Origins of depression are difficult to describe; as a nascent neuroscientist and doctor in training there's an axiom that seems applicable- "structure dictates function which dictates behavior which can dictate structure." This tautology gets at the core of something that many people who don't suffer from Major Depressive Disorder don't quite understand. Doctors can give you SSRIs, they can hit you with NDRIs and NMDA receptor antagonists (Ketamine, the hot new treatment for acute depressive crisis falls into this category) and they can make the state of living with depression for lack of a better word, comfortable.
However, the thought patterns remain.
What also remains is the things you do in your past during the anhedonia that can accompany depression.
Anhedonia (n)
1. The inability to feel pleasure
2. The worst fucking symptom of depression (personal definition)
Oddly enough, Anhedonia and confessions are the basis of this post. The video for Joji's song Yeah Right is an almost perfect simulacrum of anhedonia. Specifically, the use of the imagery of him being depressed at a strip club, twerked on by two women and all he does is sit there eyes closed and stone faced hits home as a great capture of the realities of not feeling.
Confession number one: I have been this person and I've been worse. The refrain of "yeah right, yeah right" is a familiar one to me. There are a lot of things things I did during this period, but perhaps the most damaging was exploring a lot of my sexuality while also doing a lot of drugs. When you are slamming uppers and downers as hard as possible, playing with whips and ropes and you still feel like shit? Well those things become part of a category I call 'That stuff I did when depressed.' Where it creates damage is in associating things you might otherwise enjoy outside of that state with anhedonia.
Confession number one: I have been this person and I've been worse. The refrain of "yeah right, yeah right" is a familiar one to me. There are a lot of things things I did during this period, but perhaps the most damaging was exploring a lot of my sexuality while also doing a lot of drugs. When you are slamming uppers and downers as hard as possible, playing with whips and ropes and you still feel like shit? Well those things become part of a category I call 'That stuff I did when depressed.' Where it creates damage is in associating things you might otherwise enjoy outside of that state with anhedonia.
Ultimately, your psyche becomes a superfund site of toxic memory engrams that need to be cleaned up; since behavior can dictate structure after all. The wreckage of this can last for as long as one allows, but eventually it must be cleaned up. Going through it is like revisiting an old lover; one that knows you intimately, but one that you can no longer stomach. You have to face the worst parts of what you did in your life, look it in the eye, confront it, and understand that you are no longer that person in many ways, but it is always a part of you. This last bit as a fact of life you must make peace with to move on.
Confession number two: I am unsure if one is able to pull themselves out of a severe state of anhedonia without help. I was unable to accomplish this despite desperately wanting to escape. The only way I was able to reach the other side was to engage with a psychiatrist and accept that taking the drugs wouldn't change me, they would simply help me cope with my new reality. I needed to accept and internalize the fact that the drugs wouldn't change me. I would retain my best qualities, intelligence, writing ability, and empathy. The drugs would simply help me cope with my new reality created by my experiences. The results have been overall extremely effective, but I still occasionally have breakthrough depression and intrusive thoughts. I've been told by someone who is near to me, and qualified, that my intrusive thoughts of suicide are normal, but they still scare me (which is perhaps the correct response). Things aren't perfect, but medication is a primary reason I am here to write this post and I will forever be grateful to it, and I'll never miss a dose. The thought of returning to those times is one that I find to be a horrific abyss that should not be stared at too long.
Confession number three: This is the hardest post I've ever written for music slut. One might think that's because it required me to revisit 'that stuff I did when depressed,' however this is not the case. The reality is that within the deepest depths of my anhedonia I met a woman. At the time she was in a relationship but I felt intensely for her, one of the few things I felt that wasn't numbness or rage, but set them aside. That was around ten years ago and that relationship has since ended. We recently ended a period of being out of contact with one another, and found ourselves falling head first into a relationship together. So, I have a girlfriend and she makes the world seem right. The truth is I'm writing this post about the worst time in my life in a head space where I am the best I've ever been, I am with a wonderful woman who loves and supports me, the kind of woman you feel you can take on the world with and still be standing at the end of it all. The relationship by no means fixed me, but fixing myself allowed me to be in a position to be in this relationship and for it to bring me the rest of the way. The net result of a lot of work cleaning up my personal superfund site and this relationship means that anhedonia has become a distant foreign land. What was once the reality of my daily life has become a distant foreign concept that exists in a space as if half remembered in a dream.
Confession number three: This is the hardest post I've ever written for music slut. One might think that's because it required me to revisit 'that stuff I did when depressed,' however this is not the case. The reality is that within the deepest depths of my anhedonia I met a woman. At the time she was in a relationship but I felt intensely for her, one of the few things I felt that wasn't numbness or rage, but set them aside. That was around ten years ago and that relationship has since ended. We recently ended a period of being out of contact with one another, and found ourselves falling head first into a relationship together. So, I have a girlfriend and she makes the world seem right. The truth is I'm writing this post about the worst time in my life in a head space where I am the best I've ever been, I am with a wonderful woman who loves and supports me, the kind of woman you feel you can take on the world with and still be standing at the end of it all. The relationship by no means fixed me, but fixing myself allowed me to be in a position to be in this relationship and for it to bring me the rest of the way. The net result of a lot of work cleaning up my personal superfund site and this relationship means that anhedonia has become a distant foreign land. What was once the reality of my daily life has become a distant foreign concept that exists in a space as if half remembered in a dream.
That's my three confessions for shadow month. Check out Joji's Yeah Right and try to feel what it's like to be unable to feel.
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