Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let's talk openly about depression

gustavoveloso.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 67 posts

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#41

Post by alanwatts »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #16
lowglow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a genuine interest in what others find passion in, and you'll find making friends is easier than you think. A good start would be replacing "What do you do?" with "What do you love to do?" or "What are you passionate about?" :) Good luck!

I find the idea that once can just consciously decide to "take a genuine interest in" something to be entirely alien. Is this something that most people are able to do? I can direct my attention toward something, but that doesn't make boring subjects interesting.

"You must be genuine" is a double bind. Being genuine is something that cannot be forced by coercion

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#42

Post by bhickey »

DanBC wrote: post #38
amelius wrote: post #32

If you have depression combined with ADD, OCD, Autism or ME/CFS, then you might want to look up "methylation" on the internet. Genetic testing can show if you have a defect in your methylation pathways, which can lead to these disorders, and to depression. Good starting point: http://geneticgenie.org/ They even have an implementation of methylation analysis on this website.

Do you have a reliable cite for this please?

Genetic Genie is setting off a lot of bogosity warning bells in my head.

Yes, epigenetic methylation is associated with increased risk for all sorts of chronic illnesses. And, yes, oxidative stress influences heritable methylation. At the same time, the site appears to be peddling its own brand of alternative medicine woo and affiliate links.

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#43

Post by alanwatts »

The 3 P's mentioned by the author are some of the most classic human pit falls into mental paralysis.

>1. Personalization – the believe that we are at fault. This is the lesson that not everything that happens to us happens because of us.

"Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness."

-Epictetus

>2. Pervasiveness – the belief that an event will affect all areas of your life

"Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream."

-Lao Tzu

>3. Permanence – the belief that the sorrow will last forever

"A student went to his meditation teacher and said, “My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I’m constantly falling asleep. It’s just horrible!”

“It will pass,” the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. “My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It’s just wonderful!”

“It will pass,” the teacher replied matter-of-factly."

-old Zen tale

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#44

Post by amelius »

bhickey wrote: post #42
DanBC wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reliable cite for this please?

Genetic Genie is setting off a lot of bogosity warning bells in my head. Yes, epigenetic methylation is associated with increased risk for all sorts of chronic illnesses. And, yes, oxidative stress influences heritable methylation. At the same time, the site appears to be peddling its own brand of alternative medicine woo and affiliate links.

Check this out:

http://geneticgenie.org/blog/2013/02/01/think-supporting-met...

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#45

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #18
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the idea that once can just consciously decide to "take a genuine interest in" something to be entirely alien. Is this something that most people are able to do? I can direct my attention toward something, but that doesn't make boring subjects interesting.

You are guessing that a line of conversation will stay boring, but you don't really know. Suspension of disbelief should be easy since you don't actually know what will happen. If you are interested in good things then you can be interested in seeing whether a conversation could turn out good. This incidentally relates to one of OP's suggestions: don't assume that you'll keep feeling the way you feel forever.

This doesn't describe the experience I was getting at. I'm talking about actual conversations that I routinely have, not hypothetical ones I'm avoiding. It usually takes very little time to get to a point where the conversation just doesn't continue; I'm not trying to end it, it just sort of runs out of steam before it gets anywhere interesting. The disconnect might be that I don't seem to get any kind of mental/emotional jolt out of social interaction per se, which seems to be unusual.

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#46

Post by MicroBerto »

gc123 wrote: post #3

As someone who does the tech 9-5, I've found it difficult to make small talk/form deeper relationships with people outside of tech. Conversations often tend to die off after the initial "What do you do? Oh that's cool..." or "About that weather we've been having..." Any tips on expanding your network outside of tech?

Stop asking or even answering the whole "What do you do" thing then...

Try getting into something completely different than tech. Like aggressive athletic stuff (ie MMA / boxing... not cycling where you have lots of techies) or do some improv, which can drastically improve your bullshitting skills if you can stick with it.

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#47

Post by dominotw »

gc123 wrote: post #3

As someone who does the tech 9-5, I've found it difficult to make small talk/form deeper relationships with people outside of tech. Conversations often tend to die off after the initial "What do you do? Oh that's cool..." or "About that weather we've been having..." Any tips on expanding your network outside of tech?

>Any tips on expanding your network outside of tech?

Enjoy the other person, Like a TV show.

I've made a couple of friends from playing at local vball meetup.

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#48

Post by deadtofu »

badminton1 wrote: post #19

Checkout this site: http://devpressed.com/ And this excellent talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk

I got really excited by this devpressed site.

I have Asperger's. Plus PTSD from various stuff that happened as a result of that.

So the idea of a safe place to share my strengths (and weaknesses) and try to find a job that doesn't stress me out was really exciteding. So I fired up Tor[2] and tried to register.

Then the confirmation email never name. I tried resending. Set a timer. Wait 15 minutes. Try not to perseverate.

I only have two emails - my main, plus a very old hotmail account which has now been morphed into an Outlook addy. Outlook has a pretty rich feature set, including aliases[1]. So I thought I'd try that.

"There's a temporary problem with the service. Please try again. If you continue to get this message, try again later".

I go through the process again on Outlook. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Try not to perseverate.

I guess I could use my personal email (my first name at my last name dot com), but frankly part of why I was excited about registering.

Maybe the issue is I did the initial account registration over Tor. Or maybe I'm just particuarly unlucky today.

All I know is my rational brain quietly whisper "Oh, just go back later, it's probably some server side bug", and my emotional brain yells back... other things.

I guess I could sign in with my Twitter, but if you'd been through what I've been through, you'd have trouble trusting people too. That's how I got into privacy and security work... feeling like I had a secret, and I needed to protect it.

[1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/add-alias-account [2] Yeah, a VPN is probably sufficient but lately I'm interested in how much of the web is closed off to Tor users due to crazy captchas and other gotchas.

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#49

Post by deadtofu »

gc123 wrote: post #3

As someone who does the tech 9-5, I've found it difficult to make small talk/form deeper relationships with people outside of tech. Conversations often tend to die off after the initial "What do you do? Oh that's cool..." or "About that weather we've been having..." Any tips on expanding your network outside of tech?

I'm also really into film and TV, so I can connect with people on that.

Also politics - public interest lawyers love me.

Re: Let's talk openly about depression

#50

Post by bhickey »

amelius wrote: post #44
bhickey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genetic Genie is setting off a lot of bogosity warning bells in my head. Yes, epigenetic methylation is associated with increased risk for all sorts of chronic illnesses. And, yes, oxidative stress influences heritable methylation. At the same time, the site appears to be peddling its own brand of alternative medicine woo and affiliate links.

Check this out: http://geneticgenie.org/blog/2013/02/01/think-supporting-met...

Yes, and? The entire website stinks of snake oil.

The AJHG paper they cite to is talking about folate and methylation in the context of fetal abnormalities. This is a whole different beast from feeding adults B12 vitamins and hoping for the best.

Post reply on HN