Cyde Weys Musings

I suffer from temporary bouts of triggered depression. This is a far cry from real depression, of course, as it only sticks around for a little while (usually less than a day) after a strong sorrowful stimulus. What kind of stimulus am I talking about? Here’s a geeky example.

Yesterday night I caught up on watching Battlestar Galactica (I was behind by three episodes or so). For those of you who haven’t seen it, the show is very dystopian and depressing. Three episodes right in a row is a large dose. So I was in a depressive funk for the rest of the night. I don’t particularly know why this affects me so, but every time I watch something depressing, I start getting depresed myself. Is it empathy? Sympathy? I don’t know, other than to say that I believe I get it to a larger degree than most people.

I saw Children of Men when it came out and that was very depressing too, to the point where the effects actually lingered into the next day. But despite the sadness, it was still a really good movie and I’m glad I saw it. For me, experiencing the sadness that is shown on-screen just comes with the territory, and I have to live with it. I wonder, though, most of my friends it seems aren’t affected by on-screen melancholy at all. Are they faking it? Or do they really just keep in their minds the whole time that it’s fictional? But then, what if it’s not fictional, like that movie I saw over Christmas called The Pursuit of Happyness?

The “great” thing about temporary depression, though, is that you know exactly what’s brought it on, and thus it’s very easy to ride out, knowing it’ll be gone shortly. It’s a far cry from real depression, which I imagine is much worse, especially because you have no idea when it’s going to end (if ever!). I wonder if “temporary depression” is even a good phrase to use. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’ll continue experiencing this probably to the end of my life, because I’m not going to stay away from watching sad things on screen. The world is a sad place anyway; you can’t shield yourself from it.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 12:35 and is filed under Personal. Keywords: Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Children of Men, depression, dystopia, emotion, empathy, melancholy, sadness, sympathy, temporary depression, The Pursuit of Happyness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.