For the past couple of weeks, things have been getting "brighter" - my mood has improved, the air smells (for lack of a more appropriate term) "crisper", and things in general seem less cloudy. While this is all well and god, I don't know why this is happening: I haven't changed my diet or medication (I've been on the same anti-depressants at the same dosage for four years), and it's not as though I feel smarter (and I definitely don't act any smarter). I still berate myself as often, but it doesn't seem to carry the same weight as it had in the past. I find it very frustrating because I really don't think I should feel as well as I do, so much so that I kind of resent feeling well at all. I refuse to accept this as a "blessing" or whatever as I don't recognize having gone through any personal change and, if I can't understand what caused the shift, I'm not going to have access to the full gamut of tools available (to everyone) to maintain survival. [Slight digression: through the many analogies I've used to describe how my depression felt to psychologists/therapists, I think the most apt is that of a trades-person working in either a murky fog or the complete dark - you can't really see or understand what you're doing, nor with what you have to work, so it seems like dumb luck to just manage not to kill yourself; and now there seems to be more light/less murkiness, but I still can't quite make everything out so I feel I still must rely on luck.]
The only difference in behaviour is that I've started [secretly] smoking marijuana (secretly in that I hide the drug use from my wife, for which I feel like a monster, but I can't adequately explain [because I haven't gotten any more intelligent]). I understand the contentiousness of marijuana use and it's application for medical purpose (and not all kinds of marijuana are created equal: I smoked weed back in college, and, as I understand it, I was smoking an indica strain which, according to what I've read about it, has a mellow affectation, whereas, at the moment, I'm smoking a sativa, which is described as being more cerebral/energizing), but the marijuana is a sativa strain and I've been having revelatory experiences while under it's effects: I'm starting to understand how toxic my upbringing was, and while conversing with my wife yesterday (while stoned, unbeknownst to her), I realized how damaging it continues to be for me to 'try to be understanding' - how I'm essentially giving up control in a passive sense by trying to understand my family-of-birth's position, thereby ignoring my own person (with all emotions/desires/control contained therein). I realize that I must be assertive (although this could mean being confrontational, which is not easy for me as I've surmised that my upbringing has induced a passive nature in me, which allows my sister [and, to a lesser extent, my mother] to be controlling and manipulative without facing resistance - I include my mother in this because she's managed to control my father [although, part of marriage is ceding control to certain aspects of day-to-day life] to enable the toxic behaviour my sister exhibits), and by doing so, regain some control over myself and my life.
I'm not saying that marijuana is single-handedly responsible for the change in attitude: case in point, when I had started smoking regularly, I came across a psychology article discussing the rise in depression experienced by youths citing a number of studies that correlate the rise of depression with a reduction of personal control, which struck a chord with me because, although I don't fit into the demographic of the article, I was hit by a car at age six and my parents (my mother especially) took measures to ensure my safety, though that had the unintended consequence of robbing me of my autonomy and, as a kid, I didn't understand how egregious that was to my development. By the time I went to college, I was so passive that, most of the time, things happened to me more than I made things happen (although I did experience a moment of euphoria when I was given [notice the language] the opportunity to create a couple of projects without overbearing supervision, and, in consequence, was actually praised for my work - some verbal, some through grading). But that became a great indicator of how I've come to live my life and a good hint at why I suffer from depression: I automatically look for an authority figure to give me tasks and commands (a reason I felt at times that I was just an automaton, an empty shell for those in control to program for dull, specific tasks that I could execute for the authority's betterment). I had begun to realize my lack of control before I read the article (which indicates my autonomy), but it was the article that really shone a lightening perspective on my predicament (again, though, it would seem that that's confirmation from a perceived authority). It's all a big struggle for me to understand because, contrary to what my wife believes, I lack the necessary comprehension to be able to act on wresting control from an imagined authority: I believe wholeheartedly that the head injury I sustained from the car accident has left me lacking in certain areas of intelligence and cognition, but perhaps that's an excuse that I've partially created and also learned from my upbringing - I wasn't given control over myself as a youth so now as an adult I feel incapable of autonomy and am beholden to same vague, faceless authority.
When left to my own devices, I will create (and have created) things, although I am unable to see any value in them because there is no authority to judge and bestow value upon it (with the exception that I understand its value as an expression of myself). I guess it's a continuous journey to free myself from the perception of authoritarianism and somehow be able to ascertain and ascribe value, whether "spiritual" (for lack of a better term) or monetary, to myself. Of course, I hate money because, to me, it seems to cheapen life: the fact that society has created a system of progression that includes the devaluation of currency (in the form of inflation) which [negatively] affects the costs of life and living, and that, as it is a human invention, it is susceptible to fraud and gaming, as we've seen by the statistically derived (though, mathematically, potentially inaccurate) 1%. And I'm going to stop myself now before I run off on a tangent about how economic inequality is the intended normal balance of how our society is constructed.
*deep breath*
To those of you who managed to make it through the entire post, I apologize for there not being any prize or reward: there really should be considering the pointlessness of it all and the banality you've endured.
Aaaaaaaaaaand... I don't know how to close this rant. I'm terrible at conclusions because I have no definiteness, a by-product of my indoctrination, whether intentional or not, as a passive entity. It's made scholastic paper-writing very troublesome...
Yup.
The only difference in behaviour is that I've started [secretly] smoking marijuana (secretly in that I hide the drug use from my wife, for which I feel like a monster, but I can't adequately explain [because I haven't gotten any more intelligent]). I understand the contentiousness of marijuana use and it's application for medical purpose (and not all kinds of marijuana are created equal: I smoked weed back in college, and, as I understand it, I was smoking an indica strain which, according to what I've read about it, has a mellow affectation, whereas, at the moment, I'm smoking a sativa, which is described as being more cerebral/energizing), but the marijuana is a sativa strain and I've been having revelatory experiences while under it's effects: I'm starting to understand how toxic my upbringing was, and while conversing with my wife yesterday (while stoned, unbeknownst to her), I realized how damaging it continues to be for me to 'try to be understanding' - how I'm essentially giving up control in a passive sense by trying to understand my family-of-birth's position, thereby ignoring my own person (with all emotions/desires/control contained therein). I realize that I must be assertive (although this could mean being confrontational, which is not easy for me as I've surmised that my upbringing has induced a passive nature in me, which allows my sister [and, to a lesser extent, my mother] to be controlling and manipulative without facing resistance - I include my mother in this because she's managed to control my father [although, part of marriage is ceding control to certain aspects of day-to-day life] to enable the toxic behaviour my sister exhibits), and by doing so, regain some control over myself and my life.
I'm not saying that marijuana is single-handedly responsible for the change in attitude: case in point, when I had started smoking regularly, I came across a psychology article discussing the rise in depression experienced by youths citing a number of studies that correlate the rise of depression with a reduction of personal control, which struck a chord with me because, although I don't fit into the demographic of the article, I was hit by a car at age six and my parents (my mother especially) took measures to ensure my safety, though that had the unintended consequence of robbing me of my autonomy and, as a kid, I didn't understand how egregious that was to my development. By the time I went to college, I was so passive that, most of the time, things happened to me more than I made things happen (although I did experience a moment of euphoria when I was given [notice the language] the opportunity to create a couple of projects without overbearing supervision, and, in consequence, was actually praised for my work - some verbal, some through grading). But that became a great indicator of how I've come to live my life and a good hint at why I suffer from depression: I automatically look for an authority figure to give me tasks and commands (a reason I felt at times that I was just an automaton, an empty shell for those in control to program for dull, specific tasks that I could execute for the authority's betterment). I had begun to realize my lack of control before I read the article (which indicates my autonomy), but it was the article that really shone a lightening perspective on my predicament (again, though, it would seem that that's confirmation from a perceived authority). It's all a big struggle for me to understand because, contrary to what my wife believes, I lack the necessary comprehension to be able to act on wresting control from an imagined authority: I believe wholeheartedly that the head injury I sustained from the car accident has left me lacking in certain areas of intelligence and cognition, but perhaps that's an excuse that I've partially created and also learned from my upbringing - I wasn't given control over myself as a youth so now as an adult I feel incapable of autonomy and am beholden to same vague, faceless authority.
When left to my own devices, I will create (and have created) things, although I am unable to see any value in them because there is no authority to judge and bestow value upon it (with the exception that I understand its value as an expression of myself). I guess it's a continuous journey to free myself from the perception of authoritarianism and somehow be able to ascertain and ascribe value, whether "spiritual" (for lack of a better term) or monetary, to myself. Of course, I hate money because, to me, it seems to cheapen life: the fact that society has created a system of progression that includes the devaluation of currency (in the form of inflation) which [negatively] affects the costs of life and living, and that, as it is a human invention, it is susceptible to fraud and gaming, as we've seen by the statistically derived (though, mathematically, potentially inaccurate) 1%. And I'm going to stop myself now before I run off on a tangent about how economic inequality is the intended normal balance of how our society is constructed.
*deep breath*
To those of you who managed to make it through the entire post, I apologize for there not being any prize or reward: there really should be considering the pointlessness of it all and the banality you've endured.
Aaaaaaaaaaand... I don't know how to close this rant. I'm terrible at conclusions because I have no definiteness, a by-product of my indoctrination, whether intentional or not, as a passive entity. It's made scholastic paper-writing very troublesome...
Yup.
Comment