steveoscar Depression for me isn’t an emotion. It’s a state of being, I am diagnosed major depressive disorder and that’s a lifelong condition. Something to do with my brain not being able to produce enough of its own adrenaline, seratonin and dopamine. All these hormone centers are suppressed due to some kind of damage in my brain.
I didn’t even know I was depressed, but when I finally relinquished and said to the doc that I just couldn’t do anything, no matter how hard I wanted to, and that I was giving up hope on myself and this was the new permanency. He reacted with this diagnosis.
But I’m not depressed? I said. No, your body and brain signals are depressed and I got it. Without the ability to produce these hormones, my brain was suffocating on strangled synapses. Strangled synapses with low energy we’re not powerful enough to maintain the rest of my body. Everything was in a slow ebb of decline. The fact that I decided this must now be my new normal and not a thing I could overcome - led him to diagnose me with this chemical imbalance that was restricting my executive function to emergency reptilian brain only. Straight up the middle. Which I never realized, was in-line with the actual flow field so felt in my head. And although there were occasions where I felt a flood elsewhere, it never stayed persistent.
I don’t think I ever felt doom and gloom. Except upon the realization that this was what aging felt like, and I was grieving over the fact I had taken all my life for granted on investing in a false future.
I think for a period I was mourning the loss of self. That I had been once, and would never be again. Even though I am a better person now for it, there is still the weird mourning of the passing of one’s own life. Yeh, I’d say that was depressing.
But then that made me even more hungry to do something meaningful with my life. Leave some kind of SOMETHING in the wake of my fleeting presence in the world. Make a change before I go. And yeh that sounds morbid, but for me I was a great impulse and the one thing I could grab onto to get over the inertia of being stuck so long. I would have to do it, not the drugs, the drugs was simply hope, that with the right thoughts, and behavior, I could be what I wanted to be.
Today I shot my campaign video which I now have to edit. It was peculiar because I’ve done videos before speaking to camera, where it’s all scripted and I didn’t own it, and I felt like an actor or imposter. I felt like I was putting on the show. And it was hard.
The first time I did this video, was a video resume, where I decided to make a video to pitch myself to employers. Forget the CV or resume, I’ll just record a video! I thought. And it worked. I shot it on my iPhone and it was really pretty good… for back then. I’ll dig it out lol. But it was HARD because I believed I had to prove myself. And the force to have to prove oneself for me - is depression. It’s stressful because I didn’t believe in myself.
Today was different. I dressed in clothes I liked, not formally, just nicely. Attention to detail with nice belts and very feminine. I put on makeup, false eyelashes, hey I was really proud of myself! And the video WAS EASY! For the first time I believe in myself, I own myself and this is the proof, I owned that video. And it felt GOOD. So am I depressed?
Yes my body still suffers major depression syndrome. It clocks over in sluggish mode, looses blood pressure, looses bowel movements, everything slows down in-between my meds. I notice it. So depression is holistic, it’s not just the mood, it’s the regressive state of the body, like ageing.
I’m sorry you’re going through this shit Steve. Why don’t you try working on a video resume? It will tell you a lot about yourself and maybe force you to find the impetus that you need to accomplish getting out of the mud. Even if you don’t use it. I think I generally make a video pitch for something every two years:
Killing mermaids - National Geographic traveling documentary (wanted to win and get funded to travel by killing the mermaid mythology)
Ascent of Evil - some book author made a deal with me to promote his book if I came in and explained the theoretical physiology of the vampires in his book.
Humana - dance video pitch just because.. have hip replacement, love making costumes, wanted to do a bionic ballerina dance video like ghost in the shell but ballet. And I’m crap at ballet but I try. In those days I hired shiva the Trumplican as my choreographer
The Darwin Conspiracy - an investor mix video pitch for a feature film. I narrated this screenwriters shitty idea 😂 and I made a pretty darn good film actually. I really must embed a load of them in here when I get around to it. It would be nice to see progress lol
elegant aquanaut - stupid website pitch i did. to try and create a swimclub for women who want to feel confident in themselves (like seriously lol all good intention but Indiens even believe in myself)
Loads of video pitches for that stupid company. They still use them in actual fact I did a video pitch for another company that got 100k views.
And finally the video I shot today which I now have to edit bleh
