The right kind of blue... do you enjoy some aspects of depression?

I have found a lot of relief through literature for my symptoms and have through a long excruciating process have accepted that I tend toward melancholia, and the more I travel and turn inward and ignore the US obsession with "happiness" the less tortured I feel.

Yeah, hear you on obsession with happiness... in the end it leads people to misery when they cannot be happy all the friggin' time... sometimes it is better being okay with not being okay, I believe.

Also, some people are generally more "sad" and pessimist in general... but maybe you can live with that and it is unnatural to force yourself to be something else.

I guess it is more about being comfortable in all states you are. On one hand we hear "you cannot think yourself out of being depressed". On the other we hear how being depressed is not okay... even if we are used to it. (sure there are some health risks, I don't deny it). But what is there to do than? It sounds like a dire prediction.

One of my therapists would tell me to enjoy my pity parties and let him know when I was ready to move on.

there is a difference between pity party and other kinds of blue. My most depressions are not about poor me anyways... surely I want to matter and make a mark, but not for myself... and I can mostly channel this energy. Maybe I am doing some mirroring when I write about how humanity is almost over and "my poor troubled nation"... who knows.

Maybe I am not ready to move on yet. Because... yes, I enjoy the deconstructing, the rawness and the enlightening nature of darkness to a degree. It is a part of me I am not ready to ditch... yet, if ever.

I have never met anyone who has told me he or she is obsessed with happiness. This is the first time I have heard people say, "I need some more of that good depression."

I met many people who kept saying that they "just want to be happy" or "are not happy".

I don't *want* more... but I would be probably concerned about myself if I could go on for long time without feeling down every now and then. It is just who I am... And I certainly prefer to feel depressed to feeling numb or feeling nothing at all.

Because people say the want to be happy does not mean they are obsessed.

I do not know what happiness is. I try to find meaning and purpose while functioning at a level I can accept. I take full responsibility for my choices and well-being. There have been times I was unable to go it alone. I needed help. I still use tools to help me maintain functionality.

If people want to experience depression to the fullest, to brood and ruminate, that is their choice and more power to them. It is not mine.

I am not talking about rumminating. Read the exchange between me and Vibe.

I just believe it is better to get comfortable in your own skin and that somehow involves being at comfort with being depressed... so it does not drive you over the edge. Because it will always happen. And because once you been down there... you are a changed person.

And while I am at it, I see positives in it. The way my Serbian friends don't think having bombs dropped on them was best time of their lifes, but they would not exchange it for growing up sheltered in suburbs somewhere in the west.

No one that I can see has been asking anyone to move to the suburbs. The gratuitous potshots at the west serve what purpose?

I have been over the edge. For many years, people were betting on me being soon dead. Nonetheless, I had a tour in Vietnam. Despite being over the edge, I practiced law for over twenty years. I do not mention these things to brag. I am, however, a tough sob.

I do not want this to be a personal thing, Venus. I do think you make a lot of assumptions that are totally foreign to me.

I am not taking potshots on west or asking anybody moving to suburbs... I am just saying that there is way to appreciate bad **** that happened to you. You cannot change the past anyways... so better learn from it?

I guess we just differ in our perspectives.

Some of my thoughts on this issue....After suffering with depression of varying degrees for 30-40 years, I believe it's clearly the level of depression and the cause (if any)that dictates whether the introspection aspect can be somehow enjoyable and intellectually productive. Time/age are also an issue.

When younger, regardless of the issues, there was a strength... I felt somehow stronger and deeper than others because of my pain. I felt I had an insight that others did not. I felt I knew what the pain of life was... and I was stronger and always became stronger. Looking back, I believe it was true.

Now, the "plus" side of depression is outweighed by the emotional baggage, the mistakes, the regrets and the reality of my own mortality. Now, when faced with a potential crisis, I have to anticipate and fend off a depressive decent. If I don't fend it off (with meds), I have to worry about the plunge to SI. I at this point in life, don't want it anymore.

If depression yields introspection and focus and it does for me still...what good can come of it when the issues are too many or too complicated to be undone to the satisfaction of the individual.

When younger there were tolerable positive aspects. With age I wish it gone forever.

We.might have to agree to disagree, but a discussion of how different cultures handle melancholia is not potshots and that discussion is not gratuitous in my opinion.

Truth be told, I find more solace in Buddhism than I have in any medication. For me it's not the west per se because I think Europe counts as the west, but I just fit in so much better over there because there is not an expectation that I be happy when I talk to people.

Of course this all goes to show how this illness manifests itself differently for different people. Age has made it better for me because my impulse control has improved. I am not going to get drunk and kill myself, which is my family legacy.

For others it makes it worse because of hopelessness maybe? Or not being able to bounce back as easily from a lack of self-care?

The obsession with happiness issue might be more in my face than it is in most people's because I live in San Francisco, which is a wonderful but weird place.





UOTE=TheByzantine;2048563]No one that I can see has been asking anyone to move to the suburbs. The gratuitous potshots at the west serve what purpose?

I have been over the edge. For many years, people were betting on me being soon dead. Nonetheless, I had a tour in Vietnam. Despite being over the edge, I practiced law for over twenty years. I do not mention these things to brag. I am, however, a tough sob.

I do not want this to be a personal thing, Venus. I do think you make a lot of assumptions that are totally foreign to me.[/QUOTE]

I certainly did not say the discussion was gratuitous. Moreover, in the circle of people I encounter I find no evidence of an obsession with happiness. You misstate what I said. Your suggestion that people with an illness are simply weak and without discipline may have some basis but you are painting with a broad brush.

It goes without saying you are entitled to your opinion but it would be nice if you are going to be critical of what I say you accurately state it.

We.might have to agree to disagree, but a discussion of how different cultures handle melancholia is not potshots and that discussion is not gratuitous in my opinion.

Thanks. I am not an anti-western rock-thrower. But I see faults in my civilization. (yes, Czech Republic is now part of the western bloc, for good and bad. Others may view us as west's redheaded cousin... but hey).

Truth be told, I find more solace in Buddhism than I have in any medication. For me it's not the west per se because I think Europe counts as the west, but I just fit in so much better over there because there is not an expectation that I be happy when I talk to people.


Buddhism be cool. I guess there is something liberating about accepting suffering as part of life. Meds may take the edge off... but they do not always work. You are gonna be sad in life. you are gonna be ****ing depressed even. It is how you fight back.

And as for happy... Czechs are notoriously "unhappy" people. I sometimes go to American expat board and there is discussion about why Czechs don't smile. Czechs try to either explain that we smile when we have reason, and going to work in crowded subway in the morning... is not a good reason.

That does not mean we spend our days crying and whining about how life is valley of tears. We are just cynical as hell and snarky and drink bit too much and laugh only at inappropriate things... It is just how we deal. We laughed off few foreign occupations too. (this drives dictators and dictator wannabies MAD. R. Heidrich called us "laughing beasts").

"if you are going to be critical of what I say you accurately state it"

Right back at you. I was not suggesting people were weak and undisciplined at all.

To help us out, can you point to where you feel that there were "gratuitous potshots" at the West? That is what you said. And I was responding to that particular, very specific, take away. I did not say that you said the entire discussion was gratuitouis, I make it a point to be very specific on message boards exactly for this reason -- I don't like how generalzing often leads to being personally attacked.

If anything, my post came from the exact opposite place -- one of the gifts of depression is empathy for the depressed -- that was sort of my point in the first place.

I can find something to relate to in all types of depression, from the mild to the severe, from people who suffered horrible abuse to people where they can't pinpoint any particular cause.

I was actually going to write that but it was slow going on my iPad and I was going to be late for work.

Buddhism has helped me more than meds is just my personal experience, and it only applies to me RIGHT NOW. I really cannot fathom how you can extrapoloate that out to me suggesting others are weak and undisciplined. If that's even where you got it, I'm so confused.

I've tried a lot of different stuff for my messed up brain (depression doesn't even cover everything that is wrong with it), nothing has quote, unquote worked. I may try meds again, I might end up being instituationalized or getting electroshock therapy before this whole thing is over, who knows. Maybe I will end up committing suicide, I don't have a crystal ball.

I'm not saying Buddhism is the answer, it's almost funny how much of an oxymoron that would be. I'm just saying it is helping me, and it might help others on this board, and support is supposed to be the point of this board.

I am extraordinarily undisciplined, it's a deeply personal battle, I would never accuse others of that.

I think, emphasis on *think*, Venus and I made you feel defensive with our anti-U.S. stance. That's understandable. By the way, I grew up military, my father enlisted so he wouldn't be drafted into the Vietnam War. But if we did, I'm not going to apologize for it.

I WAS VERY CAREFUL TO SAY, that I am fully aware that I am from and live in a really weird place and it informs my world view. I don't begrudge others theirs.

To accuse others of being weak and undisciplined is to attack their character. To accuse me of attacking the character of people is extremely inflammatory and hurtful, all the more because you have no evidence, you are using the cop-out of "suggestion."

EDIT: Okay, re-reading my post I think I might have figured out where the problem is. Was it my comment about self-care? There was no subtext period, let alone that others are weak and undisciplined. Just for me a week of not eating or sleeping (pretty standard depression symptoms) hits me harder at 43 than it did at 23, but the added benefit of more impulse control with age overrides it. Yet again, speaking for myself.

I wasn't even invested in that, I was just thinking out loud, hence the "?" after it.

No. Not at all.

Oooh, you're Czech. That explains a lot ;=P I almost said specifically I felt so at home in Prague, now I wish I had.

We can discuss until the cows come home about America and obsessing with happiness, but all you have to do is go on Amazon and look up variations of "Happy" and there's a whole lot of stuff out there.

Granted there is about depression as well.

"The Happiness Project" was a massive best-seller. And I do read her blog, there's some good Cognitive Behavioral Therapy stuff there.

I wish I could find it now, but I read a great essay once about how the French concept of Joie de vivre is more complex than is usually thought, it's not about being happy go lucky, it's about finding the joy in life despite the suffering, despite our awareness of our own mortality.

"That does not mean we spend our days crying and whining about how life is valley of tears. We are just cynical as hell and snarky and drink bit too much and laugh only at inappropriate things."

That's interesting. Those are pretty much my coping mechanisms. But I do think functioning is the dividing line. If you are so depressed you can't laugh, or cry, or even get out to meet your friends to have that drink is when it gets scary, and of course when someone is in that state they can't see anything good about it at all. Understandably.

Buddhism has helped me more than meds is just my personal experience, and it only applies to me RIGHT NOW. I really cannot fathom how you can extrapoloate that out to me suggesting others are weak and undisciplined. If that's even where you got it, I'm so confused.

I've tried a lot of different stuff for my messed up brain (depression doesn't even cover everything that is wrong with it), nothing has quote, unquote worked. I may try meds again, I might end up being instituationalized or getting electroshock therapy before this whole thing is over, who knows. Maybe I will end up committing suicide, I don't have a crystal ball.

Yeah, I don't know either. Statistics say I have high change ending up dead with my "untreated" bipolar. (and untreated bipolar wanting to join the UN or some charity to go off to do postconflict assistance at one point? I am a dead chick walking, stastically)...

But you know what? Eff it. I mean, it works for me at the moments. I am comfortable in my own skin. Maybe being saved is not worth it. Maybe I have gone too far, too high and too low to be able to live "normally".

I am alive now... ALIVE to be exact. Feel the history on cobblestone under my gladiator shoes. I enjoy acquiring new knowledge. I am comfortable with being low at times. It is me.

Yes, there are times I wonder what for is all this... but I am not saying there is nothing positive about the lows at all. For me there is light in the darkness.

Maybe there is no normal in me. Maybe I am this, or not at all.

I'm not saying Buddhism is the answer, it's almost funny how much of an oxymoron that would be. I'm just saying it is helping me, and it might help others on this board, and support is supposed to be the point of this board.

yeah, it bothers me that suggesting that you are actually capable seems unsupportive. There are many ways to "heal". I am not the only one who promotes this "comfortable in your own skin despite symptoms" approach. there are blogs on PC that promote that.

Oooh, you're Czech. That explains a lot ;=P I almost said specifically I felt so at home in Prague, now I wish I had.

Prague is special. this is what I have written about her some time ago http://venushalley1984.wordpress.com...ome-to-prague/


I wish I could find it now, but I read a great essay once about how the French concept of Joie de vivre is more complex than is usually thought, it's not about being happy go lucky, it's about finding the joy in life despite the suffering, despite our awareness of our own mortality.

hmmm... for me thought of this life being finite... makes me hopeful actually. I do believe in reincarnation however... but still, limited time does not scare me. Maybe I am still young, not sure...

and yes, there is suffering in the world. Ignoring it won't do... and if we encounter something, we need to mourn it for a bit (and I think some things can and should be mourned intensivelly), internalize, learn, grow... move on. Yes, some things leave scars. But you can live with scars. You can rock those scars too.

Defensive? I have to laugh. I am very critical of much that goes on here.

My point is generally there are gratuitous denegrations of the U.S. in these types of threads. If that is what floats your boat, go for it.

I did not mention the USA in my post about Serb chicks. By western sheltered suburbs... I meant just anywhere, not Yugoslavia.

The point was not about the USA... but Serbia. About people whom I personally met who grew up during a ****ing war and still manage to live, thrive and look towards the future.

Thank you for the clarification, Venus. I shall go in peace and post here no more.

PS -- I hope I did not offend you by stating your name. Perhaps, ma'am is more appropriate?

you are free to post here and to call me by my name too.

You can criticize my points all you want, but if you can't "show your work" I won't be swayed much by your arguments.

I didn't do anything to deserve a personal attack. I notice you left that accusation undefended.

I hate getting depressed and the effect it has on my life and the people around me.

But, when I find a piece of prose that I can I identify with (eg Veronika, Prozac nation etc) I "enjoy" it, in a sense that it is a piece of hope, that someone understands, that I'm not alone in this, that I'm not a freak that doesn't deserve to belong on earth etc.

is this what you mean?

Not really. I meant rather directly enjoying/being comfortable with some of the dark aspects of yourself. Finding use of it.

I did not like Prozac Nation as it came of pretentious and whiny to me. And I don't like the persona of the author.