Not dead yet

[vvvexation]

I haven't been in a writing mood for a while. In fact, it's tough for me to even write down that I haven't been in a writing mood. It's not that less has been going on, it's just that I've somehow quit feeling motivated to write any of it out. This worries me a little because they always say losing interest in things is a symptom of depression, and while I don't feel (I think) any more depressed than I did a few months ago, I have been losing interest in a hell of a lot of things. I have no idea what to do about it, though, or if anything needs to be done. But I figured I'd write this just so I don't appear to have fallen down a mineshaft or something.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Losing interest can be part of depression, even when it doesn't feel like it -- but I know you know that.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and that's what worries me--if I can be depressed even though I don't feel depressed, then that means I have no idea what's really going on inside my own head. That's bloody terrifying.

[marmaladious.livejournal.com]

Have you read about the experiments done on patients after the split-brain surgery? Basically, they'd show something to the right half of the brain, and when that side of the body reacted to it the left would have to figure out what the hell that reaction was all about. It would make up a reason, though, and the patient would believe that it was the real reason, and not a made-up one.

If you haven't heard about it, though, I've just confused you terribly. I'm sorry.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've read about that. I realize all perception is faulty, but I like that fact to live in books where I don't have to deal with it personally. It's not allowed to run amok in my brain, dammit.

[marmaladious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really. Like reading about a dumb error in communication that people do all the time, and going "Eh. Stupid people." But the next day you catch yourself doing it, and you're like, "Baa! No!"

[secretagentmoof]

That's one of the ways in which depression is so insidious - it can sneak up on you gradually; it's not obvious until you look at things in toto and start wondering what's up.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I hadn't fully realized that before, I guess. Gods know I ought to have done--I mean, when I was ten I had episodes of not caring whether I lived or not, and it took me another decade to realize there was something wrong with that--but somehow I feel like that was different. Like, how can I still be depressed if I don't really feel depressed? Except that I do still feel kinda depressed, just not as much as I used to and not any more than I did a year ago, so how can my other symptoms be getting worse? I still don't quite get it. Maybe I'm just being stubborn.

[secretagentmoof]

I have both dysthymia (low-level chronic depression) and moderate depression. It's fairly easy to tell when I'm moderately depressed, but the low-level stuff is much harder to pick up on; the two manifest themselves fairly differently. I usually have to go and check my paper journal to see when the dysthymia's hitting me to tease out the subtler pattern.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to journal my symptoms, but it only seems to occur to me to record them half the time, if that.