The most effective weapon against depression is hope.

This was a great video.

Meaningless. If someone knew of something to hope for that would make them feel better, they wouldn't be depressed.

Also this black dog that sometimes takes joy out of things that usually give pleasure. That seems a hell of a lot better than not getting pleasure from things at all.

*pets

I don't have a black dawg.

Adding video to channels (Pets) - requested by ant.

*commercial

Adding video to channels (Commercial) - requested by ant.

Agreed. True depression is if anything a state of anti-hope.

No platitudes or well meaning sentiments really help or even seem to matter. They are just more inconsequential background details in an endless and meaningless black abyss

The only, ONLY thing that truly keeps one going in the darkest of ones furthest reaches is the knowledge that it will eventually end (though this does little to lessen the pain at the time).
That's why the first real episode of depression one suffers is usually the most dangerous (and why suicide rates are disproportionately biased towards young people). You don't yet have the experience of coming out the other side so it seems like it's going to last forever.

I completely understand why people choose to take the easy way out, I've seriously considered it myself in the past though I'm supremely glad I never actually gave in. Suicide can be the only meaningful act in a world devoid of meaning. Without meaning life is only pain.

"I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals" -Morrisey

But, life itself is two sided. The universe is equal parts darkness and light and we are no different. While depression may seem like the most awful affliction at the time those of us that emerge from the darkness intact are rewarded with a strength and deeper perspective on life & reality most people couldn't hope to bear.

This may seem a little arrogant but if you've never felt true depression or faced a moment of certain death then you have probably never felt the true joy of being alive.

That's why hope is the most effective weapon against depression. If you can find some hope you can fight against the depression. Depression is at its core, hopelessness.

A particularly bad day, sorry for my earlier comment.

I think i was trying to make the suggestion that i don't see it as a weapon against depression because if you're depressed - or at least, depressed as i know it - then you can't feel hope. There is no hope, and if you can feel hope for something then you're not depressed. I tear my hear out when i hear people saying something to the effect of "My dog died, i'm depressed!" I want to grab them and shake them and tell them they're SAD about something and oh GOD do i wish it was as simple as feeling sad about something.

Of course, this is only my viewpoint on it and it may be self centred. I can't in all fairness force my own definition on the word depression - it means whatever humans use it to mean, as is the way language works. But i feel like it puts an unfair label onto people feeling utter, raw hopelessness when other people can say that they're depressed because of this particular thing, and how brave they are for carrying on regardless or "beating depression."

If you've ever seen no point in getting out of bed because there is nothing in the world for any price or in any imagined daydream that could make you feel better. Not the power to resurrect a lost one, or the power to make someone fall in love with you, the ability to conjure money, a holodeck with sex capabilities - nothing. If you've ever sat with tears falling from your eyes - not crying though; not breathing differently, not choking your words or furrowing your brow - and you don't know why.... Then i think you have every right to feel contempt for the person who feels sad because of a particular thing that happened to them calling their sadness "depression."

I know what you mean though. I didn't expect to see such good comments about it. It's good to talk!

As someone with plenty of experience with this subject, I can't say it's as easy as you may think.

It's not simply a lack or hope, or anti-hope. Many people with depression are very hopeful. They want things to change. What they don't see is any possibility of that hope coming true. They see no actualization of that hope.

"Hey, it gets better" is a hopeful statement that almost no one with real, severe depression will ever take to heart. Because frankly, what sometimes goes through their head instead is "yeah, things will get better when I'm not here."

Then again, depression is different for each person. And it's not always a lack of seeing a "future." There's also the waking up every morning and having to look at yourself, and see that terrible person looking back. That failure, complete loser, totally unloved and unbearably ugly. No amount of "hope" will change that. You can't "hope" you're way out of the feeling of total, complete and utter useless. To feel like anything you do matters.

Hell, hope can sometimes make it worse. You can hope for something, and then when it doesn't materialize, it makes the depression worse.

That, and as the video points out, there's also just simply a lack of enjoyment in life. Hoping to enjoy something?

Ultimately, the thing I love most about this video is the narrator doesn't mention hope. He doesn't talk about hope. Hope isn't the solution. The entire time, exercise was running through my head and finally he said it.

IMHO, the ultimate cure is to face it. Head on. When the black dog tells you are ugly, you prove it wrong. When it says stay home, you go out. Of course, the issue then becomes learning which voice is the dogs, and which is simply your own.

Can't say I'm very knowledgeable about the subject, but from what little I do know, this is spot on.

In fact, it can also be almost anything pro-active and engaging. I've heard cooking works for some people too.

Also @ant, "pets"? Seriously?

Depression is chemical. You can't WILL your neurotransmitters to do anything. Depression doesnt mean you're sad. To me, it means you're realistic. Reality is depressing. Everyone is wasting time until they die and causing suffering through ignorance.

The medication makes it manageable so you can lift the veil a bit and see that your perception, like the happy person, is just that - your own. Taking medication doesnt make the world less depressing, but it gives you the strength to get enough time in to have some hope... even if its just the hope that maybe you're wrong... thats enough for me.

also exercise diet and environment. i find cities incredibly depressing.

It's hard to say if the chemical evidence of depression is cause or effect. I don't genuinely believe in free will, because I don't see how it's possible. And yet, I've got to think that we have control over our thoughts, and that exercising that control can gradually effect our mood. If I am a machine, I am the kind that continually struggles with this problem and can't predict how it will end up.

I was reading an editorial in the paper just this morning and the writer was stating that the connection between depression (along with other mental illnesses) and brain chemistry may not be as strong as we once believed it to be. The pharmaceutical industry and various mental health organizations were both promoting this, albeit for different reasons, big pharma for the obvious financial gains and mental health groups pushed it because people seem to accept mental health problems better if they believe it's because there is something physically wrong with someone.
I'm not sure how much I believe it yet, but I know from my own experiences that my own depression seems pretty much impervious to anything out there, I do take bupropion though. @shinyblurry, I'll echo many others here by saying that hope is a carrot at the end of a stick that's leading you off a cliff, hope is a sign on a storefront that's reminding you that disappointment will be back in five minutes, for many people with depression, hope is bullshit.
Now, I believe that you meant perfectly well with your thoughts of hope but I do think it's important to know that to many people suffering from depression might see that as a glib statement, implying that we can just turn our suffering on or off like a light switch.
Oh, and my black dog has three heads and is not to be fucked with, he thinks the one in this video looks like a pussy.

As many people as possible need to see this. *quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by maatc.

*passes hand over head, making "whoosh" sound*

Black dog makin' you sweat. Black dog makin' you groove.

My black dog will fuck your black dog up son!

Idk about the brain chemistry bit. Its my suspicion that depression is not really very well defined; that its symptoms, causes and treatment vary for each case. I don't think having suffered/being a sufferer of depression gives me any unique insight into the colour and shape of others' demons. It's horrible to see somebody suffering, know exactly how it feels and still not know what to say to help them. Having support from friends and family helps, but still its a lonely battle indeed.

Anyway. The shame is awful and I'm glad videos like this exist because I think it goes some way to fixing that.

Do you know what I did to (mostly) destroy depression? Saying whatever the fuck occurs to me. That's why NOTHING anyone will ever say to the contrary of my way of being will ever affect me. Because fuck all. And fuck you.

That makes me happy Fuck you.

Oooooooooooooohhhhh -- dildo cocksucker shit fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

YOU.

I didn't even need to watch this lame piece of shit because post-nihilism means fuck you. But in SUCH a positive way. It's really just the sensitivity of assholes that used to depress me. And then fuck you.

Once I realized fuck you I became a better, more happy person. It's like reaching enlightenment except it's fuck you. No more anxiety. No more depression. Just fuck you.

- An excerpt from the Zen of Nihilism

Until all that dark shit you have been suppressing finally overwhelms your armour of contempt and you either:

A. Have such a cripplingly dark and nihilistic episode of backed up depression you finally kill yourself.

B. Break all the way through to a state of catatonic schizophrenia and need to to institutionalised.

or

C. Snap the other way and go on a self righteous violent rampage (think "Falling down" on a smaller scale)

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche


"The abyss" (of the futility at the core of the human condition) will never be your friend. Embracing it will only blind you to the entropy you are now helping to facilitate.


I'm a student of Epistemology (philosophy) and I'm absolutely no stranger to nihilism. It's a crucible anyone that wants to understand "reality/truth" has to go through. But its only 50% of the equation and offers only futility and darkness.

The other side is simple: if there is no God or ultimate truth then we ourselves are as Gods because we can choose our own purpose and reality (to a point mind!). Life can be virtually anything you want it to be.


Now on some level what you have quoted/suggested there would fall into this category, you would be making a positive choice to define your own reality. However the reality you are defining is a mirror to the abyss you are trying to escape, it is akin to trying to fight a monster. You will surely become/have become the monster you are fighting.

How do you think the monsters that make one feel so depressed in the 1st place come into being? They were staring into "the abyss" too!



Do you just want the depression to go away for a while? Or do you want to replace it with something beautiful instead? (or was this whole thing a Joke that I missed?)


Philosophy/pshychobabble aside what you are describing there basically = shunting all your negativity onto others around you. "If I take out all my shit on other people I don't feel so bad".

This seems like a less than ideal solution and is basically what one of my best friends does when he feels down. When he does so it makes me and others that know him seriously question why we put up with him.

I have nothing but sympathy for people that feel that "special darkness", but taking it out on others is not something I'm willing to tolerate from people I know. It's the main reason half of us are in this mess in the 1st place. People who don't give a fuck how the things they say and do will affect those around them, are pretty hard to keep giving a fuck about . "An eye for an eye will blind the world"