The same goes for unhappiness and depression. 25. Receive the Provocations Bundle, a selection of books from LARB Books, including N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law by Jody Armour. You get trapped in the darkness feeling cold and numb. This situation is also, in most cases, saturated by politics and by the economy. [W]e find that we endogenously produce our incapacity to even try, grow sick and depressed and motionless under all the merciless and circulatory conditions of all the capitalist yes and just can’t, even if we thought we really wanted to. Remember that the World Health Organisation estimates that 121 million people suffer from depression worldwide; you are one of many, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. We humans are a complex bunch, and even with all the loving intent in the worldit can be difficult to know what to say. Peak performance! You feel completely alone. Regardless of what you’re facing, remember your earlier … Your depression is not depression in the true sense of the word; your depression is an artificial problem created by your mind acting irresponsibly and unconsciously by telling you that your life is … We're all proof that recovery is possible. The perpetuum mobile of capitalism and its exhaustion of resources also pertains to mental resources. Other data suggest that depression affects one in every five Americans. In alliance with each other, people might eventually be able to get up and throw some bricks. Posted Jul 28, 2015 Again, the young generation of today, sometimes called the fucked-up generation, is worth mentioning (Phil Neel writes about this generation, “the first in a grand parade of the futureless,” in his brilliant book Hinterland). He wrote that he offered up his own experiences of mental distress not because he thought there was anything special or unique about them, but “in support of the claim that many forms of depression are best understood — and best combatted — through frames that are impersonal and political rather than individual and ‘psychological.’” The importance of arriving at a political understanding of depression cannot be overstated. Feeling numb inside. I’m going to blunt with you here, because the bottom line is that the reason you’re depressed is because your psychology sucks. When you are, it's like your "happiness muscles" don't work at all. On the contrary, one of the primary symptoms of depression is that what you need to do is precisely what you cannot do, at least not alone and on your own. Depression is seeing no future, and no answer for any of the problems in your life. 2. 1. Yet the psychiatric and public discourse remain bent on treating depression as a personal problem devoid of context. Posted in Mental Health Reform. It's like falling into a well or a deep dark hole and having no ladder to climb to help you get out of it. In this way, the diagnosis provides momentary meaning to meaningless misery. Donate to support new essays, interviews, reviews, literary curation, our groundbreaking publishing workshop, free events series, newly anointed publishing wing, and the dedicated team that makes it possible. There is no spark. The sale of antidepressants does not correspond exactly to occurrences of depression, as SSRIs are not exclusively used for treating depression, but used to treat a range of other mental illnesses as well. The call is for the left, for these specific reasons, to take seriously the question of illness and mental disorders. Support our writers fund and the writers who continue to push literary boundaries online and in print. The frequency of diagnoses does not necessarily mirror the frequency of depressions, and thus the increase in diagnoses could testify to a growing number of depressed people or to an escalating tendency to pathologize common, “normal” affects such as sadness, translating them into the diagnostic category of depression (the latest example of this tendency is the inclusion of grief in the new editions of diagnostic manuals such as the DSM and ICD). The crisis embodied by depression thus becomes a symptom of a historical and capitalist crisis of futurity. In a serious state of depression, you become a sort of half-living ghost. Here are some places to start. When you have depression, nothing is enjoyable. Let’s also not forget that depression is the major contributor to suicide deaths, which number close to 800,000 per year according to a recent report from WHO. It's like being a prisoner and the jailer both. The video lasts a little more than 20 minutes, and at one point Leo Gura boldly and bluntly declares: “You are causing your depression.” There is something wrong with your mental and cognitive apparatus, your psychology is “shit.” Stop being a victim and take ownership of your psychology! Care for Your Mind acknowledges and appreciates the collaboration of the American Brain Coalition and the National Network of Depression … No matter where we look, students are depressed, anxious, stressed out, burned out. Both are facilitated by stress, either recent or … But the symptoms of depression are also symptoms of something else. ‘This isn’t an ending. It is a feeling that conditions will never improve, that there is no … Save $20 when you subscribe for a whole year! Don't Punish Yourself for Feeling Bad. Depression is a state in which nothing tastes, smells, or feels right and you are unable to think or make decisions--yet you still have to carry on doing all those things. His whole oeuvre is an ongoing meditation on depression as a personal experience and a social and political experience. The world and time just passes by and nothing brings you joy. And the fact is that the economy of debt causes deep distress as indebted people, students and otherwise, are forced to pawn their own future. Sleep is the only escape from your pain. But this cause has causes which in the diagnostic system — and in the capitalist world as a whole — remain undiagnosed and untold. 12. To those who've never suffered from depression: Perhaps it's not possible for you to understand what it truly feels like to have clinical depression unless you've suffered from it yourself, but the above descriptions should give you some indication. Back to the original video, where a flashing sequence of catchphrases or keywords succeeds Gura’s introductory remarks. This is care that transcends the hospital, the clinic, the family, the state, the insurance company, Capital as such (even if one does not have access to those institutions in the first place). Depression is like the heart or the mind breaking. 44. The suffering gets a name and a cause: a lack of serotonin. Not less so after Mark Fisher’s tragic death. It's peaceful water to the outside world, but a raging tsunami below the surface. Slipping into depression feels like falling down a dark bottomless shaft, wondering if and when your fall will ever be caught. “Individuals will blame themselves rather than social structures, which in any case they have been induced into believing do not really exist,” as he wrote in “Good for Nothing” — implicitly referencing another of Thatcher’s claims, that society does not exist. 20. These numbers have led the World Health Organization to conclude that depression is the most common mental disorder and the prime cause of disability and suicide, affecting around 350 million people worldwide. 33. I’m not blaming you, I’m telling you a fact.” He goes on to clarify that he is not talking about people who are “clinically depressed,” and who thus have “legitimate” depression. The other thing I want to tell you is that, as hard as it may be to believe, recovery IS possible. The Los Angeles Review of Books is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Take, as an example, a self-help video, “Why am I depressed?,” by a man called Leo Gura. In the book Capitalist Realism from 2009, he connected depression to what I have already referred to as capitalist realism, “the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.” In this book, depression becomes a paradigm case of how capitalist realism operates, a symptom of our blocked and bleak historical situation. Living in fog all the time--a world without color or laughter. It's just like being inside a wheel that's spinning and spinning and you don't know when it's going to stop. By this I do not only mean that it is difficult to write about your own depression; it is also just difficult to write about the immense suffering while at the same time finding a position in relation to depression or developing a discourse on depression that is not in itself utterly depressing. Happiness is created from the inside, it is not other people’s responsibility to make us happy, it is our own responsibility. You can beat this.’The hopelessness of depression stands with its arms crossed, blocking the door to anything better. When you have depression, nothing is enjoyable. When you read it, you'll see that I've felt everything described in the list above, and that there were times when I was convinced that I'd never, ever get better. Sorry to hear you're feeling this way. 43. Or as queer theorist Ann Cvetkovich argues in her book Depression: A Public Feeling: Epidemics of depression can be related (both as symptom and as obfuscation) to long-term histories of violence that have ongoing impacts at the level of everyday emotional experience. You wonder how you will manage to exist another day. 8. Before going into the causality of depression, however, let me first describe the morality that surrounds depression. Contrary to mainstream psychological and psychiatric discourse the reason why you can’t get out of bed is not because you have a bad attitude, a negative mindset, or because you have somehow chosen your own unhappiness. Depression is a common and serious mental health condition that can often take its toll on relationships. Data are, again, overwhelming on this point, but suffice it to mention the “38 percent of low-income mothers and mothers of color who develop postpartum depression,” to quote from Sophie Lewis’s Full Surrogacy Now; the half of LGBT people who have experienced depression in the past year; and the 61 percent of all the kids in Sjælsmark Udrejsecenter, a prison-like camp for rejected asylum seekers in Denmark, who would meet the criteria for a psychiatric diagnosis. As such, the psychopathology needs to be related to a world of capitalist realism, where there really is no alternative, as Thatcher triumphantly declared, and the future seems frozen once and for all. In many instances, depression bears the mark of such violence and vulnerability, though it is not, sadly, the only mental health issue at stake. In the wake of the economic crisis, a plethora of studies have looked into the psychopathological consequences of debt. A situation in which you really can’t get out of bed. So no job, no future there. Anxiety. No future I feel like my life is already over and that I don't have a future at all. 3. In the essay “The Privatisation of Stress” from 2011, later reprinted in K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004–2016) from 2018, Fisher wrote that one difference between sadness and depression is that “while sadness apprehends itself as a contingent and temporary state of affairs, depression presents itself as necessary and interminable: the glacial surfaces of the depressive’s world extend to every conceivable horizon,” and because of that, because of that specific characteristic of depression, a strange resonance exists between “the seeming ‘realism’ of the depressive, with its radically lowered expectations, and capitalist realism.” And in the text Good for Nothing from 2014, Fisher stated that his depression always involved a deep and ineradicable conviction that he was literally good for nothing. Who wants an ugly, depressed, unemployed loser who cant even get a job at the bottom ? It deprives me of feeling anything other than a sense of perpetual sadness, never quite knowing the source of it but knowing that feeling well. Print Quarterly Journal + a limited-edition tote + all the perks of the digital membership. And you've got to try and look normal doing so. 37. I keep coming back to the idea of suicide as the only way out. It's more painful than any physical pain I've ever experienced. Author, life coach, mental health advocate. At this point, the question of responsibility returns in all its force. At any given time, four to five percent of the population is depressed, or, more accurately, diagnosed as such. When you look in the mirror you see only dead eyes. In some cases, it appears to be your own fault. 50. ... facing the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, ... has snowballed into a formidable test for the global promise to leave no one … 9. William Z. Potter, M.D., Ph.D., Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Multiple emotions: fear, despair, emptiness, numbness, shame, embarrassment and an inability to recognize the fun, happy person you used to be. Why? 17. It shows me the mental picture of the benches I made my bed and the nooks and crannies I tried to hide in for fear of being raped. The belief that you just don't matter. 32. Indeed, according to the Danish Health Authority more than 450,000 Danes bought antidepressants in 2011, a figure which has almost doubled over the past decade. ... and my future … There is growing evidence that depression … Here were the responses: 1. It is a soul-sucking, debilitating illness--one that is so severe that it claims nearly a million lives a year worldwide. This tendency can be observed all over the Western world. We therapists see these as adjustment disorders and look for the individual’s resiliency in recovering from previous crises as clues how they might get through this … You feel completely alone. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. As anyone who has been depressed — or been around someone who has — knows, it is literally hell on earth. Save $10 when you subscribe for a whole year! In this video, author and mental health educator Douglas Bloch talks about what happens to the brain when a person becomes severely depressed. Feeling dark, lonely, scared. Subscribe to LARB's FREE Weekly Newsletter: By submitting this form, you are granting: Los Angeles Review of Books, 6671 Sunset Blvd., Ste. “HOW DO YOU throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?” This question, formulated by Johanna Hedva in “Sick Woman Theory,” has been with me for quite some time now. 19. Being depressed sometimes feels like tunnel vision--regardless of anything going on in your life, you can feel miserable and overwhelmed for no reason at all. Depression is hating yourself so much you can't look in the mirror. The same goes for any kind of therapeutic project, and Italian thinker Franco “Bifo” Berardi — who is, admittedly, a bit loose and careless when it comes to precision in the clinical vocabulary — may be right when he asserts that “in the days to come, politics and therapy will be one and the same.” Therapy as resistance, not as reactionary obedience to the given order. It may be described as feelings of sadness, loss, or anger. It's a ten tonne ball of lead in your gut that you've no choice but to drag everywhere with you. Some strata of society have access to futurity in ways that others do not, some bear the burden more than others, and some simply die sooner than others. 11. Competition is precisely what capitalism is all about, and seeks to intensify, so that we are, simultaneously, alone in our suffering and fighting among each other’s suffering selves. Just as we cannot change other people, only ourselves. Depression is a common but serious disease that ranges widely in severity. In 2012, economist John Gathergood published a study showing that people awash in a sea of debt experience and exhibit a variety of mental problems, including depression. But to do that, to get to where that becomes possible, what is called for is not competition among the sick, but alliances of care that will make people feel less alone and less morally responsible for their illness. Depression Why Your View of the Future Can Make You Depressed It's the way you envision your future that can determine your mental health. Four books from our series and imprints + limited-edition tote + all the perks of the digital membership. 34. Learn the causes, symptoms, treatments, and how depression … And most importantly, be their friend. Mark Fisher was attuned to this logic, or should we say ideology. Save $40 when you subscribe for a whole year! It's like telling … They are living in a world where tomorrow will most likely be worse than today, where there really are no alternatives and no future, not least because of how the climate crisis quite literally annihilates the future as such. By all accounts, it seems that being indebted can, and indeed does, lead to an increased risk not only of depression but also suicide. The problem is no-one can hear you or even knows you're trapped there. He is talking about the rest of us, the majority who get a diagnosis of depression and whom he is not blaming, except that he is. The best political thinker of depression remains the late Mark Fisher, who suffered from and in the end took his own life because of depression. Depression is a mood disorder that can affect a person’s daily life. However, supporting a partner with depression, both emotionally and practically, … The Future for Depression Is Bright, But We Have to Be Patient. This is another thing to take away from this. It should be noted that this is also the title of a video work by the artist duo Claire Fontaine, who in their ready-made video Untitled (Why Your Psychology Sucks) from 2015 has an African-American actress perform an almost exact verbatim copy of Gura’s talk, unfolding a pungent and quite comical criticism of the neoliberal self-help industry’s ideological personalization of depression and generalized responsibilization of the subject as such. The fact first: as the Danish Mental Health Foundation makes clear, more and more people in Denmark are diagnosed with depression. It feels like you're a ghost ... not a part of the real world. Who can blame them for being depressed? Your words took me back to when I was your age, I'm 36 now & have lived with anxiety + depression since I was 15, at 20 I felt I had no future & would … It's feeling the drag and pull of life making you smaller by the day. This is the reason why so many of us lie in bed, and can’t get out of it. Up until this point I have not mentioned the climate crisis, but on the evidence of what has been said so far, it doesn’t risk exaggeration to say that ecology and mental health stands in an intimate relation. In their work, depression is always already political and must be understood in relation to its real basis in social conflicts within a capitalist economy of debt and financial speculation. Nor is it merely a matter of chemistry and biology, an imbalance in the brain, an unlucky genetic disposition, or low levels of serotonin. However, to understand depression through political frames does not mean that the problem of depression can be immediately solved by political means. All of this to say that the current — social, political, economic, ecological — crisis is thus a mental health crisis as well. Then, Gura delivers his message, his shocking truth: “Here is the deal. He is, according to his Twitter profile, “a professional self-development junkie, life coach, video blogger, entrepreneur, and speaker,” who helps “people design awesome lives.”. For the next step, you'll be taken to a website to complete the donation and enter your billing information. No hope. Depression is a dark, inescapable place. I've been unemployed/under-employed for years. & simultaneously create another They are killing me.’ Then he pulled the trigger.”. Waking up to another disappointing day, and feeling that heaviness in your chest that never goes away. Instead, listen to them. I feel totally worthless and I have no future. There is no future for now. 1. Depression is also more of a problem if you have had more than one period of depression over the years. Regardless, the point is obviously not to get out of depression so that we can get back to the work that caused the depression to begin with. But it should lead to a recognition that a critique of capitalism will need to take into account the contextualized psychopathology of depression as well as other mental illnesses. Feelings of inadequacy, hopelessness, and little-to-no future orientation indicate depression. If you are such an immoral and bad person that you have become unhappy — or depressed — it is you, and you alone that is to blame. Happiness is not something you can expect to get from others. The expression of hopelessness in conjunction with a mental disorder such as depression represents a very dangerous warning sign and always needs to be taken very seriously. This is care which, based on a politicized understanding of mental illness, moves beyond care in its commodified and capitalist form. Furthermore, it gives us an idea of a possible “cure,” of what needs to be done, of how we get out of bed (or maybe, why we even want to get out of bed). Help us create the kind of literary community you’ve always dreamed of. Support our print journal and we’ll acknowledge you in the upcoming issue. — Anne Boyer, A Handbook of Disappointed Fate. The Depression Learning Path was created by Mark Tyrrell and Roger Elliott of Uncommon Knowledge. There is a horror to depression that cannot and must not be translated too quickly into the sphere of politics, regardless of our critical and revolutionary aspirations. I'm aged 35, qualified to PhD … Triggers to paralyse my life, in fear, anxiety, feeling like I have no future. 40. The "happiness is an inside job" thing works if you're not depressed. But, in an act of speculation, I am tempted to say that revolution is the best antidepressant there is, it makes for a better world, true happiness. Because there is comfort in the diagnosis of depression. We have a lot of facts about depression, but the facts do not speak for themselves. In the order given, the words read: “Success, happiness, self-actualization, life purpose, motivation, productivity, peak performance, creative expression, financial independence, emotional intelligence, positive psychology, consciousness, peak performance, personal power, wisdom.” (Apparently, the concept of “peak performance” is so important that it must be repeated.) Like the death eaters in Harry Potter have caught you and sucked all the goodness from you. A real dialectical catch-22 of depression. More often than not it is a matter of the world you live in, the work that you hate, or the job that you just lost, the debt that haunts your present from the future, or the fact that the planet’s future is going still faster and further down the drain. Receive a limited edition LARB-branded tote, the print Quarterly Journal, the digital Quarterly Journal, and the Reckless Reader card. 2. Capitalism makes us feel bad and then, to add insult to injury, makes us feel bad about feeling bad. 39. and to the concomitant ideology of happiness, which forces all of us to smile and be happy nonstop, even or especially when we are fighting among each other, fighting to make ends meet and just get by another day. Donate $5000 or more and we’ll name you an essential donor on our website and in print. 21. But you still carry on anyway. Failing to be happy is simply immoral. The claim: Depression makes manifest the contemporary subject’s alienation, in its most extreme and pathological form. The point must be, rather, to destroy the material conditions that make us sick, the capitalist system that destroys people’s lives, the inequalities that kill. The claim: Depression makes manifest the contemporary subject’s alienation, in its most extreme and pathological form. The Necessity of Being Judgmental: On “k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher”, What We Talk About When We Talk About Finance, The Unpostable: On Patricia Lockwood’s “No One Is Talking About This”, Listening for the Caribbean on "The Crown", Writing Is a Ritual: A Conversation with Karen Tei Yamashita, “No Worst, There Is None”: On Gerard Manley Hopkins, A Future with No Future: Depression, the Left, and the Politics of Mental Health. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must be in the United Kingdom or United States, where students don’t have the benefit of free education as is the case Denmark but are driven ever deeper into a spiral of debt. Adapted from the book Going Nowhere, Slow, out on Zero Books November 29, 2019. If the reader only takes one thing away from my text let it be this: depression has a set of causes and a concrete context that transcend any diagnostic manual, as well as the neoliberal ideology of focusing on subjects, not structures; personal responsibilities, not collective ones; chemistry, not capital. 1521, Los Angeles, California, 90028, United States, http://lareviewofbooks.org permission to email you. You probably won’t be believed the first time you say this, but just keep saying it and believing it enough for both of you. What the video wants to do is to teach you how to “master your psychology” and eventually put you in a state of “total bliss and happiness.” It is a deeply moral message. […] What gets called depression in the domestic sphere is one affective register of these social problems and one that often keeps people silent, weary, and too numb to really notice the sources of their unhappiness (or in a state of low-level chronic grief — or depression of another kind — if they do).
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