Depression: A Conceptual Dive

Hi! My name is Dan. I'm a 38 year old male who has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder.

Over the last year and a half, I have delved into my experiences with depression, analyzing the years of pain, torment and regret as well as the current situation regarding hopeless, worthlessness, suicidality and many other aspects that correlate with mental health such as self awareness, self acceptance, self love, social anxiety, personality theory, as well as many others. All in the endeavor to find out what makes my depression really tick.

Let's take a journey together, if you'll humor me, to the warzone of the mind.

Instant thought processes conflict with desire and create a hostile environment within the self. These processes can be things that are triggered by any of the 5 senses (taste, touch, smell, sight or sound) or it can be unconsciously triggered by things that seem to have no reason whatsoever.

This is our starting point, the active battle of you vs your mind. Walk with me a bit, see the destruction all around, decayed buildings, broken roads, burnt bridges, the overwhelming stench of death and gunpowder. All residing within this state of self.

We look at the ruins and just as an war survivor, we're reminded of things that once were, people who were parts of our lives, experiences we never had, and in many cases the ghosts of trauma tend to exacerbate these aspects but what lies underneath?

As we travel into the first area, we begin to see that there are broken parts of memories stuck in the buildings, endlessly playing out. Calling out like whailing banshees. These are the most common of disturbances as we tend to sit with these echoes. Sometimes for extended periods of time.

Within the buildings, we're safe from the war raging just outside. Though, explosions do sometimes crumble away the walls, leaving the firefight to bleed inside. As we sit with these fractured parts of ourselves, the ever endless sounds of gunfire prevail. Let's move on to the next area.

Our next stop finds us at the foot of a large mirror. Though this mirror doesn't reflect reality. Instead it reflects the things we hate most about ourselves, maybe it's some aspect of our body like acne, being overweight, or features we find to be ugly like our faces. Here, we get lost in front of the mirror, waiting for the image to change but it never does. It just decays more and more, eroding confidence and identity. If you stare long enough, you eventually begin to see yourself as a monster, an alien, something less than human. Something I'm very familiar with, I stared into this mirror for a long time too. I view myself as less than human, a monster, not belonging anywhere. Let's move on.

Next up, we have the pits. Some of these pits are fairly innocuous and aren't very deep, but if you look around, there are several more that almost seem endless, no bottom. Some of these holes even have branches of protruding smoke that linger in the air, like tentacles awaiting to drag you down to the abyss. Some of these holes aren't so obvious either, some are well hidden. But for the moment, we're going to focus on the ones with the smoke coming out of them, let's go.

As we're being dragged down, I must insist that you do not panic. Fear feeds this beast and giving it any attention may prove to be your undoing. The demons here are not to be trifled with and I don't say "demons" in some religious context. These entities are quite literally demons. They devour everything from the sense of hope, worthy, even your sense of self. Down here, everything is corrupted and often requires counterintuitive processes to move forward. Like how you want to return to the surface right now. That's the intuitive move and they will sense it when you try and you will pay. Others around you may even feel the results of what goes on down here, this isn't just in your head anymore. Let's go deeper.

Once you've reached the bottom, you'll realize that it's exactly the same. There are several holes around but almost every hole down here has several smoke like tendrils extending out of each on. These areas are extremely dangerous and this is the most likely area where suicide becomes the only out. As you can see, there's no discernable way of getting back up to the hole we fell from. But this isn't the real bottom. This is where people come when they've lost all hope, be it addiction, loss or other traumatic experiences. This is where they come. Yet there is a level lower than this and it requires doing the counterintuitive thing. Let's go deeper and allow these tendrils to drag us down.

As we're falling, pay attention to the walls. You see snippets of painful memories and things that never were but could've been. You'll also notice that these tendrils can speak. They call to you from the back of your mind, saying horrible things ranging from suicidal messages to homicidal thoughts, this is the most dangerous area of the human mind. Keep your waits about you and again, remember not to give any of these creatures any attention. Just focus on the walls.

Ah, here we are. The absolute bottom of the human mind. Look down, see how the floor here has a translucent surface, can you see the red glow below? Do you know what it is? Here let me show you. But first I want to make a point.

I'm going to take this heavy pickaxes and I'm going to try to smash my way through the floor. You'll notice that as I'm slowly chipping away, the floor seems to heal back almost instantly. How about if we use our own guns? Stand behind me please. And you'll see that the bullets don't quite penetrate through, the holes healing and spitting out the spent lead leaving no trace of any kind of damage. So how do we get through?

Well that's the part that I can't show you, because it's not something we can control. Only the abyss can decide when it's time to reveal itself to you and trust me, it's not anything nice nor fun. Let's return to the surface then.

Here we are, back up to the warzone of the mind. Each layer below us feeds into this up here. All those memories, all that trauma, all those overwhelmingly negative thoughts and that incessant, cruel inner monologue. All of it pumps out up here.

Every single memory cell, every building, every bullet. All of it starts all the way down there. Which concludes our tour of the depressed mind, please hold onto your butts as we bring ourselves back to reality.

There you are, now, as you're reading this, I want you to think about the things I just showed you. What do they mean to you? Are you currently dealing with depression yourself? Are you familiar with the places we went to? What do you think you can take away from this?