Depression experience

[Spenner]

This is something I'm really curious about. I've no doubt that anyone clicking on the thread has at least at some point BEEN depressed, and can maybe take a stab at something.

- What is the experience of real depression to you? Have you ever analyzed it or deeply reflected after an episode ends and think about what was going on?

This is an experience that has been recurring since highschool, and I had a weird fascination with "watching" my depression occur, finding out and highlighting triggers for it, and seeing a train of thought, when broken down into steps, going clearly the wrong way.

For me, depression is a memory issue. It is a tunnel mindedness experience, which the only thing on my mind is to do with depressive things. A stimulus might occur-- I'll see a person walking their dog. Very quickly this causes a feedback loop that spirals down to a dead end of bad thoughts about this thing I'm seeing.

With my memory only in that depressive "zone", of course I can look back a little bit after a train of thought like that occurs, and see when my brain goes "Yeah, it's too bad I can't live a normal life and get outside and be motivated etc"-- it's usually a very subtle thing. It's as if, mentally my "bouncers" are taking a nap. A very distinctly negative, and wrong reaction occurs, and I miss it, and I further develop thoughts influenced by this reaction. All that I end up realizing, is that I feel awful and don't really know why.

UNTIL I remember to be vigilant, and to be watching these small but very potent triggers, I'm prone to falling into a deeply sensitive state of mind. Generally, that is the framework of my depression-- the mind stops being careful, and it trips.

I have dissociative tendencies, and have since highschool, which is extremely intertwined with my depression. Because of that nature to disconnect, I think thoughts naturally have a tendency to disconnect from the expected train of thought that I might otherwise have.

Something is strange about coming out of a depressive episode sometimes almost IMMEDIATELY (I'm a "one tear cryer" generally, in that I'll have a mood swing that is so intense and crippling that it forces a tear out, but after that ~one tear, I'm generally feeling fine afterwards. It's almost like needing to stretch or something). If I think about the things that were just on my mind, i.e. the usually slightly delusional "objective" reasons that I should never feel happy again/total dysphoria, it feels a bit absurd. I've even been known to not remember saying things after coming out of a mood swing. It's like it's a different person altogether. Or like I'm not even a person at all; just a machine generating loops of depressive reinforcement.

There are of course times when my level of existential depression and anxiety is high, and it lasts for days, weeks, etc. and THAT is more tough to call absurd. In fact, there are many times when reflecting after a mood swing, another one will immediately trigger. And then it won't end the next time. That's generally how my longer periods of depression begin.

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- Another question: what has helped you?

That's a complicated answer for me. Medically, antidepressants do not work (that is, SSRIs and other things like that). High levels of stress have always been around when I'm ripe for depression. So escaping that is the highlight of helping myself. Sometimes art is a great tool; sometimes, however, I'm simply drawing a portrait of my depression, and it doesn't go away after.

The only medicine that has been therapeutic so far has been Etizolam. Note: I don't condone self medication. But this is something I have chosen to do. Read up on the drug and you might see why (basically, like benzodiazepines but side effects lacking, and has reverse tolerance, and is more therapeutic in other areas/helps brain functioning instead of lowering everything kinda like regular benzos do [generaliy]).

Today I stopped a particularly crippling episode with the help of this drug. The almost obsessive, completely rabbit hole'd tunnel mindedness I was having was opened up after taking it. I had better memory afterwards, which tells me it did in fact help what was wrong. Vigilance returns: suddenly I had confidence that I could avoid negative triggers, and could look at them, grip them almost, and toss them off.

There has been only a few times I've taken the drug to try to help my depression during the day (usually I take it at night for sleep where I don't even get to experience anything other than an inactive mind/I'm not still spiralling with thoughts), so until fairly recently I hadn't figured it was useful for depression, just for the anxiety I get at night.

It's a shame that I have a doctor that doesn't really understand what goes on with these issues of mine, or doesn't want to, and I'm hesitant to even mention that I'm self medicating with something that is NOT impacting my life in any negative way, EXCEPT if I could get it prescribed instead. Currently I have to buy it in pure powder form, mix it with alcohol, and use an oral syringe to dose it correctly. Not a big deal but it would be nice to get this prescribed to me instead, but it is quite new.

Could it be because it stops stimulation of the brain in the areas where the depression and tunnel mindedness is occurring? Perhaps. That's what I'm leaning towards. But there's also the possibility that these mood swings are from something similar to small seizures (perhaps not an actual one, but perhaps something triggers a synaptic dyslexia when I follow a bizarre train of thought), which could explain why I am completely not myself during these episodes, and memory of anything positive is simply not possible. If that's the case, Etizolam is an anticonvulsant, and works well to treat people with epilepsy, so it could have some effect related to that.

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Anyhow, that's enough personal experience. Bottom line is that depression is a complex disease, and I think finding out not just why it happens, but when, and in what context, is very important. So, do explain, if you can, the general structure of your depression experience. It's not just for my own analysis and gathering a general sense of the different experiences, but also something that might be good to break down so you too have a better sense of it.