Couple days ago in a Finnish shitposting thread someone jokingly proposed the idea of an apocalyptic situation by which...

There will no longer be a system in place to provide you with welfare or assistance.

Don't need welfare? Then your depression ain't all that bad in the great scheme of things, you can still work.

Imo, desu, senpai.

Nobody appreciates the magic until it goes away. While things move smoothly, people just assume food will show up in the grocery store because, duh, that's what happens. Nobody thinks about how unless it's their job.

>alien experiments
The hell theory were they trying to prove?

Turns out they've been monitoring the internet and the first thing they ever saw was /r9k/. Gave them a completely wrong impression.

Just pump it into the public the water supplies.

I don't think you understand how... well, reality works, by this point. What exactly are you going to dump into the water supply, user? In what amount? Where exactly? Do you imagine there's a big hole full of water in every city that says "Water Supply" near it you can just dump a wheelburrow full of pills into? Can you begin to conceive of the amount of chemicals you'll need? And psychiatric medicine needs to be taken in very measured doses, if you give to people with their tap water, you have no control over how much they have (and with the amount you're going to have to put it in so it won't be diluted into fucking nothing, that's no joke). People would be ODing left and right, dying from side effects and related complications or just not feeling any effect at all.

Many people would die either from suicide or the following collapse.

People with existing similar mental afflictions would likely get off easier. The obligatory sociopathic apocalypse-gangs would start running amok.

The survivors who aren't pricks would have to factor in "will to live" as a central survival focus. Some people who had depression might actually improve now that they can operate on some existing experience.

In time, the psycho gangs would likely implode due to unsustainability and killing themselves/each other as they become less and less stable.

Those who survived, if any, would have an interesting society. They'd be a mentally strong people, though not necessarily proud. Many would likely be grim or melancholic, while virtues of compassion and community would be extremely heightened, since anyone without even a single support source would be likely to slowly go mad.

I wonder if people who had already overcome depression in the past would have an easier time coping. I went through a really, really dark period a few years back, but I pulled myself out of it and turned into a fairly happy individual again, which I feel is my natural state. I wonder if others like me, that is to say, those not currently suffering from mental illnesses but who have overcome them in the past, would fare well at all.

The interesting part of a depression-apocalypse is that it just skips right ahead to one of the key issues of surviving: keeping the will to live. And that's a very individual thing. Anyone who gets bitten by a zombie turns, but not everybody who gets severe depression will act the same. Even worse is that we know so little about mental medicine in our modern society, to say nothing of how hard it would be for people going through an apocalypse.

So Finns have basically created a world where Stirner and Camus followers can become godlike beings?

yoah shit for brains, depression is not a rarity. Damn near everyone you know in life has experienced depression at some point in their life. Its just their isn't broke so they didn't get stuck that way forever.

*their brain

That sounds like a very gothic society. Like a Tim Burton kind of work.

It would end up like the crank movies. Only instead of doing crazy shit to keep your heart going, you are doing it to keep yourself from getting sad

Isn't the Finnish deal a plague of autism?

I'm aware of that, yes. What we're talking about seems to imply people are getting stuck that way forever, though.

Pathological depression isn't all that bad.
As someone who is depressed 95% of the time, I just do shit because either someone expects it from me, or it needs to be done.
Surprisingly, my life has worked out so far. Depending on your definition of "what needs to be done", you will be able to perform more or less adequately.

That could be another interesting scenario. One of the possible drawbacks of getting certain superpowers in Mutant City Blues is called "Adult Onset Autism". The book actually lampshades how much it baffled the scientific community, since nobody's ever heard of someone suddenly becoming autistic after a full life of neurotypicality.

>what are pathologies
>what is chronic depression vs normal human emotion

There's a netflix film called The Discovery that's sort of like this.

Essentially a scientist proves the existence of *an* afterlife (no-one knows what it's actually like though), then watches in horror as suicide numbers go through the roof world-wide.

youtube.com/watch?v=ECThYCPA1Z0

How does he do that?

science

>virtues of compassion and community would be extremely heightened

I doubt it.
If the majority of people are depressed sad sacks then you can't possibly look after them all. Compassion would quickly go out the window.

I can already imagine the mechanics
>I get out of bed.
>Okay, roll Willpower.

It might make for a nice PbtA style game.

I could envision a period of time where people who are used to depression probably just keep on doing their thing, maybe even find a bit of relief since suddenly EVERYONE has the same symptoms and mannerisms they've had for years, affecting the 'no one understands me' mentality.

Alcoholism rates skyrocket, in general people are more likely to indulge in whatever they can get their hands on that makes them feel just alive enough to keep them from ending it all, so life takes on a very muted hedonistic tone to it. Sure, everyone tries to go to parties every other day and drink themselves stupid to chase that buzz, but it all just hits them harder the next morning when they get up and self-medicate all over again.

You might say the state of the world could be defined as... A Great Depression.

Isn't that what happens in The Happening? Induced by angry plants?

Puns are punishable by death in this setting because they increase suicide rates further.

But that's a good one! It could make people laugh!