Submitted by: Unknown (via Reddit)
Retrophrenologist
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Depression Part Two
I didn't understand why it was fun for me, it just was.
But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren't the same.
I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared. Horse's Big Space Adventure transformed into holding a plastic horse in the air, hoping it would somehow be enjoyable for me. Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride was just smashing a toy bus full of dinosaurs into the wall while feeling sort of bored and unfulfilled. I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.
Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.
At first, though, the invulnerability that accompanied the detachment was exhilarating. At least as exhilarating as something can be without involving real emotions.
The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief. I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. I viewed feelings as a weakness — annoying obstacles on my quest for total power over myself. And I finally didn't have to feel them anymore.
But my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there's a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck. Cognitively, you might know that different things are happening to you, but they don't feel very different.
Which leads to horrible, soul-decaying boredom.
I tried to get out more, but most fun activities just left me existentially confused or frustrated with my inability to enjoy them.
Months oozed by, and I gradually came to accept that maybe enjoyment was not a thing I got to feel anymore. I didn't want anyone to know, though. I was still sort of uncomfortable about how bored and detached I felt around other people, and I was still holding out hope that the whole thing would spontaneously work itself out. As long as I could manage to not alienate anyone, everything might be okay!
However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.
Everyone noticed.
It's weird for people who still have feelings to be around depressed people. They try to help you have feelings again so things can go back to normal, and it's frustrating for them when that doesn't happen. From their perspective, it seems like there has got to be some untapped source of happiness within you that you've simply lost track of, and if you could just see how beautiful things are...
At first, I'd try to explain that it's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it's more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can't feel anything about anything — even the things you love, even fun things — and you're horribly bored and lonely, but since you've lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you're stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void without anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is.
But people want to help. So they try harder to make you feel hopeful and positive about the situation. You explain it again, hoping they'll try a less hope-centric approach, but re-explaining your total inability to experience joy inevitably sounds kind of negative; like maybe you WANT to be depressed. The positivity starts coming out in a spray — a giant, desperate happiness sprinkler pointed directly at your face. And it keeps going like that until you're having this weird argument where you're trying to convince the person that you are far too hopeless for hope just so they'll give up on their optimism crusade and let you go back to feeling bored and lonely by yourself.
And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.
It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.
The problem might not even have a solution. But you aren't necessarily looking for solutions. You're maybe just looking for someone to say "sorry about how dead your fish are" or "wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though."
I started spending more time alone.
Perhaps it was because I lacked the emotional depth necessary to panic, or maybe my predicament didn't feel dramatic enough to make me suspicious, but I somehow managed to convince myself that everything was still under my control right up until I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn't feel obligated to keep existing.
It's a strange moment when you realize that you don't want to be alive anymore. If I had feelings, I'm sure I would have felt surprised. I have spent the vast majority of my life actively attempting to survive. Ever since my most distant single-celled ancestor squiggled into existence, there has been an unbroken chain of things that wanted to stick around.
Yet there I was, casually wishing that I could stop existing in the same way you'd want to leave an empty room or mute an unbearably repetitive noise.
That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was deciding to keep going.
When I say that deciding to not kill myself was the worst part, I should clarify that I don't mean it in a retrospective sense. From where I am now, it seems like a solid enough decision. But at the time, it felt like I had been dragging myself through the most miserable, endless wasteland, and — far in the distance — I had seen the promising glimmer of a slightly less miserable wasteland. And for just a moment, I thought maybe I'd be able to stop and rest. But as soon as I arrived at the border of the less miserable wasteland, I found out that I'd have to turn around and walk back the other way.
Soon afterward, I discovered that there's no tactful or comfortable way to inform other people that you might be suicidal. And there's definitely no way to ask for help casually.
I didn't want it to be a big deal. However, it's an alarming subject. Trying to be nonchalant about it just makes it weird for everyone.
I was also extremely ill-prepared for the position of comforting people. The things that seemed reassuring at the time weren't necessarily comforting for others.
The next few weeks were a haze of talking to relentlessly hopeful people about my feelings that didn't exist so I could be prescribed medication that might help me have them again.
And every direction was bullshit for a really long time, especially up. The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don't like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit.
My feelings did start to return eventually. But not all of them came back, and they didn't arrive symmetrically.
I had not been able to care for a very long time, and when I finally started being able to care about things again, I HATED them. But hatred is technically a feeling, and my brain latched onto it like a child learning a new word.
Hating everything made all the positivity and hope feel even more unpalatable. The syrupy, over-simplified optimism started to feel almost offensive.
Thankfully, I rediscovered crying just before I got sick of hating things. I call this emotion "crying" and not "sadness" because that's all it really was. Just crying for the sake of crying. My brain had partially learned how to be sad again, but it took the feeling out for a joy ride before it had learned how to use the brakes or steer.
At some point during this phase, I was crying on the kitchen floor for no reason. As was common practice during bouts of floor-crying, I was staring straight ahead at nothing in particular and feeling sort of weird about myself. Then, through the film of tears and nothingness, I spotted a tiny, shriveled piece of corn under the refrigerator.
I don't claim to know why this happened, but when I saw the piece of corn, something snapped. And then that thing twisted through a few permutations of logic that I don't understand, and produced the most confusing bout of uncontrollable, debilitating laughter that I have ever experienced.
I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
My brain had apparently been storing every unfelt scrap of happiness from the last nineteen months, and it had impulsively decided to unleash all of it at once in what would appear to be an act of vengeance.
That piece of corn is the funniest thing I have ever seen, and I cannot explain to anyone why it's funny. I don't even know why. If someone ever asks me "what was the exact moment where things started to feel slightly less shitty?" instead of telling a nice, heartwarming story about the support of the people who loved and believed in me, I'm going to have to tell them about the piece of corn. And then I'm going to have to try to explain that no, really, it was funny. Because, see, the way the corn was sitting on the floor... it was so alone... and it was just sitting there! And no matter how I explain it, I'll get the same, confused look. So maybe I'll try to show them the piece of corn - to see if they get it. They won't. Things will get even weirder.
Anyway, I wanted to end this on a hopeful, positive note, but, seeing as how my sense of hope and positivity is still shrouded in a thick layer of feeling like hope and positivity are bullshit, I'll just say this: Nobody can guarantee that it's going to be okay, but — and I don't know if this will be comforting to anyone else — the possibility exists that there's a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed. And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it's just pointless bullshit or weird bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.
Discounted Hell To Pay
(I work for a company that sells musical equipment. I am taking a call from an older gentleman who tells me that he is a priest. He has been very nice for the duration of the call, and we are almost finished placing his order.)
Priest: “Now, could you give me 15% off on this? You would be doing the Lord’s work if you could get me 15% off my order!”
Me: “Well, I don’t think I have a 15% off coupon, right now. I’ll check and see.”
(I put him on hold, and check my available coupons. There is only a 10% coupon. I return to the customer with this.)
Me: “So, I couldn’t get you 15% off. I do have a 10% coupon, though!”
Priest: “Child, do you what to go to Hell?!”
(I am taken aback.)
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Priest: “Hell, Child. If you don’t give me 15% off my order, your soul will rot in Hell for all eternity!”
Me: “I’m a red-head, sir; I don’t have to worry about that. Now, is there anything else I can add to your order today?”
We're Only the Irish Coffee Owl Between 9 and 5
Which Owl are you?
Submitted by: Unknown (via Monkey Works)
Tagged: Chart , owls , coffee , monday thru friday , g rated Share on FacebookDad Perfectly Conveys the Struggles of Parenting Through Post-It Notes
Who would have thought that the author of A**holeology would make such a great dad? Author Chris Illuminati has taken up the habit of posting poignant little post-it notes around his house ever since he became a dad. Luckily, he also puts them on his blog, Message With a Bottle, so that others may share in his plight. If anything, he proves that a little humor is just enough to keep a parent sane...
Submitted by: stephenwood51
Tagged: post-it notes , message with a bottle , post its , being a dad , chris illuminati , parenting Share on FacebookKids Prank Their Parents Into Thinking They're Buying Drugs
RetrophrenologistOmg... "I didn't mean to text you." / "I didn't mean to have you!"
Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder had an epic idea for trolling parents: have kids pretend to mistext their moms and dads, saying only "got 2 grams for $40." Watch as the parents freak out and chastise their kids, with some even getting a bit too real...
Submitted by: stephenwood51
Tagged: drug deals , drugs , buying drugs , pranking parents , parenting , nathan fielder , Parenting FAILS Share on FacebookHow 99.9% of people judge the quality of their coffee
You'll Be the Life of the Party
Submitted by: Unknown (via Butt Poems)
Tagged: comics , smokers , life hacks , butt poems , after 12 Share on FacebookNow THAT'S How You Write Copy
More music humor over at Music!
Submitted by: Unknown
Tagged: queen , copy , bohemian rhapsody , headlines , monday thru friday , g rated Share on FacebookRiding Bareback
Submitted by: ArcaneSoul
Tagged: camp names , bareback , climax , camp climax , failbook Share on FacebookA New Perspective of the Day: Wringing Out Water from a Washcloth in Space
RetrophrenologistThis is awesome!
Tenth graders Kendra and Meredith from Fall River, Nova Scotia recently took a top prize the Canadian Space Agency's Science Challenge with a washcloth-wringing experiment. As part of their prize, Col. Chris Hadfield, currently living in the International Space Station, made a video showing exactly what happens when a person tries to wring out a washcloth in zero gravity.
Submitted by: Unknown (via YouTube)
Tastiest Resignation Ever
Submitted by: E
Tagged: cake , resignation , Father , monday thru friday , g rated Share on FacebookKeul It With the Attitude, Man!
"She does have K-cups though."
"DAAAMN SON!"
Submitted by: Unknown
How to Build Your Own Google Docs (Without Google)
RetrophrenologistMatt, let me know when you've read this. I have an idea!
This man shaved two dinosaurs into his beard. That is all.
RetrophrenologistMatt, you should totally do this. Raptor-burns for the win!
Apatosaurus on the left cheek, Raptor on the right. Rarely is beard-art this inspired (though it's been known to happen).
Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal
RetrophrenologistIt is Genghis Khan bathed in sherbet ice cream.
once upon a time they all lived happily ever after
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April 8th, 2013: Adventure Time books! I wrote 'em! And you can now buy them in my internet e-shoppe 2000!
– Ryan |
Time: XKCD's slo-mo time-lapse comic
On March 25, Randall Munroe ran a strip called Time, an enigmatic, wordless image whose tool-tip was "Wait for it." Ever since, the strip has been updating with subsequent frames, all of them making up a time-lapse animation of a lovely story about a day of sand-castle building at the beach.
The XKCD Wikia entry for the post has animated GIFs and a slideshow showing the progress to date. It's really coming along nicely, and Randall's done some clever things with the back-end to stop people from previewing future frames.
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