This feeling can be hard to grasp for those who have not experienced it and you put it into words beautifully. I wanted to add my experience to the conversation because I feel your essay has helped illuminate what I typically can't express; how the feeling of living in a simulation operates (for me at least) and can be quite damaging to the psyche.
There are periods where I fall into a rhythm in life; I experience my day in the present moment without this meta recognition of what it means to be part of the "real world". This is how I imagine most people go about their day. As soon as the next depressive episode comes, the crash is severe. It doesn't happen every time, but often, I am not only thrust into typical depressive symptoms but am also mourning the loss of what I thought was the real world.
Suddenly, it dawns on me that the period where I was content, or at least somewhat neutral, I was drifting through life without contemplating the reality of the world more deeply. It's complicated because when I'm feeling okay, I do feel grounded in a real world and I'm not thinking too much about it. But now that I'm in a depressive episode, i'm "waking up" to the fact that it was all a lie; I feel that the time spent living in the present moment was a zombie-like state where I was ignorant to the TRUE reality of the world, that actually, nothing is real (confused yet?). The irony is not lost on me that depression symptoms are much more zombie-like (low motivation, apathy, lethargy, etc).
In other words, when i'm depressed, I view the prior, more tolerable period of life as a delusional state where I forgot that the world is not real; now, I feel like the world and I don't exist anymore and any positive feelings are an escape from this reality.
Consequences: This is such an isolating worldview because it is accompanied by the notion that everyone else living day-by-day are the delusional ones, not my depressed self. Everyone going through their life are just sims - not tapped in to the truth of existence and I’m alone in this feeling. When it's happening, I recognize that it's an irrational way of thinking, but the feeling that I don't exist can be inescapable and makes me feel unsafe. Ultimately, this means that when I'm depressed, I feel even more resigned because it turns out my happiness was misguided and not real.
I'm not quite sure if this all makes sense. I'm writing from outside of the perspective that I'm living in a sim (which I hope to escape for awhile), so I'm able to see the flaws in my depressed way of thinking about the world. I hope it's not too late to unlearn, and see the world for what it is once again. Conversely, maybe the key is not to fight the feeling, and just enjoy the times in the real world as they come. Thank you for sharing the hopeful view that it's not too late to change.
Thank you for sharing!
RE: Living in the Simulation
This feeling can be hard to grasp for those who have not experienced it and you put it into words beautifully. I wanted to add my experience to the conversation because I feel your essay has helped illuminate what I typically can't express; how the feeling of living in a simulation operates (for me at least) and can be quite damaging to the psyche.
There are periods where I fall into a rhythm in life; I experience my day in the present moment without this meta recognition of what it means to be part of the "real world". This is how I imagine most people go about their day. As soon as the next depressive episode comes, the crash is severe. It doesn't happen every time, but often, I am not only thrust into typical depressive symptoms but am also mourning the loss of what I thought was the real world.
Suddenly, it dawns on me that the period where I was content, or at least somewhat neutral, I was drifting through life without contemplating the reality of the world more deeply. It's complicated because when I'm feeling okay, I do feel grounded in a real world and I'm not thinking too much about it. But now that I'm in a depressive episode, i'm "waking up" to the fact that it was all a lie; I feel that the time spent living in the present moment was a zombie-like state where I was ignorant to the TRUE reality of the world, that actually, nothing is real (confused yet?). The irony is not lost on me that depression symptoms are much more zombie-like (low motivation, apathy, lethargy, etc).
In other words, when i'm depressed, I view the prior, more tolerable period of life as a delusional state where I forgot that the world is not real; now, I feel like the world and I don't exist anymore and any positive feelings are an escape from this reality.
Consequences: This is such an isolating worldview because it is accompanied by the notion that everyone else living day-by-day are the delusional ones, not my depressed self. Everyone going through their life are just sims - not tapped in to the truth of existence and I’m alone in this feeling. When it's happening, I recognize that it's an irrational way of thinking, but the feeling that I don't exist can be inescapable and makes me feel unsafe. Ultimately, this means that when I'm depressed, I feel even more resigned because it turns out my happiness was misguided and not real.
I'm not quite sure if this all makes sense. I'm writing from outside of the perspective that I'm living in a sim (which I hope to escape for awhile), so I'm able to see the flaws in my depressed way of thinking about the world. I hope it's not too late to unlearn, and see the world for what it is once again. Conversely, maybe the key is not to fight the feeling, and just enjoy the times in the real world as they come. Thank you for sharing the hopeful view that it's not too late to change.