StayOnTop: Depression

[...] not yet recovered from a horrible week. You will understand that some posting-gaps may be unavoidable when depressions keep knocking me out. So what happened to me this time? To answer that question, maybe we should classify first: what kind of depressions or moods we are talking about? By the way, don’t look too long into the symbolic black vortex below. It will make you dizzy. It may suck you in.

Back to classification. Standard schemes are of little use to us here. Maybe you know about the Bible of formal, accepted psychiatry: DSM-IV-TR. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in its fourth edition (IV), last text revision (TR). Basically, for major non-bipolar depressions the DSM-IV lists the following five subtypes:

    1. Melancholic (apathetic, underreacting)
    2. Atypical (sensitive, overreacting)
    3. Catatonic (mute, stuporous)
    4. Postpartum (after giving birth)
    5. Seasonal (recurring in autumn-winter).

As you see, this list has a fundamental flaw. It is inconsistent. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are based on criteria of mood and behavior: on the symptoms a depressive patient will show. Numbers 4 and 5 on the other hand are based on situational criteria: on the circumstances of a depressive patient. This makes these types rather arbitrary – we might just as well add an unlimited score of more situational depression varieties:

    6. Geriatric (at age 70+, especially in homes for the elderly)
    7. Alcoholic (recurring with the mornings-after)
    8. Inmatic (after being locked away in prison) –

and so on. But because all such situational varieties will show symptoms of either 1, 2 or 3 (Melancholic, Atypical, or Catatonic) this effectively leaves us with only those three as the different kinds of depression. In essence all three are modes of reacting to stimuli from outside, in three different patterns: underreacting, overreacting, or not reacting at all. For me, this is too thin. Therefore, let’s try something different.

    If we were to focus more on feelings instead of reaction modes, could we link different kinds of depression to different emotions? The most common shortlist of basic human emotions always comes up with the following sixpack:

    1. Sadness
    2. Joy
    3. Anger
    4. Fear
    5. Love
    6. Surprise

Before you ask, yes I could certainly couple depression types to each of them: for example a Love-depression might torment you with the feeling that you really don’t deserve the love you give and get.

    Anyway, this list of feelings is not quite right, too. Sadness is the opposite of Joy. But the other ones are no opposing pairs. If Anger is the negative emotional reaction to someone else’s behavior, then where is its opposite? Shouldn’t that be something like Approval or Gratefulness? The opposite of Fear would be something like Courageousness or Boldness. The opposite of Love is missing here too: Hate. And what about Surprise? Unlike the other ones, this is not something that can last on its own, for hours or days or years. Surprise is a momentary reaction, not an emotion.

    In short, this list is inconsistent too. It also misses a few essential feelings: for example Indifference, which in my view should count as a true emotion or feeling in its own right: one that plays a very important role in some kinds of depression. Or another example, Hope? Why is Hope not in this shortlist of “basic emotions”?

    Sigh. All this gets us nowhere. Maybe we should try a color scheme. Yes, really. Apart from White and Black, the three primary colors are Red, Green and Blue. Depending from how we mix them, we can get endlessly more shades, such as cyan or violet. Now if we limit ourselves to 10 basic colors, we might link them to 10 different types of depression:

I am the first to admit that this list is even more arbitrary than any other possible list.

    But to me, at least today, it makes some sense. Because now I can simply tell you this: over a week ago, my lapse started with a tsunami of Blue Depression that confined me almost paralyzed to my bed. This gradually became a seemingly endless state of Black Depression, pondering failure and death and more, which briefly got mixed with some razor sharp episodes of Yellow Depression when unexpectedly some friends visited me and I felt acutely how I would never ever fit in. Today, I first landed in an absolutely terrifying episode of Gray Depression where nothing mattered anymore, nothing at all, no matter whether I looked at the walls or the floor or out of the window. Writing this dull silly post late at night I still do feel terrible, but it has become more an Orange Depression now, one that has me forcing myself to do all those pointless things that I feel will be no help anyway, that will not help me at all. See?

    At least this color comparison may have helped me a little to find words for the inexplicable moods that like an unstoppable train railed and still rail over my nearly-dead-feeling self.

    I am afraid that for today, this is all I can produce by way of positive thinking. Next time better? If there is a next time, yes. I just cannot feel entirely sure at this moment.

• tip: Any time you see a list classifying something, from a list of feelings to a list of IKEA furniture, don’t take it as is.
    Try to come up with an alternative list of your own, classifying the same in a very different way. This may help you see some little things you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

 
Author: Henk van Setten