Depression Community

Hello:

I've struggled with severe depression for about 13 years, and I still do, worse than ever.

Though I've suffered setbacks, I'm fortunate to have a warm home and loving family (parents), and I have no physical or "tangible" problems I can point to as a cause. I appreciate what I have. However, I can't shake the overbearing dread that the world seems so fundamentally primitive, unjust, absurd, and meaningless.

Simple features of daily life can trigger difficult crying spells for me: whether watching a blind person crossing the street, or passing a homeless person in the cold, or a sick animal, or an act of injustice. Or, I'm either angry and hopelessly-numb because I feel like little more than a monkey in some unknown accidental terrarium. I worry that if God exists, yet allows so much senselessness and ignorance without some better explanation, perhaps I can't rely on Him, either. Most of all, I feel like I'm stuck in a prison world with a lifetime of responsibilities to satisfy, and I become physically claustrophobic in the world, unable to crawl out of my monkey-skin or flip an "off" switch to a world that often seems like an absurd prank.

I am not a "hippy," nor am I a "whiner," nor do I think that despite the new-agey-ness of Existential Depression, the pain is any less. I've wanted to kill myself just as dead as anyone suffering other mental illnesses; I'm just as unhappy and prone to tears as someone far less fortunate in a third-world country. My experience feels absolutely valid.

To date, I've been on an encyclopedia's worth of meds, and I've tried everything from practical and strategic therapy to transcendental meditation. I've sought remedy in the full range from hard science to radically philosophical, but NOTHING HELPS. The worst part is that any improvements to my career, life, girlfriends, homes, or positive developments in my future—seemingly none can have effect on fundamental problems I have with the world itself.

Other traits make this depression unbearable. When great intelligence seems to be at the heart of your problems, you feel completely alone; it seems that despite kind efforts, no one can help me. And just like the man who spots the gremlin on the plane wing which no one else can see (in the classic "Twilight Zone" episode), I feel like I'm seeing a nightmarish reality no one else gets. This makes me feel crazy! And the weight of the seeming responsibility to heal yourself—when it seems no one else can—makes the struggle and the sadness far worse. Humanity has struggled with existential questions for centuries; you feel it's unlikely that you can expect to solve things yourself in any satisfactory way.

Perhaps this depression "qualifies me" to become a great artist or something, but personal happiness seems mutually exclusive.


Football, friends and beer, working my way up a career, fixing up the house, or taking the kids to Disneyland—none of what others enjoy seems AT ALL satisfactory and indeed ridiculous, and only reinforces my loneliness or envy for people who are content with seemingly primitive and simple pleasures.

What can I do to stop feeling so sad, stop crying all the time, and accept my life without forfeiting a rebellious passion that seems so incredibly authentic? Thank you for any thoughts or advice.