I was once depressed. Now I have life by the balls. How? (this is purely anecdotal and should not be taken as advice). Take Meds. It's no solution, but it's the beginning of a solution. Quit school. Go to the Italian country-side and *become a man*, Italian style (it involved a lot of wine and pasta). Work Mike Rowe-style jobs (like learning how to build an entire house in France). Refuse to do any more stupid shit (…
How do you figure out what you love?
Mental Illness and Startups
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coping mechanisms like that one definitely help -- especially if they get put to use early on in a depressive cycle. A high level of self-awareness, acknowledgement of depression (or other mental illness), certain hobbies, "sunshine therapy", all help to mitigate depression and other mental illnesses. Still, though, there are severe forms of depression that can become invulnerable to all the self-help approaches.
Absolutely, I pointed out a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (behavioral activation) because it's easy advice that may help people. The science is pretty clear that a combination of medication and professionally-guided CBT has the most effective rates for treating depression, and that some specific treatments specifically don't work at all for some people.
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#53I was once depressed. Now I have life by the balls. How? (this is purely anecdotal and should not be taken as advice). Take Meds. It's no solution, but it's the beginning of a solution. Quit school. Go to the Italian country-side and *become a man*, Italian style (it involved a lot of wine and pasta). Work Mike Rowe-style jobs (like learning how to build an entire house in France). Refuse to do any more stupid shit (…
How do you figure out what you love?
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#54If you are depressed, why don't you just go out and do something really awesome? You have nothing to lose, right? So why not do something adventurous? Sell all your shit, move to Europe or South America, and go start a revolution.
That's just not how it works. The simplest thing -- getting out of bed, showering -- seems impossible and just pointless. Everything seems pointless.
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coping mechanisms like that one definitely help -- especially if they get put to use early on in a depressive cycle. A high level of self-awareness, acknowledgement of depression (or other mental illness), certain hobbies, "sunshine therapy", all help to mitigate depression and other mental illnesses. Still, though, there are severe forms of depression that can become invulnerable to all the self-help approaches.
Absolutely, I pointed out a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (behavioral activation) because it's easy advice that may help people. The science is pretty clear that a combination of medication and professionally-guided CBT has the most effective rates for treating depression, and that some specific treatments specifically don't work at all for some people.
http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/therapy_me...
Which one is "most effective" (by what measure?) is very debatable.
Here's a Jungian critique of CBT ("Psychology's New God") :
http://hbmag.com/jungian-psychology-series-psychology’s-new-...
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#56Works great until the startup is successful enough to hire an executive who things that office hours are a more importamt measure of productivity than peer respect or checkins. It's easier if you're a founder.
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coping mechanisms like that one definitely help -- especially if they get put to use early on in a depressive cycle. A high level of self-awareness, acknowledgement of depression (or other mental illness), certain hobbies, "sunshine therapy", all help to mitigate depression and other mental illnesses. Still, though, there are severe forms of depression that can become invulnerable to all the self-help approaches.
This post really spoke to me because I deal with the same feelings as the article writer, and I too consider programming to be a therapeutic experience. However, it can also be a bit of an escape mechanism, making it a pyrrhic victory. In code if something is wrong or not working right you know it can be fixed. Sometimes the fix is not easy, and requires lots of work, and research, and testing but after nearly ten ye…
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#58Purposeful / meaningful activity is a great way to combat depression.
Just my opinion, I'm not a subject matter expert.
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#59"you don't have to be mad to work here but ...." i've found smaller companies are much more tolerant & flexible with nutters (like me). there seems to be more focus on results than politics. in larger places I've felt more pressure not to rock the boat, and produce the illusion of work, rather than actually delivering things on time. it doesn't seem to matter if you actually do anything as long as you look like you'r…
I've worked for Microsoft for over a year now, and they've been exceptionally supportive of my peculiarities. I've suffered massively from depression and sleep disorders, and everyone's pretty willing to reschedule meetings, allow for an altered work schedule, or just let me work from home when it gets bad. As long as I deliver what I'm supposed to, when I'm supposed to, they're very reasonable.
Re: Mental Illness and Startups
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alcohol makes mental illnesses vastly worse. (As, apparently, do most psychiatric drugs in the long run.)
As, apparently, do most psychiatric drugs in the long run. I have to disagree with this statement and ask you to provide better sources than just the result of some Google search. The evidence gathered with citations to peer-reviewed literature in one of the definitive medical textbooks on the issue, http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-Rec... strongly suggests that lithium for bipolar mood disord…
Also, that Finland program as described in Anatomy uses very few psychiatric drugs, and it does in low doses and tries to keep people off them. Whitaker is just explaining that his opposition is not to 'psychiatric drugs' like some groups, but to unscientific & harmful practices, which is exactly what gives him so much ethos. The Finland program is from what I remember of it, far from modern psychiatric practices.
In fact, in my email communication with Whitaker, he has stated that no patients would miss antipsychotics if they were banned. Based on his books and many interviews/videos I have seen of Whitaker, I think he would probably agree with the statement "The way most drugs are prescribed, they make the illness worse in the long-run." (note I don't know Whitaker personally)
This is a very complicated debate because one can't talk about psychiatric drugs in general, you have to look at the individual evidence for each one. For example, I have much less faith in the Harrow Study that Whitaker cites as evidence that antipsychotics do worse, because I found the critique that its just the worst patients who stay on antipsychotics very salient. This study indicated the health of the off-med and on-med groups diverged after two years (with the off-med group improving significantly.) However, there seem to be a dearth of studies that are this long testing antipsychotics versus placebo (because of the inherent difficulty of that study, I imagine).