DISCLAIMER This is not anything other than opinion, observation, and personal experience. It's not a reliable source upon depression and recovery.
Finally getting over depression in some ways is worse than actually being depressed. The umbrella reason for this new set of problems is: saftey. It's safer to live in a world of malaise for some of the reasons that I have put here:
- You don't really have to deal with emotions
- People generally leave you alone
- You know what to expect from each and every day
- It's easy to feel bad
Now, keep in mind please, I am not an advocate for depression in any form. Or in any person for that matter. I can only say that depressed people make good artists like Hemmingway, Cobain, Poe, Woolfe, and Yeats to name a few.
Let's take each of these reasons and compare them to how it feels coming out of depression.
Granted, you don't have to deal with them. You are depressed. And that's pretty much it. While it's a simple way to live it's also boring as all hell. The whole spectrum of happiness, angst, excitation, euphoria, unease, optimism is gone. I'm not going to lie and say that negative emotions like grief disappear, they don't. But they are there to remind you of how good the rest of it all is. So what's so bad about this? The downside of aquiring these new emotions is learning how to use them. Like muscles, they atrophy without use. You have to re-learn to to articulate. You have to rediscover how to use and interpret your emotions, and those of others, in a socially acceptable way. Situations that are dealing with justified negatives are especially hard. It's difficult learning to let the negative go and re-embrace contenment.
About being left alone...this could go a number of different directions. Unless you are in an environment of intense, constant, and patient care people tend to disregard you when you are depressed. You are a fixed item of little interest. Monotonous. But some people learn to like this. And some folks are just
introverts. Now when people start paying attention to you because you're differnt. You're expressing emotion, interest, something other than
"meh" it's hard to deal with. A general attitude of
"what are you trying to do?" underlies conversations for awhile. Learning to be less suspect of peoples' intents is hard to get over. Mistrust and general loss of faith in all of humanity do not just go hide under the bed for the
prozac fairy to trade for a quarter.
Ah, my favorite. How diffictul it is to give up
uncomfortable comfort. Depression is so goddamn dependable. You wake up in the morning and you know already that your day is going to fuck you over. It's a futile effort to get out of bed and you know it. When you start leaving this attitude getting out of bed is exciting, but in the
way that makes your palms sweat. It's almost like going through
withdrawl, but the reciprocal. Instead of pulling a substance out from your body you're putting substance into your life. Ironically the same symptoms may ensue.
For the last factor about the ease of being sad I just have one thing to say: Smile. I bet you feel better already. It's just as easy to be
happy.