Thoughts On Depression
Through a blogger friend, I learned that another blogger I wasn't familiar with had committed suicide on Christmas Eve. Other bloggers I sometimes read have been talking about suicidal thoughts or tendencies. Or if not that extreme, they talk about depression. I think one even mentioned that about 50% of the bloggers she reads are on some type of anti-depressant medication.
Emotions are always moving, cycling through me. They flutter and can run the gamut in the course of a day. Sometimes I get on a jag that lasts awhile. Today, I'm coming off a few days of tension. A few weeks ago I was really sad. I could even say I was possibly depressed. When things on the outside don't look good, I can lose myself if I'm "off."
When I tuned into my "Observer" Voice, I realized that on some levels it feels kinda oddly good to feel so emotionally devastated and just be with it. To lie in bed all day long with the covers pulled up over my head, crying, staring at the wall. To kinda just allow all of it instead of pretending things were anything other than what they were in that moment.
I'm pondering depression and suicide. I'm fascinated.
What happens? How do people go from being sad to deciding to kill themselves?
I have an opinion/theory that we simply get caught in a loop. That we have a thought that triggers emotions which then trigger thoughts about the emotions which trigger more emotions about the thoughts which then lead on and on and on...stories upon stories and our reactions to them...ultimately to chemical imbalances, organs stressed and then the cycles and loops get even stronger, longer and ingrained.
But I don't know.
I do know that when I get in my funks it takes work to get out of them. I have to be really focused, aware and conscious to catch myself and start to remember that Blessings are the way of the universe. It takes time (sometimes days) to have those those thoughts become the primary vision I have of the world.
And I know about this stuff and have practiced it for years, don't have too many funks (although these days there are more than there have been in other cycles of my life..I'm being given opportunity to learn more in that arena :) ). I imagine/have a theory that those who don't have tools or practice would have a very difficult time coming out of the cycling loops of pain.
But I can't know.
I wish them well, I wish them peace, whatever that means to them.
image from here Wow...powerful one, yes?
6 comments:
There is a lot going on in that picture, could spend a while dissecting it.
Your take on cycles is interesting, I see that in my friend who suffers from depression, and how when he gets down, starts playing with his medication, trying new ones and always "looking" for that perfect cure...
Over and over and he turns it into his own self fulling prophecy, his own "the truth is out there", somewhere for him. Only I don't think he will ever find it.
I know...it is an interesting one, isn't it? I stared a long time. Love good art.
I hope he does, too. I want people to feel peace. Wish we had a manual for this stuff.
omg, horribly tragic!
I can't help but wonder if antidepressants were involved, when they work, they work great but, when they don't suicide attempts are not uncommon......
Learning to just be with an emotion, even dark, depressing ones, is difficult. But with practice, it does work, and it gets easier and more interesting. Dark moods often carry powerful messages, we can choose to illuminate the dark spaces by not sedating/denying or trying to eliminate difficult emotions and the thoughts that accompany them...........and I think the whole US is feeling depressed, I am being much more diligent than usual getting my daily ha ha's, it keeps my mood up.
love the art!
I think there's a spiritual component to things...and certainly lack of control of thoughts...a loss of soul and hope, a real hatred of self and hopelessness in the thinking.
I've been in suicidal moments. Those components I mentioned and you mentioned were there certainly, but there's also an actual biochemistry going on. It is very real...the whole body just isn't working right.
The spiritual thing and the thought habit thing will just be normal, I can't get out of bed today sad until it passes through the energy system and then you get up and go about your business.
Its the biochemistry that takes it further. It is actually a very ill thought process, that's something like but not really psychosis.
Medication fixes this part...for most people.
I hope that those left behind are given comfort and peace...the blogger and others who have gone on in this way are free of the bodies which malfunctioned and are just fine where they are...
It was tragic, md. I keep wondering who found her. She had kids. So sad.
I don't know enough about anti-depressants, except that some people swear by them, others have problems with them...primarily that of shutting down all their emotions and/or their sex drive goes away.
Big Stuff.
I know there's biochemical stuff, Greenwoman. That part really interests me. I understand that from a person point of view simply from the power of hormones to have impact on my emotions.
And I keep wondering..as I see all physical stuff as having spiritual and emotional components, about that cycle. It's SUCH a difficult one to overcome. So.
I often wonder with the whole emotions/chemical thing...what comes first? And is it part of the cycle? Maybe I in that description I should add the chemical trigger component..which I think is there with every emotion. Thought triggers emotion, which triggers chemicals, which trigger more emotions, which trigger thoughts about the emotion, which then triggers more chemicals. Could be...bodymindspirit are One.
Depression has a lot of causes. We deal them in different ways. Meditation can help us look deeper into ourselves, help us to think calmly when deciding things.
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