Everybody gets depressed from time to time, usually you snap right out of it and sometimes you don’t and need assistance. That might be a kick in the ass from your friends or family, or it might be a shrink. Whatever it takes.
Wumpus,
Live for yourself. You are living for other people right now. From your point of view, you are the most important thing in the universe. I am not suggesting you drop everything, giving up on all other responsibilities, but reminding you that your biggest responsibility is to yourself. Do not ignore that one. Be generous with yourself. Be kind for yourself. If those other responsibilities are too much, then learn to let them go or at the very least reduce their weight on you.
Figure out whatever is in life you enjoy and do more of it. Figure out what you dislike and do less of that.
To be clear, there’s not always play involved in that. There is no McGuffin, no post credit scene. The only big bad guy most people fight is themselves, and that’s plenty.
From a biological perspective, we’re here to be fruitful and multiply (which is actually just one relatively small period of time)
From a religious perspective, we’re here to implement god’s plan (which we’re never told)
From a hedonist’s perspective, we’re here to have as much fun as we possibly can (which can feel empty when purpose doesn’t provide the structure to which it’s applied)
From a philanthropist’s perspective, we’re here to help others as much as possible (which can also feel empty when we feel a lack of fulfillment, ourselves)
But none of us are any of those things exclusively. We’re a confused mix of countless versions of ourselves, with dominance being held by one for only so many moments until it almost randomly gets passed on to another. Depression is particularly tough with this cycle, as it doesn’t allow the change of the guard to come in and provide the next set of motivations to take hold. It keeps our inner selves from us. We still may walk forward out of curiosity and obligation, but that only goes so far.
The depressed version of ourselves isn’t even one of the archetypes we roll through. Rather, it’s a wrench thrown into our natural machinery. While it can often get dislodged simply from the pressure of the gears over time, it doesn’t always and the damage it can do can be extensive. So why not get a mechanic to help? Heck, get an engineer and see if this can be reworked to avoid falling objects causing too many issues in the future.
Have you looked into mindfulness and meditation?
One thing that strikes me is that you seem to be thinking that there is no reason to keep going if you do not have some grand purpose. Perhaps that is backward. Why do you need a “reason” to keep going? Why can’t you just be?
(I’m not saying that sarcastically. And oh lord do I have my own problems - it’s not like I have things figured out. I’m a trainwreck. But it is sometimes easier to see things in others than it is to fix things in yourself. Reading what you have typed, I see a strong sense that you think you have to have some goal or reason for existence. You don’t. Just exist, and experience what comes.)
As I have said repeatedly, this part is the problem. Honestly I don’t get it. Because I’ve only heard “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight” 39 times in my life, I could have heard it 52 times?
Wumpus, I don’t mean any disrespect but you’re all over the place here and I’m not sure how much some random dudes on a web forum are going to be able to help anyway. Some folks have suggested professional help, have you considered looking into that?
There’s no helping to be had; I’m here for the duration because I have a responsibility to my children, which I take very seriously.
Life is amazing but I’ve had enough of it. So I’ll follow the playbooks I have, because that’s the only option I get.
Best of luck to you then, I guess.
Why do you say that? Have you explored medical and psychiatric avenues? You are committed for the long haul, you say, so why not see if there are ways you can enhance that time? Your kids would probably prefer a happy or contented dad to a dad who sounds like he’s suffering from depression.
Sounds like you are seriously depressed if you can’t find a reason to get excited about living another 40+ years. No one can make you get help except you. I sure hope you have told your wife about this.
I literally can’t get Everybody Wang Chung Tonight out of my head. So I got that to look forward to.
You paint a bleak picture indeed.
However, this can be averted by immediately playing anything else.
@wumpus I don’t know how to explain this to you. You must seek professional help. I attempted suicide at a young age. I was in the psych ward at Bellvue hospital for three months. It was not fun. Eventually a combination of talk therapy and medication helped me. That doesn’t mean that I stopped suicidal ideation. I still think about it. In my case it never goes away completely. It’s like my addictions. I never stop thinking about heroin. I even dream about it. But there is help to be had.
You and I have something in common. For a long time I didn’t kill myself because of my son. That was a good excuse right? No. If I really wanted to do it I would have. It’s just a fucking excuse. It means that you really don’t want to kill yourself. What you want is a reason to live.
See a psych, therapist or something. What worked for me was a psycho-pharmacologist. That’s a person that believes that therapy, with the correct drug, can turn people around. Not cure. Not perfect. But you can be happy. Stop being lazy. Do something to help someone. You. Yourself. You deserve better. You deserve BETTER.
Do I? My playbooks are pretty good. They got me this far. I have done well as a human being on planet earth in the big scheme of things. I have no reason to believe my playbooks won’t carry me until the inevitable end even though that might be later than I would prefer.
I have always felt like I don’t know what I am doing, that I just operate a human being on a playbook. I distinctly remember feeling this way in fourth grade. I won’t deny that knowing what exists outside the playbooks has become a bit of a mystery as I get older. But does it matter?
That said, there can be changes to the playbooks over time. I did kick myself off Twitter, which was absolutely messing with my brain, the litany of agonies in Trump era Twitter are exhausting to experience. And I am scheduling a walk every day to get out a bit more.
One of the problems is the decision making apparatus you have that is telling you that you are done is bad now. Depression sucks because it takes away your desire to get help with the problem itself. In your case it seems to have manifested itself as “I know better, there’s nothing else I’m interested in” and you’re smart enough that you’re believing your brain. But your brain is the problem.
Take up a sport like golf, a “good walk spoiled” according to Mark Twain. :)
If you are retired young, I can see that being an issue. It’s not unusual for people who have worked hard to retire and not do well.
The problem I see with being depressed is you can argue yourself into thinking every activity is meaningless. Humans are very good at justifying any line of thinking. The universe will end in a heat death. The immortal works of the best minds will be lost, as if they never existed. Why strive for anything?
If you have the money, why not relocate someplace cool like Italy and live there for a couple of years, get into the rhythm of a new culture, give your kids that experience, and the entire family can learn a second language. There are so many interesting things in the world and most people don’t have the means to really experience them. It seems like you may be the exception.
Mostly, I’d say have faith that things can get better. Most of us have had our moments of despair, and most of us come through them. I have no illusions about any real meaning to my own life beyond loving those I’m connected to and knowing they enjoy having me around. That’s plenty of meaning for me, and I get a sense of contentment from it. And for me there are things I want to do, live in Europe, Ireland, England, maybe Canada. There are books I want to read, concerts I’d like to see (how about Sir Van Morrison in a venue in Ireland!), and all kinds of places to experience. There’s so much to do and see!
Depression is the most significant barrier to its own treatment. The terrible inertia it brings can keep one from any action one hasn’t performed before — that isn’t in one’s playbook, as wumpus might put it. And a depressed person is not well equipped to navigate the US health care system, making the necessary calls and coercing or charming the disinterested morons who answer into cooperating. When one is feeling more able, the last thing one wants to do is acknowledge in any way that the depression is ever coming back.
Instead, one makes excuses. Treatment might change your personality and turn you into a happy zombie, it shouldn’t be necessary, one’s dramatic feelings must be more significant than “mere” depression. And people who are threatened by the idea that they too might be depressed and “weak” will eagerly (and idiotically) tell you that there’s no such thing as depression; you just need to be a little more like them by using their particular crutch, which of course is not particular to them but UNIVERSAL (e.g., exercising, getting married or divorced, getting a dog, la la la la) or by “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” which is something no one has ever done but many have pretended to have done. You can know such people are full of shit, but their energy will far outmatch yours and you’ll wait another day/month/year…
Well, fuck that shit. Somehow you must break the inertia and get treatment. I don’t know what it will take for you, wumpus, as an individual. For me it was some surprising bad news — which wasn’t even bad, really, but which hit me just right to put me in an emotional crisis from which I knew I had to escape. Once treatment was in motion, I didn’t have to make another desperate or superhuman effort.
What antidepressants can do for you doesn’t feel radical and won’t change who you are in any way; it will just allow you to break the inertia when it settles on you, and eventually to keep it broken most of the time. It’s like weight training; you can’t lift the weight, the bar cuts into your hands, but one day when you try the weight goes right up. And that makes all the difference to your experience living day to day in a weighty universe.
If that doesn’t work, fuck hookers with big tits. But wear condoms, or you’re likely to give your wife the jungle rot, and then where will you be?
Yep, very well said.
When you get strep throat, you see a doctor and take antibiotics. See a doctor, do whatever they say to do.
Unless it’s the guy who was my pediatrician/child doctor/whatever from ages ~10-18, who was apparently arrested a few years back for diddling his male patients.
Sorry, just needed a little “levity” in this thread.
Maybe that wasn’t the best choice for levity.
Anyway, what @John_Many_Jars describes above is precisely the kinda hell my gf went through in her recent battle, my best friend in hers. Neither has broken entirely free yet. I guess, realistically, they won’t, ever, but at least they’ve got some of the tools to help them continue the fight, now. It was hellish, like dragging a thousand pound weight up a muddy slope to get any forward momentum going, and the depression fought them every single step of the way. It’s ludicrous and horrible and goddamn do I wish we had a better understanding of how to identify and then defeat it.