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I built an app to fix my depression

blog.elifiner.com

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Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#161

Post by johnward »

chillwaves wrote: post #159
johnward wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Medication cures symptoms of depression but cannot fix the underlying problems causing it. Sometimes those underlying conditions are brain chemistry though. The pills work for a lot of people. My Bi Polar depression doesn't seem to stem from any trauma or anything. I've done therapy and it did nothing. I've tried exercise, it helps for a short period. I tried diet, seems to help a little. If also tried about 15 dif…

There's a difference between drugs "working" and drugs solving the problem. One thing that I am cautious about is the biological guarantee that you will develop tolerance to the drug and will need ever more powerful drugs throughout your life to maintain the baseline of "ok". I'm glad the medication helps, but it seems like exercise and diet (and other activities) are more sustainable in the long run even if they are…

I'm happy finding a mixture of medicine that seems to work for me and has been for a couple years now. It took me over 20 years to get to this point though. Most of this time was just me actually realizing a problem then taking a couple years to actually find a decent doctor.

The problem seems to be that we don't really understand enough about how to brain works and how these medication work with the brain. So many psych meds are like "we don't really know how this works, but we think it might do this".

I think that's why there so much trial and error with psych meds. Plus don't get me wrong, the wrong med can be devastating to certain people. I ended up in the ER a during my trials due to bad reactions.

I still try to exercise and watch my diet. I don't have any studies or anything but low carb seems to keep me more mentally stable.

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#162

Post by wh1t3n01s3 »

NalNezumi wrote: post #55

Read the blog post and also the other blog post in the page ( "Why discipline isn’t the answer to procrastination", "How to stick to good habits without being hard on yourself", "How fear of shame causes procrastination", "How fear of success causes procrastination"). I get the feeling that the author is in a situation a lot of people in HN could relate to: A situation where Performance Anxiety, Fear of missing out (…

The best way to overcome this is to take a sabbath year and if you can and if you like, to travel around the world. Or to take on something tou wanted to do for a long time. This helps to clear the mind and break the vicious cicles. Only my opinion based on personal experience

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#163

Post by teorema »

NalNezumi wrote: post #109
teekert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, as op also insinuates, it is all about acceptance. Accepting one's shortcomings, accepting that you can't do everything you want(ed), that you wont become what you always dreamed of. Love yourself despite of what you think of as shortcomings, think of the things you did achieve (and the things you have, like a stoic philosopher). You are a pretty incredible being with pretty incredible skills. If only you ac…

It surely is acceptance, but how do you convince yourself of it? How do you convince a young college student, a just-out-of college late 20's (me), a about-to-hit-midlife late 30's/40's person that is struggling to reach the expectation they have put? Tell a college kid to lower his expectation and he will feel like a "unmotivated" person, tell a 30's/40's that and he will feel like a failure, all his struggle for no…

I think part of it for me is this underlying anger. Despite these kinds of discussions, there's some sort of continued societal denial about many of the issues that are floating in the background.

Many of the things that are bubbling up in society seem all too much the same. Whether it's school or employers or whatever, there's this kind of overvaluing phenomenon, where the rich and/or successful get more rich and/or successful and we attribute their [increasingly, given increasing inequities] freakish success to something about them, as opposed to being in the right fitting environment at the right point in their careers, or corruption, or something broken in the system, or what. If you're too old, too black, too caring, worked at the wrong place, the place changed, didn't go to a prestigious enough school, were too rebellious as a young adult, whatever, don't know the right people, you're screwed.

I'm not sure what my point is, except to say this acceptance-struggle tension you're referring to is even more complicated because it's not just about lowering or raising your own personal expectations or standards, it's about everything else as well, about accepting or struggling against what's broken in society (at the risk of sounding too idealistic or self-righteous).

What do you do when it's not self-hatred vs acceptance, but self-hatred vs societal anger vs acceptance?

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#165

Post by leksak »

GordonS wrote: post #58
leksak wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone reading this should before they take 5-htp try and determine if they have low levels of dopamine as 5-htp helps elevate serotonin which you don't necessarily want to do if you have low dopamine. However, if someone responds well to 5-HTP it might make sense to seek out an SSRI medication

> determine if they have low levels of dopamine How would you actually do that? Is there some kind of home test available?

Not yet. Medical science has progressed to where it's starting to become possible to investigate this in a clinical setting, so home tests aren't going to become available just yet. One will have to resign to doing what has been done previously which is to look at how a person lives their lives and inferrence from that. I'm not a doctor, but having a pronounced need for variety and change is somewhat indicative. Also, if someone intuitively seeks out dopaminergic foods and drinks that's an indicator also (dark chocolate, foods rich in tyrosine). It's not uncommon for a person that's low in dopamine to become noticably relaxed after a high-carbohydrate meal as that meal would elevate serotonin and when dopamine is low and serotonin is high you become chill. People low in dopamine tend to be addictive. Sugar-bugs, coffee-fiends, sometimes adrenaline-junkies.

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#166

Post by chillwaves »

johnward wrote: post #161
chillwaves wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between drugs "working" and drugs solving the problem. One thing that I am cautious about is the biological guarantee that you will develop tolerance to the drug and will need ever more powerful drugs throughout your life to maintain the baseline of "ok". I'm glad the medication helps, but it seems like exercise and diet (and other activities) are more sustainable in the long run even if they are…

I'm happy finding a mixture of medicine that seems to work for me and has been for a couple years now. It took me over 20 years to get to this point though. Most of this time was just me actually realizing a problem then taking a couple years to actually find a decent doctor. The problem seems to be that we don't really understand enough about how to brain works and how these medication work with the brain. So many p…

Interesting to hear about low carbs, I've been moving in that direction because of family history of diabetes on both sides. I still eat some junk food with added sugar, I wonder if cutting out added sugar entirely would help.

The other thing that helps me the most is running, but sometimes I just fall out of the routine.

I agree with everything you wrote, especially about the way medications are dispensed. I did try a medication once and had a bad reaction, have not tried since then but I think about it often.

20 years is a long time to suffer.

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#167

Post by LostTrackHowM »

NalNezumi wrote: post #55

Read the blog post and also the other blog post in the page ( "Why discipline isn’t the answer to procrastination", "How to stick to good habits without being hard on yourself", "How fear of shame causes procrastination", "How fear of success causes procrastination"). I get the feeling that the author is in a situation a lot of people in HN could relate to: A situation where Performance Anxiety, Fear of missing out (…

My question is how do you solve/amend this?

Don't have just one most important/critical thing your life, like your professional life for example.

Very serious advice, go outside and exercise.

Find a friendly real life community to be part of. Fans of movies, fans of some sport, fans of science, anything, just any group of real people that you share sami-regular or regular friendly time with.

Human beings are not made to be alone, regardless of how introverted they are. They are not made to be isolated. They are not made to have little to no physical exercise. We are however made to become easly obsessed to get the job done, so make sure you have more than one fun challenge to become obsessed with.

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#168

Post by joshspankit »

zoozla wrote: post #136
dawg- wrote: post #104

So many mental health apps these days with so little high quality evidence of their effectiveness. And there are so many of these apps out there, why would someone build their own? Maybe OP is onto something though. Could it be that the creative process and challenge of building an app to solve a personal problem is just as good a treatment for depression as the app itself?

It's part of it, but I only built the app after realizing the method (which is based on something called The Sedona Method) really worked for me. I just found it super tedious to do on paper and over time added more features that help to get into a mental state where emotional release is possible. I'm now building a business around the app and that path has multiple emotional pitfalls per day . I tried to do this a f…

In addition to mynegation’s comments, I would say that if you’re trying to build a business out of this app, start charging now. Offer lifetime refunds if you need to to hush the inner critic, but nothing helps the same as serving people who are actually paying.

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#169

Post by joshspankit »

joshspankit wrote: post #168
zoozla wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of it, but I only built the app after realizing the method (which is based on something called The Sedona Method) really worked for me. I just found it super tedious to do on paper and over time added more features that help to get into a mental state where emotional release is possible. I'm now building a business around the app and that path has multiple emotional pitfalls per day . I tried to do this a f…

In addition to mynegation’s comments, I would say that if you’re trying to build a business out of this app, start charging now. Offer lifetime refunds if you need to to hush the inner critic, but nothing helps the same as serving people who are actually paying.

Also: the Patreon model can be really great if your goal is to offer the service to everyone for free. That can even be something that happens when enough people donate a specific monthly amount.

Re: I built an app to fix my depression

#170

Post by thewarrior »

LostTrackHowM wrote: post #167
NalNezumi wrote: post #55

Read the blog post and also the other blog post in the page ( "Why discipline isn’t the answer to procrastination", "How to stick to good habits without being hard on yourself", "How fear of shame causes procrastination", "How fear of success causes procrastination"). I get the feeling that the author is in a situation a lot of people in HN could relate to: A situation where Performance Anxiety, Fear of missing out (…

My question is how do you solve/amend this? Don't have just one most important/critical thing your life, like your professional life for example. Very serious advice, go outside and exercise. Find a friendly real life community to be part of. Fans of movies, fans of some sport, fans of science, anything, just any group of real people that you share sami-regular or regular friendly time with. Human beings are not made…

Completely agree but covid has completely messed this up. It just makes all this so much more difficult.
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