Depression since Burning Man
Depression since Burning Man
Anyone else fall into a depression since BM? I have done so very badly. BM really showed me how fucked up the "real world" is and how worthless the things we do are. Not sure what else to say.
Guns don't kill people, burning couches kill people.
-Sign seen at BM in 20002-
-Sign seen at BM in 20002-
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Kinetic
This year's decompression was a total bitch to handle. I've resisted getting on anti-depressants to cope but the decomp along with the other crap in my life is not pretty.
I have to give credit...e-playa and in particular Lydia Love, The Empress, PJ, Flux, and several others have pulled me through some dark days. Thank God for e-playa. It's more addicting than crack, and a thousand times more satisfying!
I have to give credit...e-playa and in particular Lydia Love, The Empress, PJ, Flux, and several others have pulled me through some dark days. Thank God for e-playa. It's more addicting than crack, and a thousand times more satisfying!
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Captain Goddammit
- Posts: 7735
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 9:34 am
- Burning Since: 2000
- Camp Name: First Camp
- Location: Seattle, WA
I wouldn't say depressed... just uninterested in the usual regular world stuff. I just don't care anymore about my non-BRC friend's new expensive car, or anything on TV... none of the "rat race" shit. This year I couldn't even turn on the radio for a week. I was still in playa mode; removed from and blissfully unaware about the rest of the world. I'd like to make BM 2 weeks. Maybe by then I'd want to go home.
GreyCoyote: "At this rate it wont be long before he is Admiral Fukkit."
Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.
Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.
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Kinetic
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MikeyFisher
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:24 am
- Location: New Mexico Desert
- Contact:
its amazing to see that other people are experiencing the exact same emotions. It truelly shows the spirtual connections we all hold through burningman. Yeah i see the playa when i close my eyes, when i dream at night, and when i think about it...
I SMILE!
p.s. then i realize im not there
I SMILE!
p.s. then i realize im not there
and we got there laughing...
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Apollonaris Zeus
- Posts: 3716
- Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2003 11:17 am
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Tancorix
- Posts: 956
- Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2003 6:56 pm
- Location: Not here, not there. I'm somewhere though.
Apollonaris Zeus wrote:
Yep, but not more then having sex with Paris Hilton on Crack!
A II Z
Have you read about this?
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml
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Apollonaris Zeus
- Posts: 3716
- Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2003 11:17 am
depwession
speaking on post-burn depression, I think that it is quite natural.
You go to a relaxed place with people that don't suck ever, and then you go back to the world where money is king and paying the rent is more important than paying attention to your community and the betterment of all. I had a serious battle against depression from September until march, and I blame the onset of the depression on my experiences at burningman. But, burningman depressed me because in my head, I made it something that It wasn't. I looked at it as perfection, happiness, pureness, etc. In reality, its expressing yourself, burning stuff, and meeting people that make life tolerable. If you express yourself to your community at home, and burn the same amount of stuff, and make your community a place that you really do enjoy, than this forum wouldn't be neccesary. However, for all those still battling the depression of many months, email me. We can talk it out. :cry:
You go to a relaxed place with people that don't suck ever, and then you go back to the world where money is king and paying the rent is more important than paying attention to your community and the betterment of all. I had a serious battle against depression from September until march, and I blame the onset of the depression on my experiences at burningman. But, burningman depressed me because in my head, I made it something that It wasn't. I looked at it as perfection, happiness, pureness, etc. In reality, its expressing yourself, burning stuff, and meeting people that make life tolerable. If you express yourself to your community at home, and burn the same amount of stuff, and make your community a place that you really do enjoy, than this forum wouldn't be neccesary. However, for all those still battling the depression of many months, email me. We can talk it out. :cry:
Duke Malone
Scholar and Gentleman
People's republic of Cambridge
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
United States of America
Planet Earth
Scholar and Gentleman
People's republic of Cambridge
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
United States of America
Planet Earth
Re: depwession
pyrozania wrote:speaking on post-burn depression, I think that it is quite natural.
You go to a relaxed place with people that don't suck ever, and then you go back to the world where money is king and paying the rent is more important than paying attention to your community and the betterment of all. I had a serious battle against depression from September until march, and I blame the onset of the depression on my experiences at burningman. But, burningman depressed me because in my head, I made it something that It wasn't. I looked at it as perfection, happiness, pureness, etc. In reality, its expressing yourself, burning stuff, and meeting people that make life tolerable. If you express yourself to your community at home, and burn the same amount of stuff, and make your community a place that you really do enjoy, than this forum wouldn't be neccesary. However, for all those still battling the depression of many months, email me. We can talk it out.
did you try to go to any of the decompressions that are around? i've found that they help alot! not the party in the street kinda thing in SF, but more along the lines of the decompression campout in arizona. i have found that depression can be cut in 1/2 or more if you get with your friends in a hostile environment for a weekend. try it. maybe you wont be depressed for 6 months. that sucks.
"see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?"
This my first year to go - yes I am a virgin burner - and have thought of going to burning man for years and am glad to make this my first year.
Funny thing, I have started dreaming about burning man and the experience. I am living stories that have yet to happen. Some of you speak of changes in your life following the event, I have started to make those changes now in my life. My partner, having gone to his first burn last year, has helped alot, and perhaps my dreams are based on listening to stories of my future camp mates or of my partners stories of the playa. Either way, the dreams are getting more and more vivid as we approach the event.
I also compete in rodeo, and find that after a rodeo weekend I go through a similar depression from being with friends, colleagues, etc., that are all into similar lifestyle. I just think it is a natural thing.
I look forward to the pre-parties and events, the event itself and the decompression time after. But I do anticipate the world will continue to change for me and my perspective of the world will change as well.
Ohranje - the Juicy Fruit Faery
Funny thing, I have started dreaming about burning man and the experience. I am living stories that have yet to happen. Some of you speak of changes in your life following the event, I have started to make those changes now in my life. My partner, having gone to his first burn last year, has helped alot, and perhaps my dreams are based on listening to stories of my future camp mates or of my partners stories of the playa. Either way, the dreams are getting more and more vivid as we approach the event.
I also compete in rodeo, and find that after a rodeo weekend I go through a similar depression from being with friends, colleagues, etc., that are all into similar lifestyle. I just think it is a natural thing.
I look forward to the pre-parties and events, the event itself and the decompression time after. But I do anticipate the world will continue to change for me and my perspective of the world will change as well.
Ohranje - the Juicy Fruit Faery
Juicy Fruit Jim
The Information Fairy
Fairyland - by Playa Fairies
San Francisco, CA
www.playafairies.com
www.ohranje.com
2004 First Burn
The Information Fairy
Fairyland - by Playa Fairies
San Francisco, CA
www.playafairies.com
www.ohranje.com
2004 First Burn
post-burn depression
Here's a peculiar idea to consider: One of the causes of depression is any quick and sudden change, even if it's a positive change (like post-partum depression.) I once had my normal emotional stability completely wacked by leaving a girlfriend and an idylic trip in Nepal to return to a brutal internship. The resulting depression shocked me. I came out of it almost instantly by taking one of the Bach flower remedies - 'rescue remedy', which seems to help with various kinds of shock to the system.
Other suggestions: Create as much of the same things in your life that you get at BM - one of the biggies is intensity of experience and spontaneous altered states from immersion in..... (fill in the blank here with anything from new experiences, mystical journeys, goup interactions, challenge almost beyond what you think you can handle, etc. etc.)
After my first year I ran into a burner on the road home the day after, and he asked me why I seemed so energetic and upbeat after the event. (I didn't know so many people felt burned out and depressed afterward.) The only thing I can say is that I have other things I do that are even more intense than BM. I've gotten good at those transitions, and even enjoy the downtimes in between for digestion.
Other suggestions: Create as much of the same things in your life that you get at BM - one of the biggies is intensity of experience and spontaneous altered states from immersion in..... (fill in the blank here with anything from new experiences, mystical journeys, goup interactions, challenge almost beyond what you think you can handle, etc. etc.)
After my first year I ran into a burner on the road home the day after, and he asked me why I seemed so energetic and upbeat after the event. (I didn't know so many people felt burned out and depressed afterward.) The only thing I can say is that I have other things I do that are even more intense than BM. I've gotten good at those transitions, and even enjoy the downtimes in between for digestion.
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theCryptofishist
- Posts: 40303
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- Location: In Exile
Re: post-burn depression
I would not call post-partum change "positive" just like that, even though the birth of a baby is (for most people) a postive and wished for event. After delivering a baby, a woman's body goes through LOTS of changes. Some of them are hormonal and hormones can wreck havoc with your neuro-transmitters. Whatever the origens of post-partum depression (and I'm sure that it's complicated and ideosynratic) I don't think it is a good comparison for coming off the playa. Although, the changes in amount of light absorbed by the skin, the amount of exercise, type and amount of food eaten and even, I suppose, depleation of nutrients from spending too much time drinking could negatively effect your mood, if you want to consider physiological explinations.dana wrote:Here's a peculiar idea to consider: One of the causes of depression is any quick and sudden change, even if it's a positive change (like post-partum depression.)
post-BM depression
Cryptofischist wrote: "I don't think its a good comparison... " to post playa blues.
It may not be as good a comparison as my own personal example of a quick and sudden change, but the last time I read up on post-partum depression it was considered idiopathic (the idiot pathologists haven't figured it out yet.) But you're right about the potential complexities, as in which comes first - the hormonal/receptor/nuerotransmittor changes or the emotional/mental changes which then induce nuerotransmittor release, and how would you measure that in any meaningful way? It appears to go both ways. My point is intended as a reference to a particular kind of depression which is generally transient and not deep seated (as is post-partum depression.) [After your post I decided to look up Post-partum depression in an OB/Gyn text by Danforth. They cite a reference to most cases being in relation to changing from one thinking/emotional mode to another and suddenly "dealing with the day-to-day problems that must now be faced." So I stand by my comparison to post playa blues. If you're leaving the playa and facing the potential of serious drudgery and mental/emotional ruts in your normal life, you'd be prone to feel depressed for awhile until you readjust.]
It may not be as good a comparison as my own personal example of a quick and sudden change, but the last time I read up on post-partum depression it was considered idiopathic (the idiot pathologists haven't figured it out yet.) But you're right about the potential complexities, as in which comes first - the hormonal/receptor/nuerotransmittor changes or the emotional/mental changes which then induce nuerotransmittor release, and how would you measure that in any meaningful way? It appears to go both ways. My point is intended as a reference to a particular kind of depression which is generally transient and not deep seated (as is post-partum depression.) [After your post I decided to look up Post-partum depression in an OB/Gyn text by Danforth. They cite a reference to most cases being in relation to changing from one thinking/emotional mode to another and suddenly "dealing with the day-to-day problems that must now be faced." So I stand by my comparison to post playa blues. If you're leaving the playa and facing the potential of serious drudgery and mental/emotional ruts in your normal life, you'd be prone to feel depressed for awhile until you readjust.]
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theCryptofishist
- Posts: 40303
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- Location: In Exile
Well I object on what can easily be interpreted as political grounds.
The problem is that all the mood disorders, depression, bi-polar, SAD, post-partum depression, etc., cause great suffering to those who have them (and their friends, family and other loved ones) but are heavily pathologized--causing even more gratuitious suffering. The use of post-partum depression in this example can imply that someone who drowns her children in the bathtub isn't really sick, just a weakling who cannot adjust. Extreame example, I know, but when you are deal ing with one of these illnesses day-to-day, always being secret because you dare not tell the truth because of the ignorance of the people around you (including sometimes, yes even the doctors) and feeling additional alienation from that, you start to feel that the sloppy use of these terms in pop culture is toxic and very destructive. There already seems to be a split between "Post-partum depression" meaning a serious pathology and "Baby Blues" more as you describe. In this case I wish to keep the precision of language because of the possible social effects. In addition, I feel that there are a number of other examples: a new job, retirement, marraige, graduation, a child leaving home. Any of these can get at the mixed feelings and adjustments that you were trying to get at.
The problem is that all the mood disorders, depression, bi-polar, SAD, post-partum depression, etc., cause great suffering to those who have them (and their friends, family and other loved ones) but are heavily pathologized--causing even more gratuitious suffering. The use of post-partum depression in this example can imply that someone who drowns her children in the bathtub isn't really sick, just a weakling who cannot adjust. Extreame example, I know, but when you are deal ing with one of these illnesses day-to-day, always being secret because you dare not tell the truth because of the ignorance of the people around you (including sometimes, yes even the doctors) and feeling additional alienation from that, you start to feel that the sloppy use of these terms in pop culture is toxic and very destructive. There already seems to be a split between "Post-partum depression" meaning a serious pathology and "Baby Blues" more as you describe. In this case I wish to keep the precision of language because of the possible social effects. In addition, I feel that there are a number of other examples: a new job, retirement, marraige, graduation, a child leaving home. Any of these can get at the mixed feelings and adjustments that you were trying to get at.
Depression post BM
To Cryptofischist,
I'm not sure I follow the point you're trying to make.
Post partum depression is not considered signifigant and deep seated pathology. "Baby blues" is a venacular term. ???? If you add shame on top of any pathology, that's a separate issue. ??? Like I said I don't know where you're trying to go with your last post. Drifting.......
I'm not sure I follow the point you're trying to make.
Post partum depression is not considered signifigant and deep seated pathology. "Baby blues" is a venacular term. ???? If you add shame on top of any pathology, that's a separate issue. ??? Like I said I don't know where you're trying to go with your last post. Drifting.......
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Guest
It's all a vale of tears!
Ho, boy, what a topic.
I went to Burning Man for the first time last year and had the time of my life...and then came back and got SERIOUSLY depressed for about two entire months.
Actually, one of the great things about the experience was just how much it made me re-evaluate my life. Mortgage, car payment, self-employed material object treadmill...*sigh*.
Word of caution to people considering going for the first time: the event may completely change your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's be cool about it and all it's just a big party...but it can be really powerful. (And most likely in ways that you're not even capable of imagining yet.)
I had to go to this totally insane, chaotic community to be restored to sanity.
I'm scared of going back. I've bought a ticket but haven't made up my mind yet. I know I'll love it...I just don't want to go through the shock of reentry again. Does that make sense?
I went to Burning Man for the first time last year and had the time of my life...and then came back and got SERIOUSLY depressed for about two entire months.
Actually, one of the great things about the experience was just how much it made me re-evaluate my life. Mortgage, car payment, self-employed material object treadmill...*sigh*.
Word of caution to people considering going for the first time: the event may completely change your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's be cool about it and all it's just a big party...but it can be really powerful. (And most likely in ways that you're not even capable of imagining yet.)
I had to go to this totally insane, chaotic community to be restored to sanity.
I'm scared of going back. I've bought a ticket but haven't made up my mind yet. I know I'll love it...I just don't want to go through the shock of reentry again. Does that make sense?
I'm scared of going back. I've bought a ticket but haven't made up my mind yet. I know I'll love it...I just don't want to go through the shock of reentry again. Does that make sense?
Yes, to me it does. Sounds like it changed how you see the world. Many behavior experts claim that meaningful change is painful, therefore most people avoid it. What are the chances that you can make some changes in your regular life to make it more in tune with what you appreciate at BM?
Be the change you seek in the world.
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Tancorix
- Posts: 956
- Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2003 6:56 pm
- Location: Not here, not there. I'm somewhere though.
Reentry? You're simply lighting the second stage of a rocket ride that's already taken you higher and farther than you expected! What have you got to lose? Light the second stage, feel the burn, and enjoy the ride. Keep climbing. I'm working on my third burn, and I'll bet you'll love it even more after your second burn. I know I did. As for life transformation? Between the event, the eplaya and the 3Playa and other BM specific influences giving me the kickstart I seriously needed, I am not even close to the person I was 3 years ago. And that person is not missed by anyone, especially me. The playa provides many things. Transformation is certainly one of them.
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Tancorix
- Posts: 956
- Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2003 6:56 pm
- Location: Not here, not there. I'm somewhere though.
Reentry? You're simply lighting the second stage of a rocket ride that's already taken you higher and farther than you expected! What have you got to lose? Light the second stage, feel the burn, and enjoy the ride. Keep climbing. I'm working on my third burn, and I'll bet you'll love it even more after your second burn. I know I did. As for life transformation? Between the event, the eplaya and the 3Playa and other BM specific influences giving me the kickstart I seriously needed, I am not even close to the person I was 3 years ago. And that person is not missed by anyone, especially me. The playa provides many things. Transformation is certainly one of them.
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