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Dude, you had some unfortunate life events piled on top of each other causing turmoil. I sincerely don't wish that to happen to anyone and I congratulate you on

Dude, you had some unfortunate life events piled on top of each other causing turmoil. I sincerely don't wish that to happen to anyone and I congratulate you on feeling better, but.. I want to point out that your episode is not to be compared with actual sustained major depression, which will _eat you alive_. So utterly and completely will your soul be crushed that taking your own life will feel redundant, unnecessary. You have literally no idea of how deep this rabbit hole goes, thank god, but your advice trivialises the depth of depression and I have to wonder how this got so high on HN.. This is a blog with one post, one.

Causality1 8y ago
Exactly. That sounded nothing like clinical depression. That was a shitty few months that he fixed by getting a new job and paying off a massive debt.
mykowebhn 8y ago
Bizarrely, and maybe even unethically since we're talking about depression here, I think this blog post is a not too subtle way to sell their book on rock climbing.
rezeroed 8y ago
A similar thing happens with stories of burnout - people unaware of where that can take a person.
devinjflick 8y ago
I completely agree, what the author of the posts describes is traumatic life events, which often can be confused with clinical depression. Clinical depression is frequently worsened with analytic thinking, as analytic thinking, when depressed, reinforces the depression and doesn't pull you out of it. In clinical depression your brain chemistry is off in a way that doesn't rebound easily. Just "thinking about solving the problem" doesn't actually work and typically worsens symptoms. There's a reason why mindfulness and meditation show great results when used to treat reoccurring clinical depression. It's expressly because it allows you to escape analytical thinking and "doing" modes of thought. I suspect this climbed quickly on hacker news for two reasons. First the type of people that frequent here are intellectual types that believe "thinking about problems" is the best way to solve a problem and depression is just another problem to be solved. The second is the way that HackerNews ranks posts, where an upvoted post with a high/near equal number of comments rockets to the first page. The blog post is purely anecdotal, lacks any scientific basis, lacks a medical diagnosis, and suggests an oversimplified solution to a complex problem that the author is not an expert on. In essence it's a crap post promoting a rock climbing book.
slothtrop 8y ago
I think his advice is garbage, but it doesn't trivialize depression at all. Depression is an umbrella term, he's speaking honestly about his own experience. It's still "depression". There's always this sort of reaction anytime someone shares solutions, for severe depression or otherwise, casting it as patronizing and demanding more caveats and tip-toeing. You'd think they'd rather see wallowing in self-pity. In no instance are these meant to reflect personal failures.
- drinfinity 8y ago
  > I think his advice is garbage, but it doesn't trivialize depression at all. Depression is an umbrella term, he's speaking honestly about his own experience. It's still "depression". Actually, I overreacted and I agree with you here. "Depression" is actually quite well defined by the DSM, but the common use of the word covers a lot of ground indeed. So, I read "clinical depression", but I should have read what was actually in the article: just "depression", being "depressed". Excuse me, for me it's a delicate subject.
RandomInteger4 8y ago
"But your depression isn't /real/ depression^(tm)" Stop it with the depression olympics nonsense. That doesn't help anyone. Your depression isn't an identity and it can't be appropriated. Furthermore, while you think you're putting out a defense of those with /real/ deression^(tm), you may actually be doing harm, because you might cause those with depression to feel even worse as they could start thinking of themselves as impostors.

Causality1 8y ago

Exactly. That sounded nothing like clinical depression. That was a shitty few months that he fixed by getting a new job and paying off a massive debt.

mykowebhn 8y ago

Bizarrely, and maybe even unethically since we're talking about depression here, I think this blog post is a not too subtle way to sell their book on rock climbing.

rezeroed 8y ago

A similar thing happens with stories of burnout - people unaware of where that can take a person.

devinjflick 8y ago

I completely agree, what the author of the posts describes is traumatic life events, which often can be confused with clinical depression. Clinical depression is frequently worsened with analytic thinking, as analytic thinking, when depressed, reinforces the depression and doesn't pull you out of it. In clinical depression your brain chemistry is off in a way that doesn't rebound easily. Just "thinking about solving the problem" doesn't actually work and typically worsens symptoms. There's a reason why mindfulness and meditation show great results when used to treat reoccurring clinical depression. It's expressly because it allows you to escape analytical thinking and "doing" modes of thought. I suspect this climbed quickly on hacker news for two reasons. First the type of people that frequent here are intellectual types that believe "thinking about problems" is the best way to solve a problem and depression is just another problem to be solved. The second is the way that HackerNews ranks posts, where an upvoted post with a high/near equal number of comments rockets to the first page. The blog post is purely anecdotal, lacks any scientific basis, lacks a medical diagnosis, and suggests an oversimplified solution to a complex problem that the author is not an expert on. In essence it's a crap post promoting a rock climbing book.

slothtrop 8y ago

I think his advice is garbage, but it doesn't trivialize depression at all. Depression is an umbrella term, he's speaking honestly about his own experience. It's still "depression". There's always this sort of reaction anytime someone shares solutions, for severe depression or otherwise, casting it as patronizing and demanding more caveats and tip-toeing. You'd think they'd rather see wallowing in self-pity. In no instance are these meant to reflect personal failures.

drinfinity 8y ago
> I think his advice is garbage, but it doesn't trivialize depression at all. Depression is an umbrella term, he's speaking honestly about his own experience. It's still "depression". Actually, I overreacted and I agree with you here. "Depression" is actually quite well defined by the DSM, but the common use of the word covers a lot of ground indeed. So, I read "clinical depression", but I should have read what was actually in the article: just "depression", being "depressed". Excuse me, for me it's a delicate subject.

RandomInteger4 8y ago

"But your depression isn't /real/ depression^(tm)" Stop it with the depression olympics nonsense. That doesn't help anyone. Your depression isn't an identity and it can't be appropriated. Furthermore, while you think you're putting out a defense of those with /real/ deression^(tm), you may actually be doing harm, because you might cause those with depression to feel even worse as they could start thinking of themselves as impostors.