Mart-deBlog

People who read this blog have come to me, sometimes a little shocked, about the depressed content of certain posts. The last one was written in a slightly drunken state, "Caught in void". This time I will write about myself from a more objective standpoint; I took a big psychological test and yes indeed, I am officially depressed. I don't really care though and want to explain why.

One of my courses this year is Clinical Psychology, about psychotherapy. I get on well with the professor who is a practicing therapist himself and he offered me to do the famous MMPI test outside class time. The MMPI is based on large empirical research of psychotic diseases and their symptoms, it is the standard test that is applied when you enter therapy. It consists of 600 questions. To make this post not too boring, you can do an official psychological test yourself, although it is a supertiny one. Do the Myers-Briggs (don't worry, just character traits on couple of scales) by surfing here.

So Dr. Dunn comes to me and asks "were you honest in your answers" and I answer that I was. Then he says he needs some time to discuss it and so I went there for half an hour today in my break. In a nutshell:
1. I have a depression, to a (severe) clinical degree.
2. I do not suffer to an unbearable degree. Meaning that the depression has been long-lasting and I have found a way to cope with the depression myself. Or in other words, I do not have a depressive episode but rather a depressed personality.
3. I readily admit issues (such as I do now) but nobody can help me with it. I do not trust/believe/want help from the outside. Therapy could maybe only help if longterm (on average, five years of therapy).

Of course there was more information, about my cynical character, shyness, etc etc but the depression scale was clearly the biggest issue. Especially interesting was the combination of the depression, my resistance against help from the outside, and So then you hear this psychotherapist telling you all the things you already know, and which everyone who knows me suspected. What do you do with this information? Well let me give my compacted ideas, whether it sounds like a defense mechanism you can judge for yourself;-).

This notorious MMPI is based on statistical research, so on averages of a group. I can experience my depression differently than any other would experience it, even when the symptoms are the same. Also the MMPI is American, coming from the culture where deviation and non-conformism is considered a disease and unhappiness a sickness. I believe the experience of tragedy in life is just as intens and beautiful as the experience of happiness, even more it is the sense of melancholia that gives meaning to euphoria and vice versa. America has the best universities in the world, still every genius in America comes from Europe, and I believe partly this is because of the tragedy that is taboo in America and embraced in Europe. Nietszche would agree with me. Curing my depression would mean veiling part of my (supposedly 'over'sensitive) experience of life, I just experience somedarker realms as well as the lighter days. The occasional wandering in the darker regions of life only signal authentic and real experiences. It is in the differences from other people where our individuality lies, almost all my friends have slight psychotic features and that is only the expression of their uniqueness, I appreciate them for it: they know areas of life I don't and most people don't. And fuck-it, I just don't care that I am depressed. Ha!