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If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

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Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#41

Post by ryanstorm »

avgDev wrote: post #28

The more you know about the world and tech especially, the more you will get depressed, IMO, maybe I'm wrong. Humans in general are pretty shitty, driven mostly by self-interest. I guess there are people driven by doing good but most people are capable of doing terrible things, especially when in a group. I do suffer from existential depression, I'm generally pretty happy, but as I learn more and live longer my outlo…

Your comment aligns with an old HN comment that I have saved that resonated with me:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402387

I'd also recommend people feeling this way to read The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. It helped me.

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#42

Post by cloakandswagger »

kec wrote: post #32
cloakandswagger wrote: post #8

If you ever feel angry, irritable, sad, apathetic, restless, tired or any way other than perfectly fine, positive and happy, then you're suffering from depression. Go to your nearest psychiatrist to be assured that you're a victim, that your brain is broken and there's nothing that you can do, and that the only path to feeling "normal" is becoming dependent on a high-priced drug cocktail that will alter your brain ch…

Depression isn't "feeling any way other than perfectly fine", it's feeling so continuously for an extended period of time such that your mental state begins to prevent you from living a normal life. Depression is a real issue for some people, and by trivializing it and blaming big pharma all you're doing is reinforcing the stigma around mental illness which makes it harder for people who really need it to seek help.

17% of the US population self-reported taking some form of psychiatric drug [1].

We're way past the point of truly disturbed people not seeking help due to the stigma of mental illness. Instead, it's cheerfully celebrated and encouraged in a way that I imagine will only stop once 100% of the country is zombified by mind-altering drugs.

The pendulum needs to swing back towards self-help and the idea that some discomfort is a part of normal life.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1-in-6-americans-...

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#43

Post by justtopost »

cmiller1 wrote: post #16
ksec wrote: post #13

Assuming a product person ( e.g Steve Jobs ) is easily Angry and Irritable with crap ( Which there are lots of it ), would that considered as depressed? Where do we draw a line where some body just have very high standard to everything ( Perfectionist ) or they actually have bipolar disorder.

The line between personality traits and mental disorder is usually drawn at "does this have a significant negative impact on the person's functioning?"

If our functioning is negative due to our environment, rather than the impetus to our actions, what then?

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#44

Post by ganzuul »

peteradio wrote: post #29
ganzuul wrote: post #26

I have had to deal with inexplicable anger and irritability for a long time. It is possible this traces back to being misdiagnosed and prescribed 5 antibiotic recipes back-to-back as a child. Long and tedious story short, when I cut milk, gluten/short carbs/whatever pesticide they use for wheat, and excess sugar from e.g. prefabbed food from my diet I gained 10kg and my life basically turned around. Turns out having…

Glyphosate?

Who knows. When I eat too much wheat I feel like I have a hangover for two days. Over here they started adding selenium to the soil in 60s, and my grandmother tells me no one complained about bread making them sick before that.

Perhaps it's that additive that makes tractor fuel oil exhaust blue, or too much selective breeding without thought to nutrition, or some kind of preservation practice which 99% of people don't have a problem with while the remaining 1% didn't seem important to someone with a rubber stamp.

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#45

Post by amelius »

avgDev wrote: post #28

The more you know about the world and tech especially, the more you will get depressed, IMO, maybe I'm wrong. Humans in general are pretty shitty, driven mostly by self-interest. I guess there are people driven by doing good but most people are capable of doing terrible things, especially when in a group. I do suffer from existential depression, I'm generally pretty happy, but as I learn more and live longer my outlo…

And if you want to be really depressed, switch from tech to philosophy, and in particular the branch that is concerned with the nature of consciousness.

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#46

Post by ganzuul »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #33
ganzuul wrote: post #26

I have had to deal with inexplicable anger and irritability for a long time. It is possible this traces back to being misdiagnosed and prescribed 5 antibiotic recipes back-to-back as a child. Long and tedious story short, when I cut milk, gluten/short carbs/whatever pesticide they use for wheat, and excess sugar from e.g. prefabbed food from my diet I gained 10kg and my life basically turned around. Turns out having…

Did you experience abdominal pain before cutting these items out of your diet?

I had pain everywhere. I thought it was normal.

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#47

Post by 8ytecoder »

platz wrote: post #39
avgDev wrote: post #28

The more you know about the world and tech especially, the more you will get depressed, IMO, maybe I'm wrong. Humans in general are pretty shitty, driven mostly by self-interest. I guess there are people driven by doing good but most people are capable of doing terrible things, especially when in a group. I do suffer from existential depression, I'm generally pretty happy, but as I learn more and live longer my outlo…

s/tech/business ?

Tech industry as discussed in HN is very different from "tech". I have struggled to define exactly what it means but the typical companies include Google, FB, Pinterest, Airbnb, Uber and the like. They don't necessarily have to be in Silicon Valley / Bay Area but they all share a certain commonality irrespective of what domain they operate on.

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#48

Post by rimunroe »

war1025 wrote: post #31
cloakandswagger wrote: post #8

If you ever feel angry, irritable, sad, apathetic, restless, tired or any way other than perfectly fine, positive and happy, then you're suffering from depression. Go to your nearest psychiatrist to be assured that you're a victim, that your brain is broken and there's nothing that you can do, and that the only path to feeling "normal" is becoming dependent on a high-priced drug cocktail that will alter your brain ch…

For the downvoters, I'm fairly certain this was an attempt at sarcasm.

The sarcasm wasn't helpful and wasn't in good taste. In addition to what my sibling commenters have said, going to a doctor because you suspect you might be depressed or have any other concerns about your mental health doesn't automatically lead to being told you need to go on medication. Personally, I've known a few people who didn't talk to their doctors about their depression for a long time precisely because they didn't want to go on medication (or because they couldn't for family/cultural reasons). Because of that, they missed out on things like talk therapy which probably could have helped them.

Re: If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed

#49

Post by etrautmann »

amelius wrote: post #45
avgDev wrote: post #28

The more you know about the world and tech especially, the more you will get depressed, IMO, maybe I'm wrong. Humans in general are pretty shitty, driven mostly by self-interest. I guess there are people driven by doing good but most people are capable of doing terrible things, especially when in a group. I do suffer from existential depression, I'm generally pretty happy, but as I learn more and live longer my outlo…

And if you want to be really depressed, switch from tech to philosophy, and in particular the branch that is concerned with the nature of consciousness.

I'm curious why you find that depressing? Do you think the idea of lacking free will and consciousness as chaotic dynamics reduces agency or something else?
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