8 ms·

On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness

104 points by fern12 9y ago

hycaria 9y ago
>A 40-year study published in 2012 found that writers are more likely than people in other, less creative occupations to suffer from mental illnesses such as bipolar, depression, and general anxiety disorder. This bothers me. It's correlated but the following analysis assumes at least partly that being a writer is one possible factor for depression. Very common mistake most HNers are probably aware of. For a science writer to read papers so wrongly is rather ironic.
- dan00 9y ago
  > It's correlated but the following analysis assumes at least partly that being a writer is one possible factor for depression. And why shouldn't it be a possible factor? Correlation doesn't tell that it has to be a factor but neither the opposite.
  - hycaria 9y ago
    Yes, maybe, but there's no proof so why assume it and make an article like this which doesn't even has any reserve about it (reread the paragraph I quoted if you doubt my claim) ? There's not even one "maybe" in his whole essay !
    - dan00 9y ago
      Ok, I'm really more bothered by the expected scientific rigorous from an essay like this. He's a writer and is experiencing the difficulties of his work and how it effects his emotional well being. It shouldn't then really surprise that he sees a strong connection between his work as a writer and the depressions he has. That doesn't mean he's telling an objective truth about a writer's life, but he's telling a subjective "truth" of his life as a writer, and sometimes these subjective "truths" can tell you quite a bit about life. Sometimes the HN crowd can get quite a bit annoying with its scientific thinking, because it's not always the appropiate method, and sometimes a single person can tell you more about a certain aspect of the world then any kind of scientific study. I'm certainly not arguing against the scientific method, but to apply it in a reasonable way.
      - akvadrako 9y ago
        The suggestion that there are other kinds of valid thinking besides scientific thinking is way off. No matter how obvious something feels, you can't know it's truth value. Humans can have auditory, visual and conceptual delusions that are completely convincing and completely opposite of what other humans experience. The only conclusion you can draw from this essay is it's actually how the author says he thinks he feels. This may be a good starting hypothesis for a more rigorous study, but it says very little about life in general.
        kaybe 9y ago
        For some definition of real, all these internal experiences are real. Not interpersonal, maybe, but they will have an effect on the person and on how they interact with the environment including other people. Accounts like this also tell you what's possible. It might and probably won't be true for everyone, but nobody is unique enough that it won't be encountered again. So even if it's just one author telling you about his internal world I'd say there is a little more to learn from this.
        jansho 9y ago
        > but it says very little about life in general. But you said it yourself, we can never know the absolute truth value. I say let go of what life truly means, and enjoy the process of iteratively improving your own perspective. Humans always seek closure though - that's religion for me (!)
        hithereagain 9y ago
        >The suggestion that there are other kinds of valid thinking besides scientific thinking is way off. That's a very religious attitude you have about the scientific method. ;-) Might we say that, based on our tests so far, the scientific method has produced reasonable results for explaining shared reality? (Defining truth is a different matter entirely.)
        tnzn 9y ago
        So you're saying your comment isn't valid thinking?
gcb0 9y ago
reads like a medication pamphlet. therapy is more useful than drugs, even if drugs are needed eventually. but I think this follow the US school of thought, where therapy is just one session required for liability before you're sent to a psych who will prescribe a pill regimen on the very first session. unbelievable.
- viach 9y ago
  > therapy is more useful than drugs, even if drugs are needed eventually. Is it your opinion based on... ?
  - sqldba 9y ago
    Not the OP but Feeling Good states that people responded to CBT as good or better than drugs, though, both at once were more effective again. They could also be thinking of Anatomy of an Epidemic where long term results of people on drugs are worse than those off. Specifically that there's never been such a finding for CBT having a long term negative impact. (Disclaimer: I'm not a medical specialist just a sufferer and reader)
  - gcb0 9y ago
    says the whole world. almost every european country requires you to do minimum hours of therapy before and to keep with therapy during the drug usage. to begin with, I could refer you to the study the article is about. it correlates a social setting with high occurrence of depression. then it proceeds to promote the solution with medication. when the obvious solution is changing the social setting! that is the definition of the 80s joke "prozac for bad hair day"
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      Or, in other words, (at least some part of) the medical industry is driven by the neoliberal ideal that it's never anything else that's the problem, only yourself, and you're meant to deal with it with minimal impact on anyone around you? Work must never be an issue, or we might have to treat workers well. Society and societal structures must never be an issue, or we might have to care about each other on a more than skin-deep level and drop this whole "we are all independent beings who are completely unaffected by external factors" madness. At least some part of mental healthcare is essentially a system designed to help people cope with a society which does horrific things to them, and then gaslights them into believing it's their fault for not coping with it.
anon_christian 9y ago
Here's another story of someone suffering from mental illness who should seek God as many are now doing and being healed. I speak as a converted atheist, hedge fund employee, and contract software developer. Visit a baptist church. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
- rubyn00bie 9y ago
  I think this is a scummy reply because it is purely written to exploit vulnerable people and provide them baseless hope. You do not say how, what, or why your religion has done to help you and you make a broad sweeping statement that some thing (a god) will magically solve mental illness. If anything this sort of crap will prolong suffering, and or exacerbate the problems associated with mental illness because it's not a solution or treatment. Tangentially (off topic), I'd argue you were never truly an atheist if you could be "converted." There is no turning back, I won't one day believe in Santa Claus again.
  - anon_christian 9y ago
    A story I noticed yesterday, in times past these symptoms would have been described as an evil spirit, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40647530/should-people-with-a-mental-illness-be-helped-to-die http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40647530/should-people..., similar to the symptoms I used to experience. Carl Jung in part overturned Freud in his confirmation of the spiritual nature of experience, however he erred in confining his analysis to the mind alone, which is a small but significant component of the totality of human experience.
    - rubyn00bie 9y ago
      I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here. I'm not trying to be rude, right now, I just cannot coalesce those words into a coherent thought. Please edit and revise or elaborate in another comment.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
shubhamjain 9y ago
> For one thing, choosing writing as a way of making a living can nurture insecurity and doubt—especially for those, like myself, who are early in their careers. For me, at least, publishing a story is like handing in an exam essay, an invitation for strict judgment by both the intended audience and my peers. I think people in tech tend to underappreciate the benefits of being able to just do the job and enjoy a (comparatively) lesser-stressful life with enviable benefits. Programming is creative endeavour too, but, no one is asked to build a product that succeeds in the market; that's the job of management. Being a writer, or a musician, on the other hand, entails a perennial anxiety over the success of whatever you're doing. How will you ever know if your next thing will be liked or not? How will you know if you should continue working on your project when it starts to feel like an incoherent mess? I have moments of self-doubt too but I am confident that I won't suddenly cease to be a decent programmer who gets things done. For many creative people who do it full time, it means fighting the monster every day.
- Sorreah 9y ago
  That is not my experience at all, and I believe the term imposter syndrome is widely used by others in the industry.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
    - ilanco 9y ago
      Get rich quick on hacker news?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jokoon 9y ago
  You can be creative for your own self, and not for others. You don't always need to show your creations. That removes the success anxiety. You should not try to be liked by others, it's very unproductive. Or at least it should not be your primary concern. Even if people say they don't like your creation, it doesn't matter as long as you like it. Nobody cares about your sleeping position, and if somebody criticizes it (unless it's a doctor), you already know their opinion doesn't matter because 1) evolution works by listening to our feelings 2) you can't know the absolute truth about anything 3) there are many diverse opinions out there. It applies to creativity as well. Only time and long term execution will tell if what you do matters (and to be honest, it does not matter anyway). But ultimately your cannot apprehend your work and the expectations of people. People are not able to tell you what they want, so it's not worth it to listen to them. I like to think creativity works in the realm of evolution and natural selection. It's impossible to predict what will work or not.
chaostheory 9y ago
On a related note, Phillip K Dick's work seems to have gotten better over time the more his schizophrenia progressed.

104 points by fern12 9y ago

>A 40-year study published in 2012 found that writers are more likely than people in other, less creative occupations to suffer from mental illnesses such as bipolar, depression, and general anxiety disorder. This bothers me. It's correlated but the following analysis assumes at least partly that being a writer is one possible factor for depression. Very common mistake most HNers are probably aware of. For a science writer to read papers so wrongly is rather ironic.

dan00 9y ago
> It's correlated but the following analysis assumes at least partly that being a writer is one possible factor for depression. And why shouldn't it be a possible factor? Correlation doesn't tell that it has to be a factor but neither the opposite.
- hycaria 9y ago
  Yes, maybe, but there's no proof so why assume it and make an article like this which doesn't even has any reserve about it (reread the paragraph I quoted if you doubt my claim) ? There's not even one "maybe" in his whole essay !
  - dan00 9y ago
    Ok, I'm really more bothered by the expected scientific rigorous from an essay like this. He's a writer and is experiencing the difficulties of his work and how it effects his emotional well being. It shouldn't then really surprise that he sees a strong connection between his work as a writer and the depressions he has. That doesn't mean he's telling an objective truth about a writer's life, but he's telling a subjective "truth" of his life as a writer, and sometimes these subjective "truths" can tell you quite a bit about life. Sometimes the HN crowd can get quite a bit annoying with its scientific thinking, because it's not always the appropiate method, and sometimes a single person can tell you more about a certain aspect of the world then any kind of scientific study. I'm certainly not arguing against the scientific method, but to apply it in a reasonable way.
    - akvadrako 9y ago
      The suggestion that there are other kinds of valid thinking besides scientific thinking is way off. No matter how obvious something feels, you can't know it's truth value. Humans can have auditory, visual and conceptual delusions that are completely convincing and completely opposite of what other humans experience. The only conclusion you can draw from this essay is it's actually how the author says he thinks he feels. This may be a good starting hypothesis for a more rigorous study, but it says very little about life in general.
      - kaybe 9y ago
        For some definition of real, all these internal experiences are real. Not interpersonal, maybe, but they will have an effect on the person and on how they interact with the environment including other people. Accounts like this also tell you what's possible. It might and probably won't be true for everyone, but nobody is unique enough that it won't be encountered again. So even if it's just one author telling you about his internal world I'd say there is a little more to learn from this.
      - jansho 9y ago
        > but it says very little about life in general. But you said it yourself, we can never know the absolute truth value. I say let go of what life truly means, and enjoy the process of iteratively improving your own perspective. Humans always seek closure though - that's religion for me (!)
      - hithereagain 9y ago
        >The suggestion that there are other kinds of valid thinking besides scientific thinking is way off. That's a very religious attitude you have about the scientific method. ;-) Might we say that, based on our tests so far, the scientific method has produced reasonable results for explaining shared reality? (Defining truth is a different matter entirely.)
      - tnzn 9y ago
        So you're saying your comment isn't valid thinking?

gcb0 9y ago

reads like a medication pamphlet. therapy is more useful than drugs, even if drugs are needed eventually. but I think this follow the US school of thought, where therapy is just one session required for liability before you're sent to a psych who will prescribe a pill regimen on the very first session. unbelievable.

viach 9y ago
> therapy is more useful than drugs, even if drugs are needed eventually. Is it your opinion based on... ?
- sqldba 9y ago
  Not the OP but Feeling Good states that people responded to CBT as good or better than drugs, though, both at once were more effective again. They could also be thinking of Anatomy of an Epidemic where long term results of people on drugs are worse than those off. Specifically that there's never been such a finding for CBT having a long term negative impact. (Disclaimer: I'm not a medical specialist just a sufferer and reader)
- gcb0 9y ago
  says the whole world. almost every european country requires you to do minimum hours of therapy before and to keep with therapy during the drug usage. to begin with, I could refer you to the study the article is about. it correlates a social setting with high occurrence of depression. then it proceeds to promote the solution with medication. when the obvious solution is changing the social setting! that is the definition of the 80s joke "prozac for bad hair day"
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    Or, in other words, (at least some part of) the medical industry is driven by the neoliberal ideal that it's never anything else that's the problem, only yourself, and you're meant to deal with it with minimal impact on anyone around you? Work must never be an issue, or we might have to treat workers well. Society and societal structures must never be an issue, or we might have to care about each other on a more than skin-deep level and drop this whole "we are all independent beings who are completely unaffected by external factors" madness. At least some part of mental healthcare is essentially a system designed to help people cope with a society which does horrific things to them, and then gaslights them into believing it's their fault for not coping with it.

anon_christian 9y ago

Here's another story of someone suffering from mental illness who should seek God as many are now doing and being healed. I speak as a converted atheist, hedge fund employee, and contract software developer. Visit a baptist church. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

rubyn00bie 9y ago
I think this is a scummy reply because it is purely written to exploit vulnerable people and provide them baseless hope. You do not say how, what, or why your religion has done to help you and you make a broad sweeping statement that some thing (a god) will magically solve mental illness. If anything this sort of crap will prolong suffering, and or exacerbate the problems associated with mental illness because it's not a solution or treatment. Tangentially (off topic), I'd argue you were never truly an atheist if you could be "converted." There is no turning back, I won't one day believe in Santa Claus again.
- anon_christian 9y ago
  A story I noticed yesterday, in times past these symptoms would have been described as an evil spirit, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40647530/should-people-with-a-mental-illness-be-helped-to-die http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40647530/should-people..., similar to the symptoms I used to experience. Carl Jung in part overturned Freud in his confirmation of the spiritual nature of experience, however he erred in confining his analysis to the mind alone, which is a small but significant component of the totality of human experience.
  - rubyn00bie 9y ago
    I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here. I'm not trying to be rude, right now, I just cannot coalesce those words into a coherent thought. Please edit and revise or elaborate in another comment.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

shubhamjain 9y ago

> For one thing, choosing writing as a way of making a living can nurture insecurity and doubt—especially for those, like myself, who are early in their careers. For me, at least, publishing a story is like handing in an exam essay, an invitation for strict judgment by both the intended audience and my peers. I think people in tech tend to underappreciate the benefits of being able to just do the job and enjoy a (comparatively) lesser-stressful life with enviable benefits. Programming is creative endeavour too, but, no one is asked to build a product that succeeds in the market; that's the job of management. Being a writer, or a musician, on the other hand, entails a perennial anxiety over the success of whatever you're doing. How will you ever know if your next thing will be liked or not? How will you know if you should continue working on your project when it starts to feel like an incoherent mess? I have moments of self-doubt too but I am confident that I won't suddenly cease to be a decent programmer who gets things done. For many creative people who do it full time, it means fighting the monster every day.

Sorreah 9y ago
That is not my experience at all, and I believe the term imposter syndrome is widely used by others in the industry.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
  - ilanco 9y ago
    Get rich quick on hacker news?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jokoon 9y ago
You can be creative for your own self, and not for others. You don't always need to show your creations. That removes the success anxiety. You should not try to be liked by others, it's very unproductive. Or at least it should not be your primary concern. Even if people say they don't like your creation, it doesn't matter as long as you like it. Nobody cares about your sleeping position, and if somebody criticizes it (unless it's a doctor), you already know their opinion doesn't matter because 1) evolution works by listening to our feelings 2) you can't know the absolute truth about anything 3) there are many diverse opinions out there. It applies to creativity as well. Only time and long term execution will tell if what you do matters (and to be honest, it does not matter anyway). But ultimately your cannot apprehend your work and the expectations of people. People are not able to tell you what they want, so it's not worth it to listen to them. I like to think creativity works in the realm of evolution and natural selection. It's impossible to predict what will work or not.

chaostheory 9y ago

On a related note, Phillip K Dick's work seems to have gotten better over time the more his schizophrenia progressed.