Take hot water bath and go for one hour walk
My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
121–130 of 199 posts
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#122I'm often surprised by non-doctors giving medical advice to someone who has a potentially fatal illness. It feels really irresponsible to me. As irresponsible as telling a cancer patient to try carrots. Although I accept that you're showing compassion, and that's important. And that you're not being judgemental. And that you have some evidence that exercise works to treat depression - you're not talking obvious nonse…
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11368005 and marked it off-topic.
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Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#123Try meditation, it got me out of depression after 3 years of pain, seeing a lot of psychiatrists and taking multiple antidepressants. There is always a reason why we are depressed. We need to go deep into ourselves to find it, there is no other way.
Meditation is useful for some people.
It's not useful for everyone, and it's sometimes harmful. The risks of harm tend to be ignored by people delivering meditation and mindfulness.
> There is always a reason why we are depressed. We need to go deep into ourselves to find it, there is no other way.
The evidence from cognitive behavioural therapy suggests this is not always true. For some (but not all) people there isn't any reason, and it's certainly not always some buried trauma.
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I get so tired of comments like yours. What are we supposed to do then? The best first advice is to get professional help. That doesn't mean "get drugs," it means start the evaluation process, which may or may not include drugs, therapy, exercise, whatever. Go ahead and recommend exercise or herbal remedies or whatever, but I believe one should strongly direct a sufferer to professional help first. The closer and m…
Of course, suggest getting professional help first. But as a random internet board commenter, I can't drive them to the doctor. And for many people suffering from depression (I've been there, many of us have) getting to the doctor may as well be getting to the moon. But for me, if I could just get outside, things started to look just a little bit better, and maybe I could make it down the street. And then things look…
> Maybe there's someone reading this thread for whom the first step to getting help is just to get outside, and I'd call it irresponsible withhold that information.
I don't think that's what the post I responded to was saying. I think the post I was responding to was recommending exercise as a treatment for exercise, not recommending just getting out of the house as a first step to seeing a professional.
> Of course, suggest getting professional help first.
the post I responded to did not do that.
You've described how hard it is sometimes to leave the house. Do you think it's realistic to expect a person in that situation to start doing 5 sessions per week, 30 minutes per session, of vigorous exercise?
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#125The author here is pretty brave. I've often thought about writing something along similar lines. When you're living in DC and you aren't doing this long list of elite stuff, it's much less ok to admit you're not ok. Many places want their younger workers to work hard, not smart. I'm currently looking for a job that have more autonomy, more respect for the individual, but they're hard to find. It's especially frustrat…
Be careful using weed to mask depression. It does work, in my experience. But tolerance can develop over time. It's nowhere near as dramatic as addiction to tobacco or heroin or benzodiazepines. Yet there is the risk. Also, dogma and accepted practice notwithstanding, "depression" is a morass of symptoms, not a well-defined disease/condition. Testing treatments is hard, because symptoms subjective and placebo effects…
The author had withdrawals from her medication which wouldn't happen with marijuana. At most you won't sleep that well for a few nights and then experience vivid dreams. And often a sativa strain works well to give the patient motivation to exercise, which seems to be basic but important when fighting depression.
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#126This is a fantastic statement in support of gun control.
And OP is a fantastic statement in support of rope control.
It's much more difficult to limit suicidal people's access to ropes, and suicides utilize firearms twice as often as ropes (at least in the US, apparently: http://lostallhope.com/suicide-statistics/us-methods-suicide). Based on the 80/20 principle, rope control should come way after gun control (but general healthcare system changes should probably precede both).
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Be careful using weed to mask depression. It does work, in my experience. But tolerance can develop over time. It's nowhere near as dramatic as addiction to tobacco or heroin or benzodiazepines. Yet there is the risk. Also, dogma and accepted practice notwithstanding, "depression" is a morass of symptoms, not a well-defined disease/condition. Testing treatments is hard, because symptoms subjective and placebo effects…
The author had withdrawals from her medication which wouldn't happen with marijuana. At most you won't sleep that well for a few nights and then experience vivid dreams. And often a sativa strain works well to give the patient motivation to exercise, which seems to be basic but important when fighting depression.
I wanted to point out how dangerous your post is.
There's a well known risky time during treatment for depression in people with suicidal ideation. Those people get more motivation, and are more able to do stuff. But they still have strongly negative thinking and suicidal thinking. They are more able to kill themselves, and many do.
> motivation to exercise, which seems to be basic but important when fighting depression
There are two links in this thread to the science that show exercise probably isn't that useful to treat depression.
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#128I'm fairly sure I'm depressed, but I feel like I have to hide it in order to protect my mom, who is also depressed. She's been dealing with her depression for about five years now, and thanks to software I've been able to support our family for the past three years (I'm 22), which is fantastic for her and my siblings, but at the same time it makes me feel like I have to be an emotional/financial anchor for the family…
Don't take it as a given that revealing your own depression to your mother will make her life harder. She may welcome the chance to help you and she may help herself in the process.
I'm not saying it is a sure thing - just don't rule it out
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#129I'm fairly sure I'm depressed, but I feel like I have to hide it in order to protect my mom, who is also depressed. She's been dealing with her depression for about five years now, and thanks to software I've been able to support our family for the past three years (I'm 22), which is fantastic for her and my siblings, but at the same time it makes me feel like I have to be an emotional/financial anchor for the family…
Don't take it as a given that revealing your own depression to your mother will make her life harder. She may welcome the chance to help you and she may help herself in the process.
I'm not saying it is a sure thing - just don't rule it out
Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine
#130Does anyone have an antidepressant they've tried that doesn't give them horrible sexual side effects such as loss of libido and inability to orgasm? All the SSRIs seem to do that. Zoloft, Paxil, Amitriptyline. They make me happy but I'm dead below the waist.
Mirtazapine worked for me for a while but it pooped out, and Wellbutrin makes me feel ridiculously amped up. So those are no good.
I'm married, and I've been depressed to varying degrees for years (severely now), but I don't want to give up my sex life because that's one of the few things in my life I enjoy.