Josh Vs. Depression: Day 3
Now I’m in a quandary because I was looking up the symptoms of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and I fit that one like a glove. Do I change the thematic elements of the blog? I’m worrying about this (GAD) because I don’t want to be judged by other people who suffer from depression (fear of judgment=depression). Can we split the difference and say it’s anxiety disorder with a garnish of depression?
One of the GAD symptoms that jumped off the page:
*Feeling that objects are not real (derealization) or feeling that one’s self isn’t really here (depersonalization).
The second one – depersonalization – really jumps out at me. I remembered having that feeling in the second or third grade – and I was freaking out about it – I noticed it at school – this feeling came over me of not being there – it wasn’t a physical numbness, it was exactly this concept. And when I think about the joys of public school, I now realize that this malady was, in fact, an absolutely brilliant move by my brain. I could use more of this depersonalization in my life today – ah youth!
It’s important to me to be specific in my self-diagnosis because I don’t want to misrepresent the condition. I just don’t want to slap the term “depression” onto myself if I am not really depressed. On the other hand, when I have told people that I have started writing a blog about depression, nobody who knows me has been particularly surprised. So I think that’s a great sign for me with regard to authenticity!
Ok, so we’ve got depression, we’ve got GAD (there’s also obsessive compulsive disorder, but I’ll save that for the next blog – it’s always important to leave your audience wanting more.)
Oh, and also, it’s Monday – here’s how my depression handles this: I imagine all the things that could go wrong, and then sit back and see how correct I am – but here again, I’m describing symptoms of GAD. Depression is what comes after the bad things happen and I get tired. This is complicated.
Why am I not on marijuana? Fantastic question. I seem like the perfect candidate for that – a doctor who can prescribe a medical marijuana card would probably read this blog and say “oh, you actually do qualify for this.” (Not that it matters in California anymore, now that marijuana has been legalized – or am I wrong about that – I’m too tired to google it (symptom of depression, or symptom of being a psudo-millennial).
I noticed, in one of the Wikipedia articles, that a larger percentage of people in developed countries suffer from depression than people in developing countries. By the way- I HATE the term “developing” countries – what a lovely way of describing places in which human suffering is unfathomable and actually worthy of a blog (depression).
But back to to my point – higher percentage of depressed people in developed nations – could it be because we have more free time to create neurotic behaviors? (Yes.). Oh, well, thanks for answering that.