Crawling Off to Die Began as a Beneficial Instinct
I was listening to a lecture in the anxiety summit where the speaker was lecturing about how depression works. He spoke on a study where they forced mice to swim until they gave up. I suddenly remembered about how animals will go off from their pack when they are ill, crawling off to die. As the lecture went on he started saying the depression symptoms are supposed to protect the body. We get away from others, find somewhere dark and quite, sleep more, maybe eat less, all that allows the body to rest and repair. It was when it is chronic that it is seen as a problem. I always had this thought of my hermitism and celibacy both were a human form of crawling off to die. Now I find out it is an instinctual mechanism for the body to try to heal. Don't feel so off about it.