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Depression lies

wilwheaton.net

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Re: Depression lies

#121

Post by jetti »

danielweber wrote: post #114
jetti wrote: post #105

I'll preface this with the fact that I know that people will see me as being cold or just generally not agree with my opinion but I am going to share it with you all anyways. I have experienced this first hand. I have attempted suicide twice in my life and have gotten help for it. Because of my experience, I think I have come out of it with a different view which is this: Suicide is somebody's choice and theirs only…

I believe suicide is a right, but surely there is a difference between someone committing suicide with a clear mind and someone doing it out of severe depression. I fully realize there is a circular logic set to trap you here: we can define severe depression as wanting to kill yourself, thus taking away that right completely.

"I believe suicide is a right, but surely there is a difference between someone committing suicide with a clear mind and someone doing it out of severe depression."

There is a difference, sure. However, the difference doesn't invalidate that right. Especially considering the subjective nature of the definition of "clear mind" and "severe depression".

Re: Depression lies

#122

Post by mnicole »

navs wrote: post #19
btilly wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest reason I never committed suicide was that I didn't have the willpower for even that. One of the most dangerous periods for depressed people is shortly after they start treatment. They are still depressed, but suddenly have the energy to commit suicide, and a certain fraction of them do. My wife lost a cousin that way. :-(

Also consider that many SSRIs actually list suicidal urges as a side effect. In my transition from Celexa to Prozac to Effexor, I've found that transitioning period to be particularly bad. Not to go into too much detail but I've done things of late I never did before and my doctor has said it's likely my change in medication. They say things need to be at their worst before they can get better. That's my mantra.

Effexor literally made me think and act in ways I never had before. There's the disassociative feeling you get from depression, and then there's what Effexor did; effectively making me a ticking time-bomb with an insanely vivid, active (and morbid) imagination. Really dark times, and coincidentally a few months after I'd quit it, Time magazine had a cover article about the rise of [teen] suicides because of it.

Re: Depression lies

#123

Post by drumdance »

DanBC wrote: post #99
bad_user wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, maybe it indeed works, but the problem is you have to believe what you keep telling yourself and that's hard. In regards to seeing the real world and your place in it for what it is, I think that the extremes are hurtful. For instance many of us here posses an over average intelligence (whether we were born with it, or we acquired it through hard work that's another discussion). Also, many of us here ha…

> but the problem is you have to believe what you keep telling yourself and that's hard. Well, no. You just have to start by believing less strongly your original negative thought. Situation: "I failed this test". Hot thought: "I'm stupid". Belief in hot thought: 80% Emotion: Shame Evidence to challenge hot thought: "I passed the test last month with an 'A'"; "I do better than many of my peers at testing" Alternative…

This is a really good description of the process. The initial challenge for most people is to even be conscious of the hot thought (love that term). It's more like a flash that passes through your consciousness and immediately affects your mood. One you learn to catch it on the way through it's a lot easier to diminish it's power to affect your emotional state.

I've found as I gotten older that I'm much better at processing negative emotions and not letting them nag at me for hours.

Re: Depression lies

#124

Post by jetti »

drumdance wrote: post #120
jetti wrote: post #105

I'll preface this with the fact that I know that people will see me as being cold or just generally not agree with my opinion but I am going to share it with you all anyways. I have experienced this first hand. I have attempted suicide twice in my life and have gotten help for it. Because of my experience, I think I have come out of it with a different view which is this: Suicide is somebody's choice and theirs only…

The best description I've seen of depression-induced suicde is "a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

The thing I always hated about hearing that phrase is that it completely invalidates what the person is feeling and makes the person saying the phrase. In some cases, it truly may be a temporary problem, in some cases it may not be. How can you say something like that to somebody with Fibromyalgia? Surely they would be apt to feel depressed and unlikely to continue wanting to live. While that may not be a common situation, it is something that could happen and, again speaking from my experience, from what I've encountered the people spouting off that line are the ones who don't know 100% what the person they are talking to are going through.

That phrase also has implications as to what happens after one dies by stating it is a permanent solution. Sure, they won't be here any more but that doesn't mean they won't exist anymore (though that is a discussion for another time).

Re: Depression lies

#125

Post by philwelch »

danteembermage wrote: post #102
kakaroto_BR wrote: post #97

I'm in this situation right now. I will try to pass this with some therapy and exercises, because the medication decreases libido and I don't want to lose my girlfriend.

I would hope your girlfriend would have the maturity and care for you that this wouldn't put your relationship in danger. You know 50% of sexually active people are in a relationship where their partner is less interested in sex than they are on average (inevitable logic, not statistics) and if you break it down to year by year interest that number must go up (again logic). That said, I'm going to make the brash coun…

In other words: satisfying each others' sexual needs isn't a valid and important part of a relationship?

Re: Depression lies

#126

Post by nkurz »

philwelch wrote: post #117
kevinburke wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have shown the two to have the same effectiveness rate at treating depression, around 50%. It turns out it is actually healthy to pass the blame. I'd suggest reading one of Seligman's other books, Learned Optimism, for more, but in studies of people in high-pressure situations (freshman year at Army, cold call insurance salesman at MetLife, etc), the most successful people are the ones who externalize (blame…

> depressed people score higher on assessing the world accurately than non-depressed people Citations? Chasing down this particular meme is a pet hobby of mine as I suspect the evidence for it is slightly fixed.

I haven't gone through them, but there are quite a few references here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

Re: Depression lies

#127

Post by ewest »

throwaway120912 wrote: post #43

Forgive the disposable account, I am a long-time registered user with high karma but even I think that once in a while there is a topic that requires anonymity (or at least further pseudonymity). I do not feel I suffer from depression, yet I think of suicide frequently. Frequently as in, once every couple of days to several times a day, for as long as I remember. Frequently these are just passing thoughts, of how I m…

Thanks for mentioning Camus - I had not heard of him until I read your post.

This is HN's best feature - the discussions are often better than the story and often offer new things to learn about.

Re: Depression lies

#128

Post by philwelch »

nkurz wrote: post #126
philwelch wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> depressed people score higher on assessing the world accurately than non-depressed people Citations? Chasing down this particular meme is a pet hobby of mine as I suspect the evidence for it is slightly fixed.

I haven't gone through them, but there are quite a few references here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

Quite a few references refuting it as well.

Re: Depression lies

#129

Post by mej10 »

the_economist wrote: post #106
rubashov wrote: post #84

I thought I was depressed and anxious for almost two years. It turned out I just had a chronic sinus infection. I'm suspicious that a lot of what gets considered as psychiatric problems are really physical health problems. Anecdotally, a lot of people switch to a nutrient dense diet and cut out potential allergens and wind up feeling all better.

Not just anecdotally -- plenty of studies confirm this. Some people -- 30% of the people by some estimates -- simply suffer from fructose malabsorption. This means that when they eat foods with excess fructose (even fruit), they fail to properly absorb nutrients. In particular, individuals who suffer from fructose malabsorption fail to absorb tryptophan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption Tryptophan…

Any time I have mentioned that someone should change their diet to help them deal with any number of problems (weight, mild depression, seasonal affective disorder, overall energy levels), I am universally met with disbelief and dismissal.

The fad diet industry has ruined people's ability to think clearly about the topic of diet. The part that gets to me the most is that I have had profound changes in my life due to diet and exercise changes, and they know that. They still won't even try.

Re: Depression lies

#130

Post by Alex3917 »

lsiebert wrote: post #41
luriel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing you "have a problem" doesn't mean you or anyone understands the problem or what to do about it. And even if you know what to do, doesn't mean you can do it either, the psychological, social or just practical barriers can be impossible to climb. Medication has a statistical significant effect, but is often marginal at best, and most of the effect is placebo. And this assumes an accurate diagnosis, and don't co…

You want to talk about statistics, but include anecdotal statements from anonymous sources, and end with an appeal to emotion. You want to state that psychiatric medicine is mostly placebo, but don't have any good criticisms to levy against double blind studies of antidepressants with placebos. Given the point of the article was encouraging/helping individuals who have depression to seek medical help, I'm not sure wh…

"You want to state that psychiatric medicine is mostly placebo, but don't have any good criticisms to levy against double blind studies of antidepressants with placebos."

Because maybe he assumes you aren't too stupid to do a simple Google search. Both Emperor's New Drugs and Anatomy of an Epidemic are extraordinarily well written, it's well worth reading both, and there are all sorts of other good books on mental illness as well.

This is exactly why HN has become like idiocracy, where anyone who takes the time to become well educated about something before speaking is basically called a faggot for reading books.

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