I have suffered from depression on and off since 2012 and probably a lot longer. In 2012 I came under a lot of stress, had a meltdown worse than any I’d had before, at a time when I couldn’t afford to just take time off to deal with it myself, and went to see my doctor, then a psychiatrist, then a therapist, and ended up taking sick leave from my job, a course of anti-depressants and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
A standard thing people try to do to help deal with depression is “taming the black dog”. The idea is that you get comfy with the idea that whatever you feel, however nasty, is part of you. You own it, it doesn’t own you. Another thing, part of CBT, is teaching yourself that even the worst thing that might realistically happen is not the end of the world (once you have your head around that, you can stop believing that it will happen). This page is an attempt to do both of those.
A few years ago now I gave humourous letter grades to the world’s flags. The last time I came back up from a bout of depression, it suddenly seemed like a stroke of genius to do the same to my symptoms (see Hypomania below). I have not attempted to review every possible symptom. Mostly, depression is no barrel of laughs. But in retrospect some symptoms are quite funny. So I have just chosen a few choice picks.
Before I begin, some caveats:
Social phobia You are talking to someone you know well in a regular social context. They are opening and closing their mouth but all you can hear is the deafening roar made by that tornado of negative thoughts in the center of your head. Or perhaps you can hear them, but it’s like that Farside cartoon where the cows are mocking the humans by imitating talking noises “Yak, yak, yakkety yak!” (except with a tornado in the background). When you try to ask them to repeat themselves your own voice comes out really slow and flat, like an old vinyl record being played at the wrong speed. Then you notice that the person you are talking to has a concerned expression on their face. Perhaps that is because your own face has unexpectedly melted off (see below) revealing how inadequate you really are. Letter grade: F
Facemelt 
This one starts gradually with a bit of difficulty smiling under circumstances when a reasonable person would do so. In the second stage, smiling is still possible, but it is like running a marathon and you have to limber up first and limit yourself to a small and diminishing number of smiles per day. In the third stage, your face feels like lead, and as if it is about to fall off your skull under its own weight like what happens to the Nazis in the facemelt scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also the negative thoughts are making you think that something you have done is the moral equivalent of Nazism and your face falling off is a just punishment for all the wrong turns you have made in your life. Letter grade: F
Difficulty getting out of bed It’s too hard to make a booking to see your therapist because that would involve getting out of bed, and it has suddenly become very uncertain whether that is the right thing to do. You are so tired. Hours pass while you wonder whether now is the time to move your leg so that your foot touches the floor. Once your foot is on the floor you are not sure what to do next. If you could only talk to your therapist she would tell you that you are not tired, you have depression, not chronic fatigue, and you should be getting up and doing stuff, not lying in bed withdrawing from the world. But it is Catch 22 (with an added touch of Zeno’s Paradox) because for her to tell you that you have to get out of bed first. Letter grade: F
Hypomania Hypomania is a persistent euphoric state without psychosis (it is to mania as Kevin Philips-BONG! is to Tarquin Fimbimlimtimwim Bus Stop F’tang F’tang Ole Biscuitbarrel). If you have regular old depression, as opposed to bipolar, you probably won’t experience genuine hypomania, which has to last several days. I have never experienced genuine hypomania. However, there is this phenomenon that when you start feeling better after a depressive episode, it’s SO MUCH BETTER. Better than the best recreational drug you have ever taken better. Just as you can spiral down thinking about how bad you feel, you can spiral up thinking about much better you feel until you are writing a hilarious-to-you website about your depression and showing it to strangers. This is especially likely if you have washed down your meds with Chimay Blue and a grapefruit (you wouldn’t do that on purpose just to feel euphoric, would you?) Letter grade: A-… no, wait, A… no, wait A++ (is that a grade? It is now.)
Physical anxiety symptoms A real grab bag: constant lump in the throat, or chest pain like you are having a heart attack, or someone has discovered that you are a vampire and impaled you, except that they didn’t do it quite right and so you are left with a stake through your chest for the rest of your immortal vampire life. One time I had this for a week, and kept dreaming that my therapist had recommended impaling as a cure for depression. But at least I was sleeping. Letter grade: C
Akathisia This is when you feel as though you can’t sit still or else you will die. It’s like your entire life is one long flight on Ryanair. It is especially bad when combined with inability to get out of bed. It can be caused by simple anxiety, or by the drugs you are taking to control your anxiety. You can take more drugs to control your akathisia, but they will cause you to have difficulty getting out of bed. Or they might just make the akathisia worse. Or give you another motion disorder, like pseudo-parkinsonism. Or all of the above. Letter grade: F
Getting worse All anti-depressants make you feel worse before you feel better. The worse I have ever felt was about 1 or 2 weeks into a course of ADs where you have enough built-up in your system for them to be really affecting you and not enough time has elapsed for them to do their magic. Still, it is better to feel terrible for a couple of weeks knowing you will feel better later than to feel bad for months on end. Yes, talking cures can tend to make you feel worse at first too. Letter grade: F
Athlete’s foot You are depressed so you don’t bother to wash your feet or your socks often enough. You are taking SSRIs so you are sweating all the time. Fungal infection ensues. Letter grade: D
Exploding head syndrome I like that this is really what it’s called and it is listed on the PI sheet of most SSRIs. (It even has a wikipedia page, just like man-eating badger.) It can be caused by stopping taking them. “They said that SSRIs have a worse withdrawal syndrome than opiates - but that’s ridiculous!” Disappointingly, EHS does not involve your head literally exploding (it does literally involve your head exploding… metaphorically exploding that is) but is just a recurring and unpleasant auditory hallucination that feels like a sudden explosion inside your head. Another related symptom is the feeling that the universe suddenly and very rapidly rotated 360 degrees around you while you were distracted. Letter grade: C
Pseudo-parkinsonism This is an involuntary motion disorder (as opposed to akathisia, which is a voluntary motion disorder). Basically, it’s trembling as if you have suddenly become a 90 year old chain smoker. Any drug that helps with akathisia either causes this, or puts you to sleep forever, or, most likely, both. Letter grade: C+
Cured my hay fever Here’s a really fun fact: practically every modern psych medication is based on some kind of anti-histamine that biochemists noticed had some kind of mild anti-depressant or anti-psychotic action. SSRIs? They’re all modified versions of pheniramine Atypical anti-psychotics? They’re based on promethazine. Diphenhydramine is a more potent sedative than any benzodiazapine, has a mild anti-psychotic action, and you can buy it over-the-counter at your local chemist. This also means that your psych meds will probably cure your hay fever as a side-effect. Letter grade: B+
Jerod Poore, who is a more senior member of the mental illness clubhouse than me, and whose website http://www.crazymeds.us is correspondingly funnier and more informative than this one.
Geezer Butler, who clearly knows what depression is like, though not what it is called.
Until September 2016 I am a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College and an Associate Professor in the Oxford Philosophy Faculty. From then on, I'll be a Senior Adviser at the New Zealand Ministry of Transport.
My intellectual interests are mainly in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and ethics, and of course transport policy.
