Existential Depression

dam prayer noobs · May 31, 2008

Past few years I have been wondering why people can't understand certain things. Even when I try to explain something to someone, they can't understand it, it's like there is a wall around their mind that prevents them from thinking indepth.

I observed how simple social problems arise from the smallest occurences, and then arguing happens, and people are even more mad than they were before. Sometimes I couldn't understand why people get mad, it is like a waste of energy to me. Instead of getting mad why don't you use that energy to think about it and make peace with the other person instead of getting revenge on them. It is pretty obvious that getting revenge doesn't do anything, but if you are nice to the other person that hates you, eventually they will say I'm sorry and be your friend. I have done this many times and it does work.

Sometimes I even get depressed about the world. I have always had ideal views and was a perfectionist. My ideal world would be a world without suffering, but this would never happen, hence my depression. I can't even count the number of times I contemplated suicide, but I always thought to myself that it would get better the next day, and it always has. My ideal view of the world is everyone being nice and considerate to each other, but hardly anyone is.

Not many people seem to understand each other. Rich people think that the poor are just lazy and don't deserve welfare, when some of the poor have even harder lives than the rich. People misunderstand each other, they make false assumptions about different groups that they know close to nothing about. Sometimes I wonder what is the point of life, you suffer, then feel good, then suffer again, and feel good again. You can never be happy all the time, because then happiness won't be valued as much if you are happy all the time and you become depressed again. Why do we live in this vicious cycle, and what is the point of it.

Recently I searched around on the internet and found this article, which cleared things up for me:

Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals
James T. Webb, Ph.D.

Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals
James T. Webb, Ph.D.
Supporting Emotional Needs of Gifted

Dr. Webb is co-author of the book Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Aspergerâ€™s, Depression, and Other Disorders

It has been my experience that gifted and talented persons are more likely to experience a type of depression referred to as existential depression. Although an episode of existential depression may be precipitated in anyone by a major loss or the threat of a loss which highlights the transient nature of life, persons of higher intellectual ability are more prone to experience existential depression spontaneously. Sometimes this existential depression is tied into the positive disintegration experience referred to by Dabrowski (1996).

Existential depression is a depression that arises when an individual confronts certain basic issues of existence. Yalom (1980) describes four such issues (or "ultimate concerns")--death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness. Death is an inevitable occurrence. Freedom, in an existential sense, refers to the absence of external structure. That is, humans do not enter a world which is inherently structured. We must give the world a structure which we ourselves create. Isolation recognizes that no matter how close we become to another person, a gap always remains, and we are nonetheless alone. Meaninglessness stems from the first three. If we must die, if we construct our own world, and if each of us is ultimately alone, then what meaning does life have?

Why should such existential concerns occur disproportionately among gifted persons? Partially, it is because substantial thought and reflection must occur to even consider such notions, rather than simply focusing on superficial day-to-day aspects of life. Other more specific characteristics of gifted children are important predisposers as well.

Because gifted children are able to consider the possibilities of how things might be, they tend to be idealists. However, they are simultaneously able to see that the world is falling short of how it might be. Because they are intense, gifted children feel keenly the disappointment and frustration which occurs when ideals are not reached. Similarly, these youngsters quickly spot the inconsistencies, arbitrariness and absurdities in society and in the behaviors of those around them. Traditions are questioned or challenged. For example, why do we put such tight sex-role or age-role restrictions on people? Why do people engage in hypocritical behaviors in which they say one thing and then do another? Why do people say things they really do not mean at all? Why are so many people so unthinking and uncaring in their dealings with others? How much difference in the world can one person's life make?

When gifted children try to share these concerns with others, they are usually met with reactions ranging from puzzlement to hostility. They discover that others, particularly of their age, clearly do not share these concerns, but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on fitting in with others' expectations. Often by even first grade, these youngsters, particularly the more highly gifted ones, feel isolated from their peers and perhaps from their families as they find that others are not prepared to discuss such weighty concerns.

When their intensity is combined with multi-potentiality, these youngsters become particularly frustrated with the existential limitations of space and time. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to develop all of the talents that many of these children have. Making choices among the possibilities is indeed arbitrary; there is no "ultimately right" choice. Even choosing a vocation can be difficult if one is trying to make a career decision between essentially equal passion, talents and potential in violin, neurology, theoretical mathematics and international relations.

The reaction of gifted youngsters (again with intensity) to these frustrations is often one of anger. But they quickly discover that their anger is futile, for it is really directed at "fate" or at other matters which they are not able to control. Anger that is powerless evolves quickly into depression.

In such depression, gifted children typically try to find some sense of meaning, some anchor point which they can grasp to pull themselves out of the mire of "unfairness." Often, though, the more they try to pull themselves out, the more they become acutely aware that their life is finite and brief, that they are alone and are only one very small organism in a quite large world, and that there is a frightening freedom regarding how one chooses to live one's life. It is at this point that they question life's meaning and ask, "Is this all there is to life? Is there not ultimate meaning? Does life only have meaning if I give it meaning? I am a small, insignificant organism who is alone in an absurd, arbitrary and capricious world where my life can have little impact, and then I die. Is this all there is?"

Such concerns are not too surprising in thoughtful adults who are going through mid-life crises. However, it is a matter of great concern when these existential questions are foremost in the mind of a twelve or fifteen year old. Such existential depressions deserve careful attention, since they can be precursors to suicide.

How can we help our bright youngsters cope with these questions? We cannot do much about the finiteness of our existence. However, we can help youngsters learn to feel that they are understood and not so alone and that there are ways to manage their freedom and their sense of isolation.

The isolation is helped to a degree by simply communicating to the youngster that someone else understands the issues that he/she is grappling with. Even though your experience is not exactly the same as mine, I feel far less alone if I know that you have had experiences that are reasonably similar. This is why relationships are so extremely important in the long-term adjustment of gifted children (Webb, Meckstroth and Tolan, 1982).

A particular way of breaking through the sense of isolation is through touch. In the same way that infants need to be held and touched, so do persons who are experiencing existential aloneness. Touch seems to be a fundamental and instinctual aspect of existence, as evidenced by mother-infant bonding or "failure to thrive" syndrome. Often, I have "prescribed" daily hugs for a youngster suffering existential depression and have advised parents of reluctant teenagers to say, "I know that you may not want a hug, but I need a hug." A hug, a touch on the arm, playful jostling, or even a "high five" can be very important to such a youngster, because it establishes at least some physical connection.

The issues and choices involved in managing one's freedom are more intellectual, as opposed to the reassuring aspects of touch as a sensory solution to an emotional crisis. Gifted children who feel overwhelmed by the myriad choices of an unstructured world can find a great deal of comfort in studying and exploring alternate ways in which other people have structured their lives. Through reading about people who have chosen specific paths to greatness and fulfillment, these youngsters can begin to use bibliotherapy as a method of understanding that choices are merely forks in the road of life, each of which can lead them to their own sense of fulfillment and accomplishment (Halsted, 1994). We all need to build our own personal philosophy of beliefs and values which will form meaningful frameworks for our lives.

It is such existential issues that lead many of our gifted individuals to bury themselves so intensively in "causes" (whether these causes are academics, political or social causes, or cults). Unfortunately, these existential issues can also prompt periods of depression, often mixed with desperate, thrashing attempts to "belong." Helping these individuals to recognize the basic existential issues may help, but only if done in a kind and accepting way. In addition, these youngsters will need to understand that existential issues are not ones that can be dealt with only once, but rather ones that will need frequent revisiting and reconsideration.

In essence, then, we can help many persons with existential depressions if we can get them to realize that they are not so alone and if we can encourage them to adopt the message of hope written by the African-American poet, Langston Hughes:

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered with snow.

- Langston Hughes
Click to expand...

http://www.giftedbooks.com/authorarticles.asp?id=7

If you post something like "emo fags" you are getting reported.

So yeah, discuss if any of you have this problem.

Shredderbeam · May 31, 2008

I used to be like this for a couple of years, but I was cured by a little thing called "rationalism". It led me to become an atheist, and with a bit of help, a libertarian/anarchist.

This life is all you have. Find a cause (a rational one, please), and fight for it. If you're not happy, make yourself happy. Remember that emotions are chemical states in the brain, nothing more, and that happiness is the pleasurable one.

Simple Idiocy · May 31, 2008

Hmmmmm.......I now have a deep down hate for aerosol cans now for some reason.

1337_Byte · Jun 1, 2008

Shredderbeam said: ↑

I used to be like this for a couple of years, but I was cured by a little thing called "rationalism". It led me to become an atheist, and with a bit of help, a libertarian/anarchist.

This life is all you have. Find a cause (a rational one, please), and fight for it. If you're not happy, make yourself happy. Remember that emotions are chemical states in the brain, nothing more, and that happiness is the pleasurable one.
Click to expand...

I don't think we only have one life, that all seems pointless in the end. Although I'm Agnostic I still think life continues after death in some way or another.

wtp · Jun 1, 2008

The way I see it: If you can't make yourself happy, then make the people around you happy.

Ã¢â‚¬Â TysonÃ¢â‚¬Â · Jun 1, 2008

If you don't really care about others - like me. It doesn't really bother you

OxyMind · Jun 1, 2008

The way humans have made this society doesn't fit everyone, and I really wish I could live a different life style. The thing is, you just can't. I'm an all around happy person though, and if your happy you don't need a meaning to life. Don't get me wrong, I've been depressed before, but that was just because I took too much ecstasy in a short amount of time.

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