I too have went through VERY similar experiences in my life... I will admit that I spent once nearly 5 years holding the couch down because of depression and not wanting to leave my house. I just couldn't bring myself to be a part of what I saw out there... and honestly I can't really tell you what exactly I saw in the world but something was just not right and I didn't belong there. People all seemed plastic and unfeeling. I remember calling everyone "surface dwellers"... I wrote a poem of sorts during that time a few of the lines went something like this:
Moving through time neither slow of fast
Where am I, the future or past?
Truthful seeming lies hide behind their eyes
etc, etc....
Anyways, I too got to a point where I realized that I was feeding my disease. Each day I spent on that couch was one less day I had lived. I eventually ventured out and I'd like to say that my music inspired me to do it but actually it was my camera. I started taking photos out in nature. Looking at life through a lens of a camera made me really "LOOK" at the world differently, it's like it forced me to look for beauty rather than the ugliness I surrounded myself with and only saw before...
Also, the point that was made about being "acutely sensitive..." I really believe there is something to that. I read a book not so long ago called "The Highly Sensitive Person", by Elaine Aaron. In this book it speaks about how there are two types of people. The highly sensitive people were born with an acute awareness and sensitivity because they were meant to be the teachers, artists, philosophers etc. and also how those types of people get overwhelmed and overloaded by their senses (thus, depression, anxiety etc.)... You might want to check that out, it's pretty interesting.
