The Logic of Depresssion

I knew it would be coming again. And it did. Very familiar feeling, very familiar thoughts. I got back from work yesterday, and it was all inside me. The perception that everything has no sense, that I have not achieved anything significant, that I am no one, and that I am defective because i have no concept how anything could be achieved, and so on. I was only looking forward to the night coming, and being able to go to sleep and not think about it.

 And thinking is a major problem when one is depressed. This is because the more I think, the more I get depressed. I know there is no point speaking about being depressed to anyone who is not depressed and is trying to rationally explain to you that there is no reason to be depressed. It just does not work, because when I am depressed everything seems perfectly logical. The world sucks, work sucks, family sucks, people suck, I suck, nothing can be done perfectly. And the fact that I have to accept the world and the life "as is" sucks too!

The way out, at least for me, is to stop thinking. Have a good rest of sleep, and then force myself to doing something that prevents me from thinking and perhaps can give a little pleasure. I know I have to do it very early before the dark thoughts take over. When they do, there is practically no pleasure possible, and the depressive thoughts run at full speed. But the good news is that the depression does go away one day. Sooner or later. Even if I do not do anything.

Yesterday I managed to switch off the thinking; I practised a realtively hard piece of music, than read a book in another language. These are quite difficult things and I can do them without expecting an immediate result; I can do them with focus on the process (e.g. the perfection of playing or the understanding of words and phrases), so I cannot really fail. And every time I do them, they do get better. It did help a bit.

I can see that today I am again in a mood that makes me take everything as a personal attack. I had some emails from work colleagues overnight, and it is actually interesting to see my first emotional reaction, and then by delaying the action I can see the emotions fade out and the reason kick in. That's my way to manage myself today.