Depressive Realism

My biggest inspiration, and my biggest find through all of this has been this phrase - Depressive Realism. The first real distinguishing trait in determining depression, or any mental disorder for that matter is "does the patient maintain close and accurate contact with reality?" While depressives, melancholics, or whatever "we" are would absolutely answer no to that question at the worst moments of what we go through.....can you really, as a non-depressed person answer that truthfully every day?

There is a school of thought that says when people are not depressed, they are vulnerable to highly irrational allusions, including unrealistic optimism (buying a house you can't afford for example), overestimation of themselves (calling yourself the smartest person you know), and an exaggerated sense of your capacity to control events (when that capacity to control is compromised, you simply ditch your obligations).

In an experiment two researchers of the depressive mind, Lyn Abramson AND Lauren Alloy, took one control group of non-depressives and one of depressives. Their study was like a game show in which there was a yellow light and a green light. You were to push a button to light the green light up and however many times it lit, you won that money. When the non-depressives had success with the game and won money, it was because they felt they had control. When they didn't win, or performed poorly, they thought they had no control over the game...that something must be wrong with their button.

The same experiment with the depressives warranted quite simpler results. No matter what the result of the game was, depressives felt they had no control in the game.

In the end, the depressives were correct, they had zero control whether they won or lost...that was just how the experiment was rigged up, but they felt that way because that is how the depressive mind works.

It's funny to think about, and it sounds funny to read, and granted it's just one experiment, but the depressive mind seems to be judging itself much more accurately than the non-depressive mind. Tie it in to what I first started talking about, the non-depressive mind in many, many instances is more delusional than the depressive mind. Within the non-depressive mind, there is ego, and grandiose, and that what we gather from the experiment -- "when things were going good, it's because I was the shit!!! and when I lost, it wasn't my fault!"

Again, "Depressive Realism." Depressive realism is the theory that depressive minds have a more accurate view of reality.

That's not to say "everything is fucked, and you're all stupid if you don't see that." I interpret it like this -- Me, Kevin, I have super low self-esteem. My low self-esteem has root causes in my childhood, and then as I grew older I let the things other people said and did to me impact that.

On the flip side, the person with high self-esteem is in a delusional state where he or she thinks these grandiose thoughts about themselves which are just as rooted in childhood, or other people helping you puff out your chest. They ignore the suffering in this world, because they are so absolutely entrenched in their own bubble that they see nothing.

What leads to my depression is my core connection to this world on a grander scale. I can always remember as a little kid, laying in bed, not being able to sleep, and wondering if some kid my age was in Liberia, worrying about the same things I was. It's why I try to travel so much, because I love to see hope where I go. It's here, a lot in Florida. It's there in Buffalo, but, I have a more global perspective of life and while it's great it takes so much fucking work! The suffering of others and the suffering of myself is too much to bare in mind at times.

I'll wrap it up with a perfect quote from writer Aldous Huxley, "If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasure of illusion."

I wish there was a stronger word for it then pain, but, whatever it is that I have lived through is indeed my quest for self-knowledge and it has been so profoundly painful. But I'd trade for being just one of the hive, one who prefers the pleasure of illusion, any day of the week.