Why the title, "Depression, blogged"?

Why start this depression blog? For starters, it’s reasonable to presume it would be very uncommon for a depressed person to open and maintain a blog. After all, some of the most well-known symptoms of depression would appear to conspire against it: loss of concentration, memory difficulties, lack of motivation…(though one symptom on the depressed person’s side for blogs is insomnia). An even more destructive feature in my mind would be the astoundingly strong penchant towards perfectionism found among many depressed people, combined with (or rooted in) a complete lack of confidence. This could lead to a situation in which the would-be blogger thinks endlessly about what the blog should contain, how it should be structured, wavers back and forth between options, is reluctant to even to make an inaugural post because first impressions are very important and he/she doesn’t want to mess it up, then begins to think it is really not such a great idea and/or maybe someone else could do it better…and so on and so forth, spiraling into a vicious cycle which might ultimately leave the person feeling still worse off than when he or she began; and of course, in the end, for all of that anxiety and strife without a single letter typed into the blog.

This is one of the reasons why I became so intent on establishing this blog. Blogs are good because they are not a book or an article, nor are they just stream-of-consciousness thoughts one might record in a journal. A little more structure than the second, and a little less formal than the first. Me, I’ve thought about a lot of this stuff for a disproportionately long time. I’ve written down a few things here and there, but for the most part whatever powerful experiences or reflections I’ve had have been lost in the soup of time. Most tellingly, for several years while I was in college I kept a journal to document my thoughts and travels (both mental and physical). But when I once, in fact the only time I went back to them to find what I wrote while in the depths of profound depression, I discovered that the reams of pages during that time were blank. For those extended periods I have no record of myself. That may be a good thing – I’m not sure – but for now I’m going to wager that having a blog, a chance to instantly post and share what I’m feeling with those many who are interested and can understand, perhaps even benefit, from what I’m saying, will be worth its weight in gold if I can just stick with it.

Introducing "Depression, blogged" II: Why a condition?

Why a condition? As you can tell from what I’ve written, I’m not inclined to view depression as a disease or as a disorder. I feel that to do so at best oversimplifies and at worst misconstrues. I’ve emphasized the plurality of experiences, their heterogeneity, the fact that what I feel and what I go through can in no way be the same as what you feel and go through. Yet the very fact that I have begun this blog, and have used words like “us” and “we” clearly indicates that I feel that we have something shared, something in common. And here is where depression as a word comes in and proves quite helpful. One way to view it is that depression as a word ‘flips over’ our experience. We think and feel many things – WAY too many things – and all too often it feels like a few words or a million words would never be sufficient to describe our experience. But one word – depression – somehow becomes able to capture that infinite multitude of sensations, the pain, the weakness, the suffering, and contain it beneath its umbrella. This is because we do indeed share something. As a result I can then say to you, “I’m depressed,” and with that convey to you a universe of hurt, loss, and my sense of destitution. Without the word I would speak too much and say too little, or would remain in the agony of silence. But with the word – depression – I can communicate to you my condition, a condition much like yours but never the same; relying on something shared, I can turn all of the scrambled and dispersed thoughts on top of my brain ‘upside-down’ and place them underneath a word, and then send the package to you. However, this is always done at a loss. For the convenience of the word, I always sacrifice something. Part of that is the uniqueness of my experience. Yet without the word, I could not communicate.

Another way to think of depression as a word is as a sign on a door, like a club. We may all aggregate inside that room. The sign on the door suggests that, inside, the contents of the room have something shared, something similar. And the sign on the door, whatever word or words may be inscribed, will likely tell us what brings us together. If the sign said ‘cafeteria’ or ‘restroom,’ the observer outside would obtain a pretty good idea of what’s going on inside. And when the sign says ‘depression,’ we have an idea of what is shared among the participants. If there were no sign, the outside observer would face the mystery of asking what unsaid force exerted such an influence so that a bunch of individuals would collect themselves in one room.

(A similar example can be found in movies. To use an example suggested by Alfred Hitchcock, imagine first the camera shows a close up actors’ faces. They are staring at something, without expression. Then they smile. What is it that draws their collective attention, and then causes them to smile? The director could then switch to a point-of-view shot, where we the audience see what the actors see – a cute baby, or a sexy blonde. We don’t know until the final word, or in this case the image, brings it all together.)

So to sum up these two introductory posts, we know each individual is different. Depression is a condition: we are born of unique circumstances, and have our own unique experience over places and over time. Yet certain bits, important bits, of the ‘architecture’ are similar, or might we say ‘homologous.’ This allows us to share, to relate. On other levels our experiences are unique and unrepeatable, and with that we have the ability to teach and learn from one another about the experience of depression, and what can be gotten from it in terms of understanding what it means to live human life in the contemporary world.

Introducing "Depression, blogged" I: Why a word?

The title is “Depression, blogged.” I’ll get to why I decided on that in a post or two. But first I would like to draw special attention to the subtitle: “Notes and thoughts on a word, and on a condition.” Why a word, and why a condition? I represent depression as a word here because words have histories, and words have contexts. Likewise, depression has its own particular histories, and its own different meanings across different contexts. In contemporary American society, we tend to think of depression as a disease, or as a disorder. Moreover, we see it as one disease which replicates itself across different settings: Mary may have depression, Jake has it too, so does my neighbor – but these are in the end all instances of the same depression, repeated within different bodies. This provides the ground for standardized treatment: if in different people it’s the same thing, then the same medicine can treat different people. Although many people accept this view, it is very limited and exclusive. Depression is far from so homogenous, or so universally similar. It has its own particular histories, in different individual lives and in different individual contexts. For example, what we think of as “depression” differs greatly across history; indeed, over the course of Western civilization we find not only that interpretations of melancholia vary widely, but that the term ‘depression’ is largely absent. Likewise, in the contemporary world a great many languages do not include a word for ‘depression,’ whereas also in many cultures the malady is virtually absent and as such not culturally significant (although with the process of globalization, this situation is quickly changing). In fact, our current interpretations of depression and its associated medical treatment are, by comparison, rather new and unique, having originated in North America and Europe only in the past 100 years, or in the past 40-50 years if we consider the emergence of psychopharmaceutical treatments like antidepressants alongside efforts by psychiatrists to make the psychiatric model resemble more closely those of other medical disciplines.

I’m not saying that the medical view of depression is ‘wrong,’ only that it is one view among many (and it does have its uses); to stick to it exclusively only seriously hinders our ability to gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of depression as part of the human condition. Depression now is different from depression 300 years ago; depression in America is different from depression in Indonesia; depression in my life is different from depression in your life; and depression in my life now is different from depression in my life 15 years ago. And all of these are significant.

Introduction: about "Depression, blogged"

Let me first welcome you to this depression blog, and thank you for taking the time to visit.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for individuals – primarily people with depression, I gather, but all are welcome – to share their thoughts, reflections, insights, and meditations on the deeper and more profound human significance of the condition. It is not intended to be a news blog focused on the latest research, nor one focused primarily on medical advice or professional consultation. Instead, one could say that the aim of this blog is ‘philosophical’: to see depression as a human condition of unquestionable personal, social, familial and moral importance, levels of meanings which can only slowly be unearthed. I believe those of us who have suffered or continue to suffer from depression are privileged to shed a great deal of light in this respect, and as a result I hope that everyone, not matter how you are feeling, to join me in doing so.