Anyone else ever feel like this?
posted by A.D. IV [Jester] | April 2, 2010
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IcerocketI go through times when I begin a downward spiral into a deep depression and it hurts to live. I feel stuck in my body, a prisoner to living this mundane and predictable life. It makes me wish I was already experiencing what I know will happen when I depart from this vessel. It makes me want to already be dead. I know that this is just a trough of the waves of life, and that another peak will soon be experienced, but I don't care. A fast forward button would be nice. I just want to disappear for a very long time and return only when I please. There is too much pointless bullshit in this reality for me to be enthusiastic about any of it. I just want to float in the void again, weightless, timeless, careless.... perfect.
I know I have so much to do, and plenty of time to do it, but I just don't want to experience the garbage in between. I am usually an extremely happy person, so when I do get depressed it is rock bottom. bouncing back isn't an option, it is an inevitability, but it wont change the fact that I am trapped in this flesh, seeing through defective eyes. Deviating myself from everything never works, I can't escape it all, there is just too much swirling around. Every time I touch money I cringe, every time I hear a thoughtless conversation I want to vomit. Every time I see the news I want to kick through the screen. Every time I see Obama I want to tear out my hair. I just finished major projects for school and my career and feel lost, I have no motivation to do anything now. I just want to leave my body for a few days and reunite with my dead friends, go to the places I know exist but don't have the pleasure of directly experiencing at the moment. I'm sick of being a fool. Twisting my own fate is becoming boring, I already know what will happen before it does which is cool until the things you know are going to happen but don't want to happen....... happen. Gifts are always a curse in certain circumstances, now I see this.
why can't we just be free? Why are we burdened with so much oppression? why can't people just wake up and see?
Comments
I have days like that
— Apr 03, 2010
I have days like that sometimes. I know what you mean -- since I am usually pretty content, when I hit a low, it's underground. I wish I could give you a solution as to how I get myself out of those days -- because sometimes it's just as simple as going to bed and putting more distance between the bad days and the good days.
I don't know about how your sadness manifests, but I used to have a really hard time with crying uncontrollably. Anything would set me off, really. It's become less frequent as I've gotten older, but occasionally I still cry.
Lately -- not really sure since when -- I've been approaching my sadness differently. I have moments when I'm alone and I weep through them. Just a few moments, and just a little weeping, just enough to sample the sadness.
The reason I changed how long I indulge in my sadness is because that's how I felt about it after being sad for too long -- indulgent.
I guess what I'm suggesting to you is this -- if you can learn to control your sadness (because it's not really all that different from controlling your anger) then you can find moments for it where you can experience it alone, in whole, and in a much shorter amount of time.
I'm not telling you not to be sad -- because that's crappy advice. But learn to control your sadness -- don't let it control you. Don't empower it to the point you have lost your own power. It won't happen overnight -- but you don't have to let your sadness and suffering tint your lens of the world. There's too much sadness in the world already!
Please feel better. Take good care of yourself (and your sadness)
-Joanne
conversely, sometimes the
— Apr 03, 2010
conversely, sometimes the problem men have with their sadness is not crying enough. If this is the case for you, maybe just try and let go and cry your eyes out for a good five minutes. Get those neurotransmitters flowing in your circuits!
For a philosophical response,
— Apr 03, 2010
The central wisdom of all the great spiritual traditions boils down to the idea that we are here to learn. Of course we all know that there is something beautiful and infinite beyond the borders of this life, but the challenge (the reason you came to this twisted world) is to learn to maintain that bliss in each moment of darkness.
Translation: Remember that you are experiencing sadness and despair in this world only to test yourself. To whet the keen edge of your spirit on, and sharpen your soul's power. If you can face that darkness head-on... and laugh at it, perhaps it's possible to outshine it and hold it at bay.
I say this only b/c it's the basic rock I come back to when I feel that way, and I do. Often lately, it seems. Knowing that this world is flawed and that the people aren't working to change/correct it is depressing. But then i remember Hey, I'm one of those people and I'm working to change it. That's enough, I guess.
Peace, bro. Hang onto that light and the darkness will pass. (Corny as THAT is...) ;)
Indeed I Do
— Apr 03, 2010
I have bipolar disorder. I have intermittently experienced this kind of thing all of my life, so at times I feel like an expert on the topic. I've been through many phases of approach including, but not limited to, confusion, denial, hatred, study, introspection, crying, drinking, waiting, searching, controlling, dancing, fucking, swearing, medication...and lately a refreshing sense of maturity. I did find an amazing food science company a few years ago that has helped me tremendously, but as much as it has changed my life, I still have to dig into my spiritual roots to see things with a regenerating eyeball. My current layers of enlightenment have revealed that the best medicine is to embrace it. These kinds of times peel open a box that shows us some of the most important aspects of our being. Suffering is one of the most integral and beautiful traits of existence. Sharing and opening up are courageous connecting tissues in the flesh of existing, so my theory is that you are on the right track...If my mind can stay still and alive enough in these situations reading is wonderful. I recently read a book that gave me a new perspective and I loved it enough to recommend it: "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times" by Pema Chodron. At first the title felt revealing in the self help self loathing kind of poppycock, but I checked it out anyway. I'm so glad I did because it was an extremely positive and wonderful viewpoint on hitting the bottoms of life. Thanks for asking this universal and personal question!
Thanks
— Apr 04, 2010
Yes, I have expeienced depression on and off.. sometimes severely.
I have also been on anti depressents for it but went off YEARS ago because had trouble getting medication on my crappy insurance. I started a spiritual practice and haven't looked back since.
Recently my mother died (about a month ago). Of course I am depressed.. but I have gotten very existential. My dad died in 96 (they were divorced for years and she remarried in 84).. and I have no siblings.
I have thought in the past and recently about just throwing in the towl... I am just so tired of living in this world. I know where I WANT to be.. I know my values.. I want to live more simply and I "struggle" to do that. Of course NOW I am having to stop my life again (in my own mind).. and handle going through her stuff and taking on more possessions and figuring out what to do. I am in an existential crisis. I want to Live this healthier more value rich life.. simple adn move on from bad behaviors.. (my mum struggled with clutter and money and she was aware of it.. but it plagued her for her entire life). I come across a lot of reminders of how I do NOT want to live.. I am trying to avoid any DRAMA in any of my relationships... .. and as people who fell out of my life years ago.. wander back in because of her death.. the juxtaposition of THIER life vs MY life is glaring.... as I struggle with dealing with the china... I realise I will never entertain like they did in the 60's.. so why am I keeping it. I do not have a partner so.. I am alone....
I feel very much like I am in LIMBO... waiting. I know many say THIS IS YOUR LIFE.. quit waiting for tomorrow... But if I don't LIKE today.. If I don't like dealing with drama and materialist possessions.. and am ready to move on.. but can't.. what am I supposed to do?????...
I feel like I am missing my spirituality too.... I used to feel more IN LINE with things... I feel like I am floating.. not anchored to anything.... and that sucks.
I hop you find your own path.....
Outside persepective
— Apr 04, 2010
Reading the first part of your post is almost verbatum of what my girlfriend says when she is going through a "crisis". She has BPD (boarderline personality disorder), and MDD (major depression disorder).
When going into that state, your mind does create its own world outside of the one everyone else is in. Your mind is able to seal itself, and create its own reality. Like you said, normally you are a happy person. But closed off, everything seems 180. Clinically speaking, the only way to break out of this is for outside interaction, someone or something else to interact with you.
I find that giving something new to her during and after a crisis helps move her mind away from that state.
Once I asked her this "If this really all there is, no God or some afterlife, then isn't this life, what and where we are now, paradise? And isnt wonderful and awesome that we get to experience these extreme lows, even if they make us want to remove our life from this world?"
I appreciate
— Apr 04, 2010
all this wonderful feedback. It has helped me a lot, I just had to disappear for a day, I got what I wanted. No cell phones, no interaction with anybody other than a few fantastic musicians. I am on the upswing again, ready to take on this world filled with smoke and mirrors, knowing I am here to serve a purpose in the transition of humanities great awakening. Thank you all, I think I might have bipolar disorder, I have never gotten checked for it, but I am symptomatic of it, but would never take medication for it. peace and love to all, spread the warmth of your heart, Easter time, although I no longer follow Christianity, is an appropriate time for suffering.
"in order for there to be order... there must first be disorder"
thank you
— Apr 05, 2010
Hey Jester, and everyone else, thanks for all your insights. I have had the major depression thing that's absolutely paralyzing, and it at one point in my life almost destroyed me. It's really helpful to read others experiences...
I just also wanted to mention don't neglect the physical side of things, diet and exercise and all that... can't separate the body and mind. for me since I lost all contact with the world during my episode, having some healthy habits and structure like that allowed me to survive... it's darn near impossible to establish good routines like that when the depression has kicked in, so when things are clear is the time.
For most people, endorphins are basically invincible... they will give you some level of relief, almost regardless of what else is going on, even if it's brief. it also gives you a sense of control, since you can make it happen yourself. basically it has to be exercise intense enough to create the endorphins. There are many other benefits, one primary one is getting your heart rate up enough to flush the toxins that stress and sadness create from your brain.
Stanislav Grof's 'LSD
— Apr 18, 2010
Stanislav Grof's book 'LSD Psychotherapy' gave me a lot of perspective on this. He found in routinely dosing people down with high doses of pure pharmaceutical LSD that depression and such come from material leaking out from unconscious traumas, a major one which is the trauma of birth. Symptoms such as "I feel stuck, the unbearable suffering will never end, I can't breathe, I've done something wrong, there is no hope, there is no exit" etc. often come from the part in birth where there are uterine contractions but the cervix is closed and the way out is not yet open. Stan Grof's discoveries of the unconscious are a deep subject that's too overwhelming to get into here, especially since so much of it needs to be experienced to be understood. But the basic idea is that through taking LSD in a safe setting with sober sitters educated in the process, people are able to bring up and experience their unconscious, and by experiencing it, clear it and the effect it has on their everyday consciousness.
But, since I haven't purged my unconscious material I am definitely stuck in the moodswing game. I often get the urge to murderously kill myself, basically from my traumas and a slew of being killed / suicide endings in past lives that I've brought into this life to transform. I often want to kill myself for being 'so stupid,' and my life takes on a nightmarish light wherein everything I have ever done looks horrific and the only solution is to die. It's some urge to purify myself of my sins through death (definitely some karmic roots to that one). But, luckily my psyche is pretty stable and I know that if I were to commit suicide I would just have to incarnate again to the same place where I feel blocked now. Plus I'll have to go back to the soul world with the knowing that I wasted a perfectly good opportunity and it will suck! I really think I will get the opportunity in my life to have the set and setting to systematically process all these blocked energies, and that they are rocks of hurt and pain that will alchemize into jeweled gifts for myself and others. I had one experience where I saw the death-rebirth spiritual process and at the threshold I saw a few bodies of previous lifetimes where I had mistakenly killed myself when I was really shooting to be spiritually reborn. This time I will keep on the path, no matter what. Through thick and thin, my higher self is only giving myself what I can handle.
This is another loaded subject, but in my experience eating sugar and processed foods and caffeine causes biochemical depression because it blows out the body's serotonin. My psyche definitely benefits from eating slow-burning carbs with vegetables and small amounts of quality protein.
wow
— Apr 18, 2010
Excellent thoughts, shivadove. Thanks!
I resonate with those thoughts on birth trauma and using psychedelics to bring up those things lost in the subconscious to heal and process. As for karmic echoes, that's a huge subject but you touch on some really interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing!
