(November 8, 2012 at 4:43 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: Well well. I am feeling good. My boyfriend hand-delivered a nice chai latte to me this morning, I had a very nice Thai lunch with a mutual friend of ours who works in the same area I do, and we'll be going out with the local atheist group for drinks and socializing later where I'll be sitting down with a friend to plot out doing photography for his kickstarter page and brewery webpage. And then we'll be running back to my house because he forgot his dress shoes there and I plan on ravishing him.

I'll bet you have a whole list of volunteers to stand in for this lucky boyfriend of yours should anything ever prevent him from attending you personally.

You overestimate my charms, kind sir.

I can't help noticing how many of us are dealing with or have dealt with depression and/or other such issues. I am currently quite content and I call that happy, as happy as I want to be. Like my mother, I've been both manic and depressed but I have leveled out without medication.

Nothing compares with the euphoria of mania but it isn't the sort of happiness I would choose all things considered for myself or anyone else. Looking back I recognize the distortion in my perceptions but the certitude of them and the energy with which I acted on them was certainly exhilarating. I think those episodes were transformative just as drugs were, but I don't need any more of either, thank you.

Depression was shocking at first - so different than anything I'd ever experienced. I remember sleeping tons and reading in between mostly. I found social situations bewildering. Everyone at the check stand in the grocery store seemed to be in on all manner of cues and humor that I couldn't get at all. In addition to the lack of interest and satisfaction, it was also an enormous blow to my self esteem. You probably can't tell but I have and always have had a healthy regard for my own opinion (haha). But when I was depressed it was like I had no insight. I couldn't trust my gut to tell me what in something I was reading was significant. There was a flatness about it. Just a clutter of facts with no revealed hierarchy. At some point I made my peace with my loss of insight and intelligence. There came a point when I realized I'd probably never be there again and I decided to make the most of what I had. That seemed to mark my return to what has become my new normal. I no longer compare or judge my experience or have much expectations in that regard. Depression sort of shakes your certainty, but that isn't all bad.

My depression followed a little more than a year of mania about 35 years ago. Every day of depression seemed interminable and was in such sharp contrast to the unprecedented highs that I had only just experienced. I considered suicide as an obvious solution when I was depressed but was never seriously tempted. Fortunately I have a great capacity for misery. But I do now enjoy many things not in a hopping up and down way but I'm very content.

I can't even begin to tell you how your post resonated with me. Sometimes I think it takes the clarity of someone who's been there and back to put words to the nameless feelings that accompany mental disorder.

In case you don't know whateverist: http://atheistforums.org/thread-15558-po...#pid357398

I can relate.

I am feeling much better than before. I am so relieved that the weekend is here.

(November 8, 2012 at 6:07 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: In case you don't know whateverist: http://atheistforums.org/thread-15558-po...#pid357398

I can relate.

I see. When it happened to me I didn't see a doctor so I never got any chemical help .. except for what I was trying on my own. So I can't imagine what that would have been like.

I suspect that I have a susceptibility to bipolar which may have been provoked by life circumstances and choices. My mother was hospitalized off and on for half her adult life. I started doing a lot of physical adventuring in my early twenties after a largely cerebral childhood. I was skateboarding all the time and probably not eating enough. I dropped down to 145 pounds and I'm 6 foot tall. I was also smoking a good bit of weed and experimenting with hallucinogens. I was reading a lot of pop psychology, Carlos Castaneda, zen, poetry, Alan Watts, and doing yoga and guided meditation at the local J.C.. In the midst of the mania I got divorced from my first wife. Her idea.

Tapping into manic states was becoming more difficult anyway but then some events happened which sealed the deal. Having just divorced, my younger brother and protege moved in with me. By then I was already more often depressed than manic. Then while out driving in his little Fiat spider, a drunk guy in a huge american station wagon swerved into us head on not far from home. My brother lived for a little more than a week but we were told he was brain dead immediately. I was knocked out, and then went in and out of consciousness several times. That put me on disability alone with my first dog until while out walking late at night she got behind me as I walked past the driveway to a bar. A pick up truck sped around a corner and into the lot. I immediately said her name when I first heard the truck and she came right away just in time to get run over. She died while I held her. Then I was completely alone.

The odd thing was that I couldn't really feel anything directly. I was somehow removed from it all and numb. In some ways it's like I never came back, I just moved on. Eventually I became accustomed to the new normal. I met and married my wife of nearly 30 years now, helped to raise her son since he was 6 and became a math teacher and then a gardener. The one constant in my life is I've always had dogs. I don't wish for a return to my former life and what really feels like a different self.

I think this is why I'm so interested in the nature of the self. What is it that we are? How much continuity should we expect in the stories we tell ourselves about who we are? Our cells all replace themselves, perhaps our stories do too.

That's really terrible. I'm sorry for your losses. I've been fortunate in the sense that I've never lost anyone I was close with, but then again, I'm not close to many people, which is an issue in and of itself. I don't think there is a 'going back.' We're all just doing the best with what we've got, which is where we are now. How we view and deal with things now is related to our experiences, which obviously change over time. So while we may be essentially the same, our view of the world and how we interact with our surroundings change with each new experience. Our experiences shape who we are, but they don't have to define us.

(November 8, 2012 at 6:06 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

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(November 8, 2012 at 5:56 pm)whateverist Wrote: I can't help noticing how many of us are dealing with or have dealt with depression and/or other such issues. I am currently quite content and I call that happy, as happy as I want to be. Like my mother, I've been both manic and depressed but I have leveled out without medication.

Nothing compares with the euphoria of mania but it isn't the sort of happiness I would choose all things considered for myself or anyone else. Looking back I recognize the distortion in my perceptions but the certitude of them and the energy with which I acted on them was certainly exhilarating. I think those episodes were transformative just as drugs were, but I don't need any more of either, thank you.

Depression was shocking at first - so different than anything I'd ever experienced. I remember sleeping tons and reading in between mostly. I found social situations bewildering. Everyone at the check stand in the grocery store seemed to be in on all manner of cues and humor that I couldn't get at all. In addition to the lack of interest and satisfaction, it was also an enormous blow to my self esteem. You probably can't tell but I have and always have had a healthy regard for my own opinion (haha). But when I was depressed it was like I had no insight. I couldn't trust my gut to tell me what in something I was reading was significant. There was a flatness about it. Just a clutter of facts with no revealed hierarchy. At some point I made my peace with my loss of insight and intelligence. There came a point when I realized I'd probably never be there again and I decided to make the most of what I had. That seemed to mark my return to what has become my new normal. I no longer compare or judge my experience or have much expectations in that regard. Depression sort of shakes your certainty, but that isn't all bad.

My depression followed a little more than a year of mania. Every day of depression seemed interminable and was in such sharp contrast to the unprecedented highs that I had only just experienced. I considered suicide as an obvious solution when I was depressed but was never seriously tempted. Fortunately I have a great capacity for misery. But I do now enjoy many things not in a hopping up and down way but I'm very content.

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I can't even begin to tell you how your post resonated with me. Sometimes I think it takes the clarity of someone who's been there and back to put words to the nameless feelings that accompany mental disorder.

But I gather you've been dealing with it for much longer and, worse of all, still are. I'm sorry to hear that. I enjoy your input so I hope you find contentment now.

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(November 7, 2012 at 10:51 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Mixed bag today. I'm happy about yesterday's election, but a bit down after hearing not-so-encouraging news at the doc today.

Meh.

Shit. What did you hear?

DvF, I know this is incredibly off topic, but your profile pic always reminds me of Radiohead. I'm sure you don't actually look anything like Thom Yorke, but that picture is so... Thom. It seems like a picture he would take. And now I must go listen to Radiohead.