Could joy be a rebellion within the mask of depression?
‘‘Depression’’—like a mummified sadness… It does not belong to any of the colors, it is not aware of any color… It cannot own blue, green, or red…
A ‘‘depressed’’ person sees the environment in grey tones, and anhedonia (lack of enjoyment of life), one of the core symptoms of depression, is inevitable for this person… The essentials in major depression are a depressed mood—sadness, despair, emptiness, a sense of helplessness, loss of interest and pleasure.
Well, do you know how depression was defined until the 20th century?
Depression was called melancholia until the 20th century. At that time, melancholia was the old name for depression. When depression began to be defined, Hippocrates’ idea of 4 basic fluids was very striking: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, blood. Hippocrates said that all diseases were changes and combinations of these, while Aristotle said the brain was the center.
While it was thought that psychiatric disorders had biological roots at the end of the 19th century, when psychiatry was just beginning to emerge as a branch of medicine, with the emergence of psychoanalysis, these disorders began to be explained in terms of psychological causes. This information is valuable when we look at the neurobiology of depression.
If we make the current definition of depression; it is a mood disorder that causes sadness and loss of interest (inability to enjoy life). Emotional (distress, hopelessness), cognitive (negative thoughts), physical (loss of energy, sleep disorders)… You can think of these as three waves. While the 3 criteria of severity, frequency, and duration are important to distinguish between a depressive episode and clinical depression; my clinical experience says that the “content” criterion is also valuable. What I mean by content is that the way we perceive an issue in our lives is an important indicator.
The key symptom related to depression is: BALANCE.
As the depressive mood enters a deeper state, the degree of negativity of the symptoms and thoughts increases… so does the picture change? It can progress from mild depressive disorder to very severe depressive disorder… In mild and moderate depression, people’s ability to evaluate reality is preserved. There are no hallucinations, no suicidal thoughts, and it does not require hospitalization. In major depression, there are usually hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, people’s ability to evaluate reality is impaired, and it requires evaluation by a psychiatrist.
While these types of depression are evaluated more specifically; masked depression is not noticed due to the appearance that continues to live. In other words, it is a hidden, latent depression. Since the person sees the deep sadness and negative emotions they experience as weakness, they show a positive state of being willing to live, but this is their mask. In fact, most people try to cope with other types of depression alone. For example, dysthymia (resonates like a personality trait, a very long-lasting mild depression/chronic depression); although its severity is low, it continues for a long time.
Chronic depression is like a recurring symphony… How will joy appear here, when the mild but long-lasting character of chronic depression describes a person’s state of deprivation of joy?
In fact, you can observe joy in depression here, but it does not symbolize real joy. Momentary ups and downs of mood echo like the hidden image of pain. The fake joy that can appear in depression is different from the joy that the soul reveals in its healthy state. When fate and sadness have become habits beyond recognition, is there really any joy in this story of sadness?
While thinking about balancing emotional states, is it a current problem of our age to forget the freedom to experience emotions and not give them their due? … One cannot stop thinking about this issue… However, emotion/feeling is unique to oneself… It cannot be compared or used in place of another feeling. We should also give joy its true value among these feelings…
So what is this feeling of joy?
Joy, sometimes happiness, sometimes enthusiasm, sometimes pleasure replaces it… However, in its most essential form, right here and now, the name of what belongs to the memory network of that story is joy. This feeling is not very familiar to human existence… For example; let’s think of the question “How are you today?”; happy, tired, angry, anxious, joyful… In order to say “I am joyful” in response to this question, it is necessary to know and define joy. The best thing is to catch and recognize joy in the moment… Joy is the great declaration of emotion…
On the one hand, depression is so lonely… both superior to everything and inferior to everything… Like a wound that has not been healed… A depressed person cannot find a way out of their individual strategy, cannot die or become stronger… That person cannot benefit from the healing universal heritage! In depression, the scars of childhood wounds are deep, and the image of this depth can appear before us as recurring depression pictures. This depth is also seen in areas that create dysfunction; these areas are: mood, behavior, physical changes, thoughts, changes in attitudes…
Did you know that there was no treatment for depression until 1938? The first electric shock treatment was discovered and used in 1938. One of the differences that depression creates compared to other psychological disorders is that it is the first disease to which the cognitive approach was adapted in psychopathology. Again, for the discovery of this depth; if you want to learn about the first theories focusing on explaining depression; you can look at Beck’s cognitive theory (1967) and Seligman’s learned helplessness theory (1975).
You feel helpless in this depth, but YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Depression believes in equal opportunity; an estimated 350 million people worldwide experience depression. Yes, you are not alone, but where is the place where you are not alone? This is where mild depression and unhappiness get mixed up. Depressive mood is one thing, illness! Depression is another…
We know that sometimes we can see that the emotion of joy has increased its announcement very much in depression. If we are honest with each other and share our story, joy will also find its place among our networks of memories. As valuable as it is for a person to risk getting hurt, it is equally valuable to digest the emotion of joy… Joy is a meaningful respite where we find a place for ourselves in the richness of the positive and the negative… With the hope that joy will take its rightful place at the exit of that depression at some point in that story…
We know that joy is a rebellion!