How do you view depression?

Hi all, I was thinking about something.

How would you define or view your depression?

Is it a lack of things in your life, like some kind of void, or is it something that fills up your life in such a way that nothing else can get in, almost like that builder's foam stuff you get.

Sorry for the silly analogy, but basically is it something hollow or empty that needs filling or something so full with useless stuff that it makes no room for anything else?

I, myself, could never nail down how I viewed mine. Some days it seemed like a void/emptiness, other days like a fog that clouds everything, or like a vessel full of rubbish of some kind.

The question might seem stupid, but I was just thinking, I wonder if one cannot get rid of depression by cutting even more things out of your life?

On one hand, it's a really empty feeling, and reducing even more in your life seems idiotic, but what if that feeling is really just an overwhelming feeling in the sense that it's so large it takes over, so one can perhaps crack it by breaking down the things that constitute it? That foam for example - mostly air trapped in a mixture of stuff. If you could crush all the pore spaces, the amount of material left won't even fill 1/8 of what you filled before.

I don't hope I've totally confused anyone now. But, do you guys know what I mean, what if the emptiness is a large, all-filling feeling of being empty? Like that dark matter stuff astrophysicists speak of, or like thinking of a large amount of nothing as actually something, e.g. space.

I view it like being snowed in. Cold and suffocating. Moving is difficult because of the heaviness of the snow. Breathing is difficult. Everything.

Depression is painful memories that visit too often and go round and round in an endless loop.

Hi StbGuy,

Nice to hear from you again!

I have a hypothesis about depression which I think is also actually correct. I think that depression is actually a simple thing. It is caused by one single, simple, ingrained, habitual unconscious pattern of reacting to stress that is common among most and maybe all depressed people. This idea predicts that depression should come with a particular set of common symptoms, it predicts the course of the problem over time and it predicts what should help and what shouldn't help. It predicts that a simple training exercise should actually get to the root of the problem, and, indeed, this (at least sometimes) leads to giant sudden improvements in depression ( here's a recent example http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...epression.html ).

Depression can seem like an overwhelming powerful problem that can dominate your life and something you can only manage and struggle against. However, I think that this mainly comes just because slipping into the root reaction pattern is unconscious. Because you just don't notice it happening, you seem to have no control over it. It seems to come back seemingly no matter what you do. Because it is unconscious, it is hard to talk or reason your way out of it. It's not a physical problem either. That's why neither of the main treatments (drugs and therapy) have a good track record, and, of course, this bad track record reinforces the idea that depression is a huge almost intrinsic problem that is in you and even the experts can't help you with very much. Even though it's hard to talk your way out of it, if it is a simple unconscious problem, it is understandable that you can successfully train your way out of it. That's why I think something like meditation or brain training and, especially "snap club" can have dramatic effects:

http://egg.bu.edu/~youssef/SNAP_CLUB...0164151576.pdf

- vital

Thanks for all your responses guys! Actually wow, I didn't think I'd see such a clear pattern emerge - it is a filling thing rather than an empty thing.

Maybe that's the issue all along - maybe we think since we feel empty our life needs to be filled, maybe we need to remove.

We have all at one point or another expressed how we "cannot cope" with the depression. That doesn't sound to me like too little of something, it sounds like too much.

Breadfish, it's like you say - it's like being snowed in. We use the term "snowed under" when we express we are overwhelmed by things.

marmaduke - painful memories returning, going round and round in an endless loop.

And vital - I remember you saying how it was a state of not being consciously able to make decisions whilst fully in control. Have you ever seen those screens at the air-force on which they train fighter pilots? The one that starts off with one red dot, one green dot, one yellow dot, all moving at the same speed and slowly and then the trainee pilot has to remember the colour order. That's like level 1, it's easy and he passes 100%. As the days go on, they step up the training. By level 10, there are like 20 dots moving simultaneously at different speeds and he has to memorize, record and recall all at the same time! Most of them fail at that point, they cannot make decisions quickly enough, and only about 1% pass to become fighter pilots.

It's that crazy stream of information (emotions, memories, failures, tasks, household chores, etc. etc.) that gets us eventually, we cannot cope with the rate at which everything approaches, just like that game, so we make quick, uninformed and rubbish decisions, with disastrous consequences (i.e. crash the jet).

Maybe that's why meds work sometimes - in cases they block enough info to the brain (e.g. emotional info) just to the right amount so that we can function again (make good decisions, get the colours right in the game), but in other cases (e.g. memories) it's not treating it right. Maybe someone needs help with the colours (e.g. emotions) which is one pill, but others struggle with the speed of the dots (e.g. memories), another pill. And, we don't know if one pill used to cope with "colours" decreases the ability to cope with "dot speed". In that case - depression remains, you've exchanged one problem for another - meds didn't work.

Sorry for all the silly analogies everyone, It's just me reasoning it out as I sit at my screen.

Nature hates a vacuum, it has to be filled.

That's why I think mindfulness can work like Ruby Wax has said your mind can only think about one thing at a time, so if you fill it with the present, not the past or the future you block unwanted thoughts.
Mindfulness is good, can be hard work though.

I couldn't agree more with Vital!

More often than not, I will know exactly what will cause a depressive/anxious episode. I also know exactly how I will behave mentally and physically. The hard part has been finding something outside of medication that will actually help me break the cycle. Lately I have been listening to some guided meditations, and they seem to be helping a lot.

But I also keep in mind that even though some circumstances are obviously out of my control, the way I react and handle those circumstances are not!

Hi,

I've never seen those screens you describe for the air force. I think that whenever you're deciding things and getting a little positive feedback (no matter how tiny the decision), you're training yourself out of the root cause of depression.

Your thread reminds me of an analogy that I like about medication. I think that a lot of researchers implicitly have this seemingly reasonable view: Since your feelings are determined by your brain chemistry, if you feel bad for a long time, there must be something wrong with your brain chemistry.
Therefore, the best thing to do is to fix your brain chemistry as best we can with present day medication. To see why this might be wrong, imagine that your laptop has developed "laptop depression" because you downloaded a virus. You take your laptop to the Apple store and they say:

Everything happening on your laptop is determined by electrical signals. Thus, your problem is caused by an "electrical imbalance." We are, therefore, going to get out our soldering iron, add some wires, remove some capacitors and increase the laptop clock speed.

I think that everyone can see that even though what the Apple store guys say is true about electrical signals, what they want to do is a VERY bad idea. The Apple store mistake is that they have mistaken a software problem for a hardware problem. But I would claim that brains, like laptops, are capable of having "software problems" which should be addressed by refraining from running bad software rather than by having a hardware intervention. Notice also, that if depression is a "brain software problem", it's very understandable that there is no simple biological test for depression, just as you wouldn't expect to be able to detect a computer virus on your laptop with a voltmeter!

- vital

Surrounded by "blackness" and scary thoughts going round and round in my head in endless loops. I just want it to "end "

Ooohh yes, that brings back memories of it for me. Pretty much that, exactly as you say there. I feel you! Hugs!!!

Depression - I see it as having a realistic view on life, but one that takes over your life. You have to manage it and not hope for too much, but not settle for too little either.

For me, depression feels like a diseased entity that was residing, small, in my mind and, like a weed being watered, has grown and expanded until it fills my mind. Depression is very physical...it overwhelms my mind AND body and causes me to see my environment as tired and dulled-down- and SCARY. Depression's best buddy is FEAR. Depression's first cousin is ANXIETY.

Depression, fear, anxiety = pain.

This question was posed a few months back and I answered 'I view it as death. A waking, walking death.'

I still feel that way but would also add 'a total and overwhelming disconnect', which may be the same thing. The people who have the clearest view of my depression, whether they know it or not, are family and friends that I've long abandoned.

Thank you LauraBeth, a weed is a great way of putting it, because it takes over totally.

I still see the theme of depression being a thing that fills or takes over (versus an emptiness or lack) being carried through in our posts.

Ah, I'm sorry. That's always hard. I lost so many friends and pushed away loved ones too because, like you say, one disconnects from the world.

What genuinely used to scare me was the fact that I didn't really care, about anything. Ah, this illness is just so horrible. Truly one of the worst things that could ever strike a person in their life.

Yes. To me, depression definitely feels like a 'taking over' rather than an 'emptying'...a cancer of the soul.

A bit off-subject - whenever I read about Borderline PD and what I'm reading describes one of the symptoms of BPD as 'a feeling of emptiness', I wonder what that really means.

I remember at my lowest point hearing a report on NPR about what caused depression.... Neurotransmitter imbalances....hippocampus shrinking...It sounded very serious, it sounded very medical, like something that I had no hope to affect and it sounded like a permanent brain damaging problem. It FELT like bad chemicals in my brain too.

Now I think what I was feeling at the time was chemicals in my brain all right, but probably just stress hormones. Probably cortisol.

One of the interesting things now is that I can experience, say fear or anger separated from the ruminating, self-reinforcing thoughts that created them. It's a very interesting and illuminating experience. You can stop the rumination and then feel the pure fear or pure anger by itself.

- vital

I'm a military enthusiast and I picture depression as a vicious air-force battering an overwhelmed ground-based air defence (GBAD) force.

That's a great description, thank you! Definitely an overwhelming thing of some kind.

Too much coming at you and too quickly basically, so that one cannot make informed and proper decisions fast enough, hence making poor (not in control) choices (this is where your theory came in vital) with bad consequences of course.

Also, imagine that GBAD has all it's radio signals jammed so that it cannot communicate properly in itself and their planning room has been taken out by a bomb so that no clear orders on what to do next are coming through. Now you have to make decisions with observation alone or no info at all and you have to make them NOW, because the enemy is on top of you. That is truly overwhelming.

Depression is like being in this "emergency" state all the time (probably why it feels so tiring too). Your mind goes into survival mode to do only what it feels is necessary to survive from day to day, so it gives up on anything else that would normally be important in a "non-emergency" scenario - hence the reason for not even caring about normal, trivial things for example.

The worst thing is, is that depression doesn't look like such an attack at all! It looks like nothing is going on, not something. It's like a sneak attack almost. You expect "bombs" and lots of activity, but it appears silent. Yet, you are being attacked for sure, because your brain has clearly gone into limp mode, or emergency mode. Such a weird illness this, so sneaky, so cunning.

It genuinely is psychological warfare on a different, almost quiet and sinister level.

Yes, exactly. And, a feeling of emptiness is not emptiness itself, in fact, it's a very filling and all-consuming thing.

I think it is technically not possible to feel emptiness, if something is not there, how can you feel it, right? Emptiness itself is exactly that, it's empty, but a feeling of emptiness can fill you. You need to fight a feeling of emptiness with emptiness. If you become empty, you no longer have feeling, hence not a feeling of emptiness either, so to fight feeling empty you can become empty. This is all so confusing!

for me, it's become a way of life.

even if i'm doing something good and enjoyable, i can still find lots of reasons to feel depressed

it makes me feel worthless and not important every single day of my life and i know that what's it done to my life is not reversable. i've missed out on a bhell of a lot.. and you can't get time back. you can't

Yep, that's very accurate. I identify with that feeling quite a lot. I'm really sorry you have to endure that, it's horrible.

For me it's a void, but not empty (if that makes any sense). It's like a great big...horrible something. And nothing good can get in because void is either taking up too much space, or not letting any good thoughts in.
I don't know...I'm not making much sense today.

No, you make perfect sense. And you're describing pretty much what I understand sophiesmom has described....for her, a void that fills her to a miserable degree.

Don't worry, you are! What you describe makes perfect sense. Depression is unlike anything that's ever been seen before, it is indeed a void that fills.