When you’re lonely, you don’t become cripplingly hopeless and withdraw from life? You just contact some friends or easily make new friends and have a good time and carry on with life?
When you’re driving your car and everything is fine until you come to a stoplight, you don’t suddenly become depressed at the stoplight like I do?
When you wake up every morning, you don’t have crippling existential dread? You just get up and go about your day cheerfully, without analyzing the futile meaninglessness of the big picture?
For me it’s contentment. A satisfaction in where I am and who I am. Being able to see the beauty and appreciate the small things. No need for more. And no longer comparing myself at my worst to others at their best.
It’s funny you mention that.
Becoming a depressed person put me in this state of mind. I’m almost never truly happy or sad, but 99% of the time I am generally content, and that’s a pretty great ting.
Of course that 1% is ugly, but thankfully also very rare.
Making friends as an adult is still hard even without depression. It is easier to be in touch with existing friends when not depressed though.
Traffic lights tend to leave me with feelings of frustration if anything.
I don’t have existential dread in the mornings just the usual “joy” of having to go to work.
Pretty much yes to all what you said.
I’ve struggled with depression since childhood. It’ll come back, I’m sure. My father told me to remember that everything is cyclical, and I think that’s true. I’m in an up time. There will be down times.
As mentioned by others, it’s simply the absence of something bad. Although, I’ll go on to say that it does feel good, when you know how it feels to feel terrible at every moment. Not having that is, as someone else said, a relief. Like waking up feeling better after having the flu. Life is just life, but at least that shitty thing is gone.
I’ve spent half my life feeling awful. And even now, without depression, I’m still painfully aware of how completely fucked everything is. It simply isn’t my problem, even though it is. I wish you the best.
Yeah that’s what has always gotten me through things as well…knowing that there will always be some sort of a change. Sometimes it’s a good change and sometimes it’s a bad change, but it will change. It’s gotten me through some really low periods knowing that it won’t be like that forever. I just actually very recently dug my way out of a low period that lasted longer than I would have liked, and I’m doing ok at the moment! But I know at any moment, things could change back. But it’s ok. It’s just part of the constant changes of life.
I will say what personally helps me is to always be distracted. I’ve heard some people call this unhealthy, but I disagree. Rumination is the root of my issues, personally. And living in the moment is the best way to happiness. Obviously, you don’t want to go absolutely nuts with it and just have hookers and blow 24/7. Living in the moment does not have to be self destructive.
So when I’m able to be distracted by simple things like a cheerful conversation, it really helps. Right now, I’m filling my extra time with a TV show that I’ve gotten into. So I am able to spend most of my time thinking about and being distracted with that. Rumination is the worst.
As someone having just graduaded from crippling anxiety to only being moderately stressed I find that the only difference between those two states of mind is the lack of the previous negative emotion. It’s not like I gained a new emotion or my existing ones somehow evolved. It’s more like you have pain and then wake up one morning and no longer do. Everything else is the same - just no more pain.
When asked about what does success feel like a person replied that it feels like a relief. I think that’s pretty accurate.
I wouldn’t say that my mental state is perfectly optimal at all times, but I usually don’t experience any of these. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the world, when life feels like a treadmill going faster and faster and I just can’t keep up. Usually that resolves at some point though, and then I can be somewhat happy and cheerful again in the here and now. Nowadays I tend ro try and dissociate a bit from what’s happening out there.
There’s war, famine, and crisis in the news every day, but I just have to accept that I can’t change the world on my own. I tend to ignore the news mostly, apart from the headlines every now and then, because it just constantly got my mood down. Me being sad about it doesn’t help anyone.
And life may be meaningless once you start analysing everything. In 200 years there will be barely any trace of me. The more reason to just do the things that make me happy, even if it ultimately doesn’t matter to anyone else.
I’ve found that the ability to be happy is something subconscious that can fail from time to time. In 2019 I wasn’t doing great and everything just felt empty. I did fun things, but didn’t truly feel anything from it most of the time. When I recovered in 2020, I felt a weird happiness that I didn’t understand. The world was going to shit due to COVID, and yet here I stood smiling at 2 birds fighting over food. It’s like I got a sense back that I didn’t realize was lost. Since then I try to remember this “irrational” happiness whenever I feel down. At some point it’ll always come back again, and the exact same situations will suddenly feel happy and worthwhile again.
I had the third one for some time: the answer was medication, doctors and psychologists. These will obviously help with all of your points.
The meaningless of it all is still there, as a possibility, but there is also a fascination to it. You think. You feel. You love. You hate. You find things beautiful, or ugly. The universe is there and you are experiencing it. Even if it’s meaningless… Think about NOW. Isn’t it f*cking fascinating?
That makes me wanna enjoy the ride for as long as I can.
You can enjoy the ride too, and I have no doubts about it. Zero. In fact, I have negative doubts. I have REASONS.
there is also a fascination to it. You think. You feel. You love. You hate. You find things beautiful, or ugly. The universe is there and you are experiencing it. Even if it’s meaningless… Think about NOW. Isn’t it f*cking fascinating?
Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. Please tell me what medication is doing this for you?
Every medication doctors have ever put me on just makes me numb and orgasmless. And all of the bad side effects without any of the benefits.
What is your medication?
Don’t use my medication just because it worked for me. Go to professionals and follow their criteria.
In fact, my dose is basically the smallest one you can get for an antidepressant.
Also, medication is not there to make you feel happier. It is there to give you a little push on getting back on track. But there is still work to do.
Food, sleep, sport, relationships… These are so much more critical than any medication. Bookmark some Andrew Huberman podcasts and get to work. You can do it.
Not who you asked, but I have similar experiences with recurring depression throughout my entire life so far, and I get a big boost in capacity to avoid deep depression for months/years just by using a small amount of psychedelic mushrooms every now and then. Not even enough to lose my grip on reality or anything wild like that, just enough to chill and be contemplative for an evening. Literally sustains me for months/years from one session.
I’m looking forward to the scientific community doing more studies on the effects of mushrooms, I truly think they are a potentially massive benefit for some neurotypes.
Yeah for years I keep hearing people talk about microdosing, of course it’s illegal In most states and illegal for anyone to tell me where they get this stuff, no one ever tells me. 🤷🏻♀️
But I’ve heard that big pharma is slowly coming around to legalizing this and making it available through prescriptions, So somewhere in the back of my head I think I’ve kinda been waiting for that to happen.
I’ve read that it’s relatively easy and cheap to grow them yourself from spores you can order online, but I haven’t looked into it yet. Hopefully someone else can chime in with some info.
Uncle Ben has done more for mushroom growing than anyone else I can think of
Rumors say there are some platforms selling grow-kits including everything needed to get started. In Europe, people recommend some platform starting with Zam and ending with nesia, which supposedly provide a variety of kits.
You can also find plenty of resources online to start from scratch. The easiest seems to be the uncle bens method.
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The meaninglessness is still there. What I suspect is the biggest difference is the headspace surrounding it. If there’s not inherent meaning to life, then that frees you to create your own with your own goals and desires and whatnot. If there’s no inherent meaning, then any meaning we as humans come up with for ourselves is the meaning. For some people, that’s religion. For some, it’s taking care of their loved ones. For a few of my friends, it’s to play as many video games as possible. For others, it’s to work as much as possible. The beauty of it is that they’re all right, the meaning of their life is what they make of it. You are what you repeatedly do.
I tend to concern with my wellbeing, the wellbeing of those close to me and try to not concern about those things that I cannot control.
I tend to take interest in a lot of topics/hobbies and move from one topic to the next, trying to learn the most about it.
I’m a bit competitive and use games and sports to boost my ego, always focusing on more training when I cannot win. But no giving it too much attention that it makes me feel bad for not being the best I could be (It’s not my main focus nor my income).
Yes but I don’t wake cheerfully. It is always a debate if I shoud fuck up my sleep or be fucked by my work place.
Now that I’m no longer in such a dark period of my life, it feels like there aren’t eternal stormclouds over my head. I can see colors and beautiful things and actually appreciate them without feeling guilt.
The key is having someone or something you’re satisfied with and keep at it for the joy they provide.
Won’t me telling you how I don’t have those feelings make you even more depressed?
I have social anxiety though, so I don’t easily make new friends and even existing ones I don’t just contact randomly. I’m the worst smalltalker, I can’t bring myself to talk about meaningless stuff. I usually leave events early because my social battery is empty and I can only talk to 1-2 people there anyways and they probably don’t want me sticking to them all the time. I can’t dance in front of other people even though I love doing it at home.
