A Day to Bare Our Souls - and Find Ourselves

SADNESS & SMARTS HOLD HANDS

I read this and thought, I am far from being a genius - but still in all, I do see its validity.

Besides, now that I am Jewish doesn't that automatically send my I.Q. up by 10 points?


DEPRESSION AND INTELLIGENCE

Over the millennia, the human mind became increasingly self-analytical. We, as human beings, became accustomed to sitting around and just thinking about things. We could plan our aggression, for instance, perhaps delaying it to a later time. Or, in situations where we had to submit, we could sit around and brood and worry. We could wish evil things on our opponents, and increasingly, heap scorn and ridicule on ourselves for our weakness.

So what was happening? We were taking something that was formerly very behavior-oriented, very action-oriented, and starting to intellectualize it. Whereas thousands of years ago we spent little time analyzing our problems usually because we were too busy with the problems of mere survival we eventually began to carry on more and more inner conversations with ourselves. In fact, the rise in our leisure time contributed to this phenomenon. But what made it particularly bad and what makes it excruciating for a person with severe depression is that these inner dialogues have a very powerful emotional component. They are one part intellectual, but five parts raw, churning emotions and feelings.

These inner dialogues almost involving some form of anger, worry, or self-criticism call up the brain’s submission response. It’s almost like dialing a phone number. The brain answers the call and its message is submit, submit, and submit. The brain is telling us that it is under attack and that it wants us to survive. And the signal to submit is this flood of extremely powerful, negative feelings, feelings we now interpret as being depressed. The problem is when you’re under attack by yourself, how does the brain’s submission response know when to “disconnect” from the “distress call” that it is receiving? That is, how does it know when the “attack” is over? Well, it never knows, because our attacking “thoughts” refuse to stop. This is how someone can spend a lifetime suffering from waves of severe depression.

But what is the ultimate twist on the intellect and depression? Something is surprising. In my research, I have found an extremely high association between intelligence and the likelihood of becoming severely depressed. In fact, a high IQ is a good predictor of depression. Why? Simply, it’s because those with higher intelligence are amazingly “creative” with their inner dialogues.

Some of the characteristics of high intelligence are an above-average imagination, superior verbal ability, and advanced analytical skills. This is the perfect recipe for cooking-up very elaborate, and very negative, inner dialogues. And that’s exactly what happens. This helps explain the well-known phenomenon of “tormented geniuses”. Simply, their submission response is often out-of-control. And, despite their genius, they don’t know how to stop it.

ORIGINAL

HOW TO INSULT SOMEONE WITH DEPRESSION

There are many ways to insult someone with depression, without even trying very hard. The best way is to give them some unsolicited advice. Something that you think is simple, yet profound, and potentially life changing. But said in ignorance.

Nothing cuts deeper to someone with depression, than when their illness, which is serious, is trivialized by another who doesn’t understand it.

Here are the some of the terrible things that people say:

• “This is what life is like. Get used to it.”
• “Life isn’t meant to be easy.”
• “Just snap out of it!”
• “Pull yourself together.”
• “Who said that life is fair?”
• “You just have to get on with things.”
• “At least it’s not that bad.”
• “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
• “You have so many things. What do you have to feel down about?”
• “You just need to cheer up.”
• “Quit trying to be a martyr.”
• “Stop taking all those medicines.”
• "You're just looking for attention."
  
• “I know how you feel. I’ve been depressed for whole days at a time.”
• “You don’t like feeling that way? So change it!”

These are my favorites:

• “What you need is a good kick up the backside.”
• “Go out and buy yourself some clothes. That will pick you up.”
• “Are you sure you don’t have a mental problem?”
• “How about I cook you a good meal. That will make things better.”
• “Have you tried acupuncture?”
• “Get a job!”

And the all time best:
“Why don’t you try not being depressed.”

ORIGINAL

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