I can't speak generally, but when I'm depressed none of the stuff you listed has any appeal. Even much simpler easier things, like sex or sunlight are covered in a terrible veil. The world looks drab and unfriendly. My sensory perception gets altered, everything looks and feels different.
It's hard to think, it's hard to talk with people--- the social scripts are all broken and the baseline feeling of my reality is warped into something ugly. When I'm depressed there is nothing "really awesome", it just doesn't exist.
On the other hand, I've found the whole condition can be fluid/mutable and have felt these sorts of low states much less often since I started meditating and paying attention to my internal state.
Indeed, that's one of the ways that you diagnose depression.
If the things that once made you feel really awesome (sex, motorcycling, coding, gaming, cooking, whatever) no longer hold any appeal for you, that means you're very likely not merely "feeling down" but actually clinically depressed.
The symptom is anhedonia -- the inability to experience pleasure. You can eat a delicious meal, play outside in the sunshine with little kids, have great sex, and through it all feel nothing.
It's like when a finger is numb -- you touch things with it thinking, "How odd, I ought to be feeling something." But you don't.
It's not just feeling down. It's your brain's ability to feel pleasure being physically broken.
So that's what it's called. I've felt that way for a good portion of my life, and only since I've started getting help in the past year did I realize something was actually wrong that could be fixed (it took someone else's genuine caring for a change to occur).
I originally thought I was just different from everyone else, or that "they" were wasting their lives on pointless pursuits. Now I actually understand why it's so great having a niece to take to the park.
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I can't speak generally, but when I'm depressed none of the stuff you listed has any appeal. Even much simpler easier things, like sex or sunlight are covered in a terrible veil. The world looks drab and unfriendly. My sensory perception gets altered, everything looks and feels different.
It's hard to think, it's hard to talk with people--- the social scripts are all broken and the baseline feeling of my reality is warped into something ugly. When I'm depressed there is nothing "really awesome", it just doesn't exist.
On the other hand, I've found the whole condition can be fluid/mutable and have felt these sorts of low states much less often since I started meditating and paying attention to my internal state.
Indeed, that's one of the ways that you diagnose depression.
If the things that once made you feel really awesome (sex, motorcycling, coding, gaming, cooking, whatever) no longer hold any appeal for you, that means you're very likely not merely "feeling down" but actually clinically depressed.
The symptom is anhedonia -- the inability to experience pleasure. You can eat a delicious meal, play outside in the sunshine with little kids, have great sex, and through it all feel nothing.
It's like when a finger is numb -- you touch things with it thinking, "How odd, I ought to be feeling something." But you don't.
It's not just feeling down. It's your brain's ability to feel pleasure being physically broken.
So that's what it's called. I've felt that way for a good portion of my life, and only since I've started getting help in the past year did I realize something was actually wrong that could be fixed (it took someone else's genuine caring for a change to occur).
I originally thought I was just different from everyone else, or that "they" were wasting their lives on pointless pursuits. Now I actually understand why it's so great having a niece to take to the park.