4 ms·

This is what happens when parents indulge far-fetched academic haziness because they don't have the strength to confront the obvious: their kid is depressed and

This is what happens when parents indulge far-fetched academic haziness because they don't have the strength to confront the obvious: their kid is depressed and lacking the social skills to cope with life. Give that 33 year old a beautiful woman, money, and an executive level role at a tech firm and watch him suddenly only need 6 hours a day of sleep. Mystery solved.

_tulpa 9y ago
That's... Not how any of that works
Method-X 9y ago
He's being fed intravenously and can't speak. Read the article.
wellboy 9y ago
CFS is not an imbalance of neuro-transmitters in the brain, which it is the case for all psychological illnesses. As for the latest research, it is a dysfunction of all mitochondria in the body. More specifically, when ATP is reduced to ADP to produce energy, N+ and O+ radicals are created. Usually, those are eaten up by killer cells. However, in CFS patients, this mechanism is damaged, so that way too much N+ and O+ are created or, they are not eaten up fast enough after only very little exertion. That is why, CFS patients are bedridden for weeks and months after only running for the bus for 2 mins, because their body becomes overloaded with free radicals. Those damage your cell membranes and create all sorts of pain, fatigue, brain fog, and many more symptoms. I've been suffering from CFS for almost 3 years now. I went from building my own startup to massive pain and other symptoms within 24h. Over the years, I managed to reduce the symptoms by staying in bed completely for 1 year and paying a lot of attention to not exert myself for the remainder. I can do small things now without having "crashes" and am taking a lot of anti-oxidants after having found a doctor (Prof. Huber) in Germany who has specialized in CFS and developed a therapy. He said there are only 10 more doctors in Germany who know about CFS. Before him, I went to see 30 other doctors who didn't give a damn about finding out what's wrong with me. They also will not do more than the usual testing, because they don't want to exceed their per patient budget. You need to find a private insurance doctor. So for 2 years all doctors have told me it's all psychological. I went to see psychiatrists who prescribed me heavy anti-depressant. They told me I have heavy depression. When I asked them why they would say that, because I don't fulfill the depression criteria they became angry. In order to be diagnosed with depression, you need a minimum of symptoms including suicidal thoughts, sleep disturbances, change in appetite etc. I did not have any of those, I just had massive pins and needle pains all over body, blurred vision and muscle twitching. I told that to the psychiatrists and became angry, because I questioned their authority. They are the expert and not me. Then they tried to gaslight me by saying that I feel depressed multiple times even though I told them that I don't. Then they told me I am a narcissist, manic, anti-social etc. and that is why I have these symptoms. After 2 years I finally found a doctor who was not like this and who did more tests. He found elevated S100B protein (the CRP of the nervous system), MDA-LDL (free radicals) and low killer cells. So, this is what you can expect when having CFS, doctors become angry, they try to actually gaslight you. Doctors vigorously say that CFS doesn't exist even though it is described specifically in the ICD. Apart from that l, your parents will desperately try to convince you that you're mentally ill and that it's all in your head, because that's what the doctors say and become desperately angry to try to convince you and maybe also cut contact with you, because they can't see their child withering away in bed, while he/she refuses to "listen to the doctors". There are also other examples of recovery, so it is possible. However, most patients do not recover ever, because they have kids or need to work a job. If someone with CFS has kids or a they need to work, it's almost a death sentence, because you cannot do anything for years if you want to recover and you should not have more than 5 or so crashes in total, because the recovery time increases by several months for every crash, at least at the current state of therapy. So, it's hard, but I've now had a 2 out of 5 main symptoms disappear after 2 years of avoidance of exertion and hope the other ones clear in the next few months.
DiabloD3 9y ago
As someone who suspects I may at least somewhat suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, you're... not even all that wrong. I know that science is now saying that "decision fatigue" doesn't exist, but I think they measured the wrong thing. It's straight up "give a fuck fatigue". It isn't work that does it to me; I can go to work, enjoy work, get enough shit done that the money keeps coming in and my customers are happy with the service I provide. You know what drains me? The boringness of being an adult and having nothing to actually really look forwards to. Sometimes I'll sleep 10 hours straight and get up tired. Sometimes I have to do the mental equivalent of grinding my transmission gears because I'm not paying attention to the clutch, so the flow state never, well, flows. The mindless activities are hard to concentrate on, but they need to be done, so I exert far more give-a-fuck-ium than I should have to. And the thing is, I've always been this way. I didn't become this way, I didn't slowly turn into this, I didn't become burned out. It's part of me. I mean, I'm most certainly an introvert, so are a lot of the HN community; being with people in social situations are extremely taxing at times... it, too, burns a lot of my precious give-a-fuck-ium. You know what recharges me? Having a good time with someone I know, where we both enjoy each other's company, where its a nice relaxed thing where neither of us have anything to prove to the other. Problem is, women are people too. I mean, we're a male-centric community here, we work in male-centric environments, sometimes people like us forget... women have all the same problems we do. They have just as many problems connecting as we do., and we keep circling around in these holding patterns and just grinding their gears because they never find that one person to connect with just as we can't. You can't just give someone that beautiful woman. They need the right beautiful woman. I think the problem that keeps happening for a lot of us is we keep finding the wrong women... not bad women, just wrong for us. It really throws a wrench in things because humans seem to need those close relationships with others to function properly, and we're not making them... and it's sapping our ability to regenerate our give-a-fuck-ium.
- wellboy 9y ago
  That doesn't sound like CFS though. If you have CFS, working for a few hours or jogging for a few mins, leaves you in pain and fatigue for weeks. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is also a very bad name, because many patients don't have fatigue, but they have very high exercise intolerance (jogging for a few mins leaves you bedridden). That's why the current discussion is to rename it to S.E.I.D (Systemic Exercise Intolerance Disease). Yours sounds like a mild depression, which can be easily treated through therapy or anti-depressants if needed. But I would see a doctor before of course.
static_noise 9y ago
The root cause of depression is chemical not psychological. It's a natural process and everybody gets depressed sometimes. If you get depressed, you can fix it by behaving like a normal person following normal person schedules and doing normal person things like sports and eating good food. Well... unless you can't because you're really sick and not just depressed. Those with CFS have tried following the recipy of getting cured and failed. Time and time again. Sometimes they succeed for no good reason but mostly after some time of being normal it all falls apart again.
- vivekd 9y ago
  See, I don't know how meaningful the chemical not psychological distinction is. I mean doesn't every thing we feel have chemical components?
  - static_noise 9y ago
    What chemical corresponds to the mental picture of a cat? Sure, they are heavily interrelated. They are vastly different models of the same thing. While we can understand some processes simply by chemistry, we don't get too far with that when trying to understand social behavior. On the other hand psychology can model processes and behaviors on another level. Sometimes they overlap well but far too seldom. They will probably not converge well in our lifetime because we are really slow in understanding of complex interrelated systems and cannot make all the experiments we need to quickly advance scientifically.
- jamestnz 9y ago
  >The root cause of depression is chemical I wonder if you were speaking generally here, or if you were referring specifically to the Chemical Imbalance theory of depression/anxiety. Often espoused by the marketing departments of Big Pharma, and by now firmly lodged in the public consciousness, the idea that abnormal monoamine levels (e.g. serotonin, noradrenaline) in the brain causes depression, is (to say the least) highly controversial. Some might even call it "debunked". Or, more charitably perhaps, just a highly persistent meme that's never really had much to do with science from the get-go. BTW, I say this as someone who saw successful results using SSRIs (Citalopram) as a treatment for depression some years ago. Given that the relationship between serotonin and depression seems subtle, indirect, and poorly understood at best, I don't pretend to be able to explain why SSRI treatment "worked" for me! Placebo? Coincidence? Genuine effect which empirically exists but we do not yet understand the mechanism (a bit like lithium)?
pjc50 9y ago
This is just another version of the ignorant "depression == sadness" meme. Depression and CFS aren't exactly the same thing either.
code_duck 9y ago
I had an undiagnosed condition that caused symptoms similar to chronic fatigue for years, and had even been linked to depression and bipolar - celiac. Your advice would not have been helpful at all. Now that I'm eating gluten free i am fine.
sctb 9y ago
Whether you intended to troll with this comment or not, it's so far disconnected from the actual topic of conversation and dismissive of the people involved that the effect is the same. Please post civilly and substantively on Hacker News or not at all.
- the_absurdist 9y ago
  Whether you like it or not...Hacker News exceeds the boundaries of your politically correct Silicon Valley echo chamber. At least be honest about your criticism and say something like: "I'm uncomfortable by how out of step your comment is with my obligation to displace personal responsibility away from anyone who has a claim to victimhood."
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

_tulpa 9y ago

That's... Not how any of that works

Method-X 9y ago

He's being fed intravenously and can't speak. Read the article.

wellboy 9y ago

CFS is not an imbalance of neuro-transmitters in the brain, which it is the case for all psychological illnesses. As for the latest research, it is a dysfunction of all mitochondria in the body. More specifically, when ATP is reduced to ADP to produce energy, N+ and O+ radicals are created. Usually, those are eaten up by killer cells. However, in CFS patients, this mechanism is damaged, so that way too much N+ and O+ are created or, they are not eaten up fast enough after only very little exertion. That is why, CFS patients are bedridden for weeks and months after only running for the bus for 2 mins, because their body becomes overloaded with free radicals. Those damage your cell membranes and create all sorts of pain, fatigue, brain fog, and many more symptoms. I've been suffering from CFS for almost 3 years now. I went from building my own startup to massive pain and other symptoms within 24h. Over the years, I managed to reduce the symptoms by staying in bed completely for 1 year and paying a lot of attention to not exert myself for the remainder. I can do small things now without having "crashes" and am taking a lot of anti-oxidants after having found a doctor (Prof. Huber) in Germany who has specialized in CFS and developed a therapy. He said there are only 10 more doctors in Germany who know about CFS. Before him, I went to see 30 other doctors who didn't give a damn about finding out what's wrong with me. They also will not do more than the usual testing, because they don't want to exceed their per patient budget. You need to find a private insurance doctor. So for 2 years all doctors have told me it's all psychological. I went to see psychiatrists who prescribed me heavy anti-depressant. They told me I have heavy depression. When I asked them why they would say that, because I don't fulfill the depression criteria they became angry. In order to be diagnosed with depression, you need a minimum of symptoms including suicidal thoughts, sleep disturbances, change in appetite etc. I did not have any of those, I just had massive pins and needle pains all over body, blurred vision and muscle twitching. I told that to the psychiatrists and became angry, because I questioned their authority. They are the expert and not me. Then they tried to gaslight me by saying that I feel depressed multiple times even though I told them that I don't. Then they told me I am a narcissist, manic, anti-social etc. and that is why I have these symptoms. After 2 years I finally found a doctor who was not like this and who did more tests. He found elevated S100B protein (the CRP of the nervous system), MDA-LDL (free radicals) and low killer cells. So, this is what you can expect when having CFS, doctors become angry, they try to actually gaslight you. Doctors vigorously say that CFS doesn't exist even though it is described specifically in the ICD. Apart from that l, your parents will desperately try to convince you that you're mentally ill and that it's all in your head, because that's what the doctors say and become desperately angry to try to convince you and maybe also cut contact with you, because they can't see their child withering away in bed, while he/she refuses to "listen to the doctors". There are also other examples of recovery, so it is possible. However, most patients do not recover ever, because they have kids or need to work a job. If someone with CFS has kids or a they need to work, it's almost a death sentence, because you cannot do anything for years if you want to recover and you should not have more than 5 or so crashes in total, because the recovery time increases by several months for every crash, at least at the current state of therapy. So, it's hard, but I've now had a 2 out of 5 main symptoms disappear after 2 years of avoidance of exertion and hope the other ones clear in the next few months.

DiabloD3 9y ago

As someone who suspects I may at least somewhat suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, you're... not even all that wrong. I know that science is now saying that "decision fatigue" doesn't exist, but I think they measured the wrong thing. It's straight up "give a fuck fatigue". It isn't work that does it to me; I can go to work, enjoy work, get enough shit done that the money keeps coming in and my customers are happy with the service I provide. You know what drains me? The boringness of being an adult and having nothing to actually really look forwards to. Sometimes I'll sleep 10 hours straight and get up tired. Sometimes I have to do the mental equivalent of grinding my transmission gears because I'm not paying attention to the clutch, so the flow state never, well, flows. The mindless activities are hard to concentrate on, but they need to be done, so I exert far more give-a-fuck-ium than I should have to. And the thing is, I've always been this way. I didn't become this way, I didn't slowly turn into this, I didn't become burned out. It's part of me. I mean, I'm most certainly an introvert, so are a lot of the HN community; being with people in social situations are extremely taxing at times... it, too, burns a lot of my precious give-a-fuck-ium. You know what recharges me? Having a good time with someone I know, where we both enjoy each other's company, where its a nice relaxed thing where neither of us have anything to prove to the other. Problem is, women are people too. I mean, we're a male-centric community here, we work in male-centric environments, sometimes people like us forget... women have all the same problems we do. They have just as many problems connecting as we do., and we keep circling around in these holding patterns and just grinding their gears because they never find that one person to connect with just as we can't. You can't just give someone that beautiful woman. They need the right beautiful woman. I think the problem that keeps happening for a lot of us is we keep finding the wrong women... not bad women, just wrong for us. It really throws a wrench in things because humans seem to need those close relationships with others to function properly, and we're not making them... and it's sapping our ability to regenerate our give-a-fuck-ium.

wellboy 9y ago
That doesn't sound like CFS though. If you have CFS, working for a few hours or jogging for a few mins, leaves you in pain and fatigue for weeks. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is also a very bad name, because many patients don't have fatigue, but they have very high exercise intolerance (jogging for a few mins leaves you bedridden). That's why the current discussion is to rename it to S.E.I.D (Systemic Exercise Intolerance Disease). Yours sounds like a mild depression, which can be easily treated through therapy or anti-depressants if needed. But I would see a doctor before of course.

static_noise 9y ago

The root cause of depression is chemical not psychological. It's a natural process and everybody gets depressed sometimes. If you get depressed, you can fix it by behaving like a normal person following normal person schedules and doing normal person things like sports and eating good food. Well... unless you can't because you're really sick and not just depressed. Those with CFS have tried following the recipy of getting cured and failed. Time and time again. Sometimes they succeed for no good reason but mostly after some time of being normal it all falls apart again.

vivekd 9y ago
See, I don't know how meaningful the chemical not psychological distinction is. I mean doesn't every thing we feel have chemical components?
- static_noise 9y ago
  What chemical corresponds to the mental picture of a cat? Sure, they are heavily interrelated. They are vastly different models of the same thing. While we can understand some processes simply by chemistry, we don't get too far with that when trying to understand social behavior. On the other hand psychology can model processes and behaviors on another level. Sometimes they overlap well but far too seldom. They will probably not converge well in our lifetime because we are really slow in understanding of complex interrelated systems and cannot make all the experiments we need to quickly advance scientifically.
jamestnz 9y ago
>The root cause of depression is chemical I wonder if you were speaking generally here, or if you were referring specifically to the Chemical Imbalance theory of depression/anxiety. Often espoused by the marketing departments of Big Pharma, and by now firmly lodged in the public consciousness, the idea that abnormal monoamine levels (e.g. serotonin, noradrenaline) in the brain causes depression, is (to say the least) highly controversial. Some might even call it "debunked". Or, more charitably perhaps, just a highly persistent meme that's never really had much to do with science from the get-go. BTW, I say this as someone who saw successful results using SSRIs (Citalopram) as a treatment for depression some years ago. Given that the relationship between serotonin and depression seems subtle, indirect, and poorly understood at best, I don't pretend to be able to explain why SSRI treatment "worked" for me! Placebo? Coincidence? Genuine effect which empirically exists but we do not yet understand the mechanism (a bit like lithium)?

pjc50 9y ago

This is just another version of the ignorant "depression == sadness" meme. Depression and CFS aren't exactly the same thing either.

code_duck 9y ago

I had an undiagnosed condition that caused symptoms similar to chronic fatigue for years, and had even been linked to depression and bipolar - celiac. Your advice would not have been helpful at all. Now that I'm eating gluten free i am fine.

sctb 9y ago

Whether you intended to troll with this comment or not, it's so far disconnected from the actual topic of conversation and dismissive of the people involved that the effect is the same. Please post civilly and substantively on Hacker News or not at all.

the_absurdist 9y ago
Whether you like it or not...Hacker News exceeds the boundaries of your politically correct Silicon Valley echo chamber. At least be honest about your criticism and say something like: "I'm uncomfortable by how out of step your comment is with my obligation to displace personal responsibility away from anyone who has a claim to victimhood."

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]