Depression from General Emotional Intensity?

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I don't know that I'm quite ready to be done with the depression thread, but since Bea asked for it to be locked, I will start a new one with what I was about to add.

Does anyone get depressed from just general too much emotional intensity? Not even necessarily anything social, but just feeling too much about everything? It just occurred to me that I've been depressed the past few days because I finished my book. I get so emotionally wrapped up with the characters and I have a hard time letting go when stories end. I want to keep feeling with the characters, but no more story to read. I know I can start a new book, but that would take a huge emotional shift that I'm not ready for and then I get depressed.

Anyone else like this?

Sure. That's happened to me.

Too much at one time.

I feel this is somewhat related to the "Intense World Theory" underlying autism. There might be a side-relationship (what some people call "peripheral.")

I've been depressed, yes, because I was tired after too much sensory input.

If I could talk at the neurotransmitter level (and admittedly, I am talking out my @$$ because I am not a neuroscientist), I can see why repeated release of a particular neurotransmitter could throw the synapses into a depressed (chemically depressed) state, thereby making "ordinary" or "baseline" functioning impossible until cell-level repair or restocking takes place. So, yes to your question. Neurons can also "down-regulate" or "up-regulate" by adjusting the number of synapses or binding sites in response to environmental demands.

There's also something called chronic adrenal fatigue, or something like that, which says that stress hormones can render something about the neuro-immuno-endocrine axis dysfunctional. This "axis" theory is so complex that I think you have to specialize in field to understand it, but it seems that you CAN render yourself dysfunctional by too much of the wrong kind of stimulation.

Probably autistic people have some of the above 2 effects going on. However, this is way beyond my ability to talk about, and I was trying to limit my prior thread to non-biological theories of depression genesis.

I hope other people with this specialization comment!

I definitely over exercise to enjoy the endorphin kick, it seems like the only time I'm not mildly depressed.

I think I was originally referring more to emotional over-attachment that non-autistic people don't seem to have. I have a hard time letting go of fictional characters, to the beautiful tree outside that someone way over trimmed. I get depressed when I am emotionally invested in anything and then something happens out of my control, like the book ends.

But....can't you go back to the fictional characters again when you re-read the book?

I'm not asking to be snarky or anything.

I become somewhat detached from fictional characters after I've finished the book----though they do remain in my imagination, and they can "crop up" any time when I'm imagining things. Then, when I re-read the book, it all "comes back to me."