[00_hum]

the way people understand mood and suicide is completely wrong. i have had very unusual bipolar disorder symptoms in the past and it allowed me to experience extreme depression one day and then good mood the next day. i have experienced depression that is so bad that it was difficult to physically move. i remember not being able to stand up from being seated in a chair. this is what i consider to be basically the far side of the spectrum of symptoms — the worst that depression can be. its absolutely deadly because at this point you are effectively experiencing unbearable pain as well as, for some reason, having trouble moving. it hurts to think about the future. every moment is agony. people in this situation kill themselves to end the pain most of all and because they feel trapped. and also because in this state of mind you are unable to work, support yourself or even have relationships. but the real insight is whats next.

luckily i only experienced those lows for a period of time. and some days i would be lifted out of it and feel perfectly normal. this experience is what made me realize what almost nobody realizes: that there is no situation where a healthy person will feel the desire to kill themselves. this is because mood is an illusion. i would go from having this entire world view that my life is hopeless and being completely lost and almost instantly switch over to having lots of things on my mind and looking forward to many things and wanting to get on with life. having a normal mood involves being blind to negative things as much as being depressed involves seeing bad things that arent bad. the human mind is designed to translate sensory input into action by any means and when this system breaks down it weirdly feels painful and makes you want to kill yourself. i think the breakdown of this system can be isolated to a domain, concept or situation or be global. and i think that high stress can cause this effect through inflammatory dysregulation or some other stress pathology giving the incorrect impression that suicide is a reaction to stress. if there were a pill to stop the root cause of depression, nobody would ever kill themselves except for terminally ill people. and just because someone killed themself doesnt mean that their life was especially hard, hopeless or messed up or whatever. it just means they were sick. thats it. and yet every time theres a suicide, all people talk about are the circumstances surrounding the suicide even though they probably are indirectly involved at best!

when i was in those deep depressions i would connect the dots of all the things about my life into a causal web and would be convinced myself that it was the circumstances of my life were the reason i felt depressed. but then within hours that mental framework would disappear completely and i would feel fine. its an extremely powerful illusion. thats why the word trapped resonates so powerfully with people who have been through it. the illusion makes you feel trapped.

this realization has made me basically immune to depression. i recognize mood disfunction immediately now and i have coached myself to remember its an illusion. i am sure that i have experienced significant mood dysfunction in the past, and that most people have, and gotten lost in it simply because i didnt understand what was going on. i think that this is a huge component of the decision to commit suicide: people start experiencing pain, they think its intrinsic to their life situation, they get lost in it, and they would hold on if only they had some context. i wish there was a way to induce severe depression temporarily to show people what it is and educate them so they could not go into it completely blind when the time comes. that would really help people.