This seems to help many in this subreddit. I am just in the trial phase, so can't give an opinion.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Semenretention/
Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
91–100 of 115 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#92The most important thing to know about depression is that it is an illness. It has no moral dimension. Get treatment. People telling you to buck up and get hold of yourself are much, much worse than useless. The second most important thing to know is that "depression" is a label for at least a half-dozen, probably more, unrelated illnesses. What helps with one does nothing for another. The third is that no matter wha…
Treatment for depression ought not begin and end with medication. It's symptomatic. In the vast majority of cases, it means some large part of your lifestyle's gone wrong. The common advice today is tantamount to ignoring fist lines of defense in favor of just treating symptoms indefinitely, because it feeds the pharma machine. That's not to say medication doesn't have its place. It's that suggesting we eschew all ot…
> In the vast majority of
cases, it means some large part of your lifestyle's gone wrong.
It must be nice to know so much about everyone around you, without needing to actually obtain any facts at all.
Is it possible that changes to exercise, diet, time outdoors, or latitude of residence could help in some cases? Maybe.
Is there anywhere near enough data to attribute a "vast majority of cases" to these causes?
No.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#93The most important thing to know about depression is that it is an illness. It has no moral dimension. Get treatment. People telling you to buck up and get hold of yourself are much, much worse than useless. The second most important thing to know is that "depression" is a label for at least a half-dozen, probably more, unrelated illnesses. What helps with one does nothing for another. The third is that no matter wha…
I hear the "depression is an illness" trope repeated over and over but I still fail to understand what it means. I'm sure for some definition of the word illness it's true. But it's certainly not an illness in the way a cold or malaria or shingles or cystic fibrosis are illnesses. Those things can be objectively diagnosed. They entail physical measurable changes to a person's body. Depression is a set of guidelines i…
You write this:
> I'm not trying to trivialize depression.
And then:
> at worst seriously misleading and distracting to people who have serious issues to deal with.
Implying that it isn't a serious issue.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear the "depression is an illness" trope repeated over and over but I still fail to understand what it means. I'm sure for some definition of the word illness it's true. But it's certainly not an illness in the way a cold or malaria or shingles or cystic fibrosis are illnesses. Those things can be objectively diagnosed. They entail physical measurable changes to a person's body. Depression is a set of guidelines i…
You write this: > I'm not trying to trivialize depression. And then: > at worst seriously misleading and distracting to people who have serious issues to deal with. Implying that it isn't a serious issue.
I literally used the phrase "serious issue" in the proceeding sentence to describe the situation.
??? I'd be very curious to hear this one explained. I'm totally baffled.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear the "depression is an illness" trope repeated over and over but I still fail to understand what it means. I'm sure for some definition of the word illness it's true. But it's certainly not an illness in the way a cold or malaria or shingles or cystic fibrosis are illnesses. Those things can be objectively diagnosed. They entail physical measurable changes to a person's body. Depression is a set of guidelines i…
> I'm not trying to trivialize depression. As someone who has been catatonically depressed for a couple years now, I'm not so sure about this! People with chronic pain also often can't identify any physical source, but obviously you would never start posting "is this really an illness though?" or "aren't we distracting and misleading people??" in a thread about that. The undercurrent of your post is that depressed pe…
> undercurrent of your post is that depressed people need to snap out of it,
Please point to where I say that. I explicitly do not say that. That's not an undercurrent because I don't believe it.
I do also believe that people don't have zero agency in this problem. There is SOME ability and necessity for people to work on these types of problems. That's what therapy with a therapist is right?
And that does differentiate depression from tuberculosis which cannot ever be improved by sitting down and talking about it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#96The most important thing to know about depression is that it is an illness. It has no moral dimension. Get treatment. People telling you to buck up and get hold of yourself are much, much worse than useless. The second most important thing to know is that "depression" is a label for at least a half-dozen, probably more, unrelated illnesses. What helps with one does nothing for another. The third is that no matter wha…
I agree that depression is an umbrella term, and saying that it's not a real illness is ignorant. It's like saying PTSD isn't an illness.
I periodically experience bouts of (what I call) depression, which I'd summarize as an intense anger that's oriented towards one's self. Paradoxically, it's very intense and at the same time it shuts me down. An analogy would be shoveling sand and cement into a drive train.
I won't get into the typical "how to fix it" part of this discourse, but I think it can be useful for people who have trouble sympathizing with people who experience depressive episodes to know what are some of the things that one experiences. I think it's also good for one experiencing these things to be able to reflect on what's happening, to, at the very least, get some distance.
So the episodes, in my case, have very clear "clinical" symptoms. Blood flow to the limbs is reduced severely, I'll often be on the verge of shivering with cold, similarly to what happens when you have a fever; motoric ability is severely reduced: you'll be tripping on things, dropping things; reaction time is severely reduced: for example, you're likely to not catch something that's thrown at you; appetite loss; glaring morbidity; difficulty sleeping; a strong, general feeling of discomfort in the body, a bit like recovering from a physical shock, like an automotive accident. For me, the thing lasts for 2 to 5 days, and happens every few weeks, rarely more than twice a month.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
You write this: > I'm not trying to trivialize depression. And then: > at worst seriously misleading and distracting to people who have serious issues to deal with. Implying that it isn't a serious issue.
I literally used the phrase "serious issue" in the proceeding sentence to describe the situation. ??? I'd be very curious to hear this one explained. I'm totally baffled.
You are mistaken about depression not having observable effect on the body. I wrote a post about that; it's a direct sibling to your original post.
Your point is a bit conflicted. Like this person pointed out, it seems that you're saying that it's serious and not that serious at the same time.
However, I think that the observation you wanted to convey wasn't about the comparative seriousness of depression, but rather that it's in some sense in a different realm than for example AIDS or shingles, even if the realm of some of its effects are similar (which you argued against, but you're wrong). And, I sympathize with that. Depression does seem to be made of a different cloth, but it's quite hard to elaborate further, and I won't get into it here.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#98The most important thing to know about depression is that it is an illness. It has no moral dimension. Get treatment. People telling you to buck up and get hold of yourself are much, much worse than useless. The second most important thing to know is that "depression" is a label for at least a half-dozen, probably more, unrelated illnesses. What helps with one does nothing for another. The third is that no matter wha…
Treatment for depression ought not begin and end with medication. It's symptomatic. In the vast majority of cases, it means some large part of your lifestyle's gone wrong. The common advice today is tantamount to ignoring fist lines of defense in favor of just treating symptoms indefinitely, because it feeds the pharma machine. That's not to say medication doesn't have its place. It's that suggesting we eschew all ot…
> In the vast majority of cases, it means some large part of your lifestyle's gone wrong.
That's misleading. Lifestyle changes can have a significant positive effect, but that's also misleading, because you have to account for the often insurmountable inertia that old behaviors have.
Furthermore, the most reliable predictor of manic depression in later life is more than 2 traumatic experiences before age 7. I might be misquoting the figures slightly: it might be 3, not 2, or 10, not 7. However, the point I'm making is that in many cases saying that depression is caused by erroneous lifestyle is plain wrong.
I agree with you on medication, it has it's place, but it's hardly the end of the story. I personally don't take it, because I feel that my case is more suited to a different therapy, though I feel a bit silly about never having tried it. I think that one of the best things you can do is try a lot of things, to see what works for you.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#99Just think about different things, but if you still don't, you'll be depressed.
Someday time will be solved.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?
#100Depression can be divided into two categories: with cause and without cause.
If you're depressed with cause, because you're unemployed, in a difficult position, you broke up, a loved one died, you fought with your friend, etc. then the usual advice does actually work. This depression makes sense and is totally normal. First, give your grief time, and second, actually force yourself to smile, go for a walk, or get a puppy. This depression is inherently temporary and you can speed the recovery along.
The thing is about depression with cause is that the cause may be ongoing. If you feel unfulfilled, if you're anxious, if you're suffering from addiction or illness, if people are abusing you, then of course you're depressed. Depression is a symptom. You don't need antidepressants you need to remove the cause.
Depression without cause is completely different which is why most people's advice is bad. They really did overcome depression, but a different kind. If your depression happens for no reason, even when things are going well, just randomly, or on a cycle, then you have to think about depression management. There is no total recovery but you can minimize it until its interference with your life is minimal.
The biology and psychology of depression including the two types above are discussed in Stanford's Sapolsky on depression (50 min lecture on YouTube).
Here's my personal ongoing experience with depression:
medicine worked for others but not for me. The side effects were worse than the depression. Things like sleep, exercise, time with friends, and nutrition seem to shorten the depressive episodes but they do not eliminate them. I plan around my inevitable next episode.
I have leave days set up, an understanding doctor's phone number, and my boss's understanding that I may suddenly take a couple of days sick leave for medical reasons. I call my friends and cancel way ahead of time. I have at-home hobbies to keep me busy. I eliminate my obligations because I wouldn't be able to keep them anyway and failing all my obligations every episode makes it worse every time. If I get depressed on vacation at least I don't feel guilty on top.
Speaking of which I get more depressed during vacations and weekends. Routine and commitments at work generally work against depression. So when I have nothing planned to do and I was expecting to myself to motivate myself to do something fun this is when depressive episodes happen most commonly. So even when I have nothing to do I keep a routine and I create commitments. I know this is in contrast to cancelling all my commitments when I'm depressed but it's true. When I'm not depressed my commitments keep me going so I make sure I'm always committed and I never have to rely on self-drive in the moment. I make plans with friends and book events and schedule things.
Anyway it's an ongoing thing and I've accepted it's never going away. I'm going to try a course of ketamine soon and I'll see how it goes but I'm not very hopeful. Even though I'm not depressed any less, more and more I am learning how to live my life despite depression.