So I thought it would be a worthy endeavour-- at this point-- to present a simple explanation of how I perceive depression and anxiety.
Then the wheels came off my will to post anything and once again I fell short of my goal of posting between the 9th and the 23rd of each month.
We’ll get it right in time.
This is not the complete reflection on the dual affliction of depression and anxiety but it will have to suffice for the moment.
Also, I’ve not studied psychology or psychiatry, so I do not know whether my characterization duplicates some other thinker's writings-- but I’m sure my impression is solely my impression.
My characterization may seem simplistic and possibly cliched but... bear with me.
Anxiety: an Affliction of the Perception of Time
A family member shared with me an account of the first occasion on which she noted that her mother might be suffering from some sort of mental illness-- which did in fact turn out to be Alzheimer's Disease.
On a completely mundane day out shopping with her mom, she walked away for three minutes and when she returned your mother was in a state of panic.
Alzheimer's Disease of course is not Anxiety but her account nevertheless led me to wonder whether the nature of anxiety might have something to do with the inability to fix a beginning point and then end point in one’s reasonable perception of time.
Someone who's anxious may in fact regard thirty minutes as a year-- not realistically, of course,and not rationally. But being left waiting for an anxious person approaches being unendurable. One can learn now to suppress this sort of anxiety but if one who has anxiety is told a task was just take three minute, if they have no way of a fixing to starting point to that amount of time, they enter an uncertain realm wherein time is a joke.
Depression: an Affliction of the Perception of Space
What pairs well with time?
Yes, that’s right: space!
And since I was anxious to have a similar definitive description of depression, I examined whether I perceived depression as a disorder in my perception of space.
I do know that a depressed person-- take me for example-- by my disordered nature instinctively overestimates the load they have to bear and the distance they have to travel.
So frequently-- not always though-- a mere trip from my bedroom to the kitchen to get a drink of water can seem as daunting as carrying a ton of weight over the distance of a mile.
This miscalculation is naturally followed by the unanswered question “….and for what purpose?”
I will continue to extrapolate on this basic premise as possible but the gist of my message today is this: To me depression and anxiety are best defined as a internal inability to adequately objectively and reasonably judge the distance to travel the burden to bear or the time to budget to accomplish anything... and the anguish which results from this failure.
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MORE TO FOLLOW
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Self assessment
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I began this on a Monday and by Friday still hadn't been able to continue work on it. Now it is Sunday and I'm finally posting. As the week progressed I began to obsess on the fact that, although what I intend to write is as precise a definition of my experience of depression and anxiety that I can recount, my definition may differ from other's experiences or a textbook definition.
I'm also thoroughly disgusted by the utter twisting of my intended words that my voice to text executes. To dictate text pertaining to personal experiences and then to read its nonsensical shambles of transcription-- for me-- is to feel profound failure.
On top of this challenge, note here another nasty pitfall of mental illness.
Sufferers are compelled to keep quiet because they fear that the symptoms they are confronting don't conform to a textbook definition and aren't easily understood by others.
As for this post, I'm going to have to resort to the strategy I used previously-- post what I have done and promise “MORE TO FOLLOW”.
Hey, it's something-- and something is better than nothing.
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