My experience with depression was brought on by a myriad of environmental and existential factors… However, once it started, it was nearly completely a physiological problem. First, I stopped sleeping (at least in any reasonable way, though to me I really thought I wasn’t sleeping AT ALL- this went on for 5 months). I lost 20 pounds because I couldn’t make myself eat- the act of eating was repellent and completely non-reinforcing. My body temperature was always about 99 degrees, and my pulse was always somewhere over 75. Yet, I didn’t want to run or shower or even get out of the bed, since I couldn’t imagine why I would want to do any of those things. NOTHING seemed to be positively reinforcing. Not icecream, Not sex, Not science, Not love. Then there was the cognitive impairment- the worst. I would write a paper for days and end up deleting the whole thing in edits and needing an extension. I remember spending hours and hours rechecking my physics assignments, because I was entirely incapable of being uncertain or confabulating a step, right up until the deadline, after which I was always convinced I had gotten it all wrong and would fail it… Reality did not correspond. I had a 99.6 in the class. I became convinced that I had a brain-tumor and was going to die. Spent some time musing about it’s location and whether or not I should bother having it removed… I didn’t, at that time, understand depression at all.
It really IS all brain chemistry. That’s what’s scary.
Poke, Andy-
My experience with depression was brought on by a myriad of environmental and existential factors… However, once it started, it was nearly completely a physiological problem. First, I stopped sleeping (at least in any reasonable way, though to me I really thought I wasn’t sleeping AT ALL- this went on for 5 months). I lost 20 pounds because I couldn’t make myself eat- the act of eating was repellent and completely non-reinforcing. My body temperature was always about 99 degrees, and my pulse was always somewhere over 75. Yet, I didn’t want to run or shower or even get out of the bed, since I couldn’t imagine why I would want to do any of those things. NOTHING seemed to be positively reinforcing. Not icecream, Not sex, Not science, Not love. Then there was the cognitive impairment- the worst. I would write a paper for days and end up deleting the whole thing in edits and needing an extension. I remember spending hours and hours rechecking my physics assignments, because I was entirely incapable of being uncertain or confabulating a step, right up until the deadline, after which I was always convinced I had gotten it all wrong and would fail it… Reality did not correspond. I had a 99.6 in the class. I became convinced that I had a brain-tumor and was going to die. Spent some time musing about it’s location and whether or not I should bother having it removed… I didn’t, at that time, understand depression at all.
It really IS all brain chemistry. That’s what’s scary.