Asymmetry of suffering

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There's a concept I have which I call the asymmetry of suffering. A melodramatic name perhaps.

Basically there are times when things are okay, I'm not over the moon with happiness but I don't feel in pain and life doesn't feel too bad. To get there though, I've got to make a lot of effort, ensure that I'm busy throughout the entire day and that I have something to occupy myself with during my free time. Feeling alright basically requires a large and continual effort. Here's where the asymmetry come in. It require so little to demolish it all and be back in the depression. The smallest thing to remind me about something I'd rather not think about, some minor hope being let down, even just a few minutes of my mind wandering.

Does this asymmertical relationship make sense, that you've got to put a whole load of effort in to feel passable whilst the smallest thing can leave you really bad? Also, when you've been alright for a while returning to the depression really hurts in a way it doesn't when you're depressed all the time.

Yes, your post definately rings more than a few bells with me. I feel in a similar situtaion myself right now, i wouldn't go as far to say i'm overly depressed at the moment.. just empty with no motivation. I go though phases where i'm just so happy, i'm skipping about and everything feels sunny and right. Then almost overnight i can go back to just feeling empty inside. Like you said, the smallest thing can trigger it off. When i think back to it, it usually follows a period when i've been overwhelmed or felt a lack of control, i never realise this until at least a few/weeks or months later and by that point the emptiness has already firmly taken hold. I wish i could just snap out of it or at least remember how to get myself back to happiness again!

I'm afraid i can't offer any advice but thought you might like to know there is someone else who understands a bit of how you're feeling.. Hope things turn back around for you

Interesting quote. Must read more Nietzsche.

Yeah-- that's pretty much descriptive of my experiences with depression.

Merely thinking about the fact that any little thing that happens can bring you down (or, in my case, about the fact that being seen trying to pick yourself up seems to be considered by some a crime) can be sufficient to bring you down.

Hence the NIN album titled, "The Downward Spiral."

Depression is a f*****g self-perpetuating Motherf***er.

when the OP said "asymmetry of suffering" i thought he was going to refer to the feeling that one routinely is made to feel suffering more than other people

You've hit on the paradox of life as a whole. Takes enormous amounts of time to create, but moments to destroy anything. Be it a species, a work of art, a good day, doesn't matter. The only advice I have to give is that you have to realize that giving into that feeling or enhancing the damage already done by whatever outside force and letting it effect you internally is only amplifying this effect. Try not to be your own domino, but more like a mountain.

Mike