“Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially.” - Abraham Maslow
Mental illness & Psychiatry: The painful distraction from your fate
Let's talk about depression and the artist. Sounds like a fun Friday topic. This topic will lead me down a rabbit trail, that rabbit hole landing in some hot and bothered topics like Psychiatry, Psychiatric medicine, but ultimately I'll look at some bigger picture ideas of our life, anxieties depression, and other natural elements of being a human. More particularly, artists, since that is the people my mind dwells on. When I write a lot of words, I don't always have time to edit to perfection, so please forgive me if it's got some snags in it.
Depression is something I've held an interest in understanding for many years—not a 'book learning' understanding, though I have read much about it; more so an understanding in myself as to what it fundamentally is. Particularly in the artist life because I am an artist and most of my friends and family are artists or creative minded folks.
I won't go into my own life story yet again. It suffices to say that I know suicidal depression intimately, both in my life and other lives around me.
I'll start with my take on the current state of therapy/treatment for depression, psychosis, 'bipolar' etc; that of medicating chemical imbalances, called 'mental illness'.
“For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!” - Friedrich Nietzsche
My take, after being a long time guineapig for these hacks is that Psychiatry is pseudoscience. There is no such thing as a Chemical imbalance. I call the medications for said, 'mental illness, what they actually are. They are passion inhibitors. They are in many cases nothing more than chemical lobotomies, in lesser cases intoxicants, but generally, they are the cause of our suicide and depressions epidemic. Furthermore, the cause of all these freakish mass shootings.
This is a good start, one of the many dissenting Doctors you won't be hearing from (becasue they too are afraid of thier Abyss - See below)
They are a direct cause and an indirect cause because while one is persuaded of an untrue diagnosis, they lose hope of finding the true diagnosis.
If you or someone you love is on these drugs, you probably will be angry with me for saying that. I understand it's a difficult sometimes horrid thing, depression. All I can say is if you really want to know how deep the hole of depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, mania can go.. stay on these drugs and talk to me in about three years if you're still alive.
Who sets the Order?
The word 'disorder' denotes an 'order' that has been settled upon. So from then start, you must buy into someone else's philosophy of meaning and life. And our modern active philosophy of life in the west is pretty empty and sad; that's the philosophy you accept when you accept their claim of 'order.'
I'm not a doctor, I guess we're supposed to say that. But I'm glad I'm not. These 'doctors' are I think a plague upon the world right now. There are plenty of 'doctors' that speak against these practices, but you won't hear from them in the public sphere, because we have been sold a bill of goods, and descent comes in the medical community comes with a price.
My concern is mainly with myself, and understanding that past hell I lived in. If I help someone question starting these drugs, that's good too. But my real quest is my own circles. And my circles are mostly artists.
Years ago, I had help getting off a small backpack of these harmful substances, and I hope you would do the same if you ever decided to leave this plantation. Some of the most harmful effects are in trying to get off them.
I got off the drugs at first because I just wanted to know who I was without the haze of my chemicals being tinkered with. I found who I was, and over time it started becoming clear to me what depression, anxiety—and in my case other long words—really are.
My conclusion is that these states are very natural and even amazingly accurate detection functions of our body and consciousness.
Part of the 'order' that this modern world has declared by fiat, is that there is really only this physical realm contend with. It is the dominant philosophy of the age. And there lies the fatal flaw in these therapies of depression; they do not consider that there are intrinsic purposes and meaning built into each human's life.
Like the flaw in Marxism; in medicine, they will imagine an ideal of society and try to fit the human into the ideal at any costs, instead of recognizing that the society must be fitted to the human, any other basis has lead to mass death in the past, no matter how well-intentioned it is.
I could go into recreational drugs and alcohol here because amazingly, this plays probably the biggest role in depression, anxiety and so on, but I'm not going to go down that path. I'll just note that in my life I have had the opportunity to know the private lives of very many people with said 'mental disorders' psychosis, bipolar, on down the line. And of the most insane of the 'patients', I've met, and even that not so many insane, do or have some other kind of chemical trip going on (including alcoholism) before they start mixing this chemical dependence in with the cocktail. Most of them would lie about it though. The pseudoscientist, of course, would call it a symptom that needs to be treated with more chemicals, and it is a symptom, but of something much dire than depression, indeed.
The Artist's Fate
The artist is a good subject to look at in trying to understand Depression, anxiety etc, because of so many times the 'artist' is one who has embraced outwardly, consciously or not, that life does have a purpose, that a search for meaning is intrinsic to us.
My understanding of Depression/ Anxiety issues
My simple yet practical understanding of depression is very personal to me. But I do believe that if you know yourself well, chances are you know most others well.
I found that depression was at it's most fundamental level, hopelessness. That anxiety was at its core embodied in procrastination and indecision. But not only in the worn our topic of 'procrastination in work-life / relationship', but more so related to one question, "will we be who we are?" Anxiety sets in and is cumulative with every indecision (hence decision) to live our own self fully. Phycosis and all this 'crazy head' diagnosis are usually the end game for someone who refuses to face themselves, to wrestle with becoming their fate.
The Simple Questions of Mental Directors
It's simply because when I feel depression there is only one question, "where did your hope go?" When facing anxieties, panic etc.. the question is also simple; "What decision(s) about your true self-are you avoiding?" For psychosis etc.. thank god that I don't deal with that anymore. And I don't have to if these two questions are acted upon.
"The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Simple, yet sometimes extremely difficult. To answer these questions is sometimes easy, but other times extremely difficult. Though the questions do have a 'bread trail' effect, meaning, that little questions must be asked and answered, not big ones, and over time they lead to bigger answers. The same with the anxieties, little decisions must be made to affect the big picture decisions. The difficulty lies in that the answers sometimes carry with them a hard to swallow price tag. Such as, for example, "I am an amazingly successful lawyer, but I desire to leave this profession to be a novel writer." In this case, the price tag is big. The lawyer must leave wealth, expectations of society, waste an expensive education and half a lifetime. He possibly will fail. Possibly (more than likely) will lose all that he perceives to be his life. So he will say to himself in that brief thought, "that's insane, immature. You have a family to take care of. You have a place in society and nice stuff, just be grateful and you can write when you retire."
"He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The abyss of our dreamed potential
Does this mean the lawyer in my example cannot continue as a lawyer and also write his novels? No not at all, but the truth is, he probably won't. Because that 'self-actualization' will require a sacrifice of some sort. Usually, a sacrifice of passions, meaning that his passions must be turned to the writing, but for most cases, success is a golden prison, it does not allow such decent. In most cases, the lawyer will retire and sit and realize that he can not write his novels. Just like a lover, if there is no time spent with her, she will eventually seek other's arms. And by this ti,e, he has had to numb himself from the truth of his life, that being that he did not live it.
Can he not live it then? Sure, he could. At any moment he could live it. But, that's where the 'Panic' comes into anxiety, it is the echo of decision after decision leading us away from our true calling. Eventually. It was a small voice of anxiety telling us our compass was off, but eventually becomes the ship lost at sea (panic disorder or severe anxiety).
Fear of falling into the unknown
We must 'dance close to the abyss' in finding a true life, as Nietzsche said. It is a danger too many of us will not accept. The medications above are made for this, for the furtherance of acceptance of our realities. What better than to cut our self off from the passions that lead us to that fearful abyss. But, further in Nietzsche's explanation, that abyss that is so feared, is our life. The darkness of the unknown life we will not consider, the life we have sold for what is vain.
A bread trail back to sanity
But of course, as something has a broader application, it has a more narrow one also. When the depressed one is given or seeks tools to increase a hopefulness of his/her endeavors, then he can walk the bread trail out of the darker parts of the woods. If he starts owning his power to decided (to sever two choices), even in the smallest parts of his life, then again, he will find the bread trail.
The trail to where though? That's another issue to deal with. To where? Who knows. I don't know. I don't think anyone on earth past or present knows where life leads to, where it is supposed to lead to, or what it is when it is done with. So there can be some comfort in knowing that of all great minds that have ever existed, not one has found the answer. So rest that question in the grave. It will be what it will be is what it will be. Some will say the religious masters answered it, like Jesus, Muhamud etc.. good... go with that. Your one of the lucky ones, the question of meaning has been settled for you; you shouldn't have to face the question again if you believe it that unquestionably.
That leads to another quote by Friedrich Nietzsche that I think sums it up.
"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Each breadcrumb lads you through moments of life. Much of depression anxieties and the like are really a hubris in disguise. An absolute unacceptance of our humble place in the universe, that being, we don't know infinitely more than what we do know.
Amor Fati the secret is to love the story
There can be a peace in this acceptance though. I like something else Nietzsche talked about relating to this topic, "Amor fati"; Love our fate. We hear now to "love our life" but amor fati has such a better scalpel edge on the true meaning of this sentiment. loving fate is to love it all. That includes the baffled moments, the hurt, the joy, the tears, the tragedy, the story of your life. Love it. Live it, don't anesthetize it away, live it in all its danger. It is your fate.
What if no one were coming to your rescue. What if that fantasy of being discovered by someone helped finally into your rightful life by their riches, influence or knowledge was just that, a fantasy. I, of course, don't know your fate, or mine even, so I can't say in the end if there are for some of us one of the rare circumstances where, despite your own abdication of your life, it is made realized by someone else, out of the blue. But, not knowing fate, I find it best to live in this way, to at least began to answer my own prayers, to face the abyss of my own hopes and longings of life. Nietzsche, I'm not sure would agree with my conclusion, but when I at least tried to live as if my life is completely and totally my responsibility; when I faced my own abyss and was willing to lose all to cross it; I found something quite miraculous. I found a faith, not in any defined religion, but just a faith that there is a hand extended on the other side of the bridge. This 'hand' as I call it, I find I can depend on being there when I do live this way.
“Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Hey thank you for reading! I'm an artist and musician living and working in Texas. I also love to write and pursue it as much as possible. If you are so inclined, please resteem, upvote, or leave me a comment. Love to hear from you