Depression Causes Amnesia

Depression makes you forget who you really are. This quote helps me remember.

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

There is a single word printed at the top of my journal entry every day. That word is Remember. But sometimes I forget what I’m supposed to be remembering. Sometimes, I spend my whole journaling session trying to remember what I’m supposed to remember. That’s how I know I’m depressed.

Depression has this curious characteristic. It can make you forget. It can cause amnesia. It makes you forget who you really are. Who you really are can’t be depressed. But depression makes you forget who you are.

Then, you come out of it. You remember who you are. And you swear that you’ll never forget again. In the space between coming out of a depression and going back into one, you’re convinced you’ll never forget those words. You couldn’t forget. Because that idea and the understanding it evokes are so elegant and so important and they work. And you write shit at the top of your journal that’s supposed to remind you. Then you read that shit and it drives you nuts.

Here are those words I’m trying to remember and understand:

“The enlightened response to Depression is not, ‘I am Depressed.’ The enlightened response to Depression is, ‘Wow, dig this depression!’”