Walk. Exercise and light will help you immensely.
Walking is an art form, like poetry, and will bring you exercise and light and awe.
It gets better.
Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#521. Get medicated. 2. Set one small baby-step goal each day. (set an appointment today, etc.) Change the goal every time. 3. Change your environment. Move cities or schools if need be. 4. Exercise. Start with one rep on day 1, two reps on day 2, etc. Baby steps. 5. Ask for feedback on stuff. Any positive feedback helps motivate you to learn and do more projects. 6. Seek a healthy relationship. 7. Be vulnerable. Let so…
1. Get medicated. 12. Never do drugs. This just amplifies your problems. Your points #1 and #12 are a nice big contradiction. Anti-depression drugs in particualr tend to have rather significant side-effects, which can last for a decade after you've stopped taking the drug. Going to drugs to help against depression should be a plan C kind of a thing. Changing your environment and activities should be well tested befor…
My guess is that GP is not native American (or a native of other English-speaking country). As a non-native, it took me some time to grok that the term "drugs" can mean both "medicines" (like aspirin) and "addictive substances" (like alcohol, tobacco or cocaine). I suspect GP is referring exclusively to the second meaning. For instance, in Polish, we always use separate words for those two concepts.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#531. Get medicated. 2. Set one small baby-step goal each day. (set an appointment today, etc.) Change the goal every time. 3. Change your environment. Move cities or schools if need be. 4. Exercise. Start with one rep on day 1, two reps on day 2, etc. Baby steps. 5. Ask for feedback on stuff. Any positive feedback helps motivate you to learn and do more projects. 6. Seek a healthy relationship. 7. Be vulnerable. Let so…
Sure, you shouldn't rush to get medicated, but you should be open to medication as an option. I believe depression is often chemically caused, and if you've tried healthy living, meditation, etc., there are many good, relatively benign, well tested medical options out there.
Indeed. Medication are not silver bullets and usually won't solve problems alone, but a right pill may be just what's needed to enable you to deal with the problems. Personally, I'm on SSRIs and (despite getting a common side effect) I'm very happy with them - even though I still suffer from depression symptoms, they're nowhere near the level I had before getting those pills, which pretty much restored my ability to hold my head above water.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a bunch of hooey. Just 'deciding to be happy' is nonsense for someone with major depressive disorder (the medically accepted name of the disorder, as opposed to the term 'clinical depression', which people without experience tend to use...) I'm glad things worked out for you but this is not helpful advice for someone who is actually depressed. It's like telling someone who's short to just decide to be taller.
I guess you're right. I'll just remove that one paragraph. If you are at a doctor you are more than welcome to weigh in on the 2 opinions I had at 10 after being bullied for 3 years. I might not be able to remember all the terminology, but I do remember not being able to get out of it. I do remember not being able to have more than 1 friend up until I was 20. I do remember drinking myself into a pit at 22 (2 six pack…
I'm certainly not an expert (although I too have been diagnosed twice), and I'm not here to denigrate your experience. Like I said, I'm glad you made it through it, by whatever means. I'm just saying, your advice is usually considered unhelpful by people with depression (just decide to be happy!)
I think other people in the thread have good advice on practical steps to take - big ones being meditation/mindfulness training, changing circumstances/surroundings, and diet/exercise. All of these things can do much more to alter brain chemistry and enact a positive feedback cycle than just "deciding" something.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a bunch of hooey. Just 'deciding to be happy' is nonsense for someone with major depressive disorder (the medically accepted name of the disorder, as opposed to the term 'clinical depression', which people without experience tend to use...) I'm glad things worked out for you but this is not helpful advice for someone who is actually depressed. It's like telling someone who's short to just decide to be taller.
I guess you're right. I'll just remove that one paragraph. If you are at a doctor you are more than welcome to weigh in on the 2 opinions I had at 10 after being bullied for 3 years. I might not be able to remember all the terminology, but I do remember not being able to get out of it. I do remember not being able to have more than 1 friend up until I was 20. I do remember drinking myself into a pit at 22 (2 six pack…
I don't think you really should have removed that paragraph :). Yes, it jumped on me too, but after thinking about it for a second, I actually appreciated it. I've never been able to think myself out of something like you did, but I found it reassuring. I actually envy you that skill; myself I was also drinking myself every night for almost a year; at some point I run out of money for cheap beers, stopped drinking, realized that I like being sober and never returned to the habit. So in my case this seems more like random walk around the potential gradient, with hope that at some point I'll accidentally escape the local minimum.
If you have any tips about "excruciating existential anxiety" (of which I've been suffering for half the decade already, recently successfully moderated by SSRIs) I'd be more than glad to hear them. Right now the only coping strategy I have is to ignore it, but it interferes with my ability to concentrate and plan for the future - I'm literally unable to plan for more than a week-two in advance without getting serious emotional pains.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess you're right. I'll just remove that one paragraph. If you are at a doctor you are more than welcome to weigh in on the 2 opinions I had at 10 after being bullied for 3 years. I might not be able to remember all the terminology, but I do remember not being able to get out of it. I do remember not being able to have more than 1 friend up until I was 20. I do remember drinking myself into a pit at 22 (2 six pack…
I don't think you really should have removed that paragraph :). Yes, it jumped on me too, but after thinking about it for a second, I actually appreciated it. I've never been able to think myself out of something like you did, but I found it reassuring. I actually envy you that skill; myself I was also drinking myself every night for almost a year; at some point I run out of money for cheap beers, stopped drinking, r…
FWIW, when I was very young (and surrounded by adults with various behavioral issues) I concluded that if my brain could influence my thoughts, then my thoughts could influence my brain. i.e., if I worked through something mentally, I could improve my mood or deal with adversity or grief or melancholy or the occasional bout of really bad depression.
That's worked out well for me as a sort of first line of defense, but it has side effects too. I've been seeing a therapist for most of a year now to try to unwind some of it, because unfortunately the same mechanisms that repress something like anxiety also repress love or joy.
And I'd never recommend it to anyone else. For one thing, I haven't even been able to decide for myself if it's just a bunch of self-delusion or not; I'd have no idea how to go about suggesting someone else try it.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#57I make myself adhere to my usual daily habits as much as possible. Depression makes it really attractive to lounge around all day. I try to get up and shave, and shower, and dress even if I have nowhere to go. It usually happens more slowly, but I also usually feel a little better afterward. I'm never happy with myself if I forego those daily habits.
I try to sit outside a little bit if I can. There's a lot of evidence at this point that exposure to sunlight in the morning is a good way to help improve your sleep, which is a major component of depression. I never want to sit outside, but I make myself do it anyway.
I try not to be too angry or upset with myself. To some extent, what I'm experiencing is outside of my control. I'm sick, just as if I had the flu. So I try to relax a little. Beating myself up never makes me feel better.
I try to remember something I used to enjoy, and I try to do that thing again, only I try to take it easy. For example, reading: I never have enough time to read anymore. I won't be in the mood for a novel, but maybe one of my old Robert Asprin books would be nice.
I try not to let my diet get too awful, but, like being sick, I give in a little. I can't will myself into making three square meals a day, but I can make one good meal a day and not eat my way through a brand new bag of cookies.
I try to pick one little thing and finish it. Sometimes it's the laundry, sometimes it's the dishes, sometimes it's yard work, sometimes it's the pantry that's been under construction for a bit. I definitely don't pick anything ambitious. I need a victory, so I go and find the smallest, easiest little battle, and I win that one, and then tomorrow I'll look for another one, and keep doing that until I feel better.
If it's really bad, I contact a friend. I don't have many friends, but there is one that I can call whenever I'm in really bad shape, and he'll drop what he's doing and come over and we'll talk and get ice cream and play cards or something. (And I'll drop everything for him too.)
Those are a few of the things I do, anyway. Hope you find something there that helps.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#58Hey buddy! I won't make any claims against other's opinions here. We all chose what we chose for ourselves.
Depression is the indirect result of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the result of holding conflicting beliefs and feelings inside yourself. That could be "I'm suppose to finish college" and "I want to go live in Thailand and code for a year", for example. When you hold two opposing beliefs, your brain attempts to resolve those beliefs through a series of rationalizations of your feelings. Rationalizations are excuses, but just sound better, as they are intended to resolve the dissonance so you can function somewhat normally emotionally. The more you attempt to avoid resolving these beliefs, the stronger your dissonance will be. All of this results in suffering. A little suffering now, resolving things and stating your real feelings, can help alleviate the symptoms of dissonance and the larger suffering you are experiencing today. Accepting a little ongoing suffering will eventually resolve the dissonance, but a choice will have to be made. BTW, a lot of people are challenged with undestanding how they actually feel emotionally. Celebrate the fact you already know you are sad. It's a helluva thing to be able to do that!
Buddhism, or more specifically the 8-fold path, is essentially a mind recipe for what I describe above. It goes something like this (with my spin on each step after the colons):
1. Right view: understand the problem behind a given dissonance you hold (you may have multiple ones)
2. Right intention: set intent to resolve one of the dissonances
3. Right speech: talk about resolving it to others and don't represent actions or thoughts that attempt to keep the dissonance in place
4. Right action: put the thing you are saying into action. don't just talk about it. do it.
5. Right livelihood: don't let the important parts of your life keep your dissonance in place. jobs and school are livelihoods
6. Right effort: keep plugging at the different dissonance bits you hold inside of you. never stop resolving them.
7. Right mindfulness: learn to meditate, basically. there are a thousand ways to meditate. find one that works for you.
8. Right concentration: don't let your brain fuck with you. you, your consciousness, is in control, not your brain. show it who's boss.
Good luck dude. I have faith you'll be just fine. You are here, after all. That's the first step.
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#59I was bankrupted so medications were not an option.
I was aware of it did not make me feel better.
a girl said let's fuck because I am also depressed and it makes people depressed feel better. (she was bipolar)
She was lying, but I was kind of in love with her, so it made me feel better, but not her.
In fact it works. At least for me, even if I cared more about her than me.
Just loving people heal depression a lot, I guess.
Ho! And my parent's cat was nice with me. Maybe that was the key. But who knows?
Re: Ask HN: How did you deal with depression?
#60If your procrastination is causing or deepening your depression, consider this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastinati...
It helped me understand and break the procrastination cycle.