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I will never not talk about my depression

annaschueth.com

71–80 of 125 posts

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing my best and nothing really works anyway. This is probably something that most of us can relate to at some point in our lives.

I don't know if that's supposed to be sympathetic or dismissive or what, but especially in combo with the downvotes, it's hard to not see it as dismissive. A woman says "It's not socially acceptable to talk about your gender being a factor in having trouble making your career work", gets downvoted to hell. People fail to see the irony. I've been on HN nearly twelve years as part of an overall good faith effort to sor…

Downvotes are because you aren't taking the author at face value because it appears you have an agenda.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that's supposed to be sympathetic or dismissive or what, but especially in combo with the downvotes, it's hard to not see it as dismissive. A woman says "It's not socially acceptable to talk about your gender being a factor in having trouble making your career work", gets downvoted to hell. People fail to see the irony. I've been on HN nearly twelve years as part of an overall good faith effort to sor…

Downvotes are because you aren't taking the author at face value because it appears you have an agenda. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not an idealogical battle. And you aren't the mod.

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvotes are because you aren't taking the author at face value because it appears you have an agenda. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not an idealogical battle. And you aren't the mod.

It has nothing to do with the article and it is idealogical.

I never claimed to be a mod.

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know some people who can talk about their psychological struggles and remain likeable I'd argue this is the basis for all good standup comedy.

What's the one question you never want to ask a Munchhausen candidate? "How are you doing?"

What if you are Munchausening about having Munchhausen syndrome?

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#75

> I talk about my mental health to anyone who will listen, and also try to those who won’t. I don’t launch into the story of my life and whole disease history but I need everyone to understand that depression is something that affects every aspect of my life. I can't relate to this at all. Maybe it's a big difference in personality, culture or place in life, but the last thing I want to do is to openly share things t…

I can kinda relate to it, but I also understand you. I don't know what the author experienced before being so outgoing with it, but I assume there was a phase of "putting up a happy facade and just carry on". And thats really bad, probably worse than "over-correcting" and being very open about it, atleast for yourself, IMO. :-/

I would never open myself to co-workers like this. I can't even tell most of my friends, because I don't want to burden them with it. But a part of me would still like to, just wants to shout it out and let them know (but can't). Because having nobody to support you with this but yourself and some medication is... not ideal. A "facade" like this, where you don't let people know that you're not fine, is pretty exhausting in the long run. It's like you're a robot, mechanically trying to keep everybody from worrying.

I don't know if the other extreme is any better, but if it works for her and her environment, good for her. ^^

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#76

From what I gather, there are some studies that show that dietary intervention helps and that piece of it seems to boil down to "some foods promote brain inflammation and this makes depression worse." My personal opinion is that a lot of what gets currently classified as mental illness would be best seen as a somatopsychic side effects of actual physical illness. I have a really serious and incurable medical conditio…

Agreed. Recently I have found probiotics to be a correlated with my mood. Stormy thoughts seem to links to my stormy gut.

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an idealogical battle. And you aren't the mod.

It has nothing to do with the article and it is idealogical. I never claimed to be a mod.

Definition of idealogical: based on or relating to a system of ideas and ideals, especially concerning economic or political theory and policy.

I'm not talking about ideology or political theory. I'm talking about "If a specific person's life is in the toilet due to social crap they have no power to fix, it gets pretty fucking depressing. And often it's vastly more socially acceptable to say I'm depressed than to say I'm oppressed and being denied opportunity for BS reasons"

If you aren't the mod, quoting guidelines at me like I'm behaving badly when I'm not is a PC form of ad hominem. Ad hominems are also against the guidelines, FYI.

I know the guidelines. I've been a member for more than a decade.

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only take the author for her word, she didn't say anything like this in the article.

No, she wouldn't. If the world has broken her of talking about it, obviously, she wouldn't. I'm giving you my take as a woman. But go ahead and do the PC dismissal as more concrete evidence that what I'm saying is both true and utterly socially unacceptable.

"WHY I WILL NEVER NOT TALK ABOUT MY DEPRESSION" doesn't really seem like the "the world has broken her of talking about it"...

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#79

I've quit a job because I was going through bad depression before and I didn't think I could do a good job. I even asked for part time work, so I understand where she's coming from, but.. In my opinion, this attitude she's portraying is a dangerous attitude to have. This victimhood seems core to her identity. I'm not trying to shame the condition, I'm trying to say that the condition shouldn't become some core part o…

I couldn't agree more. It was also a red flag when she said that she wanted to normalize her depression. Depression, like any other mental illness, should be destigmatized but not normalized.

Through out the entire post she outlined exactly why it should not be normalized. It's a debilitating disorder that should not be left untreated. I think to try and normalize it would leave the impression that severe depression is analogous to having a hard day. This is because to most people that is the closest thing they have experienced to severe depression, but in reality it's very different.

I think by doing this she is actually working against her own interests.

Re: I will never not talk about my depression

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, it is a core part of one's identity. It's not just feeling sad sometimes. It's a chronic condition that colors everything about how you see and experience the world. If you forget that or ignore it, it starts to take over, and your grip on reality is liable to start to erode.

If I read it right she didn't say it was chronic, unless I missed that. It may have been episodal which happens to most people at some point in their. I can understand the approach ( and not necessarily agree) if it were a chronic life long condition.

Perhaps I misused the word chronic. It certainly doesn't always have to be lifelong.

But, even if it's not lifelong, it still is. One's identity is constantly changing. Suggesting that a part of a person's identity doesn't really count as much because that part of them might change a few years down the line is an act of erasure. It's a microaggresion directed at the person they are right here and right now. People who experience mood disorders are already swimming in a sea of social stigma; we could really use a little bit less rejection, well-intentioned or otherwise.

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