I absolutely hate being depressed. Of course I am sure this is true of everybody, save those who desire self-pity.
I’ve been put on a number of differennt perscription sedatives to help my anxiety issues. Every medication I try, though, makes me incredibly depressed. I used to struggle with depression when I was nine or ten, but I have been depression-free since then.
First, my doctor put me on Paxil, this caused me to feel depressed. Eventualy she put me onto Zoloft, finally different medication called Lexapro (something like that).
But each medication only makes the depression worse.
I feel as though it is this depression that has recently caused me to re-focus my interests back onto philosophy. I have begun to feel as though nothing but philosophy and knowledge matter in the long-run of life. In fact, I have even begun think like an existentialist – I have begun to question if life has an meaning to me anymore. I also suppose that my laziness in my religious life has further prevented me from turning ti my religion for relief.
I know it is just the symptoms of drug-induced deppression, but it is robbing me of my joy in life.
And furthermore, what if I truly have a mild case of clinical (non-drug related) depression? Does my love for philosophy naturaly reduce me to a depressed state of existence?
Has anybody else here struggled with depression long-term? I ask this because I know many of the famous philosophers (such as Wittgenstein) struggled teribly with deppression. Does philosophy ultimately lead to deppression? Would I be better off if I simply just did not care about philosophy?
Thanks.
BTW:
My doctor is aware of all this and will soon be putting me on different medication. I hope that it won’t turn out to cause the same problems as I’m having with my current meds.
Yeah I’ve struggled with it. Personally my view is this, it seems that people more capable of analytical thought are prone to depression. Don’t get this statement confused though I’ve met, and I’m sure plent of what we would call ‘stupid’ people are depressed, personally I just think that its due more to circumstance that they are stupid. They never had a chance to exercise their analytical capability. These people could be smart, its just their environment has turned them into stupid assed rednecks.
Its like dogs whom are intelligent, such as poodles, and border collies. You have to stimulate them as much as possible or they become depressed. Other dogs, such as british bull dogs, are completely satisfied with sitting on their fat asses stairing at the wall.
Well anyways… heres my point. I think intelligence is recursive (I’ll reccomend Hofstadter’s book Godel, Escher, Bach here). What happens to us is we get stuck in a recursive nightmare. Sometimes we keep pushing down level after level, getting further and further caught in a recursive tangle, and this doesn’t end. The brain is constantly involved in pattern recognition. What exercising your mind visa vi philosophy allows you to bring procedures, recursive transitional networks, to an end. It allows you to come to justifiable conclusions.
For those unfortunate rednecks who have latent analytical capability, they get lost in their sensless world because aren’t ever exposed to logic or rationality which brings about an end to such thought networks.
When you are in a recursion its almost like left vs right brain. You can go to sufficient depths but at the expense of some body awareness. This brings about conflict, and depression. I think the trick is to be able to sufficiently end your recursive nature at times. Zen, and buddhism try to do this, although in my opinion too much, going to the opposite state, and attempting to be more ‘right brain’, supressing the left. In our culture we tend to get into a analytical recursive nightmare that ends up supressing the right. A balance is needed.
IMHO philosophy isn’t depressing, but you need some courage to take it on. Also once you start looking, it’s hard to close your eyes again. Remember the famous Nietzsche quote - “If we stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at us.” (or words to that effect).
Depression is self referential, always focussing the mind on the problems of self in a fearful manner.
Philosophy + Depression = Existentialism?
No, I don’t think so. Camus’ active nihilism is the way to go in my view. Life has no inherent meaning, we all die in the end, but I’m sure not going to give up on it. I’m going down fighting! Camus was a plucky guy.
Hi BMW:
I read an article in the online New York Times a few weeks ago, where a scientist, renowned in his field (can’t recall his name, sorry), was asked a question concern his habits of mind. He replied something to the effect that he doesn’t believe that one should be too inwardly focussed or overly contemplative; neither is he a believer in meditation - I don’t know if you have any of those qualities or habits but you did mention a keen iterest in philosophy. He believes that one has to ‘engage the world.’
I too am very philosophical and enjoy reading and pondering about the great questions and I too have suffered from mild forms of depression to the point of being prescribed medications for my condition. At the present I live and work as a teacher in the Chinese countryside outside of Nanjing. The setting is wonderful, surrounded by small towns and villages, very peaceful and quiet. The foreign teachers live in a dorm on campus. In the evening, like right now for me, I’m either reading a book or surfing the net. It’s wonderful. Sometimes however, this way of life only encourages some of my overly-introverted habits which which can lead, at least in part, to feelings of depression. I find I do indeed agree with what that scientist said about ‘engaging the world.’
My other favourite pass-time is travel and I’ve had many opportunities to do that during my 3 years here. What I find is that many of those ponderous, worrisome questions like ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ in life disappear when I’m out doing something, out there ‘engaging the world.’ The feeling is exhilarating to me and quite visceral. It’s an instant cure for some of those negative feelings. One can’t generalize of course as everyone reacts differently to different situations and they have different triggers for their conditions, however I do believe that if some, perhaps many people who suffered from depression could find the strength to turn outward and find that one interest or activity where that worrisome question regarding ‘purpose in life’ simply evaporates, then they just might overcome the worst of it. Well, that’s my opinion anyway. Best of luck to you.
There are complex physical problems that have a powerful influence over your emotional and mental status. Allergies, toxins and paracites each can have drastic effects.
How much time are you willing to spend learning about/trying alternative health care methods?
I completely believe that philosophy can make you depressed, depending on the variety. The fact that we will never know certain answers can also make one feel useless, and that’s depressing.
I suggest that you kiss a girl, watch a movie, and then kiss her again.
I certainly feel a type of depression from philosophy… at least at times. I think when your mind operates in the way most philosophers do, this is enevitable - because we’re outside of the societal comfort zone we’re used to as kids.
I’m with Filo, Camus said something like “I’d have killed myself by now if I thought it would change anything”.The truth is, we’re here… nothing makes sense, but we might as well enjoy it. By it I just mean experience. Nevermind attaining true love, just look at the tree out the window… appreciate being able to view it.
Life is a game, an excersize. So long as you keep yourself busy you tend not to dwell on the negatives.
“Life may not be the party we had hopped for, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to dance”
I guess I suffer from a lognterm depression, it as taken quite a while already, some 2 years and something. And I think it was induced from the deep disappointment from one person and the believes I had in him and I cannot reconcile myself and convince myslef that I had been lied to, laughed at and cheated on. I just cannot take it because the behaviour of that person was also contradictory and I don;t wan;t to be unfair to him and misjudge him.
So that was the reason. Since then my resort to find other things and ideas to think about was to take some of the philosophy books because I think philosophers grasp a bit more of human nature than psychologists, especially existemcialists.
i don;t know if these books helped me or not, I am in the same point as I was half a year ago, or a year ago. I know myself good enough to predict that it will last on, without stopping - my depression will only be covered maybe,at times. but will never stop, when I come to think about the reasons why I got into that state. So I can just avoid these ideas by doing something else, but then, I always feel I should think about those important things, why, how, etc.,that is where the depression exudes from.
Excellent thoughts, my friends! Just the sheer number of people saying, “Me too” has helped encourage me already.
I think TheAlderian hit the nail on the head when he said that a lot of the depression is associated with the fact that we will never know the answers to many of philosophy’s questions.
Actually, I’m trying to avoid doing this altogether. I feel that “love” at my age (17) is probably going to end-up being more of a distraction to me at this point in my life. I have a LOT of things to do ahead of me (I’m graduating from highschool in june!)…college, the police-academy, finding a job, getting settled down in my own apartment or house, you know…
I found depression to be an extremely useful tool in helping to find insights into the world. Depression has this effect where it strips the world of all superstition, elation, meaning, purpose and certainty. At first this profound insight hits you like a hammer, knocking you so hard that life becomes unbearable. But once a calm stoic-like view of the world creeps into your psyche, nasty phenomena doesn’t bother you as much anymore. You accept that the world is hard and full of pain with no certainties apart from death.
depression was rideing me for years.in the end i concluded they only way to win was to REJECT it.though the pissimist is always right,and depression is so damn logical i just needed to reject it because of my painfull condition.and shun the logic of depression. coars’ were all diffrent, dunno if this will help.
i also endorse what dan~ says about it. never liked drugs.
in a side note:your religion dosn’t comfort you? mine does.
i think the best medicine for depression is hanging out with your friends (even here at ILP ) and it seems that your already on the first step there. But this can backfire as sometimes your friends may make you even more depressing , but use this as a window of oppurtunity. Look at the current state of your life that makes you depressed. From there you will see that there are lots of people who aren’t depressed. They are obviously doing something or have something that keeps them from depression. From this, take initiative to try something new. Change your life, your thinking and anything else. How can you be truly depressed about your life, if you’ve never fully experienced it, so keep trying things untill you hit a good spot
Which came first?
Does philosophy lead to depression?
OR
Does depression lead to philosphy?
I think depression causes you to seek answers, which is what philosophy tries to provide. But then these supposed answers lead to more questions which is where you seem to be. It is cyliclical, like the chicken-egg question.
My father the SuperCatholic would tell you to look to religion, but religion is philosophy. Religion hasn’t helped me with my depression. If you find comfort in your religion, good for you. If not, try exploring other cultures, including other philosophies.
P.S. Don’t bash love at your age. It’s an important part of growing up. It’s better (imo) to get some of those experiences out of the way now, so you are more focused in your endevors later. I’ve been with the same person since I was 20 (4 years), and I find a lot of comfort in him and our relationship. This may not work for you, but don’t knock it till you try it.
Depression in my view is part of a natural cycle in life. The reason we have so many problems is that we believe it is wrong for us to feel down or see what is bad. In a sense though its a symptom of the times. The world has become extremely conservative and boring, and if a thinking person feels they don’t fit in, then it is probably because it is true. In no way does it make those thoughts wrong though. It doesn’t mean thinking things that seem out of place or depressive will cause you to be depressed.
I don’t know medically the explanations for depression, but in my view depression is an absense of emotion not a feeling bad. One idea I have about this is that it could be a confusion of emotions in the brain caused by us trying to reprogram our emotions so much to feel happy or whatever we think we should feel regardless of what the stimulus around us suggests we should be feeling. Eventually the mind just shuts down to it because emotions become too confused to make sense of, like overload. Everything the human body does is normally for a reason though, seeing it has had a long time to evolve and I believe depression may be the safeguard that causes us to realise everything is extremely out of place and research till we find our place again, or realise what is wrong. Like a stop and repair mechanism.
For this reason I think trying to alter emotions with drugs is a bad idea to fix depression because the problem in the first place may be that the person can not be content being anything but happy. They aren’t seeing that there is a point and beauty in a range of emotions, the mind has become one tracked looking to find one thing and you give them it as a drug. You’ve pretty much destroyed the search and any good thing that can come from it. Every man needs to search and go through a patch once in their life or they never grow up completely or truely appreciate the world around them. Sometimes people just are not able to take up the fight and hide instead. There is nothing wrong with them though. I think they just need to search within and find their place more, rather than wondering why they don’t fit their surroundings. Find an artistic side, go do the things they really want to do, meet people like themselves rather than chasing something that isn’t them. Find their worth within, not from what the world thinks. And hopefully realise a lot of other people are like themselves regardless of who they pretend to be. Know that they may be wrong, but there is always a chance the others are wrong and they are right. Sanity is subjective and there is no reason for a non-thinking majority to decide upon what is right to be and sane. Obviously you still have to care about the rest of the world, but don’t go out to prove it to them, because you are still looking for value externally. Find why you have your place here that no one can touch, then existance will be enough to not be depressed. Look at positives in situations too. Make it a challenge even to find them. Because it’s amazing what positives you can find in the most rediculous things. It might be genetically programmed and some might have less of a chance to make it, but I used to be what I’d call depressed, now I look at some of the stuff I thought mattered and I laugh myself to sleep.
I myself have been depressed as long as I can possibly remember. Back when I was 12 was when it first started hitting me hard. Around 14.5 I had a very severe crash (emotional) and did not recover for months. I am now 17 and have been having weekly crashes for the past year or so. It is awful but the crashes seem to be happening less frequently now. I am not going to go deeply into my life’s philosophy so you may not fully understand why I say this. I believe that for my particular case depression is a good thing, it makes me strive to not be depressed gives me an a huge ambition to make it to where I want to go in life. I am not going to college, nor will I get a job, I will live my life wandering, philosophying, learning, living. I will break away from these chains society places on me and I will rise above society’s pressures. Without depression I don’t think I would have this strong of feelings about this. I am 17.5 and I hope I will be able to rid myself of not depressiong but the causes of my depression by the time I am 19.
most likely …when we philosophize we tend to see the whole picture unless were incredibly narrow minded and this pictre often includes the darkest sides which make some people very depressed ,theres nothing wrong with you alot of the greatest minds - musically for one were depressed or could have very well been labeled as.
Depression? Yes, I’ve been struggling with it (not that hard as you did, though). I couldn’t find comfort until I met one guy. He is a retired doctor, good psychologist… We became friends almost immediately, talked a lot, and I straightened it all up for myself. Now I’m just always ready for depression to come. As it comes, I work on it, trying to figure out the reason (which is not that easy). When the reason is found, philosophy cures the disorder. But I experienced a mild psycho-neurosis; in your case it might be a psychosis, then medication is the only way. However, if it’s neurotic, there is a thing, which is important. All reasons for the neurotic depression can be totalled to these tree: 1)loss 2)guilt 3)repressed anger . And philosophical discussions are wonderful treatment…
) and it seems that your already on the first step there. But this can backfire as sometimes your friends may make you even more depressing 
, but use this as a window of oppurtunity. Look at the current state of your life that makes you depressed. From there you will see that there are lots of people who aren’t depressed. They are obviously doing something or have something that keeps them from depression. From this, take initiative to try something new. Change your life, your thinking and anything else. How can you be truly depressed about your life, if you’ve never fully experienced it, so keep trying things untill you hit a good spot