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[lue]

Bear with me here. It might be quite a bit.

So, for the past few days (since about 9 Sept. or 10 Sept.), I've been having a more terrible than usual bout of obsessing over questions concerning our mortality (mine and others). Y'know, stuff that you have no control over (except various measures to prolong your life, but that only ever delays the problem, instead of solving it).

Usually, when I get one of these bouts, it simply is something I obsess over as night falls. Within a few days or a couple of weeks, these terrible, useless questions leave my mind. This time though, it affected me more than an intellectual worry in the minutes-to-an-hour-at-most before sleeping, it became an emotionally traumatizing process. One where I feel sad, distressed, and a sort of knot in the center of my chest.

I'm far better than when I started getting these thoughts a few days ago, where I sat useless, crippled, almost paralyzed by these tormenting issues. Now, since I decided to give meditation of a simple kind a try, in addition to refusing to latch onto these thoughts as they recur as much I can, I feel better. Yet I still find myself getting tied up inside, looking for some way to relieve the pressure. My efforts so far feels permanent but have only been temporary. I'm looking to fix this.

(The "not latch onto these thoughts" bit, to explain myself better, is comparable to seeing a file on your system and refusing to open it up. I come across this file of distressing questions often, and avoid most of the time the temptation to open and read it.)

I suppose it's onset by the fact that, summer vacation now over, my brothers have gone back to another year at school. I graduated a few months ago from high school, not searching for a college at the time because of a lack of motivation to do so, which I now deeply regret. I'm living at home now, still, and I guess this was onset by a realization inside that my life is supposed to move on to better things at this point, which itself was brought on, I'm guessing, by the fact that my usual three-month summer vacation hasn't ended by this point with school.

(I should say at this point that I already feel better, just by writing this. However, it feels suspiciously similar to other methods I've used in the past days that have made me feel better, and I also don't yet as good as I might other times. I shall therefore wait to put this on the forum and discuss it with others before truly feeling as though I'm starting to feel better.)

I'm not a very social person, and haven't been for quite a few years by this point (a couple months before graduating I made the sorry realization that I was unfamiliar with the process of making plans with friends, to give you an idea.) I know that this hasn't been helping my situation in any way, and probably hurting it quite a bit .

How have I dealt with this worst bout? As I mentioned above, I early on in this bout wanted to try meditation just to calm my nerves, and what a wonder just a couple of minutes makes! It doesn't solve the distressing questions, but it sure goes a long way in me feeling better. I've also been trying to find funny things, and spend time with my family in little ways when I can, just to feel better. (My reclusive lifestyle the past few years has extended to my immediate family. Although for the past year I've been little by little trying to fight back against this trend. My desire to stop wasting my days brooding in this current bout has certainly helped.)

Had I written and published this post a couple of days ago, I would've been convinced it was depression. However, just recently I decided to go searching and it's also possible I have primarily-obsessive OCD or perhaps "just" GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder).

Because I'd rather not think about it for long, even if just for this post, let me say a thing or two on the whole concept of mortality I've been obsessing over. I've (wisely perhaps) given up on finding a satisfactory scientific answer to my worries, and would rather just be able to accept this fact of our finite lives and move the hell on.

Especially because, if on the off-chance my worries are a result of PO-OCD, apparently looking for a satisfactory answer would make things worse, and I should instead look to not giving a damn. Which, incidentally, I'd like to do anyway . (Even if I don't have PO-OCD and I would be psychologically fine in searching for a good answer, mortality seems to be the one thing where I have to accept it as an unanswerable question.)

Things I am or will be trying someday:

• Speak with a psychiatrist, or at least some doctor to start. That's critical, and not something I can put off for a very long time. During high school I also pegged myself as potentially having social anxiety disorder and ADHD-PI (because self diagnosis is so reliable). It wouldn't hurt in any case.
• Open up to my parents about how I'm feeling. How do you get over that hurdle though, especially when the most you can open up is to a bunch of largely unknown people on an internet forum ? I know they would be supportive of me, the only potential strain being on our finances in the case of medical treatment.
• Keep meditating. I'll only get more effective with time and practice. I do it every night for a couple of minutes to calm myself, and I do it for small moments throughout the day when necessary (although those momentary variations probably won't be really effective until I get better at meditation in general.) The takeaway I get from meditation so far is to stop and just breathe when you feel overwhelmed.
• Exercise, of which I currently do none. For some reason I get incredibly embarrassed just at the thought of changing my habits for the better. For some indescribable reason, I'm overly worried over what my family's reaction will be when I try to do something different. There may be light teasing that I'm not being my normal self!, but nothing else beyond that.
  
  (I could just tell them I wouldn't appreciate such teasing, but that requires overcoming the same uncomfortable hurdles as everything else I've mentioned.)
  
  Although, I can at least do something in my room when I'm confident no-one would interrupt me. Probably playing out some of the more maniacal parts in Jesus Christ Superstar . Hey, a little tiny bit of exercise is better than none at all, right? I'm particularly thinking of the 2000 DVD version, especially Judas and Pilate.
• Probably go to a college next year. I suspect/hope that moving out and away from where all my current habits and patterns work just fine will force me to develop new, hopefully more sociable, habits than what I have.
• In the interim, perhaps do some edX or other online courses, if for no other reason than to show better effort than my final times at high school (taking the IB when you're prone to procrastinating boring things is a terrible thing to allow continuing).
• I could/should also hold down a job, perhaps at the local Best Buy or similar. Money is only the secondary goal here; right now I feel more concerned with some excuse to get out of the house, and I don't do anything that requires leaving at the moment. Sure I'll be giving up my all-day freedom, but something tells me (and probably you) that I'm not doing much with it anyway

Other thoughts:

Thanks to Sappho for her post in an earlier discussion thread on depression. Thanks for the Cracked articles (and the cool song ). One thing in particular that struck me from "5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won't)", and that I need to constantly keep in mind for the next thought I write in this post, is:

Experts have figured out that the brain has no ability to actually predict your emotional reaction to life changes that haven't happened yet. In other words, you physically do not know what you want. The act of sitting around pondering it is apparently what fucks you up.

That's quite possibly the most comforting thing I've read recently; that I effectively can't predict what I'll be, like, like to do, or anything about myself in the future.

Also: I've noticed, at least when depressed, it's so much easier to think of what you have that you can lose (your family, Barry Gibb, Doctor Who, etc.) or what's already been lost (one of our cats, the next Bee Gees album, etc.) than it is to think of what you can gain in the future, primarily because you can't predict what will exist in the future, much less what of it you like (see above Cracked quote).

If some story from the Doctor Who-niverse has addressed the afterlife (or lack thereof) in a comforting fashion, or gives you reason to not care, don't hesitate to let me know about it . Preferably something BBC-licensed.

I need to keep in mind this Oatmeal comic and hope to someday have this epiphany for myself.

Although it's the subject of my depressing thoughts, I'd appreciate if we didn't focus too much on the subject of mortality here. To go back to the file analogy, it's hard enough opening up that file just to be able to write this post, I'd appreciate if you all didn't force me to keep opening that file to tell you what's in it. Not that I won't cooperate in the ensuing discussion, but I am trying to push it out of my habitual thinking before it's too late. (It's apparently a read-only file for me, and I don't have root privileges to say otherwise, thus I can't just delete it and be done with it.)

Writing this post makes me feel better, but not in a "weight off my shoulders" way exactly. For some reason this is the analogy that popped into my head:

If my issues are the Mandelbrot, complete with all its infinite complexity, then writing this was me stepping far away enough from the thing to draw a bounding box around the shape.

What I'm saying is this post made me feel like I took a scary, poorly-defined, seemingly limitless and eternal mental issue and, through writing about it, was able to define the boundaries of it. The problem isn't gone, but feels more manageable (and more easily conquerable) now that I can see how far it stretches. Before I didn't have a clear idea on where it ended.

Well, that was depressing. I bet you could use some upbeat music right about now. I bet I'm right; if so, I guess we must have E•S•P or something .

[LordBucket]

I decided to give meditation of a simple kind a try

The "not latch onto these thoughts" bit, to explain myself better, is comparable to seeing a file on your system and refusing to open it up. I come across this file of distressing questions often, and avoid most of the time the temptation to open and read it.)

It may be helpful to realize that thoughts and feelings are different things, and they respond differently to stimuli.

For example, if a puppy nuzzles your face, do you:

A)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Examine the facial proportions of the puppy and compare it to your recollection of the general proportions of human babies and conclude that because these overall proportions are somewhat similar it should come as no surprise if a protective/nurture instinct should come into play that inspires a desire for you to protect the puppy and keep it safe from harm. But then consider also that much like Pavlov's dog, it's possible that humans, be they individuals or a cultural group, might have become conditioned to certain responses through years of behavioral reinforcement that might or might not relate to a nurture instinct. For example, it might be purely selfishly motivated at the subconscious level because puppies grow up to become dogs, which historically have served humans in a protective capacity, e.g. guarding a cave from intruders and barking at those who approach.

B)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 Smile and feel happy.

I'm guessing B.

If you feel bad, and you want to feel better...then maybe try speaking to yourself in the language of feelings, rather than the language of thought?

No wonder your heart is unhappy if it just wants happy and you keep giving it long, boring technically-minded speeches.

Stop thinking so much and go feel. The heart doesn't need a reason why. No amount of logically conceived reasons will convince your heart to feel differently. But a simple smile from a pretty girl, a puppy licking your face, somebody looking you in the eye and saying "I love you", even if your brain knows it's not true...can change your entire emotional experience, for that moment.

Here you go:

Lue, I love you. I think you're a wonderful human being and you're important to me. I'd really like it if you felt happy, because you're good enough and you deserve to feel happy. You're totally worthy of happiness, and I'd like for you to have it. I love you. Please be ok. Be better than ok. Be awesome. Because you are awesome. For me? Please? Thank you. Also, there's a puppy licking your face and a beautiful girl just hugged you. Because you're worthy of that.





How does that feel?


If you want to feel, then feel. Don't feed logic to your heart. That's not what it needs.

[lue]

Thank you, LordBucket. That did make me feel better .

Something happened last night whilst meditating, which I think is basically what you told me, from another way. During the session the thought of "I will die someday" came up in my mind, and instead of just letting it go and going back to focusing on breathing, I first thought something to the effect of "It is a simple fact, nothing more".

Since then, whenever these annoying thoughts come to mind, I just repeat this line to the thought (instead of trying to ignore it), and it seems to help. Getting in a habit of demoting it from a terrible revelation to a simple and uninteresting fact seems to help.

And your post explained to me why, this morning, saying that line to myself didn't seem to make me feel better. I was getting that knot again, and worried I would have to search for another "solution". But now I know it's just a way of satisfying the logical bits of my brain. I still need to go after happy feelings, in addition to satisfying my brain.

(And I want to make clear something I think I neglected originally: while the start of this "bout" was the worst I can remember ever feeling, I'm right now fine and at a point more similar to all the previous times I entered this state of horrible thinking: just some annoying thoughts I need to stop thinking, which will take a few days.)

Edit: I just want to say here that I'm feeling much better now, with those annoying thoughts mostly gone. The only weird thing is that I feel physically sick (just some upset stomach and some coughing), and I'm not sure if that's due to a bug I caught or me working myself up so badly earlier.

[lue]

Eh, not to be pushy, but I could use some more discussion. I didn't post this topic because I was a little sad.

I seem to be going through a roller-coaster of sorts; sometimes I feel terrible, and sometimes just fine. This tends to cycle at least a couple times throughout the day. I don't know if I'm still feeling bad because of this stomachache or if it's because I've truly tumbled into depression (instead of just, say, a small period of sadness like the ones I've had many many months before).

So I have some questions for those who are reading.

• How do I tell my parents? Specifically, how do I overcome the mental barriers to being open with them? Do I really need to wait until that oh-so-common "rock bottom" moment, or is there something I can do before that happens?
• What can I do to feel better? If you look at the OP there are already some things I know about at least. Is there anything else? Perhaps something I could participate in here or elsewhere on the Internet, to at the very least stave off the apparently depression-inducing boredom? (I wouldn't object to writing stories, drawing things, 3D modeling in Blender, to give you some sense of what to recommend.)
• Why is it that I didn't really feel any better today until I started writing this post? Seriously, what's up with that?

Thank for reading, and maybe responding.

EDIT: I just noticed: it's quite weird that there are a lot of articles online about "How to Talk to Someone About Their Depression" and almost none on "How to Talk to Someone About Your Depression"

[LordBucket]

Why is it that I didn't really feel any better today until I started writing this post?

Inertia.


That one word conveys more meaning than might be immediately obvious. Think very carefully about the implications.

What can I do to feel better?

1) Find things that you generally feel good while doing, and do them.

2) When you notice that you are engaging in habits that result in unhappiness, break the pattern, and do something else. It doesn't really matter what.

No, really. It doesn't matter what.

Think of it this way: imagine if you had picked up the habit of smashing your face into your desk. And it hurts to do it. But it's a habit. It's a pattern that you've established, and every day you smash your face on your desk. So...one day you notice that you're smashing your face on your desk. And it hurts, like always. What do you need to do to "feel better?" All you need to do is something other than smash your face on the desk. Sing to yourself. Jump up and down and recite nursery rhymes. Wave your arms like a chicken. It doesn't matter. Doing any of those things would cause you to no longer be smashing your face on your desk. And that's what you need to do: stop smashing your face on your desk. Maybe you'll feel silly jumping up and down reciting nursery rhymes, but feeling silly is better than feeling depressed, right?

The only complication here is that in this case, the thing you're doing that hurts is an internal mental/emotional thing. And that makes it something that you can continue to do while doing other things. It's still possible to sulk while watching tv, while walking around, while talking to people, etc.

So...when you become aware that you are engaging in unhealthy mental/emotional patterns, break those patterns by doing something else, and continue to observe to make sure that you're not engaging in them. The brain is an association machine, and there is a tendency to associate states with actions, but new patterns can be established. That's how the brain works. So...if you spend enough time unhappy while doing some particular activity, doing that activity will tend to trigger that unhappiness. Simply doing some other activity will cause you to stop triggering the mental pattern of unhappiness. But, you need to monitor the process, because it's possible to create new associations. For example, if you're depressed while staring at a wall, and then go eat cake...if you still feel depressed while eating cake it's possible to "learn" to associate eating cake with depression so that next time you eat cake, you might become depressed even if you weren't already. It's important to understand this. Be aware of your states. You want to create associations that will make you happy, but associations that will make you unhappy.

However, in general, physical activity is a simple easy "out" for pattern breaking, because your body tends to produce feel-good endorphins while doing it. Jogging, for example, causes your body to produce chemicals that aren't conducive to feeling bad. Try something physically active, and that should be easier for pattern breaking than something like watching television, talking to people, etc.

How do I tell my parents? Specifically, how do I overcome
the mental barriers to being open with them?

Why would you want to? It's entirely likely that you learned your habits from them. Concern yourself with you, not them.

Do I really need to wait until that oh-so-common "rock bottom" moment,
or is there something I can do before that happens?

My advice would be to avoid for now. Confrontation can be beneficial, but you want to confront when you know you'll win. While I don't know first-hand about your situation...from previous experience, very often "other people" in the lives of unhappy people are contributing to their unhappiness. Removing people from your life is sometimes beneficial. It will be up to you to evaluate whether this is such a case. I don't know your situation. But either way, reconciling emotionally with your parents really doesn't need to be high on your priority list right now.

Take care of you first.

[lue]

Thanks again for replying. This being a lower forum and all, I was getting a little panicked that I wasn't being listened too "fast enough" or whatever.

I'll keep in mind trying to break the pattern, but I don't do anything outside this house. I'm thinking it would still be beneficial to talk to them at some point, if only as an explanation for suddenly wanting to go places all the time. Although I must say, I don't feel nearly as panicked about needing to talk to them right now anymore.

I suppose I'm just suffering from questioning the point of life when it's limited as it is and seemingly meaningless. I know that doing more with it would help immensely. I'm just suspicious that I may be suffering from real, honest-to-god depression.

I suppose I just need to get a life.

[LordBucket]

I don't do anything outside this house.

That might be part of the problem.

I'm thinking it would still be

I suppose I'm just

I know that

I'm just suspicious that

I may be suffering

I suppose I just

Don't fall into old patterns.

[nenjin]

Inertia

I'll second this. Thinking about life, its meaning, the process, all of it is very different than living it. Living life answers many things, thinking about life and the big picture too much just tends make you unhappy or insane.

We often dwell on things not looking for answers or solutions. It's why talking politics generally with people doesn't usually lead to people feeling good. It's why considering the carnage at home or internationally in the news lives you feeling sick inside. It's why thinking about the mortal coil leads to despair.

Death in particular. I struggled a lot with the concept as a kid. The idea of having lived a life worthy of eternal rest is what eventually kind of snapped me out of it, something as a child I didn't have the opportunity to understand.

So yeah. Seek answers to your questions out in the world, and in life. Not in your room and in your head. Some answers are found inside in moments of quiet reflection, but fewer than you'd think. The world has most of your answers. I'm not saying some of those answers won't depress you, make you feel crappy sometimes. But like LB said. At least moving forward, having inertia, you're not sitting still in the middle of those emotions going nowhere. New answers give you a different perspective on previous answers, eventually granting you the wisdom to be at peace.

[lue]

Thanks again for the responses. I think I'll look into starting a winter term at the local community college, just to get out of the house.

I'm still considering telling my parents within the next couple of days, if for no other reason than to get over that inertia. I'm realizing now that it's hard to feel upbeat when you just keep thinking about stuff instead of doing stuff.

Again, I should keep in mind:

Experts have figured out that the brain has no ability to actually predict your emotional reaction to life changes that haven't happened yet. In other words, you physically do not know what you want. The act of sitting around pondering it is apparently what fucks you up.

I feel like I'll never be able to fully accept our mortality. But, that Cracked quote and your words, nenjin, are telling me that I will at some point. I just can't predict how I'll come to terms.

EDIT: I think I had a happy thought just now. Essentially I was thinking about all the nice and wonderful things everyone would say at my parents' funerals (hopefully many many decades away ), and transferred that positive feeling over to my funeral, assuming I don't live as a shut-in for the rest of my life. So, two things I've learned here: First, being arrogant about how awesome you'll be remembered seems to help, and second I always seem to make myself feel better at night. Weird.

[Neonivek]

The only advice I can offer is as such...

What will really get you with depression is a passive attitude. You need to work on it and to dig yourself out of the pit you made for yourself.

That is really is. Continue on.

[lue]

Yeah, I just need to keep those disquieting thoughts at bay and then I'll just be a bored person all day

Some responses to those distressing question that others might like to know:

• I didn't have a problem not existing before I was born, I doubt I will after I die. (I believe Mark Twain said this once.)
• Humans are exceptional at adapting to new situations. Thus, when I die, regardless of what (if anything) is on the other side, I'll adapt to my newfound non-existence. (I was very elated the night I came up with this one.)
• I should only be concerned with living a life worth being remembered, even if only in genealogical ways. (What my previous post's edit and nenjin both say).
• Yeah, there'll be stuff I either don't get to see or only start seeing, but I should never regret what I did get to see. I came up with this as a parallel to when you find out in your senior year of high school that they're introducing a new, awesome program next year. It sucks that you don't get to take a part in it, but there's still a bunch of stuff you did get to do during your time.

Also, I think what I'm going through may be just a delayed form of cabin fever. It makes sense, considering my current living habits and why I want to get out of the house instead of too depressed to care to. And it has an easier cure.

Depression → Months-long process of psychotherapy and/or medication
Cabin Fever → Go outside, into civilization.

EDIT: As for how it took said cabin fever over three months to set in, my guess is that I got used to spending the entirety of summer vacation at home, more or less, but staying home after the start of the school year is completely new to me.

EDIT 2: Having the stomach bug really doesn't help one's quest to feel better. That stomachache feels suspiciously similar to that "stress knot", which is the main problem with this bug. Also, I should really just exercise in tiny ways in my home (maybe even pull out the ol' Wii Fit Plus, which seems obvious now that I type it).

Also, since every time I write to this thread I feel better, I'm seriously thinking of contributing stuff to the various threads in the Creative Projects board. Because a tiny bit of exercise, and a sliver of community participation, has got to be better than none. I certainly need to make big changes to my life, but I have to start doing something in the meantime, as a holdover to those big changes.

[lue]

Sorry if double-posting annoys everyone (if it truly does this will be the last time I do it), but I wanted to make sure the people who frequent the Life Advice board saw this (as editing posts doesn't bump the topic up the list). I also think the following is a bit much for an edit.

So, I've decided to accept that the question of our mortality and all the issues surrounding it as a very distressing question. That is, it will always bother me when my mind decides to linger on it, but as long as it doesn't drive me to the most desperate stages of depression, I'll come out fine. I wish I could accept this fact of life in a better way that "Yep, that's distressing", but I don't expect it to happen anytime soon, at least not at my command.

I'm not really lingering on it right now, but I fear it'll take a few days before I can be confident I won't be haunted by the question. I expect that I'll be struck by gloom and despair later today even, however I'm confident that I'll always get over it by nighttime.

It really doesn't help my attempts to feel better, as I said before, when I have a stomach bug to contend with. Once that's gone (hopefully in the next couple of days), I won't feel terrible all the time, and I'll be better able to motivate myself to stay away from those distressing thoughts by saying things like "remember how not-terrible you felt an hour ago? Try to get back there." Again, not so easy when you're in a state of feeling terrible in some fashion constantly.

(As an aside, I think my stomach bug symptoms decrease at night, which is why I've found the odd habit of me feeling normal mentally and physically late at night.)

Also weird is that I thought I would never be able to forget those terrible thoughts like I want to, so long as I keep up this thread . I haven't forgotten them, but I have instead felt this novel occurrence of being aware of these question without lingering on them. It's difficult to do at times, and I'd prefer if I just forgot these questions, but it seems like I might live with these questions being in my head, but kept at bay.

Finally, it's getting annoying how I feel so much better when I write these posts. I bet I'll be brooding again mere minutes after posting this. Sigh.

[Garath]

As to mortality, two things that helped me a lot were to make jokes about it. Jokes are a great stress relief. Also I considered immortality, mostly due to a book I read. The titel was something like "All people are mortal" or "noone is immortal" and it was painting an even more depressing picture than anything I could've come up with when I was considering mortality. So I'm very, very happy to be mortal. What happens, if anything happens, when I end is an interesting adventure, but currently I'm busy living so the question will have to wait untill I die.

On thoughts: Controlling thoughts is like herding a hundred cats, virtually impossible. They can be steered, but there will always be a few errant ones breaking in unexpected directions. When many people talk about ignoring a thought, they're usually actually 'pushing' the thought away. Such negative attention (just like with people) means they become even more annoying. I read a good (sort of) explanation somewhere. It's like a cloud of gas. If you hem it in, push it down, it just gets more dense and stronger and will start to resist you. Keeping it down becomes a constant mental effort. If you give it space just to be it will disperse harmlessly.

One thing you probably found that helps is to talk about it. Not just once, but regularly, and for several reasons. By talking about what is on your mind you first of all start to realize that you're not the only one bothered by something. The realization you're not alone in something is a powerful one. Also very important is the repression I mentioned before. By talking about something you let it out, relief the pressure. Finally, talking about something makes it more real, if that makes sense. It forces the brain into new paths, opens new options which were unavailable while it was still locked inside your head.

Since I believe in talking about my own experiences to help myself and others, let's do so! Not too long ago I had a feeling of what I called dissociation (spelling?), usually a few times per week. I felt as if I was outside my body, looking at things happening. Everything was dulled and strangely distant, as if there was a layer of stuff around me, buffering any sensation. It was a very unpleasant sensation and I was running myself scared and stressed worrying about it. When I finally talked to several people about it, they all mentioned that it is a very common symptom of depression. I think I should mention here that in my situation back then a depression was to be expected. Talking about it, hearing what it could be and that it wasn't strange or unexpected helped me a lot. I've not had the sensation since then.

[lue]

Immortality will probably never look good to a species that wasn't designed for it . I might try to find that book, esp. considering I'm currently in the "Immortality doesn't seem like it'd be that bad" camp.

Yes, talking about it (even here) helps always, although happily for the past few days I've been much better. The thoughts still creep into my head at times, especially when I'm bored or inactive in any way. I think what will help me find ways to get over it is to focus on the root problem, a far-too-strong fear of death.

I only just realized this last night, that my issue with my depressive mood recently wasn't the thing I needed to "cure", but rather the fear of death that came to the forefront of my mind. I'm not getting overly depressed now, so long as I don't linger on those thoughts too long (imagining the process of your brain shutting down is never pleasant ). Yet those thoughts still exist, which is why I just now realized the true issue.

As I said before with the "cabin fever" theory (which doesn't seem to pan out too much anymore), categorizing it as a fear of death instead of depression makes it seem a simpler problem, because:

Depression → Months-long process of psychotherapy and/or medication
Fear of Death → Face and/or be at peace with your fears

Of course, getting over a hyperactive fear of death won't be so simple, but there is hope I can do it without long and expensive processes of therapy. I'll be especially interested in studying some Eastern philosophy on the matter, because apparently it's just a Western thing that likes to not talk about death at all ever. Regardless of the accuracy of that last statement, it should be interesting to look at a wildly different view of things. I always did prefer to think of things as cycles, instead of marching towards an end... (Again, apologies for any inaccuracies caused by my currently limited knowledge of Eastern ways of thought.)

Also what's been helping is participating the couple of online communities (yes, including this one ) I'm a part of more often. No substitute for meatspace human interaction, but it does help.

(I'm thinking of changing the title of this thread to something like "Stupid Fear of Death" at this point, since that seems to be the root of the matter.)

FAKE-EDIT: On the subject of making light of it: I'd thought at some points in this discussion of how doctors apparently engage in dark humor to deal with all they have to deal with, and was considering trying to find some of it.

[Thecard]

Perhaps you could do something like take classes, or volunteer, or find find friends to hang out with? Being bored doesn't help you any, after all.

I mean, I'm sure you've thought about that, I'm just making a suggestion.