[Hack&Lube]

Depression offers you no choice. It is simply a constant cloud over your head and darkness around every corner. It's not a matter of attitude or logic or changing your thinking.

It is a completely irrational beast, the noonday demon. You can have all the money, prospects, friends, family in the world with the sun shining on your face and a great house and shiny new car and all you feel is desolation, isolation, and emptiness.

In this regard, it's not a hopelessness in the sense that it's tied to any achievements/events like "I'll be able to pay my bills! My kids are graduating! I'm starting a new job!", etc. It's a hopelessness that you'll never feel better despite all logical actions you can take in your own life. Simply nothing brings joy and nothing brings relief.

The illustration above is actually quite powerful because the loss of childhood imagination is something everybody can relate to and in many ways similar. That sort of loss is something you can't explain and no matter how hard you try, you can't get it back again. All the things that used to make you happy once, now only serve to reinforce misery and a nihilistic anomie.

I have no qualms admitting that I was troubled by this when I was much younger. Each person needs to find what works for them. All the medical professionals and medication did nothing for me and in fact, made things even worse in many respects. Ultimately I found solace in staying busy. Workaholism became the only "cure" because feelings of anxiety and responsibility drove out the deadness or at least stopped me feeling the desolation and misery for awhile.

Please watch Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. It's a great documentary about a brilliant mind and great comedian who also almost committed suicide in his darker moments.





There's also an interview out there with Hugh Laurie (House) regarding his own depression. I believe he described one realization happening when he was driving a race car around a track and realizing that instead of feeling exhilaration or fear or joy or any of the normal things; that he simply felt nothing but a deep sadness as he was doing it.