State of Mind

Insight related depression

It is distressing, to say the least, to find oneself recovering from schizophrenia after just being put on a medication that works. The insight opening new views of another reality are not only mind numbing, rather they strike you with the force of waking up from a nightmare. Only, you are too mute to respond, too numb to respond. The feeling of helplessness in this world where your brain screwed it all up and the fact that you are still bound to it and it could happen again not only makes you realize the gravity of the failure that your life has been, and all of it as soon as you were going to make your mark, going to change the world, going to win the war.

You try to find instances from the ruins of your life, instances that give hope, that give a feeling of having accomplished something, something worthwhile, something that you have contributed in society, to society. Rummaging through your past, trying to justifying your present, in order to live for the future. It is no wonder that insight induced depression and suicide is one of the most surprising facts of this disease. Not only does a chance of recovery bring hope for the carer, rather it instills the fear that recovery may lead to the realization that there is nothing worth in life that you can do, nothing that interests you, nothing that you can accomplish without anyone bringing you down again. And these are normal people who bring you down, who don't let you function, because they are the ones with over expressed emotions, with zilch understanding of how to deal with us, they are the ones afraid to speak out the truth, to accept the truth, actively, participating in it towards fulfillment.

The only way to make sure that we do not end our lives on the path to recovery is to make sure that we gradually start accomplishing little things, no matter what they are, for we have lost interest in all, start rekindling a new flame, trying to define a purpose in life, something to do that can give you a sense of being, some strength. It is with this understanding and help that we can come out of insight related depression, that we can gain a new interest in life, that life serves itself a purpose if only for existence. In the end, the purpose gives us hope, and that is enough to keep us going.