive into work and become specialists, changing the life of others and their own.

PLUS there is for me the certainty that there's no "other side" life isn't a game where once it's over you get to press replay, reset or whatever, this is it.

Why abandon the game when you are still in the first 15% of it, it's not really representative of the whole outcome, you can't decide a chess game on three moves, it makes no sense! How tragic would it be to not know what amazing things are in the next year, the next five years.

Go do something out of the ordinary, go out kayaking, meet a friend and go for a session of yoga, go see a play or a concert of something new, get out of the comfort zone and feel how life CAN be changed. I'm not saying it will happen overnight, but it can help.

As for humanity's purpose in the global thing that is the universe, well we can always try to understand part of it, it's a bit the problem of the holographic principle, I don't think we're equipped to understand it

In short, the thinking that "life is useless" has no real value as you can't quite compare it with anything else. Only within itself does it find it's true identity.

[Spenner]

Why abandon the game when you are still in the first 15% of it, it's not really representative of the whole outcome, you can't decide a chess game on three moves, it makes no sense! How tragic would it be to not know what amazing things are in the next year, the next five years.

This!!! It's so true. Just because you haven't experienced something yet, doesn't mean you won't. Don't doubt yourself, and look forward to those experiences, and you'll find them. I'm just entering chapter 3 of my life right now, I would say, and it's a beautiful, remarkable chapter. Had I stopped in chapter 2, I would have missed some of the most important revelations I've made in my life that has improved my living by an extreme amount.

It's different for everyone, but you'll find things to make life worth living!

[turquoise70]

I actually don't agree with most of the advice given in the past few posts. Nihilism is not the way to go.

I don't mean to sound like an ass, but one thing I learned since I started taking antidepressants and surrounding myself with supportive, loving people is that the advice you both take and give when you're depressed is kind of warped. People are giving you the right advice - seek happiness, fight against unhappiness, struggle, suffer. Don't give in. Be cliche if you must. But when you're depressed you don't want to follow any of that advice because it all sounds like flowery bullshit that doesn't take into account how fucked up the universe really is. There's really only one thing I can say in response to that sentiment, having been there myself for many years: your view of the world is warped. It's not as bad as it seems.

[Jonse]

Why abandon the game when you are still in the first 15% of it, it's not really representative of the whole outcome, you can't decide a chess game on three moves, it makes no sense! How tragic would it be to not know what amazing things are in the next year, the next five years.

This!!! It's so true. Just because you haven't experienced something yet, doesn't mean you won't. Don't doubt yourself, and look forward to those experiences, and you'll find them. I'm just entering chapter 3 of my life right now, I would say, and it's a beautiful, remarkable chapter. Had I stopped in chapter 2, I would have missed some of the most important revelations I've made in my life that has improved my living by an extreme amount.

It's different for everyone, but you'll find things to make life worth living!

I feel the same way. The only thing stopping such a mentality for me is the ultimate realization that, outside of this world where meaning is purely what we feel it to be, your life will be utterly and entirely insiginificant. It's a grim mentality, but it's the only one that really seems factual to me. I just try to avoid thinking about it as much as possible which tends to keep me from being "depressed".


I definitely agree though that to stop playing 15% in is a tad too early. Now, on the other hand, if you've "sat through half of it and it's sucked the whole way so far, chances are it isn't going to get better right at the end and make the whole thing worth while. No one should complain about you walking out early."

[Spenner]

I feel the same way. The only thing stopping such a mentality for me is the ultimate realization that, outside of this world where meaning is purely what we feel it to be, your life will be utterly and entirely insiginificant. It's a grim mentality, but it's the only one that really seems factual to me. I just try to avoid thinking about it as much as possible which tends to keep me from being "depressed".

Yeah, I unfortunately think the same way, but I'm trying to convince myself (no matter how delusional or crazy I may before) to think that there's something much more than just some parasites on a water plentiful planet at this random place in the universe, even if there isn't. Whenever I come up with some reason, even if it's temporary until I talk myself out of it, I feel so much better. It's very important to either disregard that overall mentality, or forcefully prove to yourself that there's something greater to look forward to.

I'm starting to love life more and more by the day, because I've settled a bit more than I was earlier. I was so confused, so many strange feelings and emotions bouncing around with no means of controlling them, but now I feel like I'm puppeteering myself with some substantial control.

My weakness is till bipolar symptoms. Just this morning I could sense a wall that I always seem to hit, but I visualized it quite vividly... my "happy" queue that I can send to my brain to get me feeling better is stopped, because with bipolar disorder it's just chemical alterations that are hard to squeeze back into wherever they came from-- it's usually best to prepare yourself and go about dealing with it.

But I think that's weak!!!! I'd like to be able to push it back, to control it. Once a depressive episode has hit, instead of having my mind's abilities imprisoned, I'm sure there's a way to escape. Finding a key from the guard when he's not looking, so to speak... I did it on a small scale today. This is all speaking in pure metaphor of course because these events are invisible. But I was able to weave my way to become slightly happier than I was before, and to obliterate the sadness before it became too powerful, even though it had already hit (usually if neglected too long theres nothing I can do, I just have to have a bad day from there on in).

Not sure if that makes any sense... I guess the only metaphor I could use to describe it would be like lock picking the wall of depression-- finding a ton of small miniscule ways I can talk myself out of feeling sad, until so many walls of sadness have been pressed down that there's nothing left, and the happy key is back where it belongs.

I'm feeling out of it today, don't mind me

[jakestott]

On a more somber note I've just found out my best friend has a brain tumour, he's in his early 20's. In a couple of days we will find out how bad it is etc. I'm hoping so so so much, beyonnd words, that everything is going to be ok. Needless to say, it's put things into perspective. Embrace everything in life as much as you can because it can be taken from you or the one's that you love at any given moment.

Shit, i'm sorry to hear that man. Be strong for your friend.

Cheers matey! I'll know more on the situation tomorrow...got everything crossed.

Hows your friend doing now, he gonna be alright?

[Waterbagel]

not really depression, but a sad day
actually started to really try in chemistry. studying out of class, actually doing practice problems; never had to do it in high school, never saw a need, never had the desire to, and i got all a's and a free ride to the university i'm at because of it. everything came naturally to me.

now i'm sitting with something like a D or mid-to-high C in organic chem, hating myself because no matter how hard i seem to try, i do worse.
like, seriously. i didn't do much aside from assigned homework at the beginning of the year, was getting low B's/high c's. still not what i'd dreamed of or hoped for, but not.. too bad for first year in college.

just got my quiz and test back and was expecting B's. F or D on quiz and C on test. having to potentially come to terms with "i'm not as good/smart as i think i am," which, while it may or may not be true, the thought of it and my belief in it makes it true

</first>

(i guess it's kinda brain-shattering because, when thinking about coming to college, i was going to focus entirely on grades so i could be successful and graduate with a degree. now doing so, but failing at it, my one true goal for college. hurts)

[Julian Candy]

now i'm sitting with something like a D or mid-to-high C in organic chem, hating myself because no matter how hard i seem to try, i do worse.

That would explain the past 5/6 years of my life, and I was raised that high school was my last chance to redeem myself, it's junior year and I'm failing WORSE than ever before.

Yet the only way my parents feel will help me is to hook me up on 2 sets of anti-depressants (one not making a dent, and the other making me feel languid and loopy all day).

Unless some good news comes through within the next week, my death is set for 2012.

[Waterbagel]

Unless some good news comes through within the next week, my death is set for 2012.

just remember that your schooling isn't everything, and your entire life isn't dependent on how you do in school. if you have a serious long-term goal in mind, it might be dependent, but otherwise..

you can always change.

[Julian Candy]

Unless some good news comes through within the next week, my death is set for 2012.

just remember that your schooling isn't everything, and your entire life isn't dependent on how you do in school. if you have a serious long-term goal in mind, it might be dependent, but otherwise..

you can always change.

Oh how I wish I could thoroughly explain what's going on in my brain to you.