I have gotten into this recent theory (if that is even the correct word) about humans lately and it has reformed my way of judging People(Oh my god! You judge People? wtf!—Everyone judges things, we have to, it is how our brain remembers things. I am not using “judge” as a term that would mean anything such as hating and/or loving something soley based on. It is only used as a way to understand them).

I feel like humans in a way all have certain Levels for emotions and intelligence (intelligence not in the sense of an IQ test, but in a way that the Person does a great deal of thinking).

For example, someone on the high end of thinking but lower end of emotions would be someone like Sheldon Cooper. Someone on the lower end of emotions could also be considered a Psychopath.

Then there are People with a lot of emotions and People with a lot of intelligence (in the sense they think too much) and I believe when These Levels coordinate together this is how a lot of mental illness can be Born. See, why is it that one human being can be moved by tears at reading an article about a mother bear dying at a zoo, leaving her cubs behind and then another Person can be a murderer without losing any sleep about it? You know if you aren’t one of those People that feels a lot, imagine what it is like to feel pain at every Little Thing.

Honestly, it is actually normal for a lot of People with mental illness. The Person connects and feels with so many People and things and Problems, taking too much on. And, I think about the Treatment for mental illness right now; a lot of time it is teaching the Patient to not feel so much or prevent Feeling so much Emotion. Through medicine blocking emotions, or telling them to distract the emotions through doing something else. But, imagine being the Person on such a high Level of Emotion and imagine them Feeling that they are losing the Connection and Feeling? I think this is where relapse takes place. A Patient tests the Waters in a world where they don’t feel as much and I think that scares them, because that isn’t what their brain is used to. I think some can even feel shitty about themselves because they don’t feel as empathetic anymore when they aren’t depressed. And although the sadness is shitty, the gift of Feeling others and understanding everything in the most intelligent of emotional senses is lost; and that has got to be scary as fuck.

Think about Sheldon Cooper for instance. He has a high intellegence. What is People tried to make him think less? try to get him a simpler Job in which he doesn’t have to think as much as he must as a theorist in physics? It would be extremely difficult to convince him to try a simpler Job and simpler Hobbies, but eventually he would always try to go back to his old ways. Perhaps we can give him a pill to lower his intelligence for a bit of time to get him adjusted to doing “normal” things such as playing Basketball in his free time and working as an accountant at a bank and seeing a Comedy with Eddie Murphy in it. We can hope that perhaps he sticks to this new life even after the medicine is gone, but we can also understand why relapse can occur.

Just relate Sheldon Cooper’s intelligence to the emotions of a depressed Person and then you can perhaps begin to see just a Little bit of how difficult the journey to recovery is, how scary it is, and why a Patient may think twice about getting better.

I understand why People with Depression Need help and in no way am I saying we shouldn’t “Change” it, but I think it is also important to realize for us all how it may work. To help a Person that feels a lot, we literally have to rip down a bit of what they are used to; who they are…..People with not neccessarily a high Level of intelligence like Sheldon Cooper, but a high Level of emotions…. and that is why it is called a BATTLE with mental illness…

• 22 May 2013