Depression is kil

Depression #

Sleepless nights, a lack of joy, an inability to communicate your feelings, prefering isolation and the company of youself than those who love you. Hobbies no longer provide weekend escapism, and your loved ones notice peculiar behaviors. Yet, unlike a visible injury, these symptoms aren’t noticeable enough to warrant concern, and you certainly don’t want to bring others down by talking about it as talking about it makes it real.

Occasionally, you feel elated, overjoyed with life, and almost godlike. However, this mania further alienates and confuses those willing to listen. In moments of twilight self-reflection, you see the entirety of your anguish. Your X-ray vision penetrates the impermanence of everything around you. The insistent misery of being becomes your only sense of comfort and stability. Acknowledging that there is truly nothing to be hopeful for becomes your anchor.

David Foster Wallace compared the situation of those depressed to the scenario of jumping out of a burning building. He wrote:

Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view. The fear of falling remains a constant; the variable here is the other terror—the fire’s flames. When the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames.

So, what is Depression? #

Depression can be characterized in two main ways: as a state or mood versus a full-fledged disorder. The former is an expected component of human experience, while the latter is crippling and formed through genetics and environmental factors. Major depressive disorder brings symptoms such as sadness, tearfulness, hopelessness, anxiety, insomnia, thoughts of death, and a lack of interest in activities once enjoyed. Unlike sadness, depression’s symptoms are persistent for more than a few months.

Depression is complex. Although it is often thought to be caused by chemical imbalances, scientists have found that brain structure and neurology, such as a shrinking hippocampus, also play a role. Certain genetic factors contribute as well. Studies have shown that some individuals carry genes more likely to result in longer sustained despair after trauma compared to others. On a side note, many of these genes are also linked to inflammatory properties, suggesting that depression may have evolved to keep people healthy and less prone to sickness. This explains why preventative measures for depression, exercise, sufficient sleep, and lowering blood sugar levels are also anti-inflammatory.

Depression is a unique feeling of unfounded dread and despair. Unlike those who are sad and can locate the source of their sadness, a depressive is unable to identify why they feel depressed. They may latch onto universal issues of the human condition, such as the apparent lack of meaning in existence or the tragedy of death, or project their despair onto insurmountable conflicts such as climate change, economic crises, or crime waves. Schopenhauer writes:

The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual and in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists.

Addressing the Source #

The inability to find a source for the sadness does not mean there is an absence of a personal cause. Instead, there may be an uncovered stressor in one’s life, such as a problematic relationship, an unsatisfactory job, or even repressed trauma. Therapists work with patients to confront these incredibly uncomfortable points of contention. Many times it turns out to be rooted in things so old that the person does not even have a clear memory of it but it still is imprinted in their subconsious.

You might be wondering, anti depressant medications exist. If depression can be treated pharmaceutically and therapeutically, what’s the point of philosophizing over it? After all, we don’t have a philosophy of Lyme disease. It should be treated rather than intellectualized. Yet, depression is different from other physical or mental ailments. At times, it merges with genius, evident in the works of figures like Ludwig Boltzmann, Einstein and basically every good musician. The laser focus provided by depression can benefit philosophical pessimism. Should we dismiss our dark discoveries about the world as soon as our serotonin levels adjust? Depressive realism shows that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals, particularly under fMRI scans.

Existential Realities and the Absurd #

Depression often brings larger truths that add to our despair: impending death, the death of loved ones, the anxiety of absolute freedom, and the inability to truly understand one another. Existential psychotherapy seeks to alleviate concerns with these irresolvable observations. Unlike a chemical imbalance, this therapy is used when depression stems from the unbearable aspects of the human condition. It borrows from humanistic psychology, existentialism, and phenomenology to remind sufferers to live life fully in recognition of their mortality. Albert Camus would approve of this.

The Philosophical Perspective #

David Foster Wallace uses a classic joke to highlight the obvious, most important realities that are hardest to see or talk about:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’

Wallace is not asserting wisdom but illustrating that the depressive carries a simple and useful awareness of life’s absurdity. Albert Camus, in his philosophy of absurdism, argues that there is a fundamental disharmony between man’s search for purpose and the universe’s inability to provide it. This incongruence creates the Absurd, a core existential dilemma.

Camus suggests that hope is the real issue. He references Pandora’s Box, where hope remains after all the evils are unleashed. Hope torments humans by making them anticipate an ultimate reward, rather than valuing life in the present. Once we recognize the Absurd, we can live a good life. Camus himself lived without hope, indulging in earthly delights, which contributed to his wife’s depression.

Hope #

Despite Camus’ philosophy, hope seems psychologically unavoidable. Recent suggestions allow for a “strange hope” directed towards present possibilities. French existentialist Gabriel Marcel saw humans as beings striving for significance. Marcel argues that the drive to possess and control for meaning creates a distinction between problem and mystery.

Problems are technical and solvable; mysteries demand participation and involvement.

Marcel’s hope is a general and absolute one. Instead of hoping for specific outcomes, this hope asserts that everything is not necessarily lost. It is an act of patience, probing and striving towards being while accepting the mysterious character of its work. This is not optimism but a profound assertion that things may not be as dire as they seem.

Embrace the Struggle #

In moments of despair, even in the depths of hopelessness, we should betray all logic, reason and hope as they will keep you in the same mental loops you have been stuck in. David Hume, when overwhelmed by despair, would retreat to play games with friends, finding amusement that made his speculations seem cold and ridiculous.

We must remember to live, laugh, listen to good music, mess up, and create beautiful and ugly art.

Philosophy can’t solve your depression, but it can offer a perspective.

At the foot of the mountain, you will always find your burden again. Yet, you possess a strange hope that rejects the need for gods and instead raises rocks. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill your heart.

Imagine Sisyphus, happy in his defiance, for he has found meaning in the struggle itself.