(content warning: depression, of course)

I’ve been depressed at least twice now, separately. (I might still be. This one seems to come in waves; Sep-Nov pretty bad, Dec good, Jan-Mar awful, Apr bad, May good, June bad. We’ll see about July.) I suppose that means it might come back. I would like to have the following:

1. a way to know if I’m depressed
2. a way to tell how depressed I am
3. a way to communicate how depressed I am

3 is especially important because some of my loved ones who aren’t depressed seem not to understand that there even are more than two levels: “mildly depressed but basically fine” and “suicidal”¹. So here’s my attempt² to describe some of the levels for me.

First, a concept: Same Valence Re-experiencing

(this section is mostly a condensed repetition of Fast Forward Time)

There’s all kinds of ways to think about feelings, and obviously “sad” is not the same as “bad.” Lots of days bring difficult emotions, but at the end of the day I’m glad to have gone through them, so I can’t just say “feeling sad means I’m depressed.” And some days are tough but bring good consequences; final exams, say. But one way I have to evaluate my current state that seems pretty hard to be mistaken about is simply: “Do I want more of this?”

A thought experiment: Let’s say you’re going to live to 90 years old. If you could have one more day, so your life span is now 90 years + 1 day, and this extra day would be tomorrow and would have the same valence and consequences as today, would you do it?

Roughly equivalently IMO: let’s say we’re all in The Matrix, and you have the option to spin up a second copy of yourself and have that copy re-experience today. Would you do it?

I think most people who aren’t depressed would say yes most of the time.

Alternately, do you want less of your life? If you could cut out the next day or week or month so that you just wake up tomorrow and it’s N days later (but not like Rip Van Winkle; you had lived normally and done normal things, you just didn’t experience it), would you?

Anyway, on to depression levels:

These are mostly cumulative - if I’m at level N, I’m experiencing most of level 1…N-1 also.

Level 1: mildly depressed, or “cold depression”

• Feeling kind of blah and aimless, “what am I doing with my life?”
• Feeling always tired, taking forever to wake up
• Feeling like I’ve always been depressed (Superb Owl gives a great description of this)
• Many days thinking “I would not Same Valence Re-experience today.”

Level 2: “hot depression”

• “Running out of swear words” - cursing under my breath at something but every foul word I can think of doesn’t come close to expressing how much I hate it
• Sometimes leaving my house to go to the garage and scream
• Sometimes riding my bike to places I can scream (here’s a couple in SF³, I still have to find my scream spots in Pittsburgh)
• Having an interaction with a car that goes not-awesome, and having the thought “I hope they just run me over” or “I hope they’re one of these whackos who has a gun and shoots me out of road rage.” This thought passes in a matter of minutes and I never act on it.
• Upper middle back pain tends to act up somewhere between stage 1 and 2
• Many days I wouldn’t Same Valence Re-experience, and I would in fact like to fast-forward.
• Journaling angry things just so I don’t say them aloud

Level 3: “uncontrolled hot depression”

• Picking fights more at people in cars. Like, telling someone off for parking in a bike lane or passing me too close. I don’t perform aggression besides yelling, but even that can escalate a situation more than is healthy.
• Sometimes yelling in my house. Not at anyone; sometimes at an object that breaks or at an external issue. But it still makes me unpleasant, and even a little scary, to be around.
• I’d like to fast forward longer periods of time; weeks or months. I would pay a lot not to Same Valence Re-experience these days (e.g. I’d give up a few days of lifespan in order to avoid doing one of these days.)
• Journal starts to look like a crazy person’s writing it, lots of scratches, hard presses, streams of curses

Level 4: “beginning escapism”

• Fantasies of escaping my current situation begin: “what if I quit everything and moved to Wyoming?” These are not well-thought-out; they’re kind of just soothing daydreams.
• Not really thoughts of self-harm, but thoughts of “it sure would be nice if I didn’t wake up tomorrow”
• I’d love to fast forward months or years, for sure.
• This starts to feel cooler again - the heat of stages 2-3 is wearing off. Too worn down to be angry.
• Journaling becomes mostly repetitive and exhausted stuff, not angry stuff.

This is as low as I’ve gone, thank goodness, but it’s awful! The rest is conjecture; there may be more to it than this; I hope I don’t find out:

Level 5: “no really, escapism”

• actually considering suicide, or rash life decisions like moving to Wyoming

Level 6: “escape logistics”

• um, “suicidal-with-a-plan”, the kind of thing where you’d get involuntarily committed depending on where you went and what you said

Level 7: “even lower than that”

• god I dunno, but apparently this exists⁴

afterthoughts

That’s all the levels I can think of. Of course, the experience is not really this linear. But it at least helps me place myself, and maybe will give me some language when talking with family.

Levels 3+ start creating epicycles too; like, I’m pissed off, I yell at my wife, now I’m pissed off and now I have to deal with the fact that I yelled at her. Or, I’m talking with my mom and she gets worried in a way I don’t like, so I have to backpedal and pretend I’m not feeling as bad as I am.

I guess I’m saying, it is a huge benefit to go from level 3 to level 2, or 2 to 1. Almost like this stuff is logarithmic.