Meta: Currently buried on page 5, with 140 upvotes. This right here says more about our feelings about mental illness than anything else.
I would be inclined to say it says more about our feelings on Will Wheaton. . .
My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
51–60 of 67 posts
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#52I lost most of my twenties to anxiety and depression. Started therapy at 29, finished university with only a Bachelor's degree at 31.
The worst aspect was that through all this time my mind was always telling me that, yes, I have some problems, but what if I don't have anything at all? Maybe if I ever did see a doctor about it, I would be wasting their time. It wasn't even about whether or not they would take me seriously. My biggest fear was that a doctor would tell me that there's nothing wrong with me. It's really the worst of all the "what if"'s that Wil was talking about, because that was the one that kept me from getting help.
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#53This hits pretty close to home. I've been seeing therapists for my anxiety but they haven't really helped much, and occasionally there are times when I just have a pretty bad day. I have a lot of fear, but there is no physical manifestation of it - it is fear of lack of worth, lack of success, lack of love, lack of acknowledgement. I overanalyze everything that I do and everything others say or do to me. I could prob…
> This hits pretty close to home. I've been seeing therapists for my anxiety but they haven't really helped much 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 ha…
Thank you! I have heard this (keep trying other therapists before finding one that works for you) before from others but never from someone who went through it. So I really appreciate you sharing this.
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#54This hits pretty close to home. I've been seeing therapists for my anxiety but they haven't really helped much, and occasionally there are times when I just have a pretty bad day. I have a lot of fear, but there is no physical manifestation of it - it is fear of lack of worth, lack of success, lack of love, lack of acknowledgement. I overanalyze everything that I do and everything others say or do to me. I could prob…
Pets can be helpful, but I really want to say also that you shouldn't be afraid to try antidepressants. There are all sorts of stigmas about how they make you a zombie etc, but the fact is that they do work for people and I know plenty of people who lead normal lives thanks to medicine, myself included, without experiencing that sort of thing. They do not work for everybody, and they do make you feel kinda ill the fi…
Hmm, yeah maybe I'll talk to a doctor about it. Possibly a psychiatrist? I was actually considering trying CBD oil because I heard some strains work well for anxiety. I know there aren't long-term studies on it but it seems to have less side-effects than anti-depressants. But a doctor would know best, like you said. I'll reconsider anti-depressants. Thanks for the advice!
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#55This hits pretty close to home. I've been seeing therapists for my anxiety but they haven't really helped much, and occasionally there are times when I just have a pretty bad day. I have a lot of fear, but there is no physical manifestation of it - it is fear of lack of worth, lack of success, lack of love, lack of acknowledgement. I overanalyze everything that I do and everything others say or do to me. I could prob…
I recommend trying CBT type stuff which I've done myself for depression with some success. My take on it is your brain is mostly a parallel processor where events trigger ideas which trigger the lower level fear, hunger type stuff often without conscious awareness. But you can fight it by, when you get a bad feeling, analysing it and arguing against - eg for lack of worth, figure out the I'm useless thought and argue…
This is super interesting. I've never even heard of CBT - thought you misspelled CBD oil :) My issue is that when I'm in the moment I'm sort of paralyzed by it. An attack feels a bit like a runaway train. But lately I've gotten better at taking a step back from the situation. I think in those moments CBT would help a lot. I'll read up more about it, thanks so much for the tip.
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#56This hits pretty close to home. I've been seeing therapists for my anxiety but they haven't really helped much, and occasionally there are times when I just have a pretty bad day. I have a lot of fear, but there is no physical manifestation of it - it is fear of lack of worth, lack of success, lack of love, lack of acknowledgement. I overanalyze everything that I do and everything others say or do to me. I could prob…
Anxiety and depression are not the same thing. Anxiety can be a somatopsychic side effect of some physical conditions, including low blood sugar, allergies and adrenal or thyroid distress.
I used to suffer a lot of anxiety. Addressing the health issues I listed has largely put a stop to it. (In spite of being prone to being suicidal, I am not particularly prone to depression and have only suffered brief bouts of it once in a great while.)
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#57I'm going to say something that probably get me banned from this SJW cesspool that HN have become: his depression is a sign of his gut telling him he is not a real man. He is a soy boy, so obsessed with looking like he is not a sexist/racist/homophobe that he cant appreciate anything else in life and blame others for not accepting him. He just need to man up.
More nuanced take: men are finally acting like women have told them to act for decades: talk about your feelings, open up, be in touch with your inner self... not realizing that only works for women because women's feelings matter and verbalizing them often enough will cause others to take action sooner or later. The reason men had the "irritating" habit of offering solutions is because it was inconceivable to most t…
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Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#58This hits pretty close to home. I've been seeing therapists for my anxiety but they haven't really helped much, and occasionally there are times when I just have a pretty bad day. I have a lot of fear, but there is no physical manifestation of it - it is fear of lack of worth, lack of success, lack of love, lack of acknowledgement. I overanalyze everything that I do and everything others say or do to me. I could prob…
Anxiety and depression are not the same thing. Anxiety can be a somatopsychic side effect of some physical conditions, including low blood sugar, allergies and adrenal or thyroid distress. I used to suffer a lot of anxiety. Addressing the health issues I listed has largely put a stop to it. (In spite of being prone to being suicidal, I am not particularly prone to depression and have only suffered brief bouts of it o…
I'm pretty healthy I think, at least in the aspects you listed since I get checked out every year. I'm glad it worked for you though. One thing I need to do more is exercise, so based on your experience at least maybe that will make a big difference.
The anxiety issues have been with me since I was a kid, but it gets more aggravated in certain situations, especially for the last couple of years. There are physical manifestations of it, even when I was a kid.
It is pretty debilitating especially when I'm in public. Or if I'm alone I just get totally trapped in my worries for hours.
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anxiety and depression are not the same thing. Anxiety can be a somatopsychic side effect of some physical conditions, including low blood sugar, allergies and adrenal or thyroid distress. I used to suffer a lot of anxiety. Addressing the health issues I listed has largely put a stop to it. (In spite of being prone to being suicidal, I am not particularly prone to depression and have only suffered brief bouts of it o…
I'm pretty healthy I think, at least in the aspects you listed since I get checked out every year. I'm glad it worked for you though. One thing I need to do more is exercise, so based on your experience at least maybe that will make a big difference. The anxiety issues have been with me since I was a kid, but it gets more aggravated in certain situations, especially for the last couple of years. There are physical ma…
I react allergically to a lot of things, yet doctors only ever identified one thing that I was officially allergic to in their opinion. Just removing stuff from my life that I react badly to has done wonders.
Not intended as argumentative. More like food for thought.
Best of luck in finding answers that work for you.
Re: My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed
#60I encourage everyone to consider finding time for this lecture on depression: https://youtu.be/TIcf-2AFHgw It helped me frame what depression the disease is compared to our broad usage of the word in everyday contexts. In particular it describes both the biology and psychology of depression.
This was fantastic. I watched this last night and wanted to come back and thank you for sharing.