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Depressed People See the World More Realistically (2017)

• bryanmgreen 7y ago
  There's a fine line between "depressive" and "realistic" viewpoints. But yes, in my experience rose-tinted glasses generally also come with a narrower field-of-view.
• igammarays 7y ago
  Illusion in the spirit is as nothing, behold a world that runs on illusions! Their war and peace are made upon illusion, their glory and their shame are from illusion. - Rumi [1] [1] https://bit.ly/31jwRUb https://bit.ly/31jwRUb
  • dawg- 7y ago
    Just beautiful. We have our Baudrillard and The Matrix and think we are so different, modern, cutting edge, living in a 21st century hyperreality. Rumi saw it 800 years ago!
• akuji1993 7y ago
  My therapist said to me once: "I really like pessimistic patients a lot more than overly optimistic ones. A depressed, pessimistic person is judging the world very accurately and is not crushed by a negative outcome, as they have already thought about exactly that. They might even completely circumvent the negative outcome, because they thought about every possibility beforehand. Optimists on the other hand can be crushed and become very depressed when the positive outcome is not the result they are presented with."
  • tudorw 7y ago
    I suppose the next level is to learn to enjoy the negative outcome, from an observational stoic perspective, every experience has a unique quality.
    • user_rob 7y ago
      Exactly; take every thing good or bad as a life challenge or experience to be fully engaged with and do not give up! Learnt the not giving up as a teen while race sailing; not giving up ever, resulted in a stack of trophies - but also a few submerged boats - in retrospect the submerged boats were more interesting. Winding years forward and experiencing many "challenges" I now have cancer that I am told cannot be cured - but its just another life challenge that I am experiencing and is quite interesting - like boats sinking, and I carry on doing what I like to do...
  • Funes- 7y ago
    >A depressed, pessimistic person is judging the world very accurately. Absolutely not. I've dealt with a lot of pessimistic, depressed people--I've been clinically depressed, as well, in the past--, and we can be the most closed-minded, whiny, oblivious people out there. I think that's exactly how depression actually works: one is enslaved, kept away from experiencing the world as it is, by their extraordinarily reduced perspective, which is seemingly unescapable to the depressed individual. I don't think it's reasonable to conflate negativity--which leads to bad outcomes--with a realistic mindset--which takes into account potential bad outcomes. I find the opposite to be true, in my experience: the more positive and proactive a person is, the stronger they can become--and not crushed by a negative turn of events.
    • fellow_human 7y ago
      This is absolutely true in my experience. Going to my therapist I realized that I spent all my time focusing on negative outcomes for a given life problem of mine. So much so that the failure to imagine a more optimistic outcome left me paralyzed to act. This paralysis left me feeling hopeless and depressed. As I talked things over I realized that: 1) We have a perverse tendency to reinforce our existing views in new experiences. For example, if one believes he/she is not a very charming and likable persom, every opportunity to make a new friend may thrown away because the person doesn't have confidence to present themselves in an interesting way or the person may misinterpret another's neutral body language as a negative signal during a conversation. 2) Experience is the best teacher. Experience etches things into our subconscious. If negativity is etched in our brains then it takes a strong conscious effort to over turn it. This can potentially scary because the effort to experience a positive outcome may result is us being beat down further. But we have to see it for what it is, one experience, the next may end differently. Overcoming depression requires concious effort, hope and resiliencey. This is not something that happens overnight.
    • misja 7y ago
      I can confirm. There are simply different ways how you can view life; positive, negative and probably many more. And all of those see only a projection of reality. I have been mildly depressed in the past and sometimes it struck me how narrow my view of the world was in those days. Sometimes literally, it seemed as if I was looking through a tunnel and that I was more busy with all the negative thoughts that were going on in my head than with what was really happening around me.
  • benj111 7y ago
    As a pessimistic person that does tend to analyse everything that can go wrong. I have to say it can still turn out worse than what you think.
  • Aloha 7y ago
    I find people who look at the world thru "shit colored goggles" tend to be self defeating and will often convince themselves it won't work before starting.
  • tuesdayrain 7y ago
    From what I have seen, it seems that the pessimistic person is likely to stay depressed even despite unexpected positive outcomes. It's easy for them to dismiss good things as a fluke. Meamwhile a truly optimistic person can rationalize any event as being for the best somehow and stay positive even if something negative happens unexpectedly.
  • BasDirks 7y ago
    > They might even completely circumvent the negative outcome, because they thought about every possibility beforehand. This can get out of hand when circumvention becomes a lifestyle.
  • hippich 7y ago
    My (very personal) differentiation of pessimism and depression - pessimism is focusing on anticipating potential negatives (what you described) and depression - is where one would get into the endless loop thinking over particular set of negative outcomes. First one can be practical, although tough. Second one is just harmfull, sorta like personal mini-hell. Would not wish it to even my enemies to get in such state ever.
• reportgunner 7y ago
  > In fact, "some psychologists concede that an element of self-deception may be necessary for well-being," Feltham says. I think about this every day, I thought it was an established fact for some reason. Perhaps I thought it was established since I know the saying "ignorance is bliss"
  • fsloth 7y ago
    I'm not sure if self-deception is the correct word. People cannot fit much in their heads. There is too much good and too much evil in the world for a single person to truly percieve. I don't think it's self deception if one tries to focus on good things. It becomes self deception if a person thinks the world is completely good because all they see are good things, though.
    • benj111 7y ago
      Self deception seems reasonable. Most drivers rate themselves as above average, when in reality only about half are. I'm sure most people view themselves as nice, reasonable people. The presence of idiots should indicate they aren't all correct. I know that I'm an attractive guy, who makes extremely well reasoned arguments on the internet, unfortunately it's everyone else that isn't enlightened enough to appreciate my true genius. I suppose you could file it under cognitive dissonance, self deception seems reasonable too.
  • growlist 7y ago
    And woe betide anyone that threatens to burst a self-deceiver's bubble with a sharp dose of reality.
• kissgyorgy 7y ago
  I can confirm that.
• distant_hat 7y ago
  What this means is that being realistic is maladaptive at least at a species level.
• buboard 7y ago
  Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed?
  • SpeakMouthWords 7y ago
    You would be hard pressed to elucidate a biological causation there.
    • bjornsing 7y ago
      Isn’t it the other way around? The OP is making a causal claim (“depression causes realistic world view”). The parent is merely pointing out the room for selection bias. Burden of proof should be on the OP IMHO.
  • wolfgke 7y ago
    > Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed? This fits my experience quite well. To give a software development analogy: The more you learn about deep, esoteric details of various parts of computers (i.e. you get to see computers more realistically than idealized), the more depressed you get about the current state of software development. And yes, late at night, I often work privately on how to improve this situation - but I talk to a brick wall.
    • kharak 7y ago
      Could you give an example? What's depressing about the current world of software?
      • wolfgke 7y ago
        > What's depressing about the current world of software? For example the insanity that it is impossible to understand what actually happens below the surface. The ideal that I have in the back of my mind is that a highly gifted person who can afford to spend a few years of intensive study can really understand each individual line/byte of code that gets executed on the computer (i.e. all of the software that runs on it) completely. --- An interesting lecture by Jonathan Blow: Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk --- Also read some texts of Alan Kay's STEPS project: For a well-readable overview, consider https://blog.regehr.org/archives/663 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/663 Some progress reports: > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf Lots of additional papers about STEPS (and other topics): http://www.vpri.org/writings.php http://www.vpri.org/writings.php (I want to make it clear that I consider what came out of the STEPS project to be very disappointing :-( ).
• osdiab 7y ago
  This statement is way too sweeping... Some forms of pessimism probably reflect that, I'm an optimistic, not-depressed person who sees things that way - but I know plenty of often-depressed people who fail to see their circumstances clearly, and spiral because as a result of it. Friend: "I'm such a failure and my future is definitely going to be horrible!" Me: "So, who's judging you as a failure, why does such judgments even matter, and how exactly do you have no options or influence over your future?" I've had this dialog plenty, and it has little to do with realism.
  • env123 7y ago
    But wouldn't you say that you see things that way AFTER overcoming depression?
  • mirimir 7y ago
    Right. They may be realistic about their circumstances. But they're not realistic about their ability to transform them.
    • username90 7y ago
      Or they realistically assume that they have average ability but they have above average expectations. Most people will have to face the reality that they will never be special in some way, so if you aren't fine with just being another face among the masses you will be depressed. Or someone they care about just died, their expectations was that they would have this person for most of their life is now broken and nothing they can do can fix this, unless they believe in spirits and ghosts and ouija boards of course.
      • mirimir 7y ago
        It's my operating hypothesis that people's abilities are generally limited mainly by their ways of being. Except for the few with physical and biochemical disabilities. And with general human limitations. I mean, we're all familiar with "math anxiety". And the argument that women have generally been conditioned to think that they're bad at math. Or bad at spatial reasoning. Or that men are less empathetic, or better with tools, or whatever. Consider scientific thinking. Based on my admittedly limited experience with young children, I believe that they're all scientists. For children in the "why phase", when I've actually taken time to help them consider how one might answer their questions, I've consistently been impressed. Also, it's clearly not so much about having answers. Indeed, focusing too much on answers tends to stifle creativity.
• edoo 7y ago
  Correlation is not necessarily causation. Unless they have scienced the causation it might be quite possible for people who see the world more realistically to be at greater risk for depression.
  • reportgunner 7y ago
    Well put, I thought about the same thing but I was not able to formulate it like this.
• hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  I see this as sort of the main riddle (or catch-22 if you're the pessimistic type) of life. The semi-unrealistic hope of optimism is what motivates us to get things done. For the HN crowd, consider startup founders. The vast majority of startups fail, yet virtually all founders go into it overestimating their chances of success. After all, if they were realistic about their chances, they'd find the whole business too crazy to begin with.
  • xiphias2 7y ago
    There are lots of ways to decrease risk in a startup, and if the founder is not seeing this realistically, s/he can get caught up in the details of the startup instead of looking at the fastest way to decrease the risk of failing.
  • gfs78 7y ago
    Most startup founders are rich, they are just gambling with some money they have. Akin to a salaried worker gambling a small amount of their salary in a night at the casino.
    • shijie 7y ago
      Do you have any references for most startup founders being rich? Qualitatively this does not align with my experiences at all with almost any founder of a company I’ve ever met. Almost all of them risked everything.
      • MarioONroids 7y ago
        Having a house and a car, or even retirement savings, that can be risked on a startup makes you rich. Even if that is everything you have, you are still rich. Find me the startup founder who has less than $100 in savings, no car, no house, no retirement funds, less than $1k in total assets, and whom is the richest persons in their family and network of friends. Then you may have a point.
      • tim333 7y ago
        Some anecdotal data here https://www.quora.com/Do-the-majority-of-founders-of-tech-start-ups-come-from-wealthy-families https://www.quora.com/Do-the-majority-of-founders-of-tech-st... I'd say most are rich - false. Tend to come from wealthier than average backgrounds - true.
• Dowwie 7y ago
  Take a moment and consider this quote by the late Amos Tversky about his view on pessimism: "When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice,' Amos liked to say. 'Once when you worry about it, and the second time when it happens." This is a rational explanation for why anyone ought not succumb to pessimism.
  • reportgunner 7y ago
    This is not black and white. Often we are optimist and we ignore the suffering of the ones closest to us because we simply don't believe they are suffering.
    • Funes- 7y ago
      That doesn't have anything to do with being optimistic, as far as I can tell. Dismissing others' suffering is caused by a lack of empathy or by selfishness--the two go hand in hand. It can certainly seem to a depressed person that an optimistic one is oblivious to their suffering, but it is not always the case. I think the best you can do with negative people is make it absolutely clear that you acknowledge their pain while getting them to progressively come out of it.
      • michaelt 7y ago
        If another person's internal mental state isn't visible, so we have to work it out from things that are visible, there might be a wide range of possible guesses and so being optimistic or pessimistic might produce very different results. Has my friend Joe stopped coming out with us because he's busy with a great new girlfriend he just hasn't told us about yet - or because depression means he can barely get out of bed in the morning let alone leave the house?
  • Phenix88be 7y ago
    > 'Once when you worry about it, and the second time when it happens." I have solve that long ago. Something bad will happen. If I can prevent it, I will and only live it once. If I can't prevent it, why should I be worried ? I make preparation for after it happen.
• mirimir 7y ago
  That seems reasonable to me. I've often found optimism in others to be foolish. And for bipolar me, extreme optimism is a sign of hypomania. But there's a lot more to depression than seeing the world realistically. There's a tendency to feel inadequate, hopeless and disempowered. And there's more to that than seeing oneself and ones capabilities realistically. One aspect is failing to break out huge problems into manageable pieces.
  • luckynumber007 7y ago
    One aspect is failing to break out huge problems into manageable pieces. This is the main problem I have had with depression. Beeing overwhelmed by the smallest problem because the consecquences of all actions that has to be taken to solve it.
    • wolfgke 7y ago
      > One aspect is failing to break out huge problems into manageable pieces. Isn't this rather a sign that the world is simply too complex and should be simplified?
      • mirimir 7y ago
        I'd say that stuff must be simplified, if you want to accomplish anything.
      • tempguy9999 7y ago
        BTDT and I'd say no, it's a psychological effect of being overwhelmed mentally, even if you could handle it in better circumstances. Even the most trivial problems become crushing. Even imagined problems.
      • journalctl 7y ago
        Nah. I’ve had trouble convincing myself that doing dishes wasn’t an insurmountable task. Depression messes with your perspective. Basic, easy tasks seem impossible.
• tachion 7y ago
  But does it make them happier? /s
• VvR-Ox 7y ago
  Why am I not surprised? The world is really going down right now and just following news what's going on is reason enough to cry like a baby or lose it completely. That's one of the main reasons why many people take drugs - it helps to forget what's happening around us and it makes us numb enough to stop feeling the constant pain when we think about the things happening to our brothers and sisters who aren't lucky enough to be born in the right place, to have the right parents or live in the "right" place etc. Too much information on how the people are screwed every minute may be reason enough to be depressed if you don't shut those thoughts out in the long run.
  • smt88 7y ago
    In many ways (disease, poverty, social well-being) the world is better than it ever has been. Just because bad things are happening and dominate news doesn't mean that's all that's happening or that the net is negative.
    • VvR-Ox 7y ago
      Sorry please see the other answers as you share some of your thoughts on my words and I've already given my answers to that.
  • gfodor 7y ago
    I hate to break it to you, but if the news is affecting your mental health you should realize that that is by design. The world may or may not be in a good state of affairs in an absolute sense, but it is better than it has ever been, and insofar as the news seems worse now than in the past, that has more to do with those in charge of the news media and their incentives and biases than actual changes in the state of the world getting worse.
    • VvR-Ox 7y ago
      You are absolutely right about the design of the news but despite this very bad things are happening (just the facts). Let me bring in some of those facts: 1. "25.9 million refugees globally -- the highest level ever recorded" according to Amnesty International (https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants/global-refugee-crisis-statistics-and-facts/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seeker...) 2. "Global emissions increased from 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 1900 to over 36 billion tonnes 115 years later" (https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...) 3. "Plastic in the oceans" (https://ourworldindata.org/where-does-plastic-accumulate https://ourworldindata.org/where-does-plastic-accumulate) 4. "52.4 percent decline in sperm concentration and a 59.3 percent decline in total sperm counts from 1973 to 2011 for men in the West" (https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/sperm-counts-in-the-western-world-have-declined-nearly-60-percent-since-the-1970s https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/sperm-counts-in-the-w...) Ok I will stop it right here but of course there are many more tendencies that would speak against a too optimistic view on the world at the moment in my opinion. Of course there is enough media, drugs and be-happy-every-day-mantras etc. to disturb your thoughts and allow to ignore all this.
• leowoo91 7y ago
  That might be true. As a person who always find himself between dark and winning days, I started to wonder if something in middle could be achieved.
• mehdix 7y ago
  One can see the world more realistically without being depressed. Depression IMHO isn't necessarily a byproduct of a pessimistic worldview. If anything, nihilism (if we consider it a pessimistic worldview) had helped me to be more realistic. To accept that there is no intrinsic meaning in my life. If anything, it has brought me down to earth.
  • raxxorrax 7y ago
    Not every form of depression is pathological. I think our current culture doesn't really provide many avenues to express sadness, so people probably don't tell the truth when they have doubt. And doubt is an uninvited guest for business. Not directly applicable to the article though, that is probably a completely different effect.
• Jonahgay 7y ago
  No they don't don't i know it from experience. Depression makes you just sad, that's it.
• mapcars 7y ago
  More realistically than what? What is a criteria for realism? >we tend to operate under happy delusions that lift away when we're depressed Well this brings unhappy delusions in the same way. Just that it matches more with therapists world view and called "more real"?
• BasDirks 7y ago
  Real_ism_ can mean passivity, and a lack of creation. If seeing things as they are means paralysis, how does it help us? Not being realistic can help make things happen. I think it can be valuable to see things realistically, and then rejecting what you see.
  • chha 7y ago
    Not being realistic can also mean that you are creative on false premises, and that the result might fail because of it. By being realistic about the world and the environment surrounding you be it work-, political-, economical- or otherwise you can see actual problems plaguing others, and _maybe_ you can generate something that solves a tiny part of what people struggle with.
• faissaloo 7y ago
  Perhaps if so many of us are depressed then that is the natural reaction to the environment we have been placed in, which is why it takes some level of delusion to be happy.
• k__ 7y ago
  Yes. The problem is, when you're not always depressed. You feel good, get too optimistic, things don't work out because you underestimated everything aaand you're back to being depressed.
• mhrefat 7y ago
  That's right, because when you are depressed,you will be aware to make new friends, you will judge them by reality, and any situation you will face, you will judge it by reality. Emotion doesn't work that much for depressed people.
  • paulluuk 7y ago
    It depends on whether you're talking about actually depressed people, or people just "feeling a bit down". It seems like you're referring to the latter. Depression is a very serious medical condition, often leading to suicide, and involves mostly just sleeping, crying in bed, and not wanting to do or see anything.
• fallingfrog 7y ago
  To my mind, depression is basically a feeling of being powerless. When lab researchers want to see if a mouse is depressed, they pick it up by the tail. The normal mice struggle, however uselessly, the depressed ones just hang there. In my experience though, The worst is being powerless and not knowing why. If you can gain understanding of the world, even though your situation might not change right away, it still helps.
• psychoslave 7y ago
  Let's be realistic: there are only humans with subjective narrow view of the world out there. And whoever will tell you that you are more/less realistic than some other category of people are judging you by their own narrow opinion of what is the ultimate-true-real-reality™. I hope this helped you to feel more depressed.
  • etrautmann 7y ago
    So the flat earthers are just as tuned into reality as the rest of us?
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • brlewis 7y ago
      I use their model of reality all the time when arranging things in my house. Like Newton's formulae it works well in certain contexts, even though Einstein proved Newton wrong.
      • mfoy_ 7y ago
        This is a bad analogy that makes it sound like you're defending flat-earthers. It's like saying you use Hermeticism's Principle of Rhythm to build a pendulum-powered clock... And unlike both Flat-Earth theory and Hermetics, Newton was actually demonstrably right. Flat-earthers and Hermeticists spin their theories out of whole cloth.
        • ModelTheorist12 7y ago
          The shape of the Earth is just a model [1] - an approximation. All models have margins of error. All models are wrong, some are useful [2]. The map is not the territory [3]. All scientific models are scale variant [4] e.g contextual. Scientific models are pragmatic at best. Useful for a particular purpose within some domain of applicability When last did you take the curvature of the Earth into account when arranging your furniture? Of course, you can always dismiss my perspective as "Just another nihilistic, depressed anti-realist" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_invariance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_invariance
• paulluuk 7y ago
  > Put people in a room and ask them to push a button > It seems like the button is doing something, but actually it's not attached to anything > Ask people if they felt like they had any effect on the world > Depressed people say "nothing I do matters", non-depressed people say "Well, I'm not sure, but there might be some effect, yeah" "DEPRESSED PEOPLE SEE THE WORLD MORE REALISTICALLY"
• kdmccormick 7y ago
  > The people most likely to experience depressive realism? Introverts, males, and people with high IQs I cringe every time I see Vice on the front page. To be "depressively realistic", I think they care less about scientific accuracy, and more about making their introverted, male, mildly-depressed audience feel smart.
  • rtkaratekid 7y ago
    There's a little more on the subject of realists vs non-realists in the book "Thinking Fast and Slow" if the topic interests you. He doesn't link it to depression, but it's still quite an interesting read.
  • nerdponx 7y ago
    I just cringe whenever I see Vice linked anywhere. They've gone from being a great source of raw and "outsider" news to being an edgy rag.
  • skeptical900067 7y ago
    I had hoped to see a comment like this about Vice higher up. I find that their content is usually insubstantial, and when it is otherwise, facts are presented or omitted staggeringly skewed fashion for maximum emotional engagement. In short, if you want to feel strongly about misinformation and partial-truths, Vice is the outlet for you.
• hprotagonist 7y ago
  see terry pratchett’s definition for “knurd”: https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Knurd https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Knurd Consider the following scale: Being drunk is to be intoxicated by alcohol to such an extent as to be unable to perceive the world clearly through the senses. Being sober is to be able to perceive the world clearly through the senses, yet humans are quite capable of giving themselves illusions and little stories to make life more bearable. Being knurd is to be (un)intoxicated with Klatchian Coffee to such an extent that all such comfort stories are stripped away from the mind. This makes you see the world in a way 'nobody ever should', in all its harsh reality. People generally find being knurd excruciating, as their comfortable illusions are stripped away and all of life's terrors are exposed.
  • mamon 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure that what Pratchett calls "knurd" here, Buddists call "enlightenment".
    • whatshisface 7y ago
      Cynicism is knowing that Santa isn't real and enlightenment is having the emotional maturity to deal with it.
    • monktastic1 7y ago
      The Buddhists certainly wouldn't agree that enlightenment is "excruciating." To the contrary, that's what a mind experiences when it's on the brink of awakening but can't let go of the fundamental illusion of 'self.'
• mugwort13 7y ago
  This entire article is just some Gen-x'er who grew up on MTV citing Daria's "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist" nonsense.
• riskneutral 7y ago
  I used to feel this way, then I discovered meditation and now I am almost always in a positive state of mind. In my experience, it is depressed people who are not seeing realistically, and they are caught in cycles of mental delusion. Happiness achieved in this way is just about truly accepting the "depressing" realities and being okay with it all including your own depressing reactions to the realities, and then not identifying with these mental processes, not letting them define, own or move you as a conscious being. After some practice, a person can cope with life's unending, unexpected, negative surprises by processing the negative event in a single moment and then returning the mind to a calm and positive state. For some reason, in our society, we are not taught that it is possible (and in fact imperative) to observe, guide and ultimately control one own mind and thought stream. This has been practiced in other societies for thousands of years, and even in our own society mindfulness/meditation is steadily becoming a mainstream fixture.
  • acollins1331 7y ago
    This. There are lots of bad things in the world that do happen. Maybe more bad then good. You have one life to live and sitting around being depressed or angry about them is just a waste of time.
    • serverholic 7y ago
      Wow how did I not think of that before! Just don't be depressed. It's so easy!
      • habnds 7y ago
        Tired of being homeless? Buy a home!
      • acollins1331 7y ago
        I'm not prescribing a cure for depression. However, for people who are angry or sad about macro atrocities in teh world, it is good advice to rationally know that focusing on it is a waste of time.
    • 7y ago
• kypro 7y ago
  I don't think it's the case that all depressed people are realists, but that realists in general may be more predisposed to depression or being depressed. It seems likely some people suffering from depression have real mental illness, and a much much smaller number of people are ultra realists and get depressed over real negative events and facts. I know there have been times in my life where I have suffered from depression because of my realism. On occasion bad things have happened to me and I've found people will try to comfort me by saying things like, "everything happens for a reason", "it will all work out in the end", etc, but being a realist, I know there often isn't a reason and it won't work out. At best I can only hope that I find it in me to continue through the rest of my life with the regret or loss that I'm experiencing. And even then, even if I make it to the end of my life, what's the point? Our lives and suffering is all pointless in the grand scheme of things. My cat died this morning. Sorry.
  • groby_b 7y ago
    I'm really sorry to hear your cat died. From one cat lover to another - it's awful. It doesn't "happen for a reason". But please do remember all the good times you had, too. Being a realist also means acknowledging how much joy you had together, how much unconditional love you got.
    • Allower 7y ago
      Well it happens for the same reason all living things die, all life has an end, no point resisting that fact, unless of course you enjoy suffering..
  • WhiteSage 7y ago
    I'm sorry for your loss. When something bad happens I often find myself going back to Carl Sagan's words on the Pale Blue Dot [0]. Puts everything in perspective, and makes everything feel insignificant, when compared with the vastness of what lies out there. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
  • hippich 7y ago
    Sorry about your loss =(
• agumonkey 7y ago
  This makes me very uncomfortable to say the least.
• Wildgoose 7y ago
  Reminds me of an old definition: "A pessimist is what an optimist calls a realist".
• dejawu 7y ago
  As someone with depression, this has been my experience as well. When I'm depressed I feel like I'm seeing the world for what it really is, and that the times when I was happy was when I was deluded. When I started antidepressants, I was frustrated that they noticeably made me less lucid and totally unable to introspect. Even now that I've found what I consider to be a good combination and dosage of medications that's letting me be happy and function well, I fully admit that the mechanism by which they're affective is that they make me less aware, slightly more forgetful, and therefore less able to ruminate on all the "truths" that would make me depressed. I'm not thrilled about that but I chalk it up as a worthwhile compromise for being able to live well.
• pknopf 7y ago
  People may think I'm depressed, but I'm the polar opposite. I'm always discussing what it means to be depressed, only in an effort to find what is the will to live. I find it interesting. "When driving on the interstate, each driver has the power, with the flick of a wrist, to end it all. But they don't. Why not? What prevents people from flicking? What's worth living for?" My wife wants me to stop talking like that, because she fears I will be vacaracted. I feel like you can always get a better perspective on things by swimming in the deep end. It's always good to stir your inner stew.
  • Kye 7y ago
    There's a comic somewhere depicting the two views of nihilism. One frame is all dreary and dark with the caption "Nothing really matters" over a sad character. The other is happy and upbeat with flowers and rainbows over the same, much happier character with the same caption. It sounds like you lean more toward the latter and choose to make your own meaning rather than embrace one of the common sources of meaning. That's how I try to see the world. I don't understand how people find meaning in traditional sources like religion, family, or work, so I set out to find my own. Nonjudgmentally, of course. I respect the classics even if I favor avant-garde purposecraft.
    • pknopf 7y ago
      I'd love it if you could find that comic!
      • Kye 7y ago
        I can't find it, but xkcd also had a take on it. https://xkcd.com/167/ https://xkcd.com/167/
        • tim333 7y ago
          There are a few like that on the web eg https://66.media.tumblr.com/f2cfd1111f36dc195ab9e6aefc239faa/tumblr_p4shg2RaSK1r25vsmo1_400.png https://66.media.tumblr.com/f2cfd1111f36dc195ab9e6aefc239faa... https://www.reddit.com/r/nihilism/comments/b22xg0/may_i_offer_you_a_glass_of_optimistic_nihilism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nihilism/comments/b22xg0/may_i_offe...
• rtkaratekid 7y ago
  I'm not so depressed these days (thankfully) but this "realism" does tend to manifest is different ways. I'm very self-conscious about not dragging people down because some thoughts that I think daily that are normal for me, seem to be absolutely psychologically crippling for people who previously hadn't, or didn't want to think such things. Usually when I do express these thoughts they're in the form of semi-dark humor ("You don't like the boss? Don't worry, you'll only have to deal with him for a couple more years (because you won't quit) and then the company will go under and you'll have to work somewhere else with a similar boss"). The humor is to mostly try to diffuse how harsh these statements can seem to others, and because I find them legitimately morosely funny, but for some reason I tend not to get laughter when I say them... So I try to keep this "depressive realism" to myself most of the time. I promise I have social skills. That's probably my biggest consistent faux pas. But sometimes I wonder why I can lose friends so fast by just saying things that are true or are very likely to be true. I guess a lot of people don't like to see that clearly? I don't know.
  • jrs235 7y ago
    I feel like I relate. > So I try to keep this "depressive realism" to myself most of the time. Do you ever start to feel alone, isolated, and mis- or not understood too?
    • rtkaratekid 7y ago
      Nah, I used to, but then I realized that I DO have things in common with people. Just because I don't have everything in common doesn't mean I have to isolate myself from them. It just means that some parts of my life are more applicable to certain relationships then others. I'm not a social butterfly by any means and spend a lot of my time semi-alone, but I don't feel alone or isolated. Misunderstood? Sometimes. But I make a conscious effort to BE understood when I feel it's important.
    • shantly 7y ago
      > Do you ever start to feel alone, isolated, and mis- or not understood too? Reading literature helps. It largely deals with the big, sad themes & topics of life and existence. Yes, the "stuffy" "canon" stuff. At least you know all these famous (or famous among lit-reading folks, anyway) authors saw the same things you do, then, which is a kind of camaraderie. Hell, Gilgamesh is about this stuff, very directly. Egyptian didactic literature treats of it. The Bible. Homer and the Greek tragedians. It's been around as long as we've had written culture, basically. You Are Not Alone (aside from how you totally, completely are, naturally! hahaha). Then find other people who read that stuff and talk with them about it and set up dinner & wine parties to talk about it and hey you guys wanna go see the latest Lars Von Trier film and congratulations, you've distracted yourself from the fundamental horror at the center of existence by way of engaging with it, mission accomplished.
• bashwizard 7y ago
  In other words: water is still wet. The world is a shitty place, deal with it.
  • CelestialTeapot 7y ago
    I'm a (depressed) realist, not a pessimist. I think the world CAN be better, though I realize that is incredibly unlikely unless enough people WANT to make it a better place and WORK to make it so. I would much rather see the world more or less as it is than delude myself by ignoring the many real and growing problems in the world.
  • kempbellt 7y ago
    Sure. It's also an amazing place. Focusing only on the negative aspect of the world is what causes a depressive mindset. Also, water isn't wet. Water makes thing wet. Step up your quip game ;)
    • bashwizard 7y ago
      The bear shit in the woods.
• pitt1980 7y ago
  To the degree to which we interact with the world and create our own reality. It's lower effort to turn a pessimistic outlook into reality than it is to turn an optimistic outlook into reality. I've been ready the Wayside School books to my daughter for bedtime recently, the character Kathy demonstrates this pretty well. From https://wayside-school.fandom.com/wiki/Kathy_(book_chapter) https://wayside-school.fandom.com/wiki/Kathy_(book_chapter) : "The chapter opens by mentioning that Kathy doesn't like you, and that you are the stupidest person she doesn't know. She also thinks you are the ugliest person she doesn't know, and she doesn't know a lot of people. Even the people she does know she doesn't like. She thinks D.J. smiles too much and hates John because he can't stand on his head. After the introduction, the chapter talks about a time Kathy had a pet cat named Skunks. She was afraid he would run away, but Mrs. Jewls told her that he would stay as long as Kathy took good care of him, and remembered to give him plenty of food and water. However, Kathy thought Mrs. Jewls was wrong, and to keep Skunks around, locked him in a closet, sometimes even forgetting to take care of him. One day when Kathy was looking for her other shoe, Skunks ran out and never came back. Kathy bragged to Mrs. Jewls, claiming that she was right all along, and tells her that next time she gets a cat, she'll kill him so he never runs away. Afterwards it talks about a time Dameon was trying to teach Kathy how to play catch. Kathy complains that she'll just get hurt, but Dameon states that as long as she keeps her eyes on the ball, everything will be okay. However, worrying that she'll be hurt in advance, she closes her eyes and the ball lands in her face. She claims that Dameon was wrong and she was right as she runs away sobbing. Allison thinks that if she is nice to Kathy, Kathy might be nice to her in return, so she bakes her a cookie. Kathy however, thinks it will taste terrible because Allison made it, so she keeps the cookie in her desk. Three weeks later, she decides to eat the cookie, which is now stale and dusty, and as expected, hates it. Kathy says that she was right about Allison's cookie, then the chapter cuts back to narration, explaining that Kathy thought she had very good reasons for hating everyone in Mrs. Jewls's class, alongside a very good reason for hating you. She knows that if you met her, you would hate her too, and already knows she's right. The chapter ends by saying it's weird how someone can always be right and still be wrong."
• zarro 7y ago
  Define "Realistically". Also define "desirability". You could make equally strong arguments both ways. Example: If you are depressed you are more likely to focus on input data that is 'negative' and overlook the 'positive' data. For instance if your depressed, instead of focusing on the different ways people are trying to improve the conditions of existence, you could focus on "the shitty conditions in india/africa/china/etc.) You could say this is more "realistic". Example: If you are optimistic on the other hand, you could say to yourself, I have no control over those variables that make the world 'shitty', let me try and focus on the variables that make the world 'positive' and see if I can affect them, so that the world as a whole can be more "positive". Some could say this is "unrealistic". Which is more "desirable" I would argue the latter, but I hope the argument has shown that these are value judgements subjective to the individual.
• beyondcompute 7y ago
  So what? Reality is for people with poor imaginations :)
• perseusprime11 7y ago
  Adding some context that came from living with a person who suffered from depression. I am not sure if they see the world more realistically or more negatively. They are generally stuck in a cycle and need to get out of the cycle of feelings influencing actions and reverse this cycle by CBT. The negative cycle creates delusion which is exactly the opposite of reality. They view the world in a very cynical way and won't let go of past.
• harimau777 7y ago
  How do you guys think this relates to Cognitive Therapy? What I mean is: My father was a therapist and a big advocate of the idea that people can be happy regardless of their circumstances and that emotion comes primarily from what someone thinks. There's a lot of truth in that, and it seems clear that Cognitive Therapy is an important treatment for depression. However, he sometimes seemed to de-emphasize the importance of circumstances. For example, he was opposed to the idea that moving to a different part of the country could make someone happier. However, doesn't that ignore that fact that different places have different rates of depression and suicide?
  • tim333 7y ago
    Cognitive Therapy has it's limits. It generally seem to help a bit and is relatively straight forward as therapies go.
  • aianus 7y ago
    I read that moving to somewhere sunny like Southern California was several times more effective for depression than SSRIs.
  • perl4ever 7y ago
    Somewhere I read about research showing a high correlation of altitude to depression.
• dawg- 7y ago
  Here's an important thing from the article: >it's most likely to occur in mildly depressed people—those suffering from major depression, by contrast, are more likely to suffer from larger distortions in their thinking. I wonder if we have overly-pathologized the regular melancholy that comes with every day life? If mildly depressed people actually see the world realistically, maybe nothing is actually wrong with them? Should we call them depressed or should we just call them human? I think we need to recognize the constant striving for happiness, and the inevitable disappointment when we don't reach it, as the unhealthy behavior that it is. It's okay, normal, even necessary to feel sad and pissed off at the world sometimes. It doesn't automatically mean something is wrong with you. Of course, it would be absolutely unacceptable for the makers of Prozac to lose half of their customers, so it is a major thoughtcrime in many circles to even suggest the possibility. If people have "mild depression", maybe sometimes it's okay to tell them to toughen up, put their head down and keep grinding because that's what life consists of. If you are not mildly depressed then you are an idiot - it shouldn't be called mild depression, it should just be called "existing as a human being". You grind and suffer and struggle through life, because you were born into a broken world and have no other choice. Sometimes all the struggle gets you good things to be proud of and appreciate. And sometimes all the suffering doesn't amount to anything of worth at all. That's life, not a pathology. It's amazingly beautiful if you can learn to come at it from the right angle, but that doesn't mean it will ever hurt any less.
  • rtkaratekid 7y ago
    I agree with this. At some point during my "struggle" with depression, I realized it's just who I am. Severe depression should be treated, sure. But this "mild depression" in my mind is more of a personality trait than a clinical disorder. It took me 8 years of coping with "depression" and earning an undergraduate degree in neuroscience to realize this. At this point I actually wouldn't give up this personality trait even if I had the option to. It's become an asset rather than a liability.
  • odyssey7 7y ago
    The way this is framed, an underlying question is whether medicine should make normal lives better, or just treat disease. I would definitely say yes to making normal lives better in addition to treating disease.
• setgree 7y ago
  > It may be tied to certain other psychological theories, like the terror management theory, Feltham says. Terror Management suggests that human nature is actually wired towards self-deception: In order to avoid facing terrifying concepts like death, most of us live in a state of self-delusion. And maybe, when we're depressed, we're just less likely to be deceived. For what it's worth, Terror Management Theory has pretty much failed to replicate: https://psyarxiv.com/dkg53/ https://psyarxiv.com/dkg53/ ("Failed pre-registered replication of mortality salience effects in traditional and novel measures") Just one study, whole theory doesn't depend on one replication attempt, etc. -- but the baseline rate for a set of social psych findings being legit should probably be <50% at the outset.
• Marinlemaignan 7y ago
  This article being on the front page seems to mean a lot for our industry....
• _def 7y ago
  What most people describe as "realism" is often just a depressive view. There's always two sides of a coin, realistic or not. What seems "real" to you depends on which side you spend most of your time.
• dwaltrip 7y ago
  A lot of people in this thread are justifying their own pathologies with the title. Nothing more powerful than a story that soothes the ego. Maybe there is some truth to the idea. I wouldn't be surprised, although we probably can't make that general of a statement. Either way, don't let something like this article stop you from improving your life. One thing is for sure, we can't accurately predict all of the possibilities for ourselves. Might as well aim for a few improvements, eh? For what it's worth, I'm currently dealing with mild / moderate depression and anxiety. In my opinion, it's a shit way to be and I aspire to experience less of it in the future.
  • asdfman123 7y ago
    Making anything negative part of your identity is a dangerous thing to do, because if you make something part of your identity, it's much harder to give it up.
  • escape_goat 7y ago
    From the text of the article, the title ought to be "Although the idea is 40 years old, there is no conclusive proof that depressive realism exists and the evidence suggesting that it does may be an artifact of experimental design." I'm not actually sure what to make of this article, to be honest. The two sources interviewed are very clear that 'depressive realism' is a poorly supported and not particularly useful concept, but the inertia of the article leads in the opposite direction.
• cowb0yl0gic 7y ago
  "Terror Management suggests that human nature is actually wired towards self-deception: In order to avoid facing terrifying concepts like death, most of us live in a state of self-delusion." I very early on in life recognized this as a primary principle of human psychology. As soon as we begin to understand the concept of death, we unconsciously develop this as our primary defense mechanism. It's what all religious and spiritual belief systems are founded on.
  • 29athrowaway 7y ago
    I think the mind is constantly trying to avoid death, and when we learn death cannot be avoided we come up with "solutions" like an afterlife, reincarnation...
• throw51319 7y ago
  Yeah when you're depressed you definitely are more realistic about the challenges you/the world faces. But, you are in a state of fear where you are over-exagerrating the things you could lose. In a happy state or happy manic state, you don't overvalue these things. You accept the fleeting nature of moments moving on, and this frees you up to make bolder choices. It's all a spectrum of how bold you want to be in your life and day to day.
• blue_devil 7y ago
  It's important to understand that realism is an "interpretation" stage. Before we get there, we selectively _attend_ to and process stimuli. It is at this attention stage, and usually for (personally) emotional stimuli that depression can affect the things which we "see" (attend to). Biases in attention and interpretation in adolescents with varying levels of anxiety and depression https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2017.1304359 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2017.1...
• 4b11b4 7y ago
  Had a realization the other day that: "almost everyone around me is actually very sick". This world we have created tends to encourage people to eventually become sick: whether it be diet, emotional, spiritual, physical, etc. When we look around, we to have a positive outlook. It's easy to see that a plant is not doing very well. We aren't very good at seeing this in humans.
• jammygit 7y ago
  The studies seem flawed in a very obvious way > If you set up a circumstance where there's no relationship between the button and the light, depressed patients might be able to better pick that out, because that set of circumstances happens to conform to their somewhat biased view of the universe, that bad things happen for no reason," Moore explains. "That doesn't necessarily mean that they're more accurate broadly, but under that very narrow set of stimulus conditions, they come out looking more accurate.
• zzzeek 7y ago
  > researchers presented both depressed and non-depressed participants with a button and a green light. They then asked the participants to figure out to what degree their responses (pushing the button) controlled that light. Depressed participants were much better at judging the degree of their control, while participants who weren't depressed tended to assume that they had more control over the light than they actually did. so they gave a depressing scenario to people and the depressives were quicker to identify that it was, in fact, a depressing situation. however, put depressives into a fun party where people are open and accepting and the depressives will often instead focus on a negative, antisocial view that is manufactured by their mood disorder and takes them out of this very welcoming and positive situation. As a lifelong depressive I've struggled to see reality for what it is and not as what my depression is constantly misrepresenting. I of course also have the experience where I can see an actually depressing situation for what it is more readily than others, but I think the premise of the article is still generally absurd. The world seems like a very hostile and dangerous place to me, and while you can of course find limitless examples of this being completely true, it nonetheless it prevents me from doing things that other people do quite safely and successfully all the time and for which this dark perspective is completely exaggerative and distorting.
  • potta_coffee 7y ago
    Or maybe the person is just an introvert or has sensory issues - then a fun party becomes a torture chamber. As me how I know.
    • ghgfhgfhn 7y ago
      Yeah sucks doesn't it. I'm a friendly out going person. But I just can't do pubs or bars or clubs because the noise just overwhelms me and I become a jibbering idiot. Sad times
      • tempguy9999 7y ago
        I'm having exactly this problem at the moment. Been isolated far too long, not used to noise now, stir in some buggery of mental problems... But I' forcing myself out right now to the pub. I won't enjoy it now nor for weeks yet, but going through that is necessary if I'm going to recover. Sometimes it's just down to repeated practice, same as anything else. HTH and good luck.
• tempsy 7y ago
  Is "realistically" synonymous with nihilism...?
• patcon 7y ago
  This reminds me of this amazing TED Talk: Do we see reality as it is? (Donald Hoffman, cognitive scientist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY The intellectual bomb in the video is this: Organisms that perceive only "fitness" drive to extinction all organisms that perceive reality as it is. (in model systems simulating environments and creatures navigating them) My take: at every level, it would seem, perceiving true reality is not favoured. Nevermind cognitive biases, that's just one level. Literally the fabric of the universe: spacetime, matter, language, etc. It means nothing that it might feel comfortable or intuitive -- we should question it all.
  • wazoox 7y ago
    And Jordan Peterson turned this on its head by pretending that what is fitting is the truth :)
    • patcon 7y ago
      ah interesting. thanks! I hear a ton about him (he lives in my city), but i didn't realize that the above was one of the cruxes of his philosophy...!
• seamyb88 7y ago
  The depressive episode I suffered and recovered from was not me thinking realistically. With the way the world is at the minute, if you're not angry then you haven't been paying attention. But anger and realism are not the same as clinical, psychological, physically unexplained depression.
• kempbellt 7y ago
  Being "realistic" is often linked to depressive mindsets because it focuses on how things are, and lacks the imagination for how things can be. A depressed mindset says, "There's no good food in the house", and focuses on this as a negative fact. An imaginative mindset says, "No good food. Time to go grocery shopping". The first is simply "realistic". The later is realistic, and imagines a solution to the realistic problem.
• tkidanu 7y ago
  Probably why we are depressed to begin with?
• m0zg 7y ago
  As a former sufferer, the headline is pretty dangerous, IMO. It'd be more correct to say that such people see _some aspects_ of the world more realistically, while others are totally bent out of shape. E.g. anything related to optimism and self-worth is totally out of whack: even if the person can _logically_ conclude there are reasons for optimism and non-zero self-worth, they still don't _feel_ like it's true. So it's dangerous to suggest that their lack of optimism and self-worth is "realistic" in any way, because it never is.
• Noos 7y ago
  How can you go from "we set up a very simple experiment that shows that depressed people can tell more if someone is controlling a light" to "depressed people see the world more realistically?"
• choiway 7y ago
  Realistically, it might be that realism is the cause of depression.
• wheelerwj 7y ago
  well thats depressing...