it might be because i was raised by hippies, but i've never really bought the idea that depression could solely be linked to chemical imbalances in the brain. stress? yes. generally being unsatisfied with your life? sure. could these things cause chemical imbalances in the brain? fuck, i'm not a neurologist, but it seems like it would make sense. so when i finally realized this morning that i'm depressed, i didn't go straight for the "drug me up and knock me out of my misery" approach. i am closer than i ever have been to considering getting therapy and taking drugs, but i really, really don't trust doctors and medicine, and the thing is, i know that i've been depressed before. i know that i was depressed because shit sucked, and when things eventually changed, i got better. this has happened over, and over, and over in my life. it usually doesn't last this long, but it always feels this bad.
the problem is that i can't really change anything right now without changing everything. the problem is that it's not just depression caused by stress -- it's that the depression is preventing me from conquering the things that are stressing me out. if i make it to the end of this semester, and somehow finish all of the work that's before me, things will start to feel better. but part of me isn't really convinced that it's just the stress.
depression is a damned tricky beast, because you can't tell what's a symptom and what's a cause. it's all just one crushing block of fear and anxiety, and you can't tell which demons came before you were feeling trapped, and which ones are just shadows. they all feel real, and the fear just builds.
my mom has borderline personality disorder. her solution to feeling shitty was always to upend everything that she had and start over from scratch in a sad, manic manner that ruined everything for her and eventually left her without any real connections. this week, this month, i've been feeling like burning bridges and running away, because that's how i've seen this coped with before -- it's the only example i have. but today, after i broke down to cheryl and excused myself from what's probably shaping up to be an amazing petrology field trip, i came home and i did some research and i started to feel better. i don't have to run away, i just have to fix the things that i want to run away from. if i get sane and i still want to jet, then so be it -- that was a real monster. getting out from under this mountain of sadness is going to take a lot of epiphanies like that, and they may be slow in coming, and i may miss the point, and i may fuck up a lot more stuff before i accomplish what i need to.
that's just the way it has to be. all these smarts i was gifted with aren't doing me much good right now -- in fact, i'm pretty sure that it's their fault that i feel this way at all.
alone.
"...to upend everything that she had and start over from scratch in a sad, manic manner that ruined everything for her and eventually left her without any real connections..." Jesus, that sounds uncomfortably familiar.
ReplyDelete"the problem is that i can't really change anything right now without changing everything" -- that? Symptom. You can change damn near anything at anytime, just pick one thing and work on it. But when the depression's kicking your ass, everything seems dependent on everything else. Every task seems insurmountably huge. Seems that if there's no place to start, there's no point in starting.
You're smart. Smarts make you arrogant. You know can outwit all sorts of other shit, so why not depression? I gather from what you said about symptom and cause that you already understand the gist of this fallacy: depression fucks up how you think, therefore you can't think your way out of it. At least not without help. That's where (potentially) the scary doctors come in. Are drugs going to fix you? No. Not even close. But in my case, at least, they got enough of the imagined boogeymen off my back to let me work on fixing myself. Am I fixed? Hell no. Am I hell of a lot better off than I was? Yes.
P.S: On a more academic note, you're not the only one to draw a connection between "smarts" and depression: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=depressions-evolutionary
Having two parents who are psychologists, I have always been weary...
ReplyDeleteI did see someone this past year to work on some issues. I have also, at one point, been on anxiety meds (which i will never, never, do again).
I am realizing that these feelings seem to be cyclical (see my upcoming post for some true spookiness) and perhaps hashing them out on a couch is worth it.
Never apologize for being smart. I also recommend the book "When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers", while it is geared towards teachers of gifted children, there are a good deal of 'aha' moments which will place a lot of things in perspective. Probably the most interesting and useful textbook I have ever read.