Go talk to your doctor
Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
81–90 of 122 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#82Define "success" for yourself, instead of defining it based on the stories of extraordinary individuals, or on what others define as successful.
Also, understand that success is a temporary, fleeting thing. You'll be successful, but when you'll be alone with yourself, in your bed, in the bathroom, with earbuds in in the car or the bus etc., if you're not happy or at peace, than that's worth nothing.
Are these cliches? Yes. But they are so for a reason.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#83Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill
I don’t normally take these kind of quotes to heart but having a constant fear of failure and wondering what success is I think the above for me really helps put this in context.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#84Redefine "success" to center around fulfilling relationships and "enough to live on without constantly worrying" instead of around money and possessions and glory and adulation.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#85Enjoy the process, do your best and don't be too obsessed with the result.
You will learn something along the way, anyway.
I have some failed projects behind me, but do not regret it, it was a nice time spent with other people and it got me where I am now.
Fail again, fail better.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#86You could try SSRIs, they worked for me
Please visit a psychiatrist; Let them decide if you need SSRIs.
Psychiatrists don't have special powers when it comes to choosing an SSRI, the process is almost entirely trial and error.
There is nothing wrong with going to a general practitioner, trying Lexapro, and if you don't feel anything on that, trying Wellbutrin, and then on down the line.
If you administer the Beck Depression inventory to gauge your own mood on some consistent basis before and after starting antidepressants you will be introducing far more of the scientific method into the process than most psychiatrists will.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#87Don’t worry and just do things you enjoy
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#88YMMV but I'd encourage you to take a break from consuming "success porn" online. That's my broad term for: Social media: because people curate everything and only post things that make their lives look amazing. Real life isn't a constant string of wins, success, and happiness. Don't let it distort your view and wonder why your life isn't the same. Startup news: TechCrunch, Recode, Bus. Insider, and even here on HN. P…
In other words, come to know this: There is no need to be anything special.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#89Being depressed is a state of mind. Being successful or not has not much to do with it (which is proven in many papers). Anxiety about failure is just a way that it manifests. Your brain always finds some ways to rationalize things that it observes. That's its job. So if you feel a bit of rush because you really want to succeed, or if you think about things that may go wrong in order to take actions to minimize the r…
> but it's likely that a professional will give you some better options. Just want to echo this. If the issue, you suspect, is mostly about depression, just go to a Shrink. They're about as much as a Friday night at the bar, and they really do help out. Maybe try a few of them out and decide. But really, just do it. Also, eat right, exercise, and sleep enough. I mean, duh. But it really does help a ton.
Re: therapists - could be cheaper, depending on the bars. Check for 'sliding scale'.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#90YMMV but I'd encourage you to take a break from consuming "success porn" online. That's my broad term for: Social media: because people curate everything and only post things that make their lives look amazing. Real life isn't a constant string of wins, success, and happiness. Don't let it distort your view and wonder why your life isn't the same. Startup news: TechCrunch, Recode, Bus. Insider, and even here on HN. P…
Well said! Thank you.