[ScientiaOmnisEst]

I make too many threads but I promise this one will be brief. Also, apologies for the title, I couldn't think of anything to call this thread.

What do people here think of the notion that "depression is intellectually honest" or that "if you're depressed (at a young age) it means you're paying attention", that people who are depressed "understand the way the world really is"? In short, that depression is the right way to be, a sign you're an intelligent, thinking person.

I personally find it hard to believe. Supposedly high IQ is linked to a greater risk of mood disorders, but I'd say reason is speculative. I'm dead-average intelligence-wise, and I've had depressive symptoms since I was maybe 10. Only in my late teens did my thoughts ever turn existential, and I had to have those thoughts introduced to me by others. My depression (if it even is that) has always been egoistic - even when I did have those existential thoughts keep me up, I'm much, much more concerned with "handling it right" than the concepts themselves. The bad things in life do trouble me, but only briefly, and for some reason the human condition typically hits an emotional wall.

I fail to see how "I'm a useless waste of space, I can't do anything right, I'm broken, unlovable, and can't cope with life like everyone else. I'm bad, wrong, disgusting, a failure, and deserve to die" is a sign of penetrating intellect.

[dexter]

Hi Science... First I can only speak for myself but I don't think there is such a thing as "too many threads" especially if they are thoughtful or posted by someone in need of support.

I think that even if one believes that the world is full of pain and misery, that our inteligence makes it possible for us to decide how to react to that. i.e. being intelligent doesn't mean seeing the world as painful and therefore deciding that we should be in pain. Instead I think it allows us to find those moments of beauty and enjoy them, better yet to create our own moments of beauty, best of all to commit to creating beauty for others to improve the world for all.

My favorite quote is from the movie Contact: "I've always believed the world is what we make of it."

I believe depression comes not from intelligence but from something else, a personal situation for some and something not functioning right in the brain for others or maybe all. I can't speak to what is going on for someone else but I can see the malfunction in my head, I can see that I isolate myself, make myself unavailable, and then get mad when people don't speak to me. It is like my brain is my evil nemesis and is creating situations setting me up to fail so that it can give an evil laugh at my failure. I can see that process yet it does not help the pain that it causes.

I believe myself to be an intelligent person and I think my intelligence plays in by justifying my depression by pulling in parts of my life that are logically true that are negative, like the fact that I am alone, thereby giving credence to the lies that the depression generates.

I fail to see how "I'm a useless waste of space, I can't do anything right, I'm broken, unlovable, and can't cope with life like everyone else. I'm bad, wrong, disgusting, a failure, and deserve to die" is a sign of penetrating intellect.

I absolutely agree. This is, IMO, not a sign of intellect but rather a sign of depression hijacking intellect and coloring it with a box of black crayons. That is what depression does with its black crayons and darkly muted inks, and I think maybe if one is of high intellect it is worse, because it just gives depression a larger canvas on which to paint.

(((hugs)))

[elevatedsoul]

for me i guess going through the things i went through was inevitable for me to have depression...
but i feel like if the world was a better place then i would be better off...

i've heard "it is what you make it" a great deal, and that is true but is it only true because we have to make the world something it is not? because the world truly is a dark and evil existence?

[dexter]

I don't think the world is dark and evil I think the world is just is and "dark and evil" is what we see in it and therefore what we ascribe to it.

That said right now my intellectual side is having a very difficult time justifying any reason for me to keep struggling past tomorrow. Not because of the world but because of the world and because what it out there or what is not out there for me beyond tomorrow which is nothing unless I dig on the possibility of making it so and evidence of my digging has brought up nothing and I'm tired of digging.

[elevatedsoul]

yeah you're probably right - it probably just is ... i just can't seem to understand why some people are so dark
i mean i have a lot of darkness inside of me too but i dont take it out on everyone..?

im a bit strange though so i dunno, depression is really confusing to me

[dexter]

I think most people don't want to take their internal darkness out on other people because that leads to chaos. Most people realize that and therefore don't take their darkness out on others. Of course there may be slips but we make up for them and our loved ones understand. Unfortunately there are some that don't hold back and for that a little bit of darkness goes a long way and hurts everyone.