Spring 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 2

Thought Experiments For the Anxious, Depressed, and Catatonic

1. If you leave a person alone with their spiraling anxiety—aware they are incapable of restraining their panic cycle—are you free of responsibility for their eventual breakdown, or are you complicit in their devolving psychosis?

• Is their reassuring response of “I’m fine” genuine or an attempt to dissuade further conversation over their doomscrolling?

• Have they transitioned from reasonable worries of what may happen to them outside (or inside) their homes to completely irrational ones involving the health and well-being of every person on the planet?

• Will your presence within their emotional sphere provide a calming effect?

In the absence of a sit-down heart-to-heart conversation, all of their anxious states—nervous giggling, finger-pulling, erratic heartbeat, difficulty speaking, hyperventilation, uncontrollable sobbing—exist within the hypothetical scenario conjured by their brain. Therefore, your failure to intervene is both necessary and extraneous to prevent the person from experiencing a complete mental break.

2. If you notice a person who appears well-adjusted and at ease despite the crushing state of the world’s affairs, are they coping with the impending doom or slowly unraveling their sanity?

• Are they avoiding the topic of impending disaster to prevent absolute hysteria or because they’ve reached a numb state of catatonia?

• Have they progressed within one news headline of going non-verbal?

• Will a simple question of, “Are you okay?” be met with an “Absolutely fine!” or draw forth a crestfallen beg to unburden their brains?

Until you engage with said person, all levels of mental collapse—incessant worrying, catastrophizing, prophesying the end, losing the ability to form coherent words, slack-jawed drooling, fantasizing into another world—simultaneously exist within their unobserved mind. Therefore, your disinterest in starting a conversation with a fellow human allows that person to both continue pretending all is well and entertain a desire to run screaming down the street in the nude.

3. If you see a smile on another person’s face without verifying that they feel safe, provided for, and comfortable, is their smile genuine or false?

• Are they displaying a grin to avoid attention from those looking to persecute them, or because they are so lobotomized, they are incapable of any other facial expression?

• Have they discovered that “Everything’s fine” is the preferred response to the new status quo we find ourselves in?

• Will attempting to ask after their well-being result in hurried reassurances or a desperate need to change the topic of conversation?

Without interaction with the person, all explanations of a smile—actual happiness with the current state of the world, thorough brainwashing, fear of repercussions, desperation to disappear into the distant wilderness, panicked disconnection from reality, catatonic hysteria over discovery—technically exist, overlapping and connecting with one another. Therefore, disinterested observation of a fellow human being allows continued damage to society while also supporting a complete lack of empathy for a fellow neighbor, friend, or family member.

4. If the world stands on the precipice of more-than-probable destruction, are a person’s anxieties over the future rational or excessive?

• Is there a list of fears that are beyond the imagination of human decency, or has the person tapped into a new reality where nothing is too fantastic to fret over?

• Has the person—forced to witness continued acts of violence and utter stupidity—concluded that spewing every possible scenario is the most rational response to crippling depression?

• Can you provide concrete evidence that their “flights of fancy” are unreasonable and unlikely to come to fruition when the country has fallen into the hands of deranged lunatics?

If you dismiss another’s slate of worries without paying attention to the current state of the world, all concerns—the loss of democracy, the end of human well-being, the crumbling of rational thought, the destruction of fundamental rights, the eradication of open communication and sharing of ideas, the erasure of complete decency—exist in an endless cascade of possibility. Therefore, your blindness (deliberate or unintentional) over where society has “progressed” justifies every possible fret of destruction from the minds of the observant.