Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders • Hacker News Board

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#201

Post by hrktb » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #190

podgaj wrote: post #152

I do not know how many people here have "Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders" but I am on disability for all three and it runs in my family on my mother's side. So what is this article saying? Me and my family just do not have perseverance? That we lack the "will" not to be depressed and anxious? That I just need to "Aspir[e] toward personal and career goals"? HA! No, it's not true. You see, they found we all have a…

I empathize with your frustration, but you're letting your personal experience override logic. You've made a simple logical error: a study claiming that people who have goals can fend off depression does not imply that those with depression have it because they do not have goals. It means that some people who don't have goals, but do have depression, may remedy it by getting goals. But not everyone. If the research a…

To me the article is not far from parent's reading. For instance these quotes:

> We wanted to understand what specific coping strategies would be helpful in reducing rates of depression, anxiety and panic attacks.

> Our findings suggest that people can improve their mental health by raising or maintaining high levels of tenacity, resilience and optimism,” she said. “Aspiring toward personal and career goals can make people feel like their lives have meaning. On the other hand, disengaging from striving toward those aims or having a cynical attitude can have high mental health costs.”

The second quote is really not far from presenting lack of perseverence or negativity as an active choice, putting the onus on the patient.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#202

Post by gooeykabuki » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

eric4smith wrote: post #81

gooeykabuki wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments through out this thread make a lot of sense. Thanks for outlining them. Curious, when did you start thinking about your life in terms of mission (s) and what was the trigger for it?

Actually, it took me decades to put it into stone. But then I realized I was doing it bit by bit since I was about 15 years old. Now 40 years later, i'm cogent enough to put it into words and mentor it to younger people in an elevator pitch way that they "get it".

What did you find as the top 2-3 things that help in crafting an effective mission once you decided to make it more intentional?

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#203

Post by saas_sam » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #196

gfodor wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathize with your frustration, but you're letting your personal experience override logic. You've made a simple logical error: a study claiming that people who have goals can fend off depression does not imply that those with depression have it because they do not have goals. It means that some people who don't have goals, but do have depression, may remedy it by getting goals. But not everyone. If the research a…

That was my point. This study tells us nothing. The problem is not with people or the doctors, it is with these idiotic studies. From the study: "People who showed more goal persistence and optimism during the first assessment in the mid-1990s had greater reductions in depression, anxiety and panic disorders across the 18 years, according to the authors. And throughout those years, people who began with fewer mental…

What do you think is more reasonable, that your emotional commitments to this subject are distorting your read of the article, or that the American Psychological Association knows less than you do?

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#204

Post by R0b0t1 » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #190

podgaj wrote: post #152

I do not know how many people here have "Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders" but I am on disability for all three and it runs in my family on my mother's side. So what is this article saying? Me and my family just do not have perseverance? That we lack the "will" not to be depressed and anxious? That I just need to "Aspir[e] toward personal and career goals"? HA! No, it's not true. You see, they found we all have a…

I empathize with your frustration, but you're letting your personal experience override logic. You've made a simple logical error: a study claiming that people who have goals can fend off depression does not imply that those with depression have it because they do not have goals. It means that some people who don't have goals, but do have depression, may remedy it by getting goals. But not everyone. If the research a…

No, he's interpreting the study perfectly well. The blame lies squarely with "trusted professionals" who can't think outside the box. Many psychiatrists commit the same fallacy you are describing, just in the other direction, which is what he's saying.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#205

Post by R0b0t1 » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

saas_sam wrote: post #203

podgaj wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my point. This study tells us nothing. The problem is not with people or the doctors, it is with these idiotic studies. From the study: "People who showed more goal persistence and optimism during the first assessment in the mid-1990s had greater reductions in depression, anxiety and panic disorders across the 18 years, according to the authors. And throughout those years, people who began with fewer mental…

What do you think is more reasonable, that your emotional commitments to this subject are distorting your read of the article, or that the American Psychological Association knows less than you do?

Given our recent experience with doctors killing people by putting them on ventilators when they could have put them on O2 I think blind faith in the APA is a bad idea, though I do generally see psychiatry and psychology as more professional than other fields of medicine.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#206

Post by smattiso » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

cc_ashby wrote: post #7

But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Very few people tend to look at the mind as a system, and also seem to ignore that depression, anxiety, panic disorders, etc. happen for a reason. The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life…

I mostly agree with what you have to you say. Clearly you have been through this and have gained a lot of wisdom along the way. We are all products of our environments and our goals arise from this. People who grow up in the Bay Area, or who read Hacker News, or who excel at STEM have "life goals" of running a startup. Some actually want that internally and others are just going through the motions. The latter will be miserable. It's also not something you can tough out and force on yourself. Either you want it or you don't, and that's a good thing! We are individuals after all.

Where I disagree is that depression is caused by us being misaligned internally. Anybody who has been there knows that the brain can hijack your perception of the world. When you are depressed everything sucks. We live in an unexplainable universe with billions of assholes and we are all going to die so what's the point of anything? Nihilism takes over. You get more depressed. But once the fog lifts you can find the joy in life and appreciate all the stuff your "rational" depressed self thought was pointless.

From my experience I think its best to not make these grand sweeping life goals in the first place. Take it day by and keep moving forward. What excites you today? What do you daydream about when you are in the shower? People who achieve these "great goals" do so via naturally gained momentum and almost nobody has a life goal that lasts for decades. You start with something, see if you like it, if you do keep that momentum rolling. It should be more natural, feel good, and not be contrived. Be easy on yourself and enjoy the ride. You don't have to be Steve Jobs and even he wasn't trying to be Steve Jobs. He just got the momentum going and kept with it. If it happens so be it but if you are miserable you are doing it wrong.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#207

Post by mr_overalls » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #188

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After I yelled at my doctors for years to look more deeply This is the thing I hate most about dealing with doctors. As a child doctors failed to diagnose in me a condition so obvious that a friend of my mother, who works at an airport, was able to figure it out from a mere description. Still my mother had to get angry with the doctor before he would perform a simple blood test for it! Like in any profession, most…

And, once you are diagnosed with a mood disorder they will not look at anything else. Anything other symptom arises from "my mood disorder". Skin issues, hyperlipidemia, gut issues, pain, etc...all in my head.

In medical school, many doctors learn the saying, “When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras.” Most physicians are taught to focus on the likeliest possibilities when making a diagnosis, not the unusual ones.

However, it seems that some physicians oversimplify diagnosis so that _only_ the likeliest scenarios are considered. It's also an opportunity for subjective biases to influence an individual doctors definition of "likely."

E.g. Trans broken-arm syndrome

https://en.everybodywiki.com/Trans_Broken_Arm_Syndrome

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#208

Post by anbende » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #201

gfodor wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathize with your frustration, but you're letting your personal experience override logic. You've made a simple logical error: a study claiming that people who have goals can fend off depression does not imply that those with depression have it because they do not have goals. It means that some people who don't have goals, but do have depression, may remedy it by getting goals. But not everyone. If the research a…

To me the article is not far from parent's reading. For instance these quotes: > We wanted to understand what specific coping strategies would be helpful in reducing rates of depression, anxiety and panic attacks. > Our findings suggest that people can improve their mental health by raising or maintaining high levels of tenacity, resilience and optimism,” she said. “Aspiring toward personal and career goals can make…

The second quote does not imply that all depressed people are such because they are lacking perseverance. There are several issues with this interpretation.

The first is that because something is on average true does not mean it is always true. There are cases where perseverance does not help depression. There are many where it does. On average it helps, which is the claim.

Next, it it is not fair to presume that because something helps, that it has a causal relationship with that thing. Most people feel less depressed (temporarily) if they take a dopamine agonist. This does not necessarily mean that their depression was caused by a lack of dopamine, only that dopamine helps. In the same way, focusing on goals will help a lot of depressed people. Influence does not imply causality.

And the last part of that statement about disengaging from goals and having a cynical attitude are also facts not conjecture. Negative thinking and disengaging from goal pursuit are linked to mood decline in virtually all people. This does not imply that people have full control over their thinking and goal pursuit or even that there aren't some people for whom such control is next to impossible.

As clinicians, we teach clients to work with what they have and make decisions that will help them. This study outlines some things that are typically helpful. It does not say that they will be helpful or possible for everyone.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#209

Post by smattiso » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

deerpig wrote: post #103

cc_ashby wrote: post #7

But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Very few people tend to look at the mind as a system, and also seem to ignore that depression, anxiety, panic disorders, etc. happen for a reason. The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life…

I disagree, perseverance is not the same as goal-seeking for goal seeking's sake, or at least, it doesn't have to be. Twenty years ago I set a thirty year goal, literally bet my life on it. It wasn't until two years ago that I was reasonably sure it had a chance of success. I had to, and continue to basically give up everything, no one funds very long term research, so I had to learn to live on less than $200 a month…

Why did you set this goal? Could you have picked any random 30 year goal and been as happy or was this something that naturally spoke to you? Are you still excited by it?

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#210

Post by anbende » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #205

saas_sam wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think is more reasonable, that your emotional commitments to this subject are distorting your read of the article, or that the American Psychological Association knows less than you do?

Given our recent experience with doctors killing people by putting them on ventilators when they could have put them on O2 I think blind faith in the APA is a bad idea, though I do generally see psychiatry and psychology as more professional than other fields of medicine.

Right, but this was a study conducted by the American Psychological Association, an organization that has literally nothing to do with the medical practices you spoke about.