[Myzen]

Hi folks,

When I was a kid, there used to be this programme with a guy called Jaques Cousteau. He would swim around in Coral reefs and take pictures of the strange fish and stuff.

Well, it has struck me that my years of depression have been a bit like that. For a start, everything is slower, and walking around does feel a bit like swimming through water. Then there is the silence, the seeking out isolation, walking on my own, people watching but never talking to anyone. It feels like you are in a silent world, a world that you're not part of any more. What I liked more than anything was wandering alone on holidays abroad, where I couldn't even speak the language, so that I couldn't get involved with anyone even if I wanted to.

Now, the weird thing is that this mode of being is not really so bad. Having been afraid of being alone all through young life, suddenly being alone is the only thing that works. It's all you can manage.

I'd like to know if others have experienced anything like this in depression, or at any time really, and if you found it oddly pleasurable as I did? Of course we are all different in the ways we experience the world, but there are some precedents in literature for my feeling - Albert Camus talked about this in his journals and in his novel 'The Outsider'.

Cheers, M.

[Junerain]

I, too find depression oddly pleasurable...like you're swimming with beautiful sea creatures, swimming right up to you, feeling as if you're all in this together. I loved that show too!! Just don't go too deep, in life, don't drown, yet go deep enough to see the really beautiful fish!!

[Myzen]

Hi J,

Yes, that's the idea that I was thinking of. It might sound weird, but we can actually look at the experience of some depression symptoms as a sort of 'entertainment', although other symptoms are of course too nasty for that.

You're point about going too deep is a good one. The philosopher Neitzsche said, "If we stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at us!"

Cheers, M

[(JD)]

I, too, enjoyed that program... and subsequent programs of that type Of those he mentored...

but.. depression that way? I don't think it my depression that affords me any enjoyment or entertainment.. dissociating somewhat, standing back away from it all, yes... but the depression only affords me the darkness.

[Perzephone]

I completely understand the Jacques Cousteau reference... In a way, it's like your own life has taken on a still, dark quietness, and the rest of the world is speeding on around you in fast-forward.

[Myzen]

P,

To be honest, I didn't think anyone would pick this thread up, it's so obscure and kind of poetic. It was a long shot, and I feel very much better for sharing.

I was careful to say that this is only one part of the depression experience, as other parts are too nasty to be interesting in this way.

Maybe there is a clue here as to why some people might want to stay in depression or hold on to it, like you might want to stay in a dream rather than wake up. I know that I prefered the dream to the reality of my bereavement.

Good thoughts, M

[(JD)]

Thanks for the good thoughts ((((MYZEN)))) while I'm not one to want to stay in depression, I do sense the immense "PULL" that the depressive spiral causes...