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Ask HN: Are you depressed?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you depressed?

#61

Post by watermelon59 »

Well, let's see.

My wife left me shortly before the pandemic started. I tried leaning on alleged friends for emotional support and they bailed on me. I don't have any family here in the US.

The pandemic hit and I had to stop practicing my sport.

My work output has been 10-20% of what it used to be even though I don't have kids to deal with, or any of the things that are driving folks crazy. It takes me around 2h to make myself get out of bed every day.

Fortunately, therapy has been helping little by little.

Re: Ask HN: Are you depressed?

#64

Post by okareaman »

neom wrote: post #4

I was just talking to a friend about how deep my depression has gotten. It's at the point now where I'm too scared to go to sleep at night because I know it means I have to wake up and do another day.

I was suicidally depressed in 2017. A combination of medication, CBT, talk therapy and the love and care of other helping professionals got me better. I've never felt better. It gets better. My email is in my user info.

Re: Ask HN: Are you depressed?

#65

Post by ptrhvns »

lukifer wrote: post #55
ptrhvns wrote: post #22

I'm not a doctor, of course, but for those who are depressed, but where it's not debilitating, or where you are not suffering from some kind of clinical depression where you need medical attention, I highly recommend that you immediately purchase the book "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life" by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, and put that information into practice as soon as you can.

I'll also add a suggestion for Martin Seligman's "Learned Optimism" [0]. A mindfulness practice on self-talk (along with giving up sugar and reducing carbs) has made a huge difference on managing my mental health. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism#Seligman's_me...

Yea, that book is great. Another book, which includes those ideas and many others, is "The Resilience Factor" by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte.

Re: Ask HN: Are you depressed?

#66

Post by _ww0s »

I'm not. I think I was mildly depressed up until the start of this fall (I'm a college student). I go to U of I and we've got a pretty good covid testing setup which basically means we can hang out with small groups of friends like pre-covid times. I think the catalyst for coming out of depression might have been acid, but most likely it was being able to meet with friends again. I saw this effect in my friends too, and they noticed it as well. I'm not saying acid is some miracle cure or something but I have a strong suspicion that it contributed in some small way.

Re: Ask HN: Are you depressed?

#67

Post by cryptica »

I'm not depressed but I feel like every year has been getting progressively worse over the past decade. I'm working hard and taking significant risks. I achieved all my technical goals this year; some which seemed almost impossible, but financially-speaking, I keep getting poorer. The smarter I get, the harder I work, the poorer I get.

I'm at a point where I've identified all the things that are holding me back. I know exactly what's going on in the economy and society and so I can make sense of my own situation - But I can't think of a way to pull myself out of it without engaging in behavior that I consider unethical.

I feel like everyone in society is becoming progressively more selfish over time. It's become impossible to make new friends because relationships have become incredibly shallow, financialized and transactional. I don't even see the point of making friends anymore because it just feels like everyone is acting. People just don't meet my minimum standards to qualify for friendship these days.

Re: Ask HN: Are you depressed?

#69

Post by the_only_law »

Probably around a decade ago I was diagnosed with a slew of things and put on, among other drugs, SSRI's. I never felt depressed at time. Interestingly, I felt angry, powerless, etc. but not depressed. The drugs really didn't feel like they had any effect on my mental state or behavior.

Then maybe around 2017-2018, after living mostly in isolation (outside routine requirements like work, etc.), things started to go downhill. I spiraled into a period of what I'm sure is depression. Since, then? I might be able to crawl out of it every now and then (around mid-late 2019-2020 I had some sort of strong resolve come over me that lasted a few months) but ultimately just return a depressed, monotonous and sedentary state. I'm generally good enough and keeping together in public, but in my private life it's on full display display. The pandemic did good work to undo everything I had tried to fight it, but the isolation isn't anything new and I'd likely have returned to it in my own eventually.

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