Poll: Have you experienced depressive symptoms over the past two weeks?

Great advice. I would add that another strategy that has been useful to many is that when you are feeling negative emotions stirring up uncontrollably, it’s important to remember they aren’t real. They are just feelings. At the end of the day all you have is your body, mind, health and wealth. However you feel about those things will change quite a bit throughout the average persons lifetime. What matters today might not matter tomorrow.

Exactly my thoughts. I thought this place had become more negative, but I'm still shocked at the results. Perhaps it's time to move on and find more positive technology communities. You don't happen to know any?

These polls are self selecting. People round here aren’t into polls generally (evidenced by that the feature is largely unknown) and probably rarely respond to them. An exception to that is when the poll positives speak directly to something you care deeply about and identify strongly with. On top of that people who are going through this may be inclined to share not least because it’s always comforting to those going through an issue to know that they aren’t alone.

In sum, this poll is more an opportunity to share and participate in discussion about this issue than it is about determining the proportion of hn readers who are dealing with this issue

Those are without a doubt some clear symptoms of depression. Two VERY VERY IMPORTANT THINGS:

1) A good first step is to see your GP, if you have one, and if you don't look up some reviews and find a decent one. If you're at the point where you lack the motivation to even do that, ask a friend or loved one to do it for you. If you don't have a resource like that around you, just click this link & put in your own zip code: https://www.healthgrades.com/usearch?what=General%20Medical%...

You see a GP first because they should run something like a complete metabolic panel along with tests for things like vitamin D levels. It's entirely possible to get mis-diagnosed with (psychological) depression when there is a more concrete metabolic cause.

Other readers, please please don't downvote this next part for language, use of caps, etc., this is seriously important

2) About it never going away. Oh hell that's the feeling all right. But here's the thing about a depressed brain telling you things: IT IS A FUCKING LIAR. Your mind tells you that, so you feel worse, and it feels even harder to over come, and the spiral continues. You CAN feel better. It might honestly be the hardest thing you ever do, but you have to claw back up inch by inch. Shit, inches can be hard at times. Go for millimeters when you need to. When you get pushed back down at times, IT'S TEMPORARY. Just keep taking that tiny step in front of you. One. Tiny. Step. Motivation is hard. Doing things you liked before is hard. Focus on doing small things. Focus on finding 5 minutes, or one minute, of distraction from your headspace at a time. A good simple technique is to overload your physical senses: 1) Light a candle/spray some scent 2) Put on some background noise-- music, anything 3) Fill a glass (real glass to conduct the cold) to the top with ice, and ANYTHING carbonated. If you don't do soda, go for seltzer or something. Wrap your hands around the cold glass. Keep it near your lips & take sips. You've got all 5 senses covered: Smell, sound, touching the cold, hearing the fizz of the bubbles, the taste as you sip & sensation of the carbonation. You're brain does have a bandwidth limit, and hitting all 5 senses saturates a lot of it. An ice-cold shower is also good. These things aren't silver bullets, aren't a cure: You're looking to get incremental periods of time where you don't feel like crap. Over time, they can build, and get easier. Look for other small 5 minute distractions that take you out of your head, whatever works. Getting out of this is a game of inches.

Finally: NONE of #2 replaces treatment. It's a single coping mechanism that can work to take the slightest edge off things. Therapy, medication if needed, those should be on your list for consideration. Maybe check out the DBSA: https://www.dbsalliance.org/support/ Groups are everywhere, and if that's not your thing or none are actually near you, they do daily online meetings. Talk or not, or just take it in. Sometimes knowing it's not just you can help, but you'll also hear how other people cope with this. A good inventory of coping mechanisms to take the edge off is very important.

IT WON'T LAST FOREVER. YOU CAN FEEL BETTER.

I have pretty much moved on from HN. It used to be the place to learn first hand from people doing amazing things in tech, these days it seems to be a nest of negative nut jobs whining about how hard their life is while holding 6 figure desk jobs.

Yes I know you are not supposed to mourn for the old HN, but I do. I feel like HN should purge the last 5 years of posts and start again.