Just found out I've had Chronic Depression (Dysthymia) for 30 years (AMA)

[sissypunch]

Congrats you now have an excuse for all your failings, and a reason to demand special treatment from others. Take one step up to the next level of the social justice victim ladder.

You haven't even been diagnosed by a doctor. I bet you've been tweeting about this too haven't you?
So brave.

 

[breadfighter]

Are depression threads on Sherdog still full of people who think "depression" is some sort of choice or basic emotion?

You can't really blame anyone though. This is the human condition. We only know what we have experienced and felt ourselves.

Like I said, I would look upon my friend with the same lens of "this dude is just cynical and uninterested in life" when it turns out he was suffering from the same thing as me. It wasn't UNTIL I realized it in myself that I began to view people differently. Like when you read about people with Bulimia. "That person looks fine. Why don't they just stop eating so much or just stop throwing up? All they have to do is look in a mirror to know they're not fat."

Yet now I understand that it's their brain warping their thoughts and their image of themselves. I was healthy and in good shape yet I could never shake the feeling that something was wrong with me. The brain is a frighteningly powerful thing and it's effects on a persons psyche or physicality are not something that can be completely fathomed through words and text.

But I can totally understand when someone just thinks another person is just lazy, stupid, or making excuses. Because we all think these things of other people ourselves.

Congrats you now have an excuse for all your failings, and a reason to demand special treatment from others. Take one step up to the next level of the social justice victim ladder.

Thank man, i'm super excited. I'd had always wished I was a methhead or something to have a reason/excuse for all my shortcomings. The fact that it's just having depression is even better though, because now I have a valid excuse without all the meth smoking.

 

[breadfighter]

I respect threads like this where people share their struggle with anxiety and depression. I never experienced it myself until much later in life when a traumatic event left me with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Things are much better now but it still comes back sometimes. I read these threads and sometimes it makes me think about Robin Williams. From an outsider perspective looking in, it seemed like he had a great life - family and tons of money. But he wasn't able to overcome the struggle.

Nothing to respect man. If anything I should be grateful for people even reading through all this drivel. It helps me more than anything. What steps did you take to treat your condition?

Robin Williams hurt me a lot. Along with Anthony Bourdain. I completely believe Bourdain was dysthymic/a functioning depressive now. I always thought it was weird how it never looked like he really enjoyed the job (main word being joy). I always thought it was a 'cool guy' act but you can tell something was not right with the guy. Then reading an interview where he talks about his depression, i'm convinced. He had the same feelings of alienation, lack of enjoyment, and trouble communicating with his loved ones. He mentions them one after another.

“It’s like that with the good stuff too,“ he added. “I have a couple of happy minutes there where I’m thinking life is pretty good.”

Bourdain also spoke about feeling out of place. “I feel like Quasimodo the hunchback of Notre Dame — if he stayed in nice hotel suites with high-thread-count sheets, that would be me. I feel kind of like a freak, and I feel very isolated,” he admitted.

He also opened up about his trouble with communication. “I communicate for a living, but I’m terrible with communicating with people I care about. I’m good with my daughter,” he said. “An 8-year-old is about my level of communication skills, so that works out. But beyond that I’m really terrible.”

To hear that last confession from Bourdain really hit me. Because I've always been a terrible communicator all my life especially with my parents and now I know it's because of the feelings i've had of feeling like this alien son to them all my life. But at least I have my parents. Who did Bourdain have at that point in his life? I don't blame him, if I went that long feeling the way I did/do i'd prefer to just not exist either. It's sad that even up to this day, some people still don't believe he had depression.

Ok so this sounds a lot like me.
I am sarcastic as well, dark humored.
And since I was a kid always had dark thoughts. Like not that I want to harm someone, I'm about a harmless as they come from an agression standpoint, but one that recurred as a kid for instance was that I would be attacked by a dog, and I'd have to kill the dog. It wasn't the attack as much as what I'd have to do in reaction that played through my head, mainly because I LOVE dogs. To this day I still have irrationally negative or disturbing thoughts loop through my mind, and they really bum me out, bring me down, and get me anxious at times.
And I'm sitting there 30 mins later in a completely anxious mood having had that change dictated by nothing real.

The sightly down, slightly dark has been a thing my whole life, the anxiety has become more prevenlant as I get older. Didn't have that as a kid really, or wasn't tuned into it.
Most of this presents it's self when it's dark outside. I live in New England and the short days, and weeks sometimes of clouds massively magnify these items.
When it's summer or I'm on vacation, I really don't think I deal with this sort of stuff.

Also I'm an entreprenuer, so the constant ups and downs add volatility to the mix making me question if I'm going bi-polar at times.
The mood doesn't always jive with the reality so sometimes I'm down when things are good, and vis-a-versa, to the point where I'm never really sure I've got a good handle on how I should feel.

So that brings me to the apathy. I realy don't know what I want or why. I don't get excited about ANYTHING anymore or if I do it's very shorlty lived and then I'm over it, but figured that was just being an adult. I've also been pretty high functioning so I've been pretty sucessful despite myself. I figured becoming apathetic was the disease of the sucessful. AKA: "first world problems" so I never thought much of it.

I'd catch myself having those same situational thoughts like that and almost having to correct myself in my mind too. Or sometimes I'll think real mean petty shit about someone but I really like the person and i'll feel bad. I think everyone has them naturally, but there are times when they seem to arise more often than not and you almost have to quell your thoughts somehow. Like "i'm not a bad person so why do these thoughts keep popping up in my head" Sounds crazy but it is what it is. I really can't make any connection between this and the disorder though.

It's good that you're questioning these things. If you don't feel like it's normal/healthy then it likely isn't. I always thought the feelings of apathy were my personality too, even as we speak I feel like this is just me complaining about a first world problem. But apathy about everything is not natural. My parents always lectured me about my apathetic attitude throughout life. I just thought it was me. They still think I am to this day but I think they've resigned to the fact that they have a pathetic ("pathetic" not "apathetic" ) son. Apathy is a natural human feeling but apathy is not a personality trait.

All people may experience periods of apathy. Disappointment and dejection are elements of life, and apathy is a normal way for humans to cope with such stresses— to be able to "shrug off" disappointments enables people to move forward and try other activities and achieve new goals. When the stresses pass, the apparent apathy also disappears. A period of apathy can also be viewed as a normal and transient phase through which many adolescents pass.

It is important to note, however, that long-term apathy and detachment are not normal.

http://www.minddisorders.com/A-Br/Apathy.html

Did you ever end up taking antidepressant medications or therapy? Also you said your father was on anti anxiety medication. Sometimes depression can be genetic.

Yeah I feel like that all the time so I just considered it to be a personality, not really a disorder. I just figured borderline apathy was some people's default setting.

I have also been "clinically" (symptoms, not diagnosis) depressed as well but that, unlike what TS is describing, isn't really a state you can exist in long term.

Did you mean you were having panic attacks?

 

[ctrlaltdelete]

Best friend tried to kill herself twice. Once at 12 once at 21. Still thinks about killing herself, or at least how nice it'll be when she's dead and doesn't have to worry about anything.

 

[SRN]

So you were basically numb for years, yeah that sounds very familiar. How are you doing right now? What are you taking?

 

[pookiyama]

Depression is never not apathy. Apathy grows in the absence of connection with others. Fake it until you make it, is fundamentally how everyone builds empathy.

Empathy is a skill. Practice it and you get past apathy eventually. I'd suggest getting a puppy or a kitten.

 

[Stranger Come Knocking]

Ever do an mbti test? Like a real one, not Internet quiz.

 

[Osculater]

Did you diagnose yourself?

 

[breadfighter]

So you were basically numb for years, yeah that sounds very familiar. How are you doing right now? What are you taking?

This makes it sound like I was some brain dead, drug addled dude listening to Linkin Park in my room at full blast everyday. Like I said. I laughed, joked, and enjoyed things, and did most regular things that everyone does for the most part. Nothing was really wrong in my life besides how I'd feel deep down which was "everything is not bad but everythings not not good."

I'm not taking anything yet. I'm still working out in my head how I'm going to bring this up to my parents. The worst thing they could do is think i'm just using it as an excuse. But I'm sure they won't. They've seen me work hard and they've seen me struggle with things. If they do think i'm using it as an excuse it'd hurt a little but it wouldn't matter. They're not the ones that are going to be fixing me in the end. I'm pretty sure they know something is definitely not right though, but even they can't put their finger on it.

Did you go through any treatments at all?

Lol it was only up until a few years ago the government and health officials were telling us it was good and healthy to stuff ourselves full of grains and carbs (which led to a terrible obesity epidemic in the US among a whole other host of health problems like dementia and cognitive issues). If they can't even get that shit right, I'm not too worried about their "official" medical diagnoses. Come to think of it, I was a child when we still had this Grain-centric food pyramid. Maybe they're the ones that fucked my brain up with my mom stuffing me full of bread slices and cereal thinking it was good for me. Not that i'm not going to go get diagnosed. But I know how I feel and in the end nothing a doctor says is going to change that.

Plus this form of depression goes un-diagnosed all the time. Like I mentioned many times, not even the person affected feels like he's depressed so often times they just go through decades of living while feeling this way.

Most people with dysthymia never even think to get checked for depression. Instead they usually end up going to a doctor when their habits start affecting them situationally in their life and they're wondering why it's happening (as in my case). Most actually go to get checked thinking they have ADD because they can't bring themselves to complete tasks, then find out they've had depression the whole time. But they never "feel" depressed or suicidal so they never know.

 

[Cole train]

I managed to beat it but it still acts up sometime ,mostly triggered by inability to get laid or being a failure.

(I went from a criminal to normal person who is a loser)

 

[SRN]

This makes it sound like I was some brain dead, drug addled dude listening to Linkin Park in my room at full blast everyday. Like I said. I laughed, joked, and enjoyed things, and did most regular things that everyone does for the most part. Nothing was really wrong in my life besides how I'd feel deep down which was "everything is not bad but everythings not not good."

I'm not taking anything yet. I'm still working out in my head how I'm going to bring this up to my parents. The worst thing they could do is think i'm just using it as an excuse. But I'm sure they won't. They've seen me work hard and they've seen me struggle with things. If they do think i'm using it as an excuse it'd hurt a little but it wouldn't matter. They're not the ones that are going to be fixing me in the end. I'm pretty sure they know something is definitely not right though, but even they can't put their finger on it.

Did you go through any treatments at all?

lol Not brain dead, just feeling like nothing is interesting or exciting enough. I know that feeling and that's why I said you were numb because dude life can be pretty good once you're "normal". What you described is a lot similar to what I experienced in the past. Specially the anxiety part and feeling like meh most of the times except I did entered a darker phase in my teens but nothing major.

It took me a while to find a doctor that actually understood what my issue was but nowadays my anxiety (used to be always present and once or twice borderline crippling) is gone. My mood is much more positive, I'm more open to people and situations. I'm way more determined and even ambitious. I smile a lot more, I enjoy things more and so on. It was a subtle change, I didn't turn into someone else, but significant enough to change my overall being.

an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class. It is primarily used for major depressive disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sertraline

It helped me a lot!

 

[breadfighter]

lol Not brain dead, just feeling like nothing is interesting or exciting enough. I know that feeling and that's why I said you were numb because dude life can be pretty good once you're "normal". What you described is a lot similar to what I experienced in the past. Specially the anxiety part and feeling like meh most of the times except I did entered a darker phase in my teens but nothing major.

It took me a while to find a doctor that actually understood what my issue was but nowadays my anxiety (used to be always present and once or twice borderline crippling) is gone. My mood is much more positive, I'm more open to people and situations. I'm way more determined and even ambitious. I smile a lot more, I enjoy things more and so on. It was a subtle change, I didn't turn into someone else, but significant enough to change my overall being.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sertraline

It helped me a lot!

Thanks man Hearing stuff like this from other people makes me hopeful. Because my desire to change is there but I just can't.

And i know what you mean by that feeling of "subtle change". Since i've learned about the discovery, the normal feeling of background anxiety whispering in my ear has been dramatically lessened. It's still there without a doubt, but now I know it's my brain putting those thoughts in my head and making feel anxious for no reason at all, and now I'm more able to recognize it and change my train of thought. It's crazy. Now I feel like i'm in a constant tug of war with my brain. Writing all this out has been therapeutic in its way, but I know I still need a professional.

Also I know I need meds. Because now I know the problem but it's difficult for me to act on the impulse to do something about it. Which has been the case all my life. I just thought it was laziness. I learned that the "impulse" humans feel that makes them act on stuff is controlled by the brain sending chemical messages. I'm sure that somewhere along the line that part of my brain just stopped sending signals or the pathway got mucked up.

I managed to beat it but it still acts up sometime ,mostly triggered by inability to get laid or being a failure.

(I went from a criminal to normal person who is a loser)

I thought I was a loser and a failure for a long time too dude. Always broke. Can't do anything right. Can't get a girlfriend. Can't get a good job. Could never get promoted. D's and F's throughout school. Could never execute what I planned. Basically ALWAYS a day late and a buck short. And it's not like deep down I didn't want to do this stuff. I seriously began to believe I was retarded or some sort of autist who just didn't understand life like everyone else did. I realized it was just the result of me developing this personality and self image from living with a malfunctioning brain for such a long time.

And I know plenty of people and have friends who abuse Xanax or do coke from Friday evening till 3 pm the next day still racking lines (i've been there) and engage in all types of illicit criminal/underworld activities. Some of these people are the best human beings I know. They'd give you the shirt off their backs. They just have unresolved issues like the rest of us. Don't let that shit dictate your life and what you know yourself to be.

Best friend tried to kill herself twice. Once at 12 once at 21. Still thinks about killing herself, or at least how nice it'll be when she's dead and doesn't have to worry about anything.

Never attempted suicide, but I completely understand the "everything being nicer if you just didn't exist" part. Already mentioned in the thread that I'd joke with people that if the world ended at that very instant, i'd be completely at peace with it. But it's not like I wanted to die.

It's a good thing that you're there for her though. Sometimes that's all a person suffering really needs or can really handle, is just someone being there and not feel like they're being judged.

 

[SRN]

Thanks man Hearing stuff like this from other people makes me hopeful. Because my desire to change is there but I just can't.

And i know what you mean by that feeling of "subtle change". Since i've learned about the discovery, the normal feeling of background anxiety whispering in my ear has been dramatically lessened. It's still there without a doubt, but now I know it's my brain putting those thoughts in my head and making feel anxious for no reason at all, and now I'm more able to recognize it and change my train of thought. It's crazy. Now I feel like i'm in a constant tug of war with my brain. Writing all this out has been therapeutic in its way, but I know I still need a professional.

Also I know I need meds. Because now I know the problem but it's difficult for me to act on the impulse to do something about it. Which has been the case all my life. I just thought it was laziness. I learned that the "impulse" humans feel that makes them act on stuff is controlled by the brain sending chemical messages. I'm sure that somewhere along the line that part of my brain just stopped sending signals or the pathway got mucked up.



I thought I was a loser and a failure for a long time too dude. Always broke. Can't do anything right. Can't get a girlfriend. Can't get a good job. Could never get promoted. D's and F's throughout school. Could never execute what I planned. Basically ALWAYS a day late and a buck short. And it's not like deep down I didn't want to do this stuff. I seriously began to believe I was retarded or some sort of autist who just didn't understand life like everyone else did. I realized it was just the result of me developing this personality and self image from living with a malfunctioning brain for such a long time.

And I know plenty of people and have friends who abuse Xanax or do coke from Friday evening till 3 pm the next day still racking lines (i've been there) and engage in all types of illicit criminal/underworld activities. Some of these people are the best human beings I know. They'd give you the shirt off their backs. They just have unresolved issues like the rest of us. Don't let that shit dictate your life and what you know yourself to be.



Never attempted suicide, but I completely understand the "everything being nicer if you just didn't exist" part. Already mentioned in the thread that I'd joke with people that if the world ended at that very instant, i'd be completely at peace with it. But it's not like I wanted to die.

It's a good thing that you're there for her though. Sometimes that's all a person suffering really needs or can really handle, is just someone being there and not feel like they're being judged.

Man, don't overthink about this. Just get on the phone and book a appointment. Think less, act more. You need this, just do it.

 

[breadfighter]

Man, don't overthink about this. Just get on the phone and book a appointment. Think less, act more. You need this, just do it.

I know. I realized I'm probably doing more damage than good dwelling in this thread. I'll probably report back and update in the future. Hopefully near future. Thanks to everyone who posted.

Social media's supposedly not good for the brains pleasure centers either, and this site is just that. I've been posting here 11 years. Sherdog is harder to quit than cigarettes and weed lol.

 

[Davem10]

Sounds like me tbh

Wouldnt put a label on myself though personally, I'm just me it's how I am

 

[LATEXXX COMMANDO]

A good amount of that describes me.

 

[tehMoose]

Take shrooms

 

[Davem10]

I'm writing this so that maybe someone reading my experience might be alerted to the fact that they also suffer from this condition and think it's totally normal. Which it's not. Before you come in here thinking I was slitting my wrist every weekend and on the verge of ending it all, I'd like to state that this wasn't even close to the case.

I didn't have a fucked up childhood, I have a supportive family, I had friends, partied like any regular person but was not addicted to hard drugs or anything of that nature. I've had every opportunity to succeed, which made it all the more surprising when I finally discovered the depression. But when I finally did, everything I found odd about my personality and habits became immediately apparent. Certain traits about me that could have just been chalked up to my personality all my life started sounding an awful lot like depressive symptoms.

I was always introverted and anxious as far back as I can remember. My parents always attributed it to an introverted personality. I always thought the anxiety was natural and I learned to deal with it more as I grew older and brushed it off as me being a nervous child. But weird shit like dialing someone on the phone would make my heart race as a kid. As I went through adolescence I noticed social events would always make me apprehensive but I forced myself into situations, as getting out of your comfort zone is the best way to approach those things as we're all told. I have no problem at all striking up conversation with someone at a bar, but in retrospect, that nagging feeling of low almost silent background anxiety never left. Plus, small talk never really built into anything meaningful (now that I think of it I didn't have anything to say because I didn't care about anything) I never thought anything of it as it had been that way as long as I can remember. It was just a part of who I was, I thought.

Another major thing was that I had a feeling of apathy all throughout my life. My parents and even I thought it was just me going into the teens and then a young adult, but as this transferred over as an adult I began becoming concerned. I knew that I should care about certain "important" things, but I just couldn't bring myself to. It's not that I didn't have interests and hobbies or enjoy things. I just found myself not concerned with things people are normally excited or ecstatic about or if I did get excited it was only to a very limited extent I also didn't have the impulse to do a lot of things. Examples:

I didn't care about peoples birthdays really. I didn't care about my own birthday. All holidays were literally just another day. Weddings were an alien concept to me. I didn't care about school. People asking what university I wanted to transfer to might as well have been speaking in another language. I wanted to make more money but wouldn't/couldn't bother to get promoted at any of my dead end jobs. I didn't care about getting a better job. I couldn't care less about sports teams. I didn't care about getting a cool new car. Even MMA which I loved watching I didn't consider myself a "fan" of or really follow. Bands that I love and jam out to I've never thought to go see live. Basically everything in life was a feeling of "eh whatever". But still I just kept thinking it was just my personality. "I'm just not a school person" or "I'm not materialistic so I don't care about money" or "I just don't care about climbing corporate ladders like the rest of these people" You can see how this would eventually begin to affect someones quality of life. I knew it wasn't laziness, as I ran consistently every day for years. So I knew something was off.

Long story short, it all came to a head and I discovered that these feelings that I always thought were my personality are actually symptoms of Dysthymia, which is a low grade chronic depressive disorder that usually affects people as children or "for as long as they can remember". So these things are often attributed to kids as a result of "that's just how he is". So they and everyone around them grow up thinking it's a personality trait/character flaw but it's actually the persons brain not firing off the correctly (fuck you i'm no brain expert) which makes it so they dont have the impulse to care or feel joy.

The thing with this type of depression (Dysthymia) is that you are still able to function and even at a very high level. There's nothing to signify that the person may have depression like the stuff you normally think about when you think of someone who's "depressed". Like being unshaven/unkempt, wrist slitting, dressing in all black, not emerging from your room for months at a times. Often times the person himself doesn't even think that he has depression. Conan O' Brian suffers from depression and he argued with the doctor that he couldn't be depressed when he went for a check up. I shower, brush and floss religiously every night. I can't be depressed.

So you can imagine it's a little weird for me at this stage as I realized I was actually clinically depressed my whole life and didn't know it. A lot of people (myself included) think depression isn't a real tangible thing, which makes sense because words like "rape" and "depression" get thrown around so willy nilly. "Depression" should really just be changed to "Malfunctioning brain disorder" because that's really all it is. Your brain malfunctioning just like your lungs, heart, kidneys, whatever would.

Cliffs
- Was a super apathetic person for as long as I can remember (child to 30s)
- Chalked up to personality/character flaw by me and everyone around me
-Feelings of apathy and lack of impulse started affecting my quality of life
-Worked out almost every day and was drug free for years so laziness and drugs were not the issue
-Discovered it was due to persistent depressive disorder (Dysthymia)
-Never thought about suiciding or anything of the nature so I found it odd that I could be depressed or have depression
-Now realized I definitely have it and that it's a real thing

What's the gameplan OP

How will you get rid of this depression now you know of its presence

 

[breadfighter]

Take shrooms

Done psychedelics a number of times. I felt that enlightened "I understand the universe" feeling that everyone talks about. Though that went away as soon as the trip
was over. Who knows, maybe because I was using them recreationally.

Edit: Now that I think of it I never liked psychedelics and would steer away from them because of how they would make me think. Incessantly. It wasn't worth the visuals or whatever I was doing it for at the time. I was thinking about the whole thing just now from the lens of depression and it makes sense. I already feel/felt like a fucking alien and over think everything, why would I want to magnify that by warping my mind with these substances. Same reason schizophrenics and anxiety prone people shouldn't smoke marijuana.

Not knocking psychedelic drugs though if people say it cured their depression. After this whole finding out I have depression ordeal, I don't feel I have the right to disbelieve that type of stuff now, though before I would have been a bit skeptical. You naturally produce DMT and endocannabinoids (the stuff that makes you feel sleepy and hungry when you smoke weed) in your brain anyway. They have used MDMA in a tested environment for certain types of therapies and it's proven to be effective. All ecstasy does is release stored chemicals into your brain that were already there. So there's no doubt a plausible connection.

Come to think about it, the only one time I was able to really have a breakthrough conversation with my brother about feelings and all that gay shit was when I had done some coke.

Sounds like me tbh

Wouldnt put a label on myself though personally, I'm just me it's how I am

That's what I thought all my life. Till my apathy started affecting my interpersonal relationships with people. Not saying you have anything. Only you can really know that somethings not right.

What's the gameplan OP

How will you get rid of this depression now you know of its presence

Drugs (antidepressants) and therapy, my friend. And lots of it. Luckily this form of persistent depression is highly treatable and manageable with both. Lots of people online have reported being able to enjoy things again only after a short while. Many who are suffering just don't ever get help because they don't realize they have depression. They think it's just their personality (like I did for so long). Plus, a close friend suffering from the same thing is showing tremendous progress in his treatments. I didn't need that much evidence to convince me, but Lord Baby Jesus may as well have came down from the clouds and "healed" him right in front of my face.

I'm hopeful though. Because in my everyday life I always feel I'm on the cusp of being able to do achieve things, then my brain psyches me out and my body completely shuts down. I then learned that the human feeling of "motivation" and "caring" are just chemical reactions taking place in your brain. Dopamine being the main one which controls your motivational impulses and habits. It's clear that part of my brain is obviously not sending or receiving those signals (fuck you i'm no brain expert).

https://www.thebestbrainpossible.com/link-between-dopamine-depression-make-more/

The result is a person who appears to everyone as if they're lazy, uninterested, unmotivated, and pessimistic. Then the affected person who is trying to change but can't, begins to believe these things about themselves and that's where the personality and self image issues arise. I didn't realize it but I had a lot of self loathing and guilt from this. I felt I couldn't do anything right in life and I was letting the people I loved down. In reality these things are not the persons personality traits or character flaws. Simply symptoms of a malfunctioning brain.

Sorry for the rambling. Psychology was always a fascinating subject for me.

A good amount of that describes me.

If you're happy deep down then you're probably good. If you're not, then maybe begin to ask yourself why. Not saying having depression will always be the answer, but it's good to be aware of it as a possibility. Because this shit can really be a silent killer. Took me almost 25 years to narrow it down. Anthony Bourdain showed the same symptoms of feelings of alienation and lack of being able to communicate with his loved ones and he offed himself at 61. So I guess it really just comes down to not what you think in your brain, or the circumstances around you, but how you feel deep down in your soul.

Because your brain in the end is basically just a living computer in your head that completely regulates your feelings and personality through a series of chemical messages. Which in turn can then actually physically force your body to react or not react. It doesn't know any better. And if this computer goes haywire or malfunctions, it's capable of killing you, if not wrecking your life just as cold and mercilessly as HAL in Space Odyssey 2001.

 

[freakroor]

Normal functioning brains are overrated. Do you think Vincent Van Gogh or Ludwig Von Beethoven didn't have depression? Take what you have and turn it to your advantage.