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When You Are Depressed, Make Something

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Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#181

Post by cpncrunch »

ejfox wrote: post #98
sixo wrote: post #80

When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…

This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…

The article clearly shows that in his case, his depression was caused/triggered by life events. Clearly in his case things weren't "going well", as he had just been fired from his job.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#182

Post by dvt »

potatototo wrote: post #160
ejfox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…

> The people who asked "what's making you sad?" or tried to "fix" my "problems" were the least helpful. As someone who lives with someone depressed, I find myself guilty of doing this and I don't know any other way to be present for that person. What kind of approaches have you found helpful?

Depression is a sort of severe introspection where your thoughts (often negative) take over. The solution tends to be getting your mind off things.

Instead of asking "why sad," try to simply do things with the person that will get their mind off their own negative feedback loop. This is easier said than done, and if the depression is lasting for weeks or months, I suggest seeing a mental care professional.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#183

Post by ZeroFries »

ejfox wrote: post #98
sixo wrote: post #80

When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…

This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…

- This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well."

That just means you cannot identify the reason you're feeling depressed. If everything was going well (including your own health), you would not be depressed.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#184

Post by cpncrunch »

komali2 wrote: post #117
sixo wrote: post #80

When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…

I completely disagree with you. I believe you are describing solutions to problems that can make someone sad or frustrated, which is a fine thing. I'm all about being real about your life situation and doing something about it. However, depression is a disease independent of external factors. I had it when I had arguably one of the coolest jobs in my life up until that point. I treated it with medication, got out of…

>Those techniques are what you called "short term solutions." I think of them as long-term preventative measures to stave off the chemical imbalance that can cause depression

What causes the chemical imbalances? Research on animals show that chronic stress causes depression, so it definitely can be caused by external factors. If your job is causing chronic stress then changing job is obviously a plausible cure for your depression.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#185

Post by yellowapple »

6stringmerc wrote: post #24

Very good front half. The second half ruffled my feathers with conflating lifting other people's work via sampling and tossing flourishes in and suddenly feeling like an authority on creativity. I say this as both a 100% from scratch producer and frequent unsanctioned remixer of other people's work. Glad it's therapeutic for him, genuinely so. He's wrong though, not every human is "innately creative" in the sense tha…

"I just think false hope can lead to, eh, other depressive tailspins."

This right here. These sorts of feelings are very similar to piloting an airplane in a stall. You can pull the nose up as hard as you can, but unless you fix the problem (e.g. by increasing the throttle) the plane is going to "fix" the problem for you (usually by nosediving and/or spinning out of control). If the engine is broken, then the only recourse is often to point the nose down yourself, and hopefully in the process you'll give yourself enough speed to make it to a nice clearing instead of crashing into the face of a mountain.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#186

Post by emjoes1 »

For me making something is like a drug. I have a lot of fun working on it and even immersing myself but after a while the fun runs out. If I finish what I am working on I feel awesome then almost immediately sad. Then I have to find something else.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#187

Post by jes5199 »

benevol wrote: post #78

(Especially!) if your government doesn't give you access to a therapist or if you don't want to suffer side-effects due to anti-depressants, then do : 1. Mindful meditation [free] -> Daily practice (30+ minutes) John Kabat-Zinn [0] masters the link between science and meditation and has published very valuable books (including guided/audio meditation exercises) [1]. There are a couple of scientific studies which prov…

There is good reason to be cautious with meditation while depressed. Meditation helps people get some distance from their emotional reactions - but depressed people are often already _unhealthily_ dissociated from their emotional state, and mediation may exacerbate that rather than repair it.

I'm with you on the LSD thing, though.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#188

Post by sixo »

TillE wrote: post #174
sixo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. I tried to be careful to say 'see if it's this' - I think people who have spent time depressed either completely agree with what I've said, or completely disagree. Probably there's two distinct things we're calling depression.

> Probably there's two distinct things we're calling depression. If you haven't been formally diagnosed, please for the love of god stop talking about "depression". You have no idea what it actually is.

On the one hand, there's the formal monopoly on the term that you cite. On the other, one is constantly reminded that "millions of Americans..." have undiagnosed cases of this thing. If not depression, what do I call this condition that grounded me for a decade, and did the same to many people I've known for comparable periods? Getting out of the house to get a formal diagnose wasn't even possible. It may be that I have no idea what it actually is. In that case I'd like to communicate with whoever is in a state like the one I was in, but I don't know what to call them. "Being depressed?"

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#189

Post by yellowapple »

codezero wrote: post #44

When you are depressed, please try seeing a professional if you have the time/money/insurance coverage. We've made a condition that is largely out of your control a taboo and I don't know why. It's ok to want to be functional, and people can help without pretending like your depression/any other condition isn't real.

"We've made a condition that is largely out of your control a taboo and I don't know why."

The reason "why" is (I suspect) because the people who don't understand depression think that it's not out of one's control. Thus, since they don't experience the effects of depression, they insist that people with depression will be magically cured if they just tried to be happy.

This approach to curing depression - much like trying to fix a severed limb by pretending it's still there - is almost always destined to fail. When it does inevitably fail, the non-depressed people - still failing to understand depression - resort to blaming the depressed people for being depressed.

It's very unsurprising, after all, much like how it's unsurprising for a physically-healthy person to take for granted the ability to use stairs, or how it's very unsurprising for right-handed UX designers to assume that users are right-handed (I'm looking at all y'all Android designers...), or how it's very unsurprising for developers to brush aside bugs with their software because it "works fine on my machine, so you're obviously just doing it wrong; RTFM".

No, I already Read The Fucking Manual™; you just suck at comprehending that your exact situation is not everyone else's.

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