One of the most powerful descriptions of suicide I've ever read. David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest

[u/[deleted]]

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

[u/asherah156]

Thank you. Depressed here and was trying to figure out how to explain that while the above comment is very sweet, it's...it's so fucking hard. It's not that I couldn't technically do it - go take a spontaneous trip and fish and sit under waterfalls. I could. And maybe it would help, even though I just got home from being abroad and I feel no better.

I'm just proud of myself for feeding myself and getting dressed and staying alive. That was hard enough today. To muster up the amount of energy to even get to an airport again? Come on. The problem's in my thinking, in my habits, in everything I take with me wherever I go - even where there's beautiful sunsets and drinks with umbrellas and kind, loving people - depression turns all joy into ash and sand in your mouth.

[u/Blind_Sypher → u/asherah156]

Meditation and aerobic excersise helps out a lot. Both your thought patterns and overall sense of well being will improve after a month or so. Considerably I might add. They helped me out if a major multi year depression.

[u/[deleted] → u/asherah156]

I think it's important for those of us who experience depression to understand that we don't necessarily respond the same way to the same kinds of things as those who don't have this experience. I guess I mean, what makes other people happy won't necessarily make us happy, and that's ok. I experience something similar to happiness when I just go for a day without crying. Or when I don't drink myself into a stupor to fall asleep. I still sometimes am able to enjoy something beautiful along with everyone else, but I guess it's just important to be really honest with yourself about where you are, what you're capable of processing, and be in the moment, which of course is easier said than done. Thinking of getting on a plane is, sometimes, just going to make those thoughts go even worse, because they create an even greater distance between where we are and where we perceive other people to be. I don't know, instead of focusing on creating an experience that will bring you out of it, focus on getting something out of the experiences you do have. That was pretty long, sorry. But keep getting through it.

[u/No_Possibility_4758 → u/asherah156]

Agree 100%. I used to think like this and used to think why would anybody kill them self I would just move to the Caribbean and snorkel all the time. Now I’m depressed as hell and have been for a while and I feel like the person who wrote that above comment doesn’t really understand depression completely, although it is a really nice sentiment.