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Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#101

Post by throwaway1954 »

cairo_x wrote: post #38

Best thing I did was give up coffee. edit: Eases up the mood swings (TBH, I'm probably just in a stable phase (which gave me the will to stop coffee in the first place), but stopping wild upswings in mood with coffee cessation seems to have greatly muffled the back swings. touch wood touch wood touch wood.)

What do you drink now instead?

I'm also in the process of quitting coffee, I used to drink coffee very heavily (3-4 cups per day) and lots of soda, but it was affecting my mood too much.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#102

Post by altsyset »

Here is what has worked for me. But beware, I am not a psychiatrist so take my suggestion with a grain of salt.

First, let me tell you about my living situation and environment. I believe those two are very important in making these kinds of decisions. I live in a very tightly neat society. I meet my parents, and friends most often. But I was really good at hiding my situation. That made my problem worse. Why? Because, no one knew what I was dealing with. Everyone would realize I'm missing for a couple of days but they all figured I was busy. But I was going through hell.

I have tried various ways of threatening myself. Seeking professional advice is out of the question for me as I live an average life in a developing country.

So I gave up. But one day I decided to take a walk. It gave me a breather. So I did it again, this time longer. By the time I came up from my long walks I would be tired so I would eat and fall asleep.

This continued for months and years. Each time making my walks longer and longer, untill I would get so tired that all I wanted to do was eat and sleep.

I have been doing that for more than 3 years now. I feel active now and I have added Taekwando to my exercise too. At the same time period, I got the courage to marry my girl friend. Now we are having a baby.

I don't believe that I don't get depressed any more. Or may be I was never depressed in the first place as bad as other people. But I don't lock myself in my room for days thinking about death anymore.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#103

Post by dmos62 »

Trias11 wrote: post #90

My depression ended when i found a fullfilling, well paid job. Then i remembered a wise one said that opposite of depression = expression. So when you express yourself fully - depression falls off. That is exactly what happened to me after ~10 yrs of depression.

Beware of expressing built-up anger. Contrary to mainstream thought, it can be a really big problem in various areas of your life, especially your interpersonal relations.

Usually, the real cause of the anger evades us (that's why we've so much of it built up), and we can't express it constructively (if that's possible at all). A big realization for me was that even though I feet somewhat better letting my lid blow off and unloading on a person, it's very destructive (before I persistently ignored that, justifying my anger as righteous), and it's not a treatment for what caused it.

I guess if I had to summarize my realization in one sentence, I'd say that I realized that there were things I didn't want to acknowledge and feelings about myself and others that I wanted to push out of myself, and that this resistance was what caused the inner turmoil and anger. When I started consciously trying to stay with the "bad" feelings, instead of reject them, things started to change.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#104

Post by ncmncm »

anm89 wrote: post #95
ExtremePopcorn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 differenti…

Visiting a professional is generally a necessary step in recovering from tuberculosis. In that way it is not different from depression. In most forms of depression, talking with someone and doing nothing else is guaranteed to do no good. In that way they do not differ from tuberculosis.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#105

Post by ncmncm »

dmos62 wrote: post #97
anm89 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is odd to mention shingles in this context, as depression is a very common symptom of herpes infection, actually fixed by antiviral medication.

So, even on its own terms, the argument is incoherent and, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#107

Post by trumbitta2 »

tokstesla wrote: post #75
clSTophEjUdRanu wrote: post #61

Don't self-medicate. Not with pills, not with CBD, not with weed, not with anything. Talk to a mental health professional. Take care of yourself.

I just tried looking myself in the mirror and giving myself reasons to live.

Talk to a professional and ask them the same question. Find a professional that operates under this branch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#108

Post by not_a_cop75 »

Keep up on Fish Oil Supplements. I forget where I read it, but there was a publication which attributed depression to living far from the coast. From there the idea circulated that a fish based diet would be beneficial. Omega3 fats are generally beneficial, but have as I have experienced acted as a mild anti-depressant.

Also, exercise. Do something outside of work that requires physical exertion, even if it's just walking.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#109

Post by ExtremePopcorn »

anm89 wrote: post #95
ExtremePopcorn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 differenti…

Okay, my mistake for getting dragged into the archetypal HN argument. It's clear you cannot be convinced. Your original point - that depression has no biomarkers and is extremely subjective - has been proven wrong by a couple others and you've shown no gratitude or interest in this information. Only replying where you think there's an argument to be won.

Maybe you, some random person on Hacker News, are not in fact smarter than the medical consensus?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with depression?

#110

Post by anm89 »

ExtremePopcorn wrote: post #109
anm89 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 differenti…

Okay, my mistake for getting dragged into the archetypal HN argument. It's clear you cannot be convinced. Your original point - that depression has no biomarkers and is extremely subjective - has been proven wrong by a couple others and you've shown no gratitude or interest in this information. Only replying where you think there's an argument to be won. Maybe you, some random person on Hacker News, are not in fact s…

And again, I didn't say there are no biomarkers. I belive there are biomarkers.

The idea that I'm not coddling your victimhood/ helpless mentality is offensive to you, not any specific argument I'm making.

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