Thread by @finereli

May I be blunt for a moment here?

We treat depression like this horrible disease that's very difficult to treat, requiring a combination of therapy, medication, meditation and God knows what else.

It's not. It's actually pretty simple.

You start with an emotion, say anger. And you realize (usually as a kid) that's it's not OK to feel it. Everyone tells you so. So you shove it out of the way, where it festers all the while leaving you convinced you don't ever actually feel anger.

Then you grow up and that festering ball of anger grows inside you, consuming ever more bits of your soul to feed itself. At some point you realize you don't feel anything anymore. You're a dead man (or woman) walking.

You can't find a reason to get up in the morning, to take a shower, to eat something more nutritious than Nachos, to call a friend. Your performace at work suffers, your partner (if you managed to actually build a meaningful relationship) feels abandoned.

Life is shit. But it's just anger. Repressed, accumulated over the years, festered and putrid (is that even a word?) but just anger. A truckload of it.

A few years ago I was at a plant medicine ceremony (a bunch of people taking mild psychedelics and helping each other with the mayhem that ensues). I came there to deal with my anger that was overflowing, bubbling out of me, corroding my relationship with my wife and my kid.

After the substance took effect I found myself standing in front of a tree, looking it straight in the eye, and ROARING. I was by myself in the little forest and I went for it. The ROAR kept coming and coming and it seemed like I didn't even need to breathe in.

A deep, rumbling, angry, musculine, intense ROAR.

It didn't seem to have an end. I thought I'd stand there until the end of time ROARing my anger, my frustration, my repressed being for me, for my entire family, for my entire clan (I'm Jew-ish), for our world.

Finally, about 30 minutes later it ended. There was nothing left. I was spent. And I couldn't find any anger anymore. There was nothing there, just peace and serenity.

I vowed that day that I would find a way to process my anger the moment it arises. I would not be depressed anymore. I would not be repressed anymore, I would not succumb to our perverse society that allows only certain emotions at certain times:

You can be angry at a football game, scared on a rollercoaster and sad at a funeral. But try to express (or even feel) any of those things out of context and you'll be told in no uncertain terms to STOP.

We've gone so far in repressing our emotions that we consider not having any the pinnacle of sanity. We've elevated psychopathy to godhood. The sobbing, angry, shaking man is insane. The stoic, never-shed-a-tear statue of a man is sane.

Are we fucking nuts? Did we completely forget what it means to be human?

No. We didn't. We are just terrified of what a generation of fully present, fully in touch with their emotions, fully expressed, angry, loving, afraid, courageous, raging and sexual people can do to the world order.

It's time to wake up. It's time for the highly sensitive, the depressed, the anxious, the unhinged and beautiful HUMAN BEINGS to stand up and say - NO MORE.

WE WILL NOT TOE THE LINE. WE WILL NOT REPRESS OURSELVES. WE WILL NOT BEHAVE.

WE WILL LIVE.

WE WILL FEEL.

EVERYTHING!

(Hmm... Didn't think this was what I was going to write. But I'm keeping it. Good night.)