Depressive Realism - What's that about?

I have been battling Depression for about 10 years now. I think there are two problems associated with the "negative" or pessimistic viewpoint associated with depression. One is that it is very easy to become bitter--I have been struggling with bitterness to the point of now heading back for more talk therapy because it is too easy for bitterness to lead to thinking that everything is futile.

The other problem, I think, is that the pessimistic view of life is the more realistic one, but society in general, at least in the USA, does not want to see life that way.  After 9/11, I remember numerous comments both by "the person on the street" and news commentators that people didn't feel safe anymore. Well, as a first generation legal immigrant who was raised by two combat vetrans of WWII, I never felt safe in that sense of the word and I believe that people who did were fooling themselves. They lost an illusion, not a reality. My mother ran an antiaircraft gun during the Nazi blitz on London and my Dad was in the Canadian Military Police in Germany during the occupation. I don't think Depression has altered my viewpoint as much as it has made it easier to get too focussed on the negativity. It has also made it harder for me to believe I can cope with what life throws at me even tho I am 53 and have managed ok so far--it dosen't FEEL like I have.

I just keep trying to have faith in God (or Higher Power) that there is a purpose too all this that we cannot always understand. I don't think having lots of belief in mankind in general is necessarily a sign of mental health.

Dear Lizbeth,

thank you for sharing and for your reply. I know quite well the mental anguish and the feelings of what you are trying to describe. I have experienced this and you are right when you say that the depressive state of mind is more adequate to our troubled world. It certainly makes us think about how we are treating each other and our precious environment.  Imagine if someone was able to eradicate depression genetically. Then we would be happy and optimistic as we destroy our world, our forests and our future. Would not this be sad? Walking around all happy and optimistic right in the face of so much sadness and destruction? However, I think that it is not the end for humanity or for the world. I am optimistic in this sense and I see much good emerging soon out of this global madness of greed, selfishness and love of money and material possessions. Things will change for the better and, as a matter of fact, are beginning to change now.

Depression is only a state of mind. It has a very important purpose for humanity and I will try to discuss later with some of you perhaps but, menawhile, I would like to ask you to read the following work (a thesis) which is free to download. It is the work of a Polish psychiatrist who has studied a particulah kind of mental disorder that leads to the development of a superior personality. Through suffeing. and especially depression, we can grow both spiritually and intellectually.

I know it is not all that easy to read complex works but if you persevere you will find what you are searching for and that is some possible explanations.

Here is the web address and the thesis is 2.6 megabytes large but it is free. It is a PhD thesis on the work of Dabrowski a Polish psychiatrists:

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-04082002-204054/unrestricted/Dissertation.pdf

Alfredo

I wish to correct what I have said here. I have stated that depression is a state of mind. Is it a mental state or a state of mind? When I say state of mind I do not mean that people can willingly snap in and out of depression. This is impossible as we allknow. But our attitude can make a difference still. We do not have full control meaning that many times the depression is biological and that there are real chemical changes in the brain. But we can do something even if what we can do is limited. We can give into the disability and give up or we can try to struggle out of it though this is extremely difficult.

Perhaps it is both a mental state (say 60%) and a state of mind (say 40%). While I do not lke those who say: "snap out of it!" because they imply that it is all in our mind and if we want to we can be happy, I am sure that we can help ourselves as well. In other words clinical depression is a real disability of a biological nature but there is also a lot that we can do towards recovery. True that it is often a recurring condition. But this should not stop us from trying to recover from it everytime .  I think that it is both a mental state and a state of mind.