My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed

Throughout my life when I've told someone I have depression it's been remarkable just how many times people have responded (almost enthusiastically) with "so do I!". Anecdotally many people I know have been given a prescription for a "general-practitioner-picks-an-SSRI" at some point in their life. They then believe they have/had depression because they take/took an anti-depressant medication.

Unfortunately for me when I describe my feelings and experiences in every case (so far) the other person with depression responds with something along the lines of "Wow, that's not nearly the same thing. I guess I didn't really have depression. I'm sorry." In virtually all of these anecdotal cases I believe them to be right. Depending on how much I probe it's often pretty easy to discover they were sad because they should have been - death of a loved one, negative changes in living conditions, etc. From a diagnostic standpoint this has been very controversial:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204469/

More than likely they (and many people diagnosed with "depression" and given anti-depressants) don't have depression. They have a general practitioner with 2300 patients who can spend 12 minutes with each of them once a year. If someone comes in and complains/mentions/hints at a few key words for which there is a low cost, relatively low side effect profile drug, the standard approach for these physicians is to prescribe $DRUG and shuffle on to the next patient. At least 80% of anti-depressant medications are not prescribed by psychiatrists to people that don't have a diagnosis of depression:

https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/08/08/more-antidepressant...

Severe mental illness (of any kind) to the point of hospitalization absolutely carries stigma. In 2018 it's still often referred to as the "loony bin", "nut house", etc.

Here's an interesting experiment - reference a hospital stay to a group of people for a physical ailment. Then, replace "I had back surgery" with "I was suicidal" and witness the range of reactions, awkwardness, judgment, etc for the latter. Show someone razor marks from self-mutilation or a suicide attempt the way you might show off any other scar (from injury, surgery, etc). I assure you, in the vast majority of cases, you will get a different reaction. That's stigma.

I should also add that, similar to my anecdotal experiences above, various stays in various mental hospitals has shown me depression and mental illness that can't possibly be described as other than "something out of a movie". Entire units of patients with various mental illnesses to the point of being completely non-verbal and unable to function, catatonic, etc. Patients with self-mutilation marks covering their bodies to the point where they were cutting on top of existing scars. Group sessions with patients that describe horrors and experiences in their lives that Hollywood couldn't come up with. There are no upper or lower ranges to what people can experience, it's always only relative to the individual and empathy can only take you so far without having experienced something yourself.

My personal experience was similar - I’ve seen numerous therapists over the years before finally meeting a therapist who did help very much. It seems to me that finding a good therapist - one who is both objectively good at his job and subjectively fits your needs in his work method and personality - is hard.

I think this is something that gets missed a lot. Any therapist worth his salt would tell you that therapy is a long process which requires time to succeed. And that’s true, but it also makes it even harder to find a good fit. None of my non-matching therapists ever told me I should consider a different therapist, even when in retrospect it was the right thing to do after giving their own process a good long chance. While the principal-agent problem may be a factor, I think the main reason is the therapists’ sincere will to help (with their own process). But it also means that unless you are already aware of the fact that therapists aren’t all similar, given the super-subjective nature of the therapy process, you might incorrectly give up on the prospect of finding a good therapist for you, or be stuck with a non-matching therapist for too long.

I wouldn’t usually share something this personal on HN, but I did hoping it might encourage you to not give up on finding your therapist.

He's probably in an environment where this is a hot button issue, so he's addressing it specifically to avoid your kind of derailing comment (but I guess from what some would call the SJW audience).

More importantly, he's describing a feeling that many people with depression suffer from, a kind of 'impostor syndrome' that can make the whole thing worse and actively prevent people from finding help. I've felt it too, and I've known plenty of people who are the opposite of 'white, heterosexual, cisgender man' who have felt it too. You think so little of yourself that you don't even allow yourself to be depressed, because others have it so much worse. It doesn't help, and it's bullshit.

I do find myself confused that the fact that he considers himself privileged and wants to use this for good is somehow offensive enough to you to make you lose all sympathy. Is that how you actually feel, or are you exaggerating?

I believe the majority of antidepressants like SSRIs, if not all of them, all have warnings that they increase suicidal ideation/suicide, higher than if given placebo. This part of the health industrial complex is perhaps the epitome, where when complex environmental factors are at play, however instead of those being addressed - in the person's life, in the family, in the society - we offer a little, relatively cheap pill and hope that will solve it (along perhaps with years of therapy). The system is broken, it's dis-eased, and it's self-perpetuating to maintain the status quo.