https://web.archive.org/web/20200911062548/http://blog.elifi...
I built an app to fix my depression
21–30 of 179 posts
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#22I'm kind of confused. As a highly empathetic person you're offering a "solution"? I'd assume others have experiences other than your own and that might not be particularly applicable in their individual situations?
I apologize if I'm not getting this.
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#23I don't want to disparage anyone, and I will take a look at the app when it's back up, but I'm not even sure what depression is anymore. Mild flu symptoms is not a phrase I'd used.
It's great that more people are talking about their mental health, and that it's becoming more acceptable to seek help. But the word "depression" has become so murky to me, I rarely know what people mean when they use it.
Maybe I just don't understand the word...
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#24To me it seems the strategies and tools we're able to build for ourselves often hit the mark much more often than any mainstream advice could give us. In part, this seems to be because we know our idiosyncratic nature much better, but also because we have skin in the game and are therefore willing to be way more creative in solving our own problems.
I've built apps for similar(ish) reasons solely for myself in order to deal with whatever issue I had to deal with. A good example is using TiddlyWiki and simply making a journal with a few fixed questions that simply was asking how I was doing on a few psychological/physiological measures (i.e. exercise and so on).
I've been in the situation where people sought my advice to fix their issues, whatever they were, and applied my strategies. Sometimes they hit the nail and worked, other times they catastrophically failed because they worked against the nature of the person.
While one has to pick their battles, I'd advocate for people to consider making their own tools/techniques/strategies to deal with their issues. I know this isn't always possible or a smart move to do. But I've seen that it's more often the best move in the long-term than not. Oh, and of course that doesn't exclude recruiting help along the way :)
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#25The blog seems down, but the page it linked to is still up: https://beta.wuju.app/
not anymore, gotta be patient :)
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#26If you managed to finish the app, you weren't very depressed. Depression acts primarily on willpower. The bad feelings come as a consequence of not being able to get anything done.
> If you managed to finish the app, you weren't very depressed.
Well it sounds like the app fixed their depression then!
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#27If you managed to finish the app, you weren't very depressed. Depression acts primarily on willpower. The bad feelings come as a consequence of not being able to get anything done.
Like many conditions depression expresses it self in diverse ways. It certainly is not the same for everyone. Furthermore, you should avoid diagnosing the severity of psychological conditions by reading their blog posts.
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#28I don't want to disparage anyone, and I will take a look at the app when it's back up, but I'm not even sure what depression is anymore. Mild flu symptoms is not a phrase I'd used. It's great that more people are talking about their mental health, and that it's becoming more acceptable to seek help. But the word "depression" has become so murky to me, I rarely know what people mean when they use it. Maybe I just don'…
Stanford's Sapolsky does a pretty good job explaining what is and isn't. I recommend the full lecture, it's interesting stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#29I don't want to disparage anyone, and I will take a look at the app when it's back up, but I'm not even sure what depression is anymore. Mild flu symptoms is not a phrase I'd used. It's great that more people are talking about their mental health, and that it's becoming more acceptable to seek help. But the word "depression" has become so murky to me, I rarely know what people mean when they use it. Maybe I just don'…
I always assumed that 'depression' and other complex emotional states were very similar across different people and across time. In a sense, that we as a species were referencing a shared, common understanding of the word which is totally informed by our physiology.
Except now, I think what is most likely the case is that we use/learned to use words like depression in a context based fashion, like mapping a set of contextual behaviors to a word. The actual experience of depression is sort of non-existent. The usage of the word and the contexts in which it is applicable changes as society changes its interpretation of emotional health and the behaviors or mannerisms that go with it. I think how we use depression in popular culture isn't indicative of anything fixed, it depends on the zeitgeist in a way. I'm sure this is different from a clinical standpoint, I'm not at all qualified to comment on that. But then again, most people don't use it in clinical terms anyway. Still, I think this is distinctly different from 'sad', as in, the context is different for the two states.
The book 'How emotions are made' by Lisa Feldman Barrett might be interesting to you, it goes exactly into this sort of phenomenon.
Re: I built an app to fix my depression
#30I don't want to disparage anyone, and I will take a look at the app when it's back up, but I'm not even sure what depression is anymore. Mild flu symptoms is not a phrase I'd used. It's great that more people are talking about their mental health, and that it's becoming more acceptable to seek help. But the word "depression" has become so murky to me, I rarely know what people mean when they use it. Maybe I just don'…
It seems hard to well define it even for professionals, iirc it's clinically being assessed using tests like the Goldberg depression test.
A variety of colloquial uses for the term on top of that doesn't make it clearer, maybe there should be an introduction of newer, more specified terms for it.