Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)

* I had undiagnosed Sever Clinical Depression for practically my entire adult life, and since I am old(er), that makes it a few decades. FML, I know.

* I was highly functional, having learned to conceal my unhappiness from others, and being the one who would make light of bad situations, and rushing to help/comfort others (pretty common, I am no snowflake)

* then in 2014 I reached the bottom of the bottom of the bottom, and then even lower. I "rushed" to therapy but this time something has shifted within me: I KNEW that the therapist would not be the one solving my meta-problem, the therapist would be some sort of coach, guiding me, I would be the one doing all the hard work, long work, big time effort

* I studied the book "Feeling Good" that made me understand what depression is and is not, causes, manifestations etc... also in that book there are some self-therapy tools, mostly a special for of journaling. I did that each and every day, for hours, analyzing everything that happened to me. Fighting my depression became my full-time job, on top of my regular full time job.

* I selected my therapist very carefully, I had a very detailed list of what I was looking for, and while the list was extensive it was feasible (no self sabotage there). I found a therapist that hit all the items on my list except for on (I wanted a man, she happened to be a woman). Didn't matter, she was great.

* The co-pay was stiff, so I took a part-time job in order to pay for my therapy.

* I tried a whole bunch of things, To me everything became therapy. A lot of what I tried didn't work, I moved on to trying something else. I wasted a lot of time and money researching and trying stuff: the time and money wasted is also part of the therapy. To give some insight meditation really didn't do much for me, but other Zen practice did. Weight lifting and fixing my diet did help me a lot.

* I cut off from my life toxic people. Some were "family", some were "friends". Cut them off, best thing.

* Except for my therapist, I didn't talk with anyone about my depression, too much of a burden on the recipient(s), and it can become a self-gratifying self-fulfilling prophecy. I suffered alone and in silence, continuing working my ass off to improve, not a word to anyone. Climb a mountain, tell no one.

* I look at the list of my "friends" and I selected a few, 4 or 5 who I believe could "handle" the news that I was in a bad state and I was in therapy for depression. I asked them to have lunch/drinks/dinner with me on a regular basis, and I told that the during these meeting we would NOT talk about me depression/therapy, we would just "hang out", so once a week I would have lunch with one of them, and once a month 3 or 4 of us would get together for drinks. We would talk about work, sports, movies, book... 2 of my friends at the end of the dinners would discreetly ask me "how's therapy going?" I would replay "Fine" they would remind me: "If you're every in trouble, call me/us any time of day or night". I thanked them they meant it. I NEVER called, no matter how bad things got.

* I often visited online boards about depression and I would see what other people would talk about, I would see patterns that I knew I had manifested in the past (self-sabotage, validation through suffering, playing the victim...) I was banned by Patient and Me for questioning the validity of therapy if it becomes a place where to just shoot the breeze

* One day I read an article on "Stop being a victim" I believe it was actually here in HN. So I started reading googling "stop being a victim" and "victim no more" and similar, and read all there is out there.. mostly very good stuff.

* More recently I have started to analyze the challenging events in my life from the starting point of view that I am responsible/accountable/at fault for it... it's just a starting point, not a martyrdom, but it helps me NOT to blame the world/other people for happenings in my life (I am always at least partially responsible, at least for not reacting/responding well to life's events)

* other books that have helped me: The Subtle Art of not giving a fuck; Unfuck yourself; The war on Art; How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons.

How's that for a wall of text?

Liking a story is not sufficient to benefit significantly from it. In other words, to have skin in the game makes you gain more. The story you contribute to does not matter until you have faith. When you have faith, in any thing, you enjoy conviction, certainty. Conviction is intrinsically valuable.

What if I had the proof your life is very valuable to Humanity? Would you live differently?...

This is the sort of proof and subsequent gain faith gives.

While, sure you can gain something out of liking a story, but the gain is lesser, the lesser your faith in said story.

I choose Jesus' story because I chose him in the past and so far have been rewarded for my decision. I informed myself about other stories when I was openly atheist, out of curiosity. I did not think I could make a fully informed decision about this so I went with was closest.

Since learning more about it and other stories, I believe, this is the best non disproven story. So I sacrifice myself to it. It is a pro-humanity story. Integrity. Joy. Anti-mimesis (yes, René Girard is part of the picture). Those are very tangible gains.

It is not about being the greatest or being obedient. At its core, it is the story self-sacrifice/service for the benefit everyone, yourself included.

There is only one piece of advice I dare give atheists: intentionally have faith in something. See where that leads you. There is only so many stories that rings true to a human being throughout their whole life and that of their progeny, I believe Christianity is one of them if not the only one.

-- Tolkien, "The Monsters and the Critics"

I don't see how we can ever really know. We only ever have access to our own experience. How could we ever find out what the world is really like beyond our own "subjective" experience?

"Pyschedelics is a rabbit-trail followed from here, as well as the idea that "nothing is actually real, this is just a simulation". And following those is the idea "reality is what you make it" and "you are God". But those conclusions run up against things that we cannot change like death and taxes (the taxes part is a joke, but only kind of)."

Who's the "we" that can't change that?

Some believe that our "true self" is the universe itself or god, and we are just deluded in to thinking we're separate individuals. In that view death is illusory as the universe or god don't die, and taxes and everything else about the world is created by the universe or god (ie. by your "true self").

There are many other views too, even if you reject yourself being god or the universe, that consider everything in the world (including death and taxes) as illusory. Many mystics, for instance, considered the material world to be illusory and the heavenly world or the world of god (or of "ultimate reality") to be real.

"We're left with a dissonance of "all is illusion" vs "there exist things that we cannot change and things that are consistent outside of ourselves".

Do we really need to be able to control the world for it to be an illusion?

If we're, say, brains in vats, then we might just be fed our illusory experience and be unable to change it.

"If we were in a dream-state and there was not actual object permanence then I'd agree with the conclusions of the religious pyschedelics crowd, as well as the all-is-illusion crowd."

I don't see why you'd need any kind of object permanence either for the world to be an illusion.

Also, one's belief that there's object permanence could itself be yet another illusion.