![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This whole post talks about depression and the mentality behind it. If such things wil be triggering or expend spoons you do not have, feel free to skip this post.
----------
The wonderful Ana Mardoll has been running a series of blog posts on mental states that accompany depression. In the first part, she tells about the Spiral Of Suck, where a depressed person feels like something is wrong in their relationships with other people, and then engages in confirmation bias that reinforces the depression.
In the second part, she mentions that if you suffer from depression, more often than not, you and the society around you will class it as Not That Bad, because There's Always Someone Worse. The goalposts on that one are always set such that someone who is depressed will feel that they don't have something bad enough that it requires intervention or help. Whether from yourself or from society, the message always seems to be "Just cheer up, emo kid, and all will be fine."
Of course, if you ever have suffered from depression, you know it's not that easy. The inability to fight off the depression feeds the Spiral of Suck, though - now there's something definitely wrong, you can't fix it, and it has to be imposing on others to make them deal with it, so things are going wrong and it's all your fault.
A lot of time and self-care helps with the depression, as can doing things that at least seem to be fun or that you liked doing in the past. That said, the depression knows how to handle fun things, too, because the coin of Someone Else Always Has It Worse has an obverse: Someone Else Is Always Better.
This is something we learn at a very early age, as we do competitive things or things that result in rankings, even if not explicitly competitive (like schooling). No matter how well you do, there will always be someone better. This doesn't normally bother us, as we're usually able to buoy ourselves by reflecting on how good we are, or by realizing that the ranking and the competition are ultimately devoid of meaning and that we do what we do because we have the passion for it.
Let me show you an example. I'm terrible at fighting games (2D or 3D, sprites or polygons, it doesn't matter) in my own opinion - a moderately-leveled CPU player can make short work of me, much less a player of reasonable skill. This holds true for most of my life, through schooling, university, and into my professional life. For some part of my professional career, I would routinely play Super Smash Brothers, a beginner-friendly fighting game, with teenagers in a library program. After a while, I adopted the moniker "Mid-Boss", after the character in the Disgaea series of video games, because while I might be challenging to a beginner, to the skilled, I never seemed to be much of a difficult opponent.
Objectively, playing against such skilled players, while I would consistently lose to them, my skill was improving, and I could last a little longer, not get hit by so many nasty attacks, and occasionally have flashes of brilliance. A normal, non-depressed brain would be able to step back and see the improvement from point a to point b.
A depressed brain, though, fixates on the problem of someone else always winning. After all, I'm nearly [REDACTED] times their age, shouldn't I be able to apply all that skill and experience of life to stomp those young kids into the ground?
But I'm working during times they're practicing their gaming skill, objective brain notes. And there are a lot of other things in gamesnthat I do well. (Having been trained on adventure games and RPGs, there are very few puzzle scenarios that I can't complete, or at least have an inkling on how to solve.) Things like that might matter if, say, I were analyzing someone else. To the depressed brain, though, you most likely will not be able to give them an explanation that they will accept over their own conclusions - even if you're both looking at the same data.
Which can mean coming home from work feeling depressed that Someone Else Is Always Better, and that can sap the joy out of what would normally be a lot of fun to do. Why bother to play if you know you're always going to lose, and it doesn't look like you're making progress (defined by winning against your betters)?
I'm using video games as the example here because there's a very common reaction to a situation like this that doesn't actually work or help the depressed brain to not be depressed about it. This same approach is used on depression generally, with similar lack of positive results, but it's easier to see in the specific rather than in the general, and it's much easier to see on something society considers frivoulous or a waste of time.
"It's only a game, why are you getting so worked up about it?"
"I was only joking about that, stop being so sensitive."
"It's not important in the grand scheme of things. Get some perspective."
"They're just Internet people. Why are you so upset?"
"It's just depression. Shouldn't I be able to just snap out of it?"
It's never "Just".
It is NEVER "Just".
When depression brain is in charge, everything matters, and everything will be used to further justify that everything its wrong and there are no virtues, good things, or redeeming factors to the depressed person. (Side note: if you're dismissing something as unimportant that someone else has emotional investment in, I'm pretty confident You're Doing It Wrong.) It's not just a game, it's proof that you suck totally and should give up on everything. It's not just trolls or frienemies or friends being mean on the Internet, it's proof that everyone hates you and there's no point in continuing further. Even if it gets better later, depressed brain doesn't think past now - perspective is not really possible.
That's how all the of these aspects of depression work - the Spiral says something is wrong now, but it's not as wrong now as someone else's wrong, and there are plenty of people right now who are doing better at this, so the depression can't be that bad of a problem.
Except it is that bad of a problem. And that means you can take time for self-care, that you can ask the people around you to give you their unconditional love and support, and that you can feel proud of yourself for getting out of bed and living another day, even if you don't have the spoons to do another damn thing all day. It means that getting help does not mean failure, but success.
And if you see someone suffering in your friend group, or your significant other(s), and you have the spoons for it, give them your unconditional love. If they can articulate something that would make them feel happy, see if you can make it happen for them. Sometimes even a small boost is enough to help beat back depression brain and make it get better.
Otherwise, may Bella Swan remain incomprehensible to you.
----------
The wonderful Ana Mardoll has been running a series of blog posts on mental states that accompany depression. In the first part, she tells about the Spiral Of Suck, where a depressed person feels like something is wrong in their relationships with other people, and then engages in confirmation bias that reinforces the depression.
In the second part, she mentions that if you suffer from depression, more often than not, you and the society around you will class it as Not That Bad, because There's Always Someone Worse. The goalposts on that one are always set such that someone who is depressed will feel that they don't have something bad enough that it requires intervention or help. Whether from yourself or from society, the message always seems to be "Just cheer up, emo kid, and all will be fine."
Of course, if you ever have suffered from depression, you know it's not that easy. The inability to fight off the depression feeds the Spiral of Suck, though - now there's something definitely wrong, you can't fix it, and it has to be imposing on others to make them deal with it, so things are going wrong and it's all your fault.
A lot of time and self-care helps with the depression, as can doing things that at least seem to be fun or that you liked doing in the past. That said, the depression knows how to handle fun things, too, because the coin of Someone Else Always Has It Worse has an obverse: Someone Else Is Always Better.
This is something we learn at a very early age, as we do competitive things or things that result in rankings, even if not explicitly competitive (like schooling). No matter how well you do, there will always be someone better. This doesn't normally bother us, as we're usually able to buoy ourselves by reflecting on how good we are, or by realizing that the ranking and the competition are ultimately devoid of meaning and that we do what we do because we have the passion for it.
Let me show you an example. I'm terrible at fighting games (2D or 3D, sprites or polygons, it doesn't matter) in my own opinion - a moderately-leveled CPU player can make short work of me, much less a player of reasonable skill. This holds true for most of my life, through schooling, university, and into my professional life. For some part of my professional career, I would routinely play Super Smash Brothers, a beginner-friendly fighting game, with teenagers in a library program. After a while, I adopted the moniker "Mid-Boss", after the character in the Disgaea series of video games, because while I might be challenging to a beginner, to the skilled, I never seemed to be much of a difficult opponent.
Objectively, playing against such skilled players, while I would consistently lose to them, my skill was improving, and I could last a little longer, not get hit by so many nasty attacks, and occasionally have flashes of brilliance. A normal, non-depressed brain would be able to step back and see the improvement from point a to point b.
A depressed brain, though, fixates on the problem of someone else always winning. After all, I'm nearly [REDACTED] times their age, shouldn't I be able to apply all that skill and experience of life to stomp those young kids into the ground?
But I'm working during times they're practicing their gaming skill, objective brain notes. And there are a lot of other things in gamesnthat I do well. (Having been trained on adventure games and RPGs, there are very few puzzle scenarios that I can't complete, or at least have an inkling on how to solve.) Things like that might matter if, say, I were analyzing someone else. To the depressed brain, though, you most likely will not be able to give them an explanation that they will accept over their own conclusions - even if you're both looking at the same data.
Which can mean coming home from work feeling depressed that Someone Else Is Always Better, and that can sap the joy out of what would normally be a lot of fun to do. Why bother to play if you know you're always going to lose, and it doesn't look like you're making progress (defined by winning against your betters)?
I'm using video games as the example here because there's a very common reaction to a situation like this that doesn't actually work or help the depressed brain to not be depressed about it. This same approach is used on depression generally, with similar lack of positive results, but it's easier to see in the specific rather than in the general, and it's much easier to see on something society considers frivoulous or a waste of time.
"It's only a game, why are you getting so worked up about it?"
"I was only joking about that, stop being so sensitive."
"It's not important in the grand scheme of things. Get some perspective."
"They're just Internet people. Why are you so upset?"
"It's just depression. Shouldn't I be able to just snap out of it?"
It's never "Just".
It is NEVER "Just".
When depression brain is in charge, everything matters, and everything will be used to further justify that everything its wrong and there are no virtues, good things, or redeeming factors to the depressed person. (Side note: if you're dismissing something as unimportant that someone else has emotional investment in, I'm pretty confident You're Doing It Wrong.) It's not just a game, it's proof that you suck totally and should give up on everything. It's not just trolls or frienemies or friends being mean on the Internet, it's proof that everyone hates you and there's no point in continuing further. Even if it gets better later, depressed brain doesn't think past now - perspective is not really possible.
That's how all the of these aspects of depression work - the Spiral says something is wrong now, but it's not as wrong now as someone else's wrong, and there are plenty of people right now who are doing better at this, so the depression can't be that bad of a problem.
Except it is that bad of a problem. And that means you can take time for self-care, that you can ask the people around you to give you their unconditional love and support, and that you can feel proud of yourself for getting out of bed and living another day, even if you don't have the spoons to do another damn thing all day. It means that getting help does not mean failure, but success.
And if you see someone suffering in your friend group, or your significant other(s), and you have the spoons for it, give them your unconditional love. If they can articulate something that would make them feel happy, see if you can make it happen for them. Sometimes even a small boost is enough to help beat back depression brain and make it get better.
Otherwise, may Bella Swan remain incomprehensible to you.
