Ask HN: About to turn 30. Any advice on how to deal with the depression?

You are still quite young, and you have plenty of time to correct those aspects of your life in which you feel deficient.

-- 61 yr-old guy

First, don't feel like you traded serious relationships for academia. A lot of younger relationships don't work because the people aren't grown up enough. (For me, I had to become less of an arrogant jerk. That took a bit of time.) So don't kick yourself, looking back and saying "I could have dated..." You could have, and you might have enjoyed it, but put your mental energy into chasing the relationship you're in now.

In fact, don't look back much. You want to learn from past mistakes, sure. But if you've had a car accident, and as you drive off you're staring in the rear-view mirror at the accident, you're going to have another one, because your attention is on the accident, not on your driving. Learn from the past, but put most of your attention on what you're doing now.

You sound unfulfilled in academia. It often is unfulfilling. But so is working in industry. Fulfillment isn't going to come from either of those places; both are ultimately empty. But fulfillment might come from your relationship. Don't sacrifice that for either a degree or a job. (Personally, I'd say that even a relationship isn't ultimately enough; real fulfillment comes from knowing God.)

But you didn't actually say that you were unfulfilled, you said that you'd never be appreciated. Do you need to be? You are unlikely to be, either in academia or in industry. (Again, though, you might be in your relationship.)

Oh, and in your title you said "depression". You're in grad school. It's amazing how high a percentage of grad students suffer from depression - like, 60+%. The depression isn't necessarily telling you that there's something wrong with you, or that you don't belong in academia. It's telling you that there's something fundamentally wrong with grad school. (Which, if you can't change it, may be telling you that academia isn't where you should be.)

No real conclusions, just some thoughts that you may or may not find useful...

If you live in the USA you probably never will be. Without a social safety net you are never free to explore and fail because it’s a long way down and the fall will maim you if it doesn’t kill.

In one year you could revolutionize your life, if you really wanted it. Based on your comment this could be a reasonable 12 months plan:

- Get out of academia

- Get a 6 figure paying job in the industry

- Get out of your current relationship

- Rent a one bedroom apartment in a major city close to work and go on binge dating until the feeling of regret will be gone

It is likely that after taking all these steps you’d not be feeling depressed anymore, and life would have brought you in some interesting places.

I shared similar emotions in regards to dating in my mid 20s (specifically my girlfriend at the time had significantly more dating experience than me and that made me feel utterly inferior), so I did exactly that. I broke up with her, moved from the suburbs to a major city, and after casually dating ~50 women over the course of the following 4 years, I finally settled with my current partner and couldn’t be happier, we’ve been together 5 years and going strong. On top of that I have fun memories of my previous dating phase, which did a lot to boost my self confidence and tame any “missed out” feelings.

> I also think about dropping out of the PhD program and transitioning to the industry

Yes, do this. It’s a good start towards being happier. Academia is largely thankless BS and if you don’t already love it then you probably won’t ever.

Get yourself healthy, paid, entertained, etc. first - before you start running around trying to change the world and do meaningful stuff.

You won’t be of much use to anyone else until you’ve got yourself squared away.