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The Depression Thing

zachholman.com

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Re: The Depression Thing

#101

Post by pure_ambition »

lqdc13 wrote: post #42

Please be advised that taking SSRIs can have negative side effects that you might not be aware of. When people I'm close with start taking them, they are less interested in being intimate and stop "loving"/being affectionate. In my experience, having a schedule, exercising and making sure you are around other people help a lot more while preserving your personality.

In my experience, people who start taking SSRIs have improved dramatically. Stop using anecdotal evidence to discourage people from seeking valuable help.

Re: The Depression Thing

#102

Post by jbob2000 »

DanBC wrote: post #43
Swizec wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup same here. Clinical depression in high school, meds, therapy, suicide watch the whole shebang. Fun times, can’t remember two years of my life. So far the only thing that’s actually worked has been staying busy/productive/creative, good nutrition, exercise etc. Everyone always tells me I’m an insensitive dick when i suggest getting off their ass and doing stuff to treat their depression. But fuck it, that shit wor…

> But fuck it, that shit works for you -- you have no idea whether it'll work for anyone else. Since depression is a potentially fatal illness, and you appear not to have any training in psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, medicine, pharmacology, you should maybe recognise your limits. > Changing your lifestyle to treat depression works Only for some people. you have no idea how many people it does work for, and y…

The medical community calls what you're doing "terminal uniqueness" and I've noticed that this is very prevalent with people who suffer from depression: "Those therapies won't work on me, I am different, I need a special treatment".

Sleep, eat well, keep active. Nothing about that advice is dangerous. But it is hard to do if you aren't in the habit of doing it. (I know what you're going to say next, "but chemicals in the brain!" What do you think sleeping, healthy dieting, and keeping active are trying to fix?)

Re: The Depression Thing

#103

Post by kbhn »

oculusthrift wrote: post #73
lqdc13 wrote: post #42

Please be advised that taking SSRIs can have negative side effects that you might not be aware of. When people I'm close with start taking them, they are less interested in being intimate and stop "loving"/being affectionate. In my experience, having a schedule, exercising and making sure you are around other people help a lot more while preserving your personality.

yeah well the same thing happens when someone is really depressed and not on ssris as well

There's a difference between a lack of affection/physicality because you're depressed and because you're using an SSRI.

I still wanted to be close to people while I was depressed - I just felt useless and unable to do much else. On the SSRI I lost the desire to be affectionate, both around others and when I was by myself. It took around 6-9 months after I came off the SSRI for me to feel like I returned back to a normal state.

Re: The Depression Thing

#104

Post by johnny99 »

I love you for writing this. I spent thirty years either trying and failing to fix myself, or being misdiagnosed (turns out treating bipolarity with antidepressants can do more harm than good). It wasn't until I had kids that I tried once again to get out of my hole, and got correct treatment. Luckily my kids were still little and the only dad they'll know is someone much better equipped to to be fully present and loving for them, in a way that was often buried before.

To anyone needing help, if it's easier to take action for someone else, do it for their sake. And hopefully you'll see that it's ok to have given yourself that kindness too.

Re: The Depression Thing

#105

Post by kbhn »

pure_ambition wrote: post #101
lqdc13 wrote: post #42

Please be advised that taking SSRIs can have negative side effects that you might not be aware of. When people I'm close with start taking them, they are less interested in being intimate and stop "loving"/being affectionate. In my experience, having a schedule, exercising and making sure you are around other people help a lot more while preserving your personality.

In my experience, people who start taking SSRIs have improved dramatically. Stop using anecdotal evidence to discourage people from seeking valuable help.

He's not discouraging people from seeking help; he's encouraging people to be educated about the help they're seeking. For people who are in affectionate relationships, this is an important factor and is worth mentioning.

Re: The Depression Thing

#106

Post by pgeorgi »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #66
jlg23 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful with that advice. It might have been good for you, it might be good for a lot of depressive people, but definitely not for all. Before I turned twenty I met two people my age who took your advice and exercised until ambulances had to pick them up (literally). Whatever you do to counter your depression, have a trustworthy, knowledgeable aid at your side: a therapist.

This is an almost absurd criticism ("be careful telling people to sleep, people I know who were depressed followed that advice and slept for 12-14 hours every day"). Let's fix it by being more specific, so we don't accidentally cause any more problems: "daily moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise" (or, if you prefer, "resistance training 3x week"). Or even, "a healthy level of exercise". I agree that therapy is…

> you shouldn't need a therapist to figure this one out. A reasonable amount of exercise is good for pretty much everyone.

People with clinical depression aren't those who _can_ easily hit the gym for that dopamine rush. "Some sport is usually not a bad idea" is not the hard part, getting to the point where it can be implemented is.

And if that is the problem, and none of the pep talks on hacker news over the last few years helped, why not try the therapist?

Re: The Depression Thing

#107

Post by anigbrowl »

ElatedOwl wrote: post #24
ada1981 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried regular voulentering, Gratitude letter writing, Holotropic breathwork or psychedelic therapy? I found those to be the most useful.

I've never done psychedelic therapy but I do vape a decent amount of weed. I think at times it helped me be a little more introspective without bias, but it could have just been a side effect of maturing. As far as breathwork, fitness is almost a form of meditation for me so I think there's some overlap. Running and lifting gives a lot of inner monologue and self reflection time.

One psychedelic/psychoactive drug is not like another - not necessarily better or worse, just different. You may well be shocked by the degree of difference; I'd rather not resort to cheesy analogies because they're likely to create unhelpful preconceptions.

If you do experiment, avoid the enthusiast's trap of trying to sample as many different cocktails as you can. Whether it's a maturity or a cultural thing, there are many temptations to 'max out' on the intensity of the experience, which I think are unhelpful.

As for the therapy aspect, it's wiser to dose with an experienced person present who can help you if you feel distressed, but if a therapist is proposing to script the whole trip then it won't really be 'your' trip any more.

Re: The Depression Thing

#108

Post by the_cat_kittles »

ElatedOwl wrote: post #15

I was diagnosed with "major depression" when I was 14, did the medication and therapy thing for a bit but the medication made me a zombie. Therapy helped me learn to cope a little better, but I was never "cured" of my depression. My 20s have been pretty bad, but in the last year and a half I've lost 100+lbs and have been running and lifting. It turns out the common sense advice to depression was really what I needed…

as others have noted, these things are a negative feedback loop when you start slacking on them. so i think its important to make them as easy as possible, and externally enforced as possible. i think they truly do help alot of people, of course not all, but many. im really not sure how to solve that chicken and egg problem tho- you dont do these three things because you are depressed, which begets more of the same. for me, basketball was a panacea, since i discovered i enjoyed playing it immensely. so i got exercise without having to force myself. i got so hungry from exercise that i couldn't avoid eating alot (for me, eating regularly and enough was the challenge), and of course, being so tired from exercise helped me sleep. i guess its a parable in treating depression as much as its a parable in how valuable sports can be.

Re: The Depression Thing

#109

Post by wooshy »

SnowingXIV wrote: post #56
ElatedOwl wrote: post #15

I was diagnosed with "major depression" when I was 14, did the medication and therapy thing for a bit but the medication made me a zombie. Therapy helped me learn to cope a little better, but I was never "cured" of my depression. My 20s have been pretty bad, but in the last year and a half I've lost 100+lbs and have been running and lifting. It turns out the common sense advice to depression was really what I needed…

It's also a viscous cycle once you stop doing these things. I had everything going well for me, but then a bunch kinda blew up at once and I stopped eating healthy, quit working out, and was losing sleep because I was trying to solve all these other problems and felt those things were pointless. "Oh, I can't get in the mindset to lift today I'm too stressed out and depressed/hopeless." That led me from only skipping…

I recently had a similar encounter where I was slipping back into a bag routine and then looked in the mirror and freaked out. I'm back on track to being healthier and happier. It ends up taking way more of my time to prep my food in a healthy manner, go to the gym, and shower again but I think it is all worth it for both my mental and physical health to be in a good place.

Re: The Depression Thing

#110

Post by thanatropism »

earlybike wrote: post #62

Nice thread and here my top 10 list of antidepressants (in that order): 1. Most of the times, there's a clear reason for a depression, something which is not that easy to change and worse not that easy to identify as the real cause (e.g. wrong boss, wrong cofounder, wrong investor, wrong friends, toxic workplace, big nose, etc.); before looking at the other antidepressants, try to get rid of the main issue; often it…

As a bipolar for whom antidepressants can be destabilizing, yeah to 3,7,8,9,10.

I've had a hypomanic break from learning some Buddhist meditation.

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