Slow changes of temperature

Many animals, including human beings, cannot recognise slow increases in temperature, only big differences. This is why you put live frogs in cold water, and heat them up slowly. In theory, you could boil a person alive, and kill them before they noticed what was going on. The key is to do it slowly.

Macabre as that is, it is easy to understand how it works. I experiment an analogous process many of the times I have a relapse into bad depression. I barely rarely notice when the downward spiral happens if it is subtle. Sometimes it is blatant: something upsets me, or reminds me of something else, and I start rumiating and unintentionally bring myself down. But it is not always that obvious. Sometimes, well, it just kind of happens. What sets me off is so tiny I don't even register, and the downwards path is so gentle that I only notice it when I'm already down, and then I do not have the strength to get up. The depression slowly boils me alive, and I only notice it at the end.

Anyway, this is how I'm feeling at the moment. It occurred to me to link it to the boiling alive situation, and thought I would write it down, in the hope that it will help someone (maybe to understand what a loved one is going through, maybe to be able to explain what is happening to them). I hope it does.