I have had a horrible and indescribable depression for the last 6 years of my life...Im only 18 years old. Due to this horrible depression i have become very introverted and lack a full arsenal of social skills. The strange part is when i was younger i was very happy and never reserved. However the point of this topic is not my general depression, but how i feel when i am depressed. When i am depressed i feel stupid and my thoughts seem to be sluggish. I often stare blankly "into space" as my family would describe it, sometimes thinking about the regretful life i have led, other times simply thinking of nothing at all. Even in the middle of a conversation i can get lost in these blank episodes. I didn't always feel this way, however. I used to be a fast talking, smart ***, with a passion for a good argument. Have i lost intelligence from a six year depression? Have i lost my ability to argue? I can barely carry a conversation these days. All this does is depresses me more. I am 18 years old. What in the world am i going to do. Anyone relate to me?

I can relate to that. I'm always depressed, but when I feel especially down it is as though my brain refuses to create anything even vaguely interesting to bring up in conversation. I don't like sitting there glumly so I try to contribute to the conversation and then end up feeling stupid for ever have had opened my mouth. Now I go to a good university which is difficult to get into, so I can't be stupid in that sense, but I still feel stupid a lot of the time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you certainly aren't alone. What you have to try and remember when you feel like this is that it is just the depression talking. I don't know you but you don't sound stupid at all. Social awkwardness is a common thing. Once you feel more comfortable with yourself and your environment things will get easier =]

This post has been edited by last_resort: Apr 12 2008, 12:40 AM

I'm so sorry...I feel that way too. I'm only 24 and I feel like I have become much the same way. Your personality, before and after, sounds a lot like mine.

I have heard that serious depression does cause a kind of mild mental retardation, which I believe to be true, from my experience. Also, I used to be very social and now am not, and I think I have lost my social skills. I think social skills are just like any other kind of skills....if you don't use them, you loose them.
If you have been on medication, that may be causing it. I know that my Doctor has told me that she believes that my meds have/are causing memory loss and that she herself was on them and when she was taking Cymbalta she told one of her nurses that she felt like she was getting stupider....and the nurse who had also been on it said she had the same side effect.
I take Ambien now, which has saved my sleep, but my Dr. thinks it may be having an effect on my memory...but without it, I would NEVER sleep, so, I don't know which is the worse of the two evils. I still think being on the Meds is better than not! I'm not great now, but I would be so much worse without them!

Anyway, I'm not much older than you and I totally understand the feeling....I don't want to be social, because I am anxious and depressed, but recently I've been thinking maybe I should force myself to do more....get involved in things I used to enjoy...so that I could get some of those skills back. (I probably won't, because I'm too anxious and depressed, but I'm starting to think about it, so maybe sometime in the future....)

My fear is that I will look back on these years of my life and regret that I was so disabled my my illnesses that I will have missed out on something....I probably have already done that....

I'm so sorry...I feel that way too. I'm only 24 and I feel like I have become much the same way. Your personality, before and after, sounds a lot like mine.

I have heard that serious depression does cause a kind of mild mental retardation, which I believe to be true, from my experience. Also, I used to be very social and now am not, and I think I have lost my social skills. I think social skills are just like any other kind of skills....if you don't use them, you loose them.
If you have been on medication, that may be causing it. I know that my Doctor has told me that she believes that my meds have/are causing memory loss and that she herself was on them and when she was taking Cymbalta she told one of her nurses that she felt like she was getting stupider....and the nurse who had also been on it said she had the same side effect.
I take Ambien now, which has saved my sleep, but my Dr. thinks it may be having an effect on my memory...but without it, I would NEVER sleep, so, I don't know which is the worse of the two evils. I still think being on the Meds is better than not! I'm not great now, but I would be so much worse without them!

Anyway, I'm not much older than you and I totally understand the feeling....I don't want to be social, because I am anxious and depressed, but recently I've been thinking maybe I should force myself to do more....get involved in things I used to enjoy...so that I could get some of those skills back. (I probably won't, because I'm too anxious and depressed, but I'm starting to think about it, so maybe sometime in the future....)

My fear is that I will look back on these years of my life and regret that I was so disabled my my illnesses that I will have missed out on something....I probably have already done that....

I'm only a few years older than you, but I can definitely relate. When I was a kid, my life was perfectly normal. I did not really display any signs of a mood disorder.

In high school, a nasty depression overcame me, and I feel like it robbed me of part of my life. It definitely twisted my personality. At least it went away.

I can definitely identify with the mental confusion as well. Normally, I'm a very intelligent person, but the depression makes me do irrational things. I usually enjoy reading, but when I'm depressed I absolutely cannot read. I tend the read the same line over and over. Should I manage to finish a paragraph, I usually can't recall what I read. If I actually manage to struggle through a page, I'll typically fall asleep from exhaustion. (no joke)

It's really frustrating. i can usually do most of the things I did before, but I have to try much harder. Learning requires more repetition.

Bupropion helped clear up the confusion for me. It allowed me to read, and I felt a bit smarter. I suppose it was just the general stimulant effect rather than the antidepressant effect. If you're like me, the confusion will clear once your depression clears.

I remember when I was in university not too long ago, and I was depressed and lonely because I was away from home. Well, my depression completely interfered with my ability to retain vital information during classes. I did feel stupid. I felt like I had lost all capacity to learn, and I was a person who loved learning. I remember trying to speak to a fellow student one day, and my tongue just went numb. My words came out in a jumble, and I didn't know what the heck I was saying. It was a weird, disassociating moment, aside from an embarrassing one. It was horrible. I couldn't verbalize my thoughts very well because I was so depressed. The one thing that I regret is how depression altered my first impression upon my classmates. Nobody wanted me in their group because I believe they thought I was incapable of critically analyzing a project or issue that was part of our homework. And they were probably right to a certain degree. My depression made it difficult to retain knowledge and recall it. Indeed, it is no wonder that we can feel intellectually inferior when the chemical imbalance in our brains causes us to morph into a zombie-like existence. I can never forgive depression for what it robbed from me over the last four years of my life. My husband repeatedly consoles me about that whole ordeal, and I often need the validation and support from my spouse over and over again. I need to remind myself that I was NOT myself when I had depression. I 'am' a capable person, and intelligent. Depression robs us of that.

I just want to tell you that I can understand very well what you are going through. Remember that this is NOT who you really are. Depression will give us a new maladaptive personality. It kills a person's spirit.

I've had the same experience.

Before depression, academics came very naturally to me, and I really didn't have to try hard in school, even my first year of engineering school. After depression hit, things didn't come naturally anymore. On top of that, I was frequently fatigued, distracted, anxious, and had difficulty concentrating.

I don't think it's permanent though, so you shouldn't worry about that. When depression isn't affecting me, I feel that I'm as smart or smarter than I ever was.

One other thing: Part of why you feel stupid is that depression makes you think less of yourself. We beat ourselves up about our faults much more than regular people.

Because I have a harder time concentrating when I am in a depressed state, I have less comprehension skills. The confusion and added feelings of inadequacy also correspond with the lack of comprehension.

I can totally relate. I have a PhD in philosophy and I feel like acquaintances expect smart things from me as a consequence. But when I'm depressed, I'm a idiot.

Severe depression does affect cognitive abilities, how can it not. When depression takes full control your mind is so turned inward and filled with nothing but negativity and how bad you feel that it's hard to focus on anything else.

i have danced between depression and being a bouncey on the ball guy. I do agree with the meds, anti depressants taught my mind to supress memories, so i never faced them i just mentally blocked them, and they pop up to ruin my life a little later on, and also if i want i can just blank over a lot of stuff, and although at the moment i really need my bounce back and they have offered me anti-depressants, i would rather take the harder route of understanding the problem to move on, than forgetting it

My only other suggestion, which won't really solve the problem but seems a fact to myself is the human mind loves to chew on information, when your smart its chewing on the swirling experiences adn facts you pick up, when your depressed its doing the same thing even when my mind goes blank for some days it is merely from over-thinking. The brain can get exhausted, and that's why chilling, wife swap or whatever way we turn our brains off with tv, internet, or multiple ways. When i'm depressed like now, i cannot stop rethinking the situation that got me here. When i fall into depression with no real reason my mind is asking why am i feeing this way rather than thinking straight. Its like when i grow social phobia for temporary months, when throwing myself into the fire seems like it might result in failure, rejection or whatever, my mind is saying what should i say rather than just saying. the best mind is a relaxed mind, and in today's society it is hard to clear the debris internally and from external situations and expectation.

This may not be the case for yourself, but i hate being an idiot when i know i can be interesting, witty ad myself. Remember the most interesting of minds are interested minds. If we were all in control of our minds life would be simple, now to make this smple few paragraphs a reality, but changing perceptions is not the easiest thing.

All my hope for a quick return for myself and others

Chris

I'm almost 18 and I think i've always had a underlying depression murking about in my roots. With more and more failures, deaths in more ways than one and just..piles of crap I'm being dealt, I think I've gone into overload. I used to have a passion for a good debate, like you said, and be witty, sarcastic, make people laugh and was a respected writer not just amongst people my age but writers in general. I felt so proud of the products I put out, through my mind, my thought, my chaos and neurosis and proud of the fact that I helped others see things in different ways and think intellectually and deep.
Now...oi...now I feel buried in idiocy. My diction used to be equisite and now I can't stand to hear myself speak. Everything I say when i have to say something seems so mundane, trite, fake and so unlike myself. I feel sooooooo brain dead and dumb as all balls. People used to mistake me for someone so much older because of my words and mind, now I'm all that I hate. I feel like I'm living a lie and not thinking at all, just frolicking about. I feel soo eternally disgusted! with myself because of how my one sharp mind, the only good thing i had, has become a slug. I haven't written a song in over a year now whereas, I used to write between 3-5 songs a week. If i had a dry spell, my mind would come back the next week with a vengeance with a really really good couple of songs. It was the only time in my life I was ever proud of being me. Now I feel i'm not longer myself just an imposter in my vessel and the opposite of everything i was and truly am. Just a dumb, mindless, wannabeintellectual idiot. To put a cherry on it all, I'm in college and making not so great grades for I'm not trying at all but when I do try because reality and some unseen force makes me, I get crap grades. The lack of motivation for anything and everything is not helping this either. So all in all, i feel like a incompetent worthless piece of dumb shiit.
so, in a word, yea, totally with ya.

Hey all, i see this is common as, i have questioned if i have a mind that can think, justify and question, here is my understanding

I was smart, not on general knowledge, but in getting people, what they were up to, and my arguing skills were good. It has been a long time since i was that person, and i have spent the last few months trying to see where the fork appeared in life, i am not sure it will be the return to myself, but if i understand something i find it far easier to accept.

My main conclusion from having this mushy void i call a brain, is that i am aware i have a brain. When i was smart, i was present in any situation, and my mind had the freedom to leap where it needed to, making my referencing humour, all manner of things keep on form. I am aware now that while i speak, my paranoia of not having spoken properly plays a large part, i am aware that i am wondering what i should be saying, and trying to make links, rather than having a calm mind that did it automatically. I would love to say meditation or brething exercises are the answer, but they are not. I have over thought things for too long. I lived in a place for 3 years where being myself, a bouncey story telling weirdo was held against me, and as i struggled to be myself and it was not recepted well, i fell into wondering about myself, or trying to adapt to others one dimensional vein thinking, and being someone who cares i seemed to have lost myself entirely. I now have so many thoughts, mostly to do with myself, the future, the past, i can barely grab at any of them, its like a swirly mess i cannot calm down. The longer it lasted, the more harder my abilities to socialise, or take on new information became, and slowly i became a zombie. I lost my bounce, i never wanted to dance or have explosive on the spot little actions, and unsurity filled me, until my self esteem was eaten by the world around me.

Another element is that i have seriously had trouble letting go of the past. A virus made my brain cook in my blood at high temperatures and anything before 3 years ago is very hazy, but all the tragedies still seem as clear as day, so when most people enjoy memories of snow, school, christmas i find it hard to join in. Most do not have a good memory of school, but even in the silly books i was forced to read i usually had comedy skills and fond memories of a good friend i had throughout it, we are no longer friends as he was too offended that if he recalled a memory the chances are i would have little to no idea what he was speaking of. I guess like most people i find it easier to remmeber the bad than the good, and if you have had a lot of bad they become a primary focus, and sooner or later if you make your brain so negative it looks for the bad in the future, other people, situations, and my own abilities. Loving yourself, as hard as that may be, it seems for many here was something that we did once, and in that simplicity comes a brain that is not dwelling on oneself. The brain loves to chew over information, i just swapped chewing on external information, to overthink on myself. This naturally also leads to brain fogging, where the brain can only take so much strain, and leads to a point where one idea has been so overthought it cannot function normally, and soon what you did, saw, read, thought, heard all become increasingly difficult to hold onto.

I do not know if this is the same for anyone else. i may be dumber, but i am still trying to analyse everything. There is also a fact that we release chemicals when we are frustrated or angry that lower the i.q. by up to 40%, how many of you have felt you argued poorly or said things you didn't mean during an argument? Truth is i was focused, i was clear, and my brain was free to sponge. now i beat myself up, question my abilities, and have horrific images i try to supress, which leads to mentally blocking to a certain degree. There are a million reasons it would seem, but when you no longer like yourself or the world and depression wins, it does seem that wall staring and living in your own mind can break the brain. I only hope there is a way out...

Chris

Oh yes- I feel extremely stupid when I am depressed. I don't cope with ordinary tasks and can't get motivated. My mind slows right down but my negative feelings speed up until I feel like my mind is barely there. I know at those times I appear like the 'lights are on but no-one's home'.