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One Road Out of Depression

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Re: One Road Out of Depression

#51

Post by webmaven »

Jtsummers wrote: post #12
petercooper wrote: post #7

My "road out" was having kids and taking on a lot of responsibility (both family and business). It's worked for 7 years now and I've never felt happier and mentally healthy, even if I am super busy and under a lot of pressure :-) I never thought I'd be the sort of person to thrive on pressure but it turns out I am.

I think many people do who don't realize it. There's a balance, certainly, and having a cause that you care about helps a great deal. Pressure from a job that just feels like a grind can leave you feeling stressed and unessential (why do we need yet another widget?!?). Pressure in supporting people you care about (family, friends), a country, a cause (ending hunger, eliminating a disease, etc.), and so on can leave y…

Pressure is a fine motivator (we all know people who do their best work when under a tight deadline), but only if you are capable of being realistic about the consequences of failure (and attribution of blame).

If you raise the stakes enough for almost anyone (or they are of a mindset to ratchet those stakes up for themselves) it can be paralyzing, unless the consequences of not making a decision are somehow worse.

In some ways, SV-style celebration of failure is great, but if you're fixated on a "Unicorn or Bust" (or even an "FU money or Bust") career path, well, having a few "busts" in a row (which is a fairly likely outcome, even if you have both a good idea and execution) might just kill you.

In this sense, choosing a cause to have a sense of purpose may be a terrible option for some folks to pursue, since the consequences of not solving it completely are still dire - eg. don't choose to work on solving the World Hunger Problem if, having eliminated 90% of the problem in five years, you are going to blame yourself for the less tractable remaining 10% that still die of malnutrition and hunger.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#53

Post by drhayes9 »

da02 wrote: post #48
drhayes9 wrote: post #45

I finally realized I was depressed when I couldn't remember a time I wasn't angry. I didn't know that constant irritation and low-level anger are also depression symptoms. I remembered trouble sleeping and no energy and sadness, but "anger" was new to me. When I started getting pissed at other drivers and couldn't be patient with my son, my wife said, "Are you okay?" I wasn't. I was depressed. I started taking medica…

How old was your son and what were the things that he did that made you impatient with him? He didn't want to do homework or chores?

He was three, and was mostly just being a toddler: he would get grumpy, get frustrated and yell when he couldn't do things, was making us tell him stuff dozens of times, over and over.

My responses felt reasonable at the time. Why wouldn't I get angry at him when he yelled at me? Oh, right, he's a toddler and I'm an adult. I've been in the saddle with respect to my emotions for decades. This could, no fooling, only be the 200th time he's ever been truly angry. I'm the responsible one here. Realizing I lost sight of that perspective was what took me by surprise and scared me a little.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#54

Post by deltawave »

agumonkey wrote: post #32
alexashka wrote: post #21

Cliff notes: guy raised in a family of over-achievers, worked himself to the bone while never taking the time to grow up emotionally, hoping achievement would fill the gap. It didn't, he had to face that fact and now that he's let go of the false hopes of success fixing his life - he's slowly but surely getting his shit together and is very glad to be doing so. Perhaps the one thing missing from this article is how c…

I too got stuck into a restricted life path because that was a very plausible and effective life drive (the neverending good student). Until it stopped. Gotta realign your priorities (emotional, familial and social balance) and it's surprisingly difficult for a while. It's hard to avoid over specification in life, it's a natural reflex to aim at what seems and feels the best, thinking the rest, scary and annoying has…

Do you or somebody else have an idea on where I could explore this idea further, in terms of books, websites etc…? Having semi-recently graduated University and moved out on my own, I am having quite a few personal issues related to an achievement-obsession that I have been socialized into but which is holding me back from much day-to-day happiness.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#55

Post by ninenexus »

chrisper wrote: post #39
patrickdavey wrote: post #31

When I got Depressed (capital D, though I was only 4 on a 10 point scale) the hardest part for me was accepting that I needed to take medication, that I couldn't WILL myself better (not for want of trying I can tell you). Maybe some people can think themselves better, but if you are properly depressed, and your doctor is suggesting medication, it's not failing/losing/lessening to take the drugs to correct a chemical…

Who did you contact first about the issue? A regular doctor, a psychologist, or a psychiatrist?

I have it clinically as well. My experience went with Primary Care -> Psych Eval -> Psych Specialist. When you ask for the referral from your PC, I suggest requesting an office with a group of specialists that can bounce you to a better provider after your eval.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#56

Post by adamc »

rapjs wrote: post #38

Great article. Currently fighting to claw out of my own depression.

From personal experience: I recommend considering both a psychiatrist (medication) and a therapist (works on your thinking patterns. Both help a lot. Depending on the depth of your depression, you might be able to get by with just the therapist, but in my case, both help.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#57

Post by agumonkey »

deltawave wrote: post #54
agumonkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too got stuck into a restricted life path because that was a very plausible and effective life drive (the neverending good student). Until it stopped. Gotta realign your priorities (emotional, familial and social balance) and it's surprisingly difficult for a while. It's hard to avoid over specification in life, it's a natural reflex to aim at what seems and feels the best, thinking the rest, scary and annoying has…

Do you or somebody else have an idea on where I could explore this idea further, in terms of books, websites etc…? Having semi-recently graduated University and moved out on my own, I am having quite a few personal issues related to an achievement-obsession that I have been socialized into but which is holding me back from much day-to-day happiness.

No, I never researched this, mostly because I had to cope with too many little problems to really deal with things calmly and I don't even know if there's a term or idiom about this. I mentioned it a few times on the web and you're the first to actually discuss it. At least you seem to be aware of it and ready to reflect.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#58

Post by webmaven »

titzer wrote: post #34
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I keep telling my amputee friend too - just walk it off.

You see, this is actually funny because there's a pun there. Parent is either a troll or has no sense of humor, or both.

It's funny, but it is still the sort of joke that best comes from someone in the same predicament (or from a really close friend), and isn't particularly suitable for most public fora.

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#59

Post by costcopizza »

The "chemical imbalance" theory has been losing steam for quite some time.

The British Psychological Society has issued this consensus statement: There is actually no evidence for the current view – and we agree with many senior psychiatrists in saying that – we do have an overwhelming amount of evidence that even severe psychiatric breakdown is actually the end result of a complex mix of social and psychological circumstances. People who have suffered things like bereavement, loss, discrimination, poverty, trauma, abuse, domestic violence, in other words things that have happened to you.

From my experience, and many others, we have a script running in the background of our minds. Nonstop. This script is brutal, telling us we're worthless, unable to do this, will always be alone, etc etc. It gets etched in our mind and we become it, and likely impacts all aspects of our brain chemistry. (Depressed patients are often deficient in many key areas Omega 3, Magnesium, Vitamin B, etc)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-depression-jus...

Re: One Road Out of Depression

#60

Post by Briel »

I used to replay the same negative thoughts as well. Here's how I broke free:

Reframe all your negative thoughts.

I used to obsess about past mistakes. Thought: "I wish I didn't do that." Reframe: "If I didn't do that, I wouldn't have learned that lesson to be the person I am today. Or in the position I am today."

Stop worrying about problems that haven't even materialized yet and very likely never will.

We waste tons of mental energy worrying about problems that never happen. If you don't believe me, make a list of all you worries about near future events. Wait a week and see how many of them actually happen. You'll find 99% didn't.

This one was the hardest to put into practice: be kind to yourself.

A lot of people believe that if you stop criticizing yourself, you won't learn. You won't improve. You'll become arrogant.

When you criticize yourself, you actually make it even harder to learn from your experiences / actions. Why? Because when we feel badly, we're not very productive about forming ideas on how to change and putting them into action. Instead, we seek distractions (sometimes really unhealthy ones) to try to make ourselves feel better.

When you do something that leads to a negative outcome for you, preventing that negative outcome from happening again is enough motivation to change in of itself. You don't need to make yourself feel bad to learn and change.

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