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Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

wilshipley.com

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Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#11

Post by Retric »

marvin wrote: post #7
jhancock wrote: post #4

Thanks to Will for sharing a well written article. I am careful not to diagnose myself or others and using labels: OCD, ADD, depressive, etc... The reason I am careful about labeling is I don't think the diagnoses are accurate enough. I have concluded that maybe we can't always identify the disorders, maybe we can't cure the disorders, but we can coup with and more openly discuss the symptoms. If you are someone that…

Therapy has worked wonders for me. But it's not something you do for a couple of months and then conclude the process by living a happy life. Your problems are part of you, and you can't just throw a part of yourself out of the window in a short time. I've been in various forms of psychotherapy for two years now, taking medication when it was necessary. To be specific: characteristics of OCD and schizoid PD as sympto…

I will preface this by saying my mother has a PHD in neuroscience and it's application to learning and talking to her we know a lot of the details but little of the complexity's in how the brain functions. Anyway, several years ago I was riding on home from school and saw a bird out the window. Out of boredom and curiosity I just started overlaying everything I know about birds and flight. Everything from it's bone structure to the aerodynamics of flight feathers etc. I blacked out and by the time I was aware again we 10 - 15 minutes had gone by.

I assumed it was probably a good idea to never do that again, but I have a incredibly detailed memory of what I pictured so there is a pull to try it again. My point is I think you can overstress your mind and like overclocking a CPU it becomes less stable as you do so. Our minds are a complex balance of chemical signals which has real limits. I try to get enough sleep and take care of the wetware because I think it's less stable than you might assume. Rest and good food are the basics, but so is balancing how you use your mind and trying to avoid unbalanced behavior.

I have gone all out 12 hour days for long periods, but they seem to lead directly to burnout and depression. Yet, if I don't work really hard after a few months I start feeling useless and slow, so I don't think steady state is the best long term idea. My guess is finding a good cycle where I avoid burn out and feeling useless for long periods but I have periods of extreme activity and rest is my best long term balance. However, I have no idea how this relates to my inner biochemistry.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#12

Post by swombat »

You look around you and realize that everyone and everything you love is going to go away, sooner or later, and you don't believe anything good will replace them.

Isn't that exactly how things are? It's not an illusion, that's just the truth. Most people have simply developed a solid sense of denial so they ignore that until they die - or at least until they get old and all their friends start dying.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#13

Post by sethg »

swombat wrote: post #12

You look around you and realize that everyone and everything you love is going to go away, sooner or later, and you don't believe anything good will replace them. Isn't that exactly how things are? It's not an illusion, that's just the truth. Most people have simply developed a solid sense of denial so they ignore that until they die - or at least until they get old and all their friends start dying.

In some psychological tests, people with clinical depression demonstrated a more accurate view of reality than mentally healthy people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr05/realism.html

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#14

Post by kaens »

Retric wrote: post #11
marvin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therapy has worked wonders for me. But it's not something you do for a couple of months and then conclude the process by living a happy life. Your problems are part of you, and you can't just throw a part of yourself out of the window in a short time. I've been in various forms of psychotherapy for two years now, taking medication when it was necessary. To be specific: characteristics of OCD and schizoid PD as sympto…

I will preface this by saying my mother has a PHD in neuroscience and it's application to learning and talking to her we know a lot of the details but little of the complexity's in how the brain functions. Anyway, several years ago I was riding on home from school and saw a bird out the window. Out of boredom and curiosity I just started overlaying everything I know about birds and flight. Everything from it's bone s…

Out of boredom and curiosity I just started overlaying everything I know about birds and flight. Everything from it's bone structure to the aerodynamics of flight feathers etc. I blacked out and by the time I was aware again we 10 - 15 minutes had gone by.

I do the same thing on a regular basis, and I think the same "blacking out" thing happens to me (unless you literally blacked out), but I wouldn't really describe it as blacking out. It's more like day-dreaming - I end up in a mental state where there's nothing but what I'm looking at / thinking about. Very "visually" vivid, but hard to describe, and when I come out of it some amount of time has passed (5 to 15 minutes), and I'll have no clue what happened in my surroundings during that time.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#15

Post by kaens »

swombat wrote: post #12

You look around you and realize that everyone and everything you love is going to go away, sooner or later, and you don't believe anything good will replace them. Isn't that exactly how things are? It's not an illusion, that's just the truth. Most people have simply developed a solid sense of denial so they ignore that until they die - or at least until they get old and all their friends start dying.

That is exactly how things are. I think the author was basically saying that sometimes it weighs more heavily on his mind than others. (It certainly does for me)

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#16

Post by Retric »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #9
jhancock wrote: post #4

Thanks to Will for sharing a well written article. I am careful not to diagnose myself or others and using labels: OCD, ADD, depressive, etc... The reason I am careful about labeling is I don't think the diagnoses are accurate enough. I have concluded that maybe we can't always identify the disorders, maybe we can't cure the disorders, but we can coup with and more openly discuss the symptoms. If you are someone that…

I am careful not to diagnose myself or others and using labels: OCD, ADD, depressive, etc... The reason I am careful about labeling is I don't think the diagnoses are accurate enough. Any psychologist worth their salt would agree with you: Diagnoses are blunt instruments which we use to describe what are, in reality, complex and unique collections of individual traits and tendencies. There is indeed a risk in "labeli…

Thank you, that was the most clear and useful definition of labeling I have ever seen.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#17

Post by elai »

swombat wrote: post #12

You look around you and realize that everyone and everything you love is going to go away, sooner or later, and you don't believe anything good will replace them. Isn't that exactly how things are? It's not an illusion, that's just the truth. Most people have simply developed a solid sense of denial so they ignore that until they die - or at least until they get old and all their friends start dying.

"and you don't believe anything good will replace them" is the fallacy.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#18

Post by bprater »

Great article. For folks that don't understand what depression feels like, an article like this is great.

I think a good explanation of depression for someone that has never really experienced it is: "Take the worse day of your life. Feel those feelings. Now pretend that every day of your life is like that from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep." If there is hell on earth, it looks alot like depression. Unfortunately, most of this is just biochemistry happening in your brain. Fortunately, there are tools today that can help.

It's funny, people can relate when they see someone with a broken leg or a huge scar. You can't see mental disorders and if you haven't felt them, they don't seem very real.

If there is someone you love that has a mental disorder, nothing you can quickly spat at them will help, "Oh, you'll get better" or "It'll go away, just be patient." anymore than you want to hear the same things when you break up with a girlfriend or lose a family member. See if they want help, help them get help if they do, and support them.

If YOU think you have a mental disorder like depression, please go see a professional. They are trained in a variety of techniques that they can give you to help manage your life better in the face of whatever problems you feel you are having. They want to help you, they want to heal you. But you have to take that step first.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#19

Post by Retric »

kaens wrote: post #14
Retric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will preface this by saying my mother has a PHD in neuroscience and it's application to learning and talking to her we know a lot of the details but little of the complexity's in how the brain functions. Anyway, several years ago I was riding on home from school and saw a bird out the window. Out of boredom and curiosity I just started overlaying everything I know about birds and flight. Everything from it's bone s…

Out of boredom and curiosity I just started overlaying everything I know about birds and flight. Everything from it's bone structure to the aerodynamics of flight feathers etc. I blacked out and by the time I was aware again we 10 - 15 minutes had gone by. I do the same thing on a regular basis, and I think the same "blacking out" thing happens to me (unless you literally blacked out), but I wouldn't really describe…

That's sounds close, so I guess the Neurochemistry is probably similar. How do you find this useful? I can concentrate on one thing when coding but I can still direct my thinking process, but this seemed to be just build a model without anything spare to manipulate it. It also seemed fairly draining as I was out of it for a while.

Re: Wil Shipley on OCD and depression

#20

Post by qwph »

jhancock wrote: post #4

Thanks to Will for sharing a well written article. I am careful not to diagnose myself or others and using labels: OCD, ADD, depressive, etc... The reason I am careful about labeling is I don't think the diagnoses are accurate enough. I have concluded that maybe we can't always identify the disorders, maybe we can't cure the disorders, but we can coup with and more openly discuss the symptoms. If you are someone that…

I look myself in the eye in a mirror, smile and say out loud: "Everything's going to be alright".

I try do this at least once a day. It might sound stupid, but I find it gives me a bit of a lift every time I do it...

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