that they always have been depressed and always will be. The mood lifts
a bit later in the day, but not much.
Goethe, who had melancholic tendencies, said, “Despair knows itself
not,” which is a profound psychological observation. Depression is a dis-
tortion in perception that is invisible to the people who have it. They think
it’s the world that’s dismal rather than their own mood.
Depressed people will say they’re not overly negative, only realistic.
Sadly, they’re right. In many studies, depressed people are more accurate
observers and predictors of events than their more “normal” peers. Mental
health at least partly consists of unwarranted optimism. As Alexander Pope
said, “Hope springs eternal ... ”
Most “normal” people remember only the first part of Pope’s couplet,
and take it for grudging praise of a positive attitude. They don’t get it. The
whole thing is:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is but always to be blest.”Pope, like Goethe, was clinically depressed.
Though depression tends to diminish motivation, there is something
about melancholia that makes people want to write. Without depression,
there wouldn’t be much need for literature. Movies would suffice.
Depression lends depth to human experience. When people are happy,
they seldom look inside themselves to find out why. When they’re
unhappy, they seldom do anything else.
DISTURBANCE OF VEGETATIVE PROCESSES. Depressions often involve
physiological slowing, with disruption of basic survival functions like eating
and sleeping. Thinking and movement may also slow down.
The gauge of a depression’s severity is the extent to which vegetative
functions are impaired. Disturbance of eating and sleeping are very common
in the first week or so following a loss like a death or divorce, when the body
shuts down in response to shock. That part of the condition usually resolves
fairly quickly. If it doesn’t, or if people who have not suffered a loss are not
eating or sleeping for more than three days, the condition is serious, and
requires immediate professional care.
Explosions into Sadness ❧ 149