*Key in mission impossible music* I'm writing this blog at my own peril as the scurrying of claws from my apparently rabies infected cats are swarming all around me. I know the risk, (cat scratch fever is a bitch!) but seriously, this one is necessary. Really necessary, as we all get ready for that routine sleep tonight, unbeknown to us the toils of others, the thoughts, concerns, or pains of the world at large as the moon crawls to the sky inconspicuous to us within our walled-in abodes. We all know it is there, but as it is not in our immediate line of vision we pay it no mind. I pay it mind. I've payed it mind against my will for many a night. More than I care to recount, that it has become more acquainted with me than any of my friends, and for that it is my burden to bear. Now I've slept, and do wonder, who now bears the burden, who must see that which I've seen, who else out there in this great big world, with the many people, possesses the guilty eyes?
I've seemed to have developed a bad habit. One finds one will develop many of those with an infinite supply of curiosity. Myspace searching. Basically when I find the time has been stretched and my mind wanders, I look at random peoples myspaces to see what they're up to and learn about strangers and how they're getting along in life and the dramas they may face. Yes yes, I know, weird, but in my defense at least I can say my intent was innocuous! A ticklish thing then occurred when on one of my random excursions I stumbled upon a domestic sighting. An old classmate, hardly acquainted enough to even be called acquaintances, this guy was primo popular at my high school. He had all sorts of jokes and witty responses that there were times I wish the teacher would just shut up and let this guy speak. He made me laugh so, of course I never directly talked to him, I was much to shy and unconfident. I would listen to him talk to others and make his class clown remarks, and it in turn provided a bright thing to look forward to during my typical shitty high school days of advanced calculus and tackling drills. (try mixing the two - it's fun) Well. Anyways, I was always jealous of his social skills, and the number of friends he had. Gosh, he probably could have picked any girl he wanted, with just a point of his finger and bam! the girl would be letting him play with her belly button piercing or something without ever knowing him!
Ironic it was then when I happened on to his blogs. I would link them, but out of privacy reasons and personal property I think I should refrain. They were like something directly out of Edvard
Munch's "scream" painting. With heart wrenching sentences of how apathetic and depressed he was. How he didn't care for anything, and the chronic pain and feeling had robbed him of enjoying anything, how he wished he could sleep for eternity and never wake... how he's been struggling with suicide attempts and infinite wells of emptiness. It went on and on and all the while I can not fathom that this person, who in all aspects of life was successful in the things that most men desire, could feel this way for so long. That beneath his shining exterior lurked this imp-like interior.
Most baffling, was how this could be, how this dichotomy could even exist. For in a personal light, I who have suffered so much from day to day, have never plunged into such deep pits of depression ~ and that's what he has ~ depression... and I never had the girlfriends or large amounts of friends or support that he did. Was he weak? Was he selfish? Whiney? All these things might be possible explanations for one not familiar with mental illness. I highly doubt anyone would be able to rationalize how a man could worry about say, having brain cancer every minute of the day for months on end... because if they could, they'd have it themselves. In this same way I could not rationalize why he was in so much pain without the aggressors to warrant his woe because I've never been that depressed before. Oh sure, psychiatrists will say anxiety/depression are inter-related... but these opinions are coming from people who have never personally felt the mental illnesses they try to define. They can not get into the head or thoughts of someone with a mental illness because they don't have the connection to how it works, breathes, and consumes itself within a person. In this way, anxiety and depression are no more inter-related than physical pain vs. mental pain. Anxiety stems from a self-concerning worry whereas depression from a self-defeating apathy. The two, if in extreme amounts can spill over to another, much like how physical pain, if in extreme amounts can spill over to mental pain... but besides that, by themselves they are not inter-related, and i've never been depressed despite having anxiety disorder.
So, what is depression? Often times to a normal person, the rational is that we all have objectives or goals in life... and that "depression" occurs when we fall short of said goal or objective, and that the intensity of the depression corresponds with how short we fall.. WRONG! that's just the blues, and it never achieves the extent of what depression - a medical illness is. Otherwise, a fellow like the man I mentioned earlier, would never be depressed, because he has just about everything worthwhile to provide him happiness. Well then, it must be selfishness then! He must want an infinite amount of something, and thus is caught in a perpetual disappointment which causes his and everyone diagnosed with depression...'s depression. WRONG! depression is caused not by an excessive amounts of wants, but at a lack thereof. It is a form of apathy, that those with depression lose their memory and thought, because the incentive to think and remember things goes away. They literally go days without thinking about much other than what's in front of them, and in this way an infinite amount of anything still amounts to nothing in much the same was as anything times zero still equals zero. The key to treating depression is to get them thinking again, bolster bolster their ego, force them to think of themselves highly. Anything that gets them excited or thinking about something, because when they show that they're thinking about something, than they obviously care for it ~ which means it then has a value to them, and they are thus losing their apathy ~ which is the root of depression.
For this fellow, I imagine he's like the minotaur running around a maze with a concealed violinist playing the blues...
where or where are those blues coming from?
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