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

These risks can be mitigated, but they are real, and I absolutely disagree that someone in distress should be recommended LSD as a go-to, especially without mentioning these caveats. You can get a lot farther treating depression with lifestyle changes (sleep, diet, exercise, reduction of alcohol consumption), professional counselling, cognitive-behavioral techniques, a reassessment of relationships and friendships, and working on causes of depression, versus LSD as a go-to.

[0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...

As you grow up I think you get to know yourself better, you get better emotional stability, etc, and doors open up for you to really dive in and find and enjoy genuine happiness with less drama and less confusion. The only doors that really close as you get older are physical ones, and you can do things to slow that down. Everything else is a social construct.

Your 20s are about feeling things out and making mistakes. Some people make stereotypical “mistakes” like drinking too much and getting into trouble; others make different “mistakes” like spending too much time on their career, or choosing the wrong career, or burning out. I think these are equally valid and necessary as learning experiences.

I agree. It's also not too late to host parties in your late 20s/early 30s, and I daresay they can be more fun that college parties. The experience of college parties for many students include: attending and speaking with people you're not likely to see again; playing drinking games (fun in the moment, but forgettable especially if you aren't friends with the strangers you meet afterwards); and (possibly if you were physically attractive and charismatic back then) casual sex.

A person can create a better experience by hosting a smaller party with people they know, via hosting a wine night with people you know, so you create a fun experience and can deepen friendships with people you know (a lot of people would enjoy going to this one). Bachelor/bachelorette parties are possible for people about to get married, along with birthday parties. Drinking games are even possible. Casual sex less so, but to be honest, the vast majority of people at the college parties I went to didn't have casual sex anyways (besides, most guys I've talked to would agree that a meaningful relationship with someone is harder to find and more enjoyable).

The bottom line is, there are still opportunities for the original poster to enjoy social gatherings with alcohol with people in the future, and it's less likely to be boring versus college parties where you don't know as many people.

This is not really about "turning 30". It's about regrets. I won't pretend these are invalid regrets; "we all make mistakes", while true, is not a very good excuse for any particular mistake, no matter what anyone says who is trying to cheer you up.

But regrets are a universal problem. There's only one thing you can really do about them: try to do better in the future. Think carefully about what you could have done differently with the information you had then, but don't dwell on them. That will just turn into another regret down the road.

Make a plan. Execute. "Just do it" is another awful cliche, but has a large kernel of truth to it.

Even if you know this intellectually, the tricky part is getting yourself to believe it, down in your gut where you actually act on it day to day. If I ever figure out the easy way to do this, I'll write a book, but I don't think there is one. Thinking hard about what you want from life will probably help. That's the closest to advice I can do.

By the way, the time when you were born, from whence we counted world-revolutions just now, is not at all important either. Only about 1/365th of the world's population gives a shit. heh heh

I'm messing with you a little bit and yet I'm not. Keeping it light-hearted because really it doesn't matter. It's not something to take seriously. Life, I mean. Not serious. Count me 100% in favor of a new beginning, because those are cool and make for a great story someday. Also, sadly I think academia in general might be a lost cause at this point, arguably a waste of time, and certainly a whole big whoppin' pile o'bullshit and sacrifice, as you have so astutely realized.

I don't know if I'll end up in the minority in this thread but I think you should spend some time doing the things you missed out on. But I also think you should just work it into your normal routine. Don't like, go on a 3-week herpes-catching spree in New Orleans or something, just make time every day for something fun and social. If you're doing something that prevents you from having any free time at all, that thing is unustainable, as you have, again, so astutely realized.

If sex were excruciating and millions of years of evolution hadn't selected so strongly for wanting to mate with as many people as possible from as many different tribes or genetic lines as possible, I'd say yeah probably on your deathbed you'll be totally indifferent to all the kids and grandkids you spawned, all gathered around you, and instead be thinking fondly of your PhD and/or immensely regretting that you didn't finish one. Not bloodly likely. I think life is about human relationships basically. Although according to evolution, it's not even that: life is basically for mating, and everything else is extraneous, except to the degree that it helps you get laid. I said according to evolution, all right? jeez! Evolution is dumb. It all (life I mean, and especially mating, but both) is inherently kinda dumb. Sex is dumb but we, also, are somewhat dumb. Maybe your only purpose here is to pass on some genetic material. After that, maybe nobody gives a shit, so however you spend your time after your genes have deserted your sinking-ass ship, it had better be whatever you actually and truly want to do. Get as many PhDs as you want, but they're optional and should be something YOU enjoy doing.

I don't mean to make light too much. Well yes I do. But nonetheless I remember being a bit depressed when I hit 30. On the day itself my pals took me to a drag-queen show and they had a big closed-circuit TV screen showing close-ups of onstage action as well as occasionally people the queens would pick out from the crowd to pick on. Well of course my buddies told them it was my 30th birthday and they did sing for me, also snarkily offering condolences, thanks a lot, but that meant the camera, behind the crowd and slightly above, was pointed at me for a bit and there on the screen I saw the back of my head for the first time in a while, already going bald. FUUUUUUUUU...

Then a big recession hit, I lost my "big, important" job, suddenly had time to kill and basically kicked off about 5 years of, if you'll pardon me, eating so much goddamned pussy that I barely had time for chores. Yes I'm a heterosexual male, my pronouns are (he, him, his penis). Such a thing is generally not compatible with being "in a relationship," but trust me, you're not "in" the relationship you're in, until you're so sick of hanging out with half-assed trollops, and so amazed to find a partner of quality, that you're actually relieved to be done with dating. Like there's not a trace of regret for the past because the present and future are so much better. That's where you want to be. That relationship will be the keeper. But oddly enough I think it'll have less to do with the relationship itself or the partner, and more to do with just your being ready for it yourself.