Too many posts, didn't read a lot of them.

Jesus boys! I'm away for 5 minutes and we're onto the paradox of choice?! Heavy shit, blew my mind when I read about it. We're only free to choose if we don't realise it. Anyone who realises they are free to choose for themselves has their choice rendered meaningless, making it impossible to choose one course of action over another for any reason. Action and consequence. Read Nausea by Sartre. Fucked up book. Still haven't actually experienced "The Nausea" yet though.

Right. Choice in depression. I understand you chaps are wondering whether, in a depressed state, it is possible to "choose" to get out of it.

This is a complex concept, but I'll do my best to break it down for you guys. Bear in mind also that, as someone who writes with his train of thought, I'm still working stuff out as I write.

The way I see it, depression can be alleviated by raising serotonin levels (and a couple more minor things). This can be done one of two ways - endogenously (ie, serotonin levels naturally come back up over time - could be after 2 weeks, like mine, or after 10 years) or exogenously (ie by using external stimuli such as drugs or serotonin-boosting activity - exercise, seeing friends or even something as simple as leaving the house). We have no control whatsoever over endogenous control of serotonin (hereafter referred to as 5-HT), and lots of control over exogenous stimuli - we have control over whether to go for a run or to the pub but no way to make our brain spontaneously make loads of 5-HT.

Thus, if there is a choice, the choice centres around what exogenous activities we can to to alleviate the situation. Therefore, I suppose that in theory, even someone scoring a 60 on the Beck Inventory could choose to go out and approach some girls and help themselves feel better again. The problem with depression is that it greatly reduces the chances of you actually wanting to choose this option. I can't really explain the feeling to someone who's never had it, except by referring to MDMA again.

Anyone who's ever had it will have experienced a comedown. I've never had them that bad but I know people who have. It's that feeling of wanting to curl into a ball, shut yourself off from the world and die. Depression is like the worst comedown you've ever had, but combined with a bottomless pit of sadness. Not for nothing is it so often called a "black cloud" - it is almost exactly like being covered by a black cloud. It is all-crushing, all-consuming, and most importantly, it makes you want to do anything other than socialise and feel good. It's akin to being offered a shot of gin when you're having Satan's own hangover. You feel utterly repulsed by it - you can think of nothing worse.

So what I'm saying is, yes, there is an element of choice to make yourself feel better, and doing these things would almost certainly help a little bit, but depression makes the chances of you actually wanting to make this choice significantly smaller.

Good talk anyway, turns out it wasn't as complicated as I thought.