StandardQuip Rambles About Vids

Vivafringe (May 2023):
I think the song I was editing to is impossible to make a good amv for
Since it revolves around the repetition of words to evoke strong mental imagery, and adding your own imagery on top of that is redundant.

Me:
Challenge accepted. Already got an idea.

Vivafringe:
great. I would love to see a good amv to this
something something keikaku
my bday is june 19

Me:
lol
but viva all my vids are sad and depressing
I might pervert your idea of this song

Vivafringe:
sad and depressing amv to dog's eyes would be something
looking forward to it

I stayed true to my word.

The video started out with the loose concept of "when the antidepressant starts to work" and evolved to something a bit deeper from there. I ended up with a specific message (that I'll describe later) but ultimately, I think this is a video that everyone can relate to in some way.

Everyone has had bouts of depression, whether that be from a chronic illness, traumatic event, or loss of a loved one. The general goal with this video was to show the recovery process of someone who is coming out of a depressive episode, and/or to a lesser degree, the way people with a "functioning Depression" perceive the world around them.

When someone is suffering with depression, one of the main symptoms is apathy or loss of interest. Everything is boring and has been done thousands of times before. There's no beauty or uniqueness in anything anymore; it's all just blah. "It's Okay to Let The Train Pass" starts there, and works through the slow realization that it's okay to have emotions and feelings and connect with people again, and to realize that there's beauty in totally mundane things.

But as those familiar with chronic illnesses know, recovery is never a straight line. Sometimes you have drawbacks in your recovery, invasive thoughts, and/or things that trigger anxiety attacks or future depressive episodes.
In this video, the Train is the metaphor for such things. Sometimes, the Train will just hit you. You can't control the Train. Sometimes you'll find yourself at the Train station when you didn't even want to be there. The possibility is always there.

I want to tell you that that's Okay. It's Okay to Let The Train Pass. You can't control when the train arrives, but there comes a point when you can choose to walk away from the train station. It might not be immediately, but eventually, you will be able to pick yourself up and walk away from the Train. You'll never forget about the train and it will always be there. You might find yourself at the Train station station multiple times in the future. But it will start to bother you less over time, and -- maybe -- you'll even see the beauty in the train, too.

( Read more... )

If you have time, I'd like to redirect you to this old Hyperbole and a Half strip called Depression Part Two. Allie does an amazing job explaining what Chronic/Clinical/Major Depression is like and how it affects the people around them in an amusing comic-strip-like format (I'm going to call it "Chronic Depression" going forward).

When I was about 50% through editing the Train video, I started trying to come up with a good title. I came back to this comic and thought that maybe the right title had something to do with Allie's "shriveled piece of corn" moment. I discussed all sorts of word-possibilities with a few friends for several hours (including Viva, who I'm not sure caught on to why or not... Guess we'll see when he reads this). None of the words were really sitting right, though.
It wasn't until later that I realized my video wasn't about the shriveled corn moment.
It was actually about the part where Allie asks for help.



At this point, I have to say I don't speak for people with Depression. I can only speak for myself, who has had chronic Depression for all my life and has learned to live with it over the years.
Everyone deals with Depression differently, and I'm sure someone out there is going to watch Train and/or read this article and go "This is bullshit" and they would be right -- for them (and that's okay!).
I also want to disclaim (again) that this is my experience, of someone who has had (diagnosed) depression for nearly 30 years and consecutive and consistent treatment for 10 (more if we count non-consecutive time periods). So what my depression looks like is not going to be the "typical" depression, and very likely my thoughts below will absolutely not apply to other people with depression, especially those of whom who have not been in active treatment for nearly as long.
What I'm trying to say is that, this is my opinion for myself and my own life at the current time, and not anybody else's.

But that's enough disclaimers. Let's move on.

The reason I think the video is moreso about when Allie asks for help is not the actual asking for help part-- but the realization of how different their perception of the world is from everyone else's.

I've resigned myself to the identity of A Depressed Person. I am not a person with depression, no no - I've given up on that distinction entirely - I'm just super depressed. All the time. It's who I am. It's who I am going to be forever. There is no cure. The sooner I accept that will probably be the better. But that doesn't mean I can't be Functional.

I'm always depressed, but I will have episodes that are worse than normal which I cannot control, which forces me to throw stupid little pity parties for myself, have crying spells, and/or think dark thoughts. That's A Thing That Happens, but there's always a point near the end of the episode where I can decide to keep wallowing in it, or just decide... not. That wasn't a thing that I was able to do until well into my "recovery," by the way. I'm not trying to sit here and preach "Just change your attitude." I'm trying to say that at some point, the current hole you're in gets a rope, and you can either start trying to climb it or wait and hope for a lift. The lift can eventually come too but like, the rope is right there. It just takes a lot of work to see and a lot of muscle to climb it.
I feel like this metaphor is falling apart. I'll move on.



In my case, I don't feel that many emotions - or at least, not like other people seem to feel them. I try to hole myself off from people and not form very strong bonds. I don't really like talking about stuff either (surprisingly). My dark thoughts are always present, even if I'm supposedly having a good time, they're still probably in my purview.
All of my thoughts are focused around doing away with myself (and don't worry, I won't go into detail). Those thoughts are just normal for me and happen all the time. I can tell the difference between a passive thought and when I should be worried (usually). The Train is the vehicle for those thoughts. They're a part of me, and they're never going to go away. I may forget about them for a time period, but they'll always come back.

And I think a large part of why I refuse to form strong interpersonal bonds is because I am afraid that I will let someone down or maybe convince myself I don't have reason to actually listen to the thoughts anymore (and not hearing the thoughts anymore is scary too, because it's all I've ever known!).

So this video, for me, is kind of a walk through my brain. I will have phases where I think I might be like everybody else. Stuff starts to get colorful and happy again. I can look into people's eyes and appreciate the beauty in the mundane. I can try to appreciate the world for what it is. Every experience is different, even when the scenes are the same.
But the Train is always there.

Maybe I am interacting with other people but I'm still protecting myself from them in some way. A barrier of some kind, or not making eye contact.
Or maybe I tell myself I'm close to a good experience when really I'm just looking at it from a distant, scientific and "rational" lens - making excuses for myself that that's the "real" thing rather than actually experiencing it (the water and moon parts).

Sometimes I'll be experiencing something maybe good and then I'll have a sudden dark thought. Or maybe it's only dark-adjacent. Like I'm still having fun but something is just slightly wrong- the most obvious examples in the video being the anime choices at 1:50 (an "if you know, you know" moment). These are the peripheral signs that maybe a Train is coming and I should prepare myself.
So maybe I try to stop the train, maybe I stop trying to feel emotions and cut myself off from everyone or convince myself I can't feel feelings so these oncoming feelings are just as unfeelable!

Or maybe I'm already rolling downhill in pessimism, unable to enjoy kids playing because I know what's gonna happen when they're adults (Oh boy they're gonna be depressed sacks of shit just like me!!!) and then we're off to the Train Station and now we're in a Depressive Episode for who knows how long.

And sometimes it just feels so hopeless, because the Train sets you off, but Trains are fucking everywhere. You can never get away from the trains, they're supper efficient transportation vehicles and everybody uses them for stuff. I mean look, they're right there built into the scenery of the other cool scenes, you can't just go No-Train-Contact, it's simply not possible.



But What if.... You didn't feel like you had to stop it?
What if the thoughts are just NORMAL, and if you know you're not going to do anything about the thoughts aside from cry about them, that that's ok?* And it's ok to experience that? Sad is an emotion like any of the other ones, sadness and bad things are just a part of life. Yeah, I have more sad thoughts than happy ones, but life is incongruent and random. There is no malice, it just Is. So what if it's okay to just let it happen and let it pass by? Accept that sadness is a worthwhile emotion too? For, without sadness, would happiness feel just as good without anything to compare it to? It's Okay to Let The Train Pass.

*Important note: does not at all apply if you have the means and are motivated to hurt yourself or others.

Maybe we shouldn't be fighting the train or trying to build communities without its inclusion. You know, trains are actually pretty cool and marvels of engineering. We can appreciate trains despite our negative history with them. Trains have shaped our communities and cultures and the metaphorical trains have made us who we are today. We really shouldn't be fighting the trains; they are on tracks after all. They may not have a predictable schedule but they very rarely go some place you didn't expect them to (in my experience, anyway).



Most of my depressive episodes pass without much effort on my part. Maybe I will be out of commission for a few days or a week, but after that I'm good and I can't ignore it happened but in the same vein it's not really a big deal. It's hard to convey this fact to people who are not me. What I think about and how I experience things seems to shock other people. But for me it just Is. I talk a lot more bluntly and with more details in my side blog, depressedmess.

Hopefully I have somehow made sense in this long blog entry, that I was able to convey my feelings appropriately. This is something that is hard for me to do since I don't really like experiencing feelings lmao.

Happy birthday, Vivafringe.
Sorry I made yet another depressing ass video.

Me (Vars):
I think my amv style is ✨ Depression ✨
or edginess idk

Vivafringe:
vars definitely is underselling himself when he calls his style "depression"
I think it's more exploration of different negative emotions
which probably now that I've written that vars will say "see? depression"

Me:
Yes

There's a high possibility I will not agree with this opinion later, but I will keep it here to describe the thought process behind the video at the time I made it.