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A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

354 points by xoxoy 6y ago

logicslave 6y ago
I'm telling you, the elite of this country in the 90s and the early 2000s sold this whole country up the creek. Both sides of the political spectrum pushed ultra capitalist policies and broke the common fabric of America. All meaningful blue collar work was outsourced, large swaths of intelligent highly competitive workers insourced from other countries, artificial boosting of financial assets, etc. The old America is rotting, the new America we see is bright and shiny. This will take a long time to fully surface, 50 years maybe, but it will eventually.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Not just America, but all nations have decided that let's gut out the local manufacturing of goods, allow complete exploitation of labor in one country and then reap the benefits. Now there is only one place that knows how to make stuff. Executives benefited tremendously at the expense of their homeplace. This way the entire fabric of the country tears apart and gets so tangled that voices of reason, science, truth and liberty gets drowned and no one knows what to believe anymore. The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced. Don't worry, services are starting to go to this centralized authoritarian regime too, not just physical goods.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced. Divide et impera. But it doesn't even have to be a conspiracy and "class warfare", it seems that "enemy action" is hard to tell apart from "we've just let things happen and this is what happened".
Exmoor 6y ago
http://archive.vn/7dj2r http://archive.vn/7dj2r
Exmoor 6y ago
>“What’s worrying is the effect this situation is clearly having on young adults.” I wonder if this is a perverse side effect of normalcy bias [0]? For me, a person in middle age, I can look back at my life and see a lifetime of fairly stable history with only a few traumatic events (9/11, 2008 crash). If you're 22, the current circumstances make up a much larger portion of your life. >The toll has also hit the poor much harder, according to the Census Bureau data — throwing into even sharper relief mental health disparities that have long existed. This seems completely, and sadly, reasonable. You probably couldn't design a situation in a lab that would screw over the poor more than COVID-19. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias
- username90 6y ago
  A young person is building their life, lockdown is preventing them from doing that. For example a person looking to build a family will miss out on a few months they could find a partner, and the fertility clock is ticking
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    Arguably the fertility clock is ticking harder for those who in their late thirties just realized perhaps it's ok to stop waiting for full employment stability before starting to consider a family.
    - username90 6y ago
      A large majority of people in their late thirties have already established a family, they wont show up in statistics.
      - ithkuil 6y ago
        Wow. I just checked the average age of motherhood in the USA and it's 26yo. That's 6 years less than in the country I'm living; perhaps my intuitions about what it's normal in a modern society are heavily skewed (and in my social circles it's even worse, with age if motherhood around 35yo, largely due to effects caused precarious work)
ReticentVole 6y ago
The 'cure' of endless and pointless lockdowns is indeed proving worse than the disease, particularly when the CDC estimates overall mortality from the virus will be only 0.4%: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/data-cdc-estimates-covid-19-mortality-rate/275-fc43f37f-6764-45e3-b615-123459f0082b https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/data-cd... For reference the seasonal flu is 0.2%, for which we do... precisely nothing.
- marcell 6y ago
  I'm confused by the downvotes on this. The comment is quoting CDC numbers, this is not some fake news report. The 0.4% mortality for coronavirus is the CDC best estimate. The 0.2% is from the CDC website for the 2017 flu season. Edit: The parent comment has apparently been flag removed. But it was claiming that the reaction to coronavirus (lockdown) is worse than the damage from the virus, and used the above comparison to flu mortality to support this claim. I'm not sure why this comment was flag removed, since it used data to support a position.
  - username90 6y ago
    People made the issue political in USA. So instead of thinking rationally and discussing facts people just vote along the party lines. Downplaying the disease makes them think that you are right wing and hence should be down-voted.
    - nunodonato 6y ago
      it just shows how brainwashed people are, even here on HN. Bogeyman corona is coming to eat you all!! Disregard facts, turn on the tv and continue to spit out fear.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    I'll bite. That percentage represents a million people in the US. It also doesn't represent the number of people who may experience shortened lifespans due to damage to their lungs or other organs. Also, the comment suggests that we do nothing for the flu, which is patently false. We organize massive vaccination efforts every year to combat the flu, we have readily available tests, and we have a well understood model for how it spreads and how to treat it (including antivirals if caught early.) Comparing it to the flu seems to be arguing in bad faith along political lines rather than deeply examining the issue.
catalogia 6y ago
I feel fortunate that I have a south-facing balcony I can sunbath on during the day. Sunlight is a great antidote for many people when they're feeling blue, but this has now become inaccessible to many. Sunlight through windows just doesn't cut it; glass blocks too much UV.
Pfhreak 6y ago
I've dealt with depression and anxiety for many years. I just want to tell anyone who happens to read this: it's ok to ask for help, it's ok to go to therapy, it's ok to use antidepressants. Find the tools that work for you and keep asking for help when you need it. (Believe me, I know how hard it is.)
- spicyramen 6y ago
  Isn't antidepressants in America one of the reasons of the opioid crisis...?
  - akiselev 6y ago
    No, that would largely be Purdue Pharmaceuticals misleading doctors regarding dosage and timing along with an unhealthy dose of fentanyl from China.
  - CaptainZapp 6y ago
    I assume that's a genuine question and that you're not trolling. Opioids are a very different class of drugs than anti depressants (including medication to treat anxiety). While people with mental issues may use opioids for self medication, no reasonable psychiatrist would ever prescribe such medication for psychological issues. Oxy and their ilk were massively pushed by Purdue and their "colleagues" as a non-addictive pain relief if applied correctly. They lied, of course, and that's where the US is now with the opioid crisis, since those drugs were massively over-prescribed. It can't be mentioned enough that if you have serious mental issues then appropriate medication may be one of the pillars to help you out of the deepest circles of hell. While it maybe a crutch (sometimes temporary, sometimes long term) it can be immensely helpful if properly prescribed and monitored and seriously be the difference between life and death. edit: slight clarification
    - MrBeansForReal 6y ago
      I think he is right. Many depressed, long-term unemployed folk must have had pains of various kind as depression symptoms. I think most folk have used opioids to "treat" their depression, nothing else. Something like Ruskies with vodka when their empire was collapsing. The difference is at least their elites weren't in denial about it.
tathougies 6y ago
Well, duh, the expected prevalence of any disease diagnosed entirely by the fiat of a group of people enriched by the disease being more prevalent is pretty close to 100%. In other words, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is not to deny the reality of depression and anxiety but to cast doubt on the diagnostic criteria purveyed by a special interest group whose members get richer and more respected the more they can convince the world that the thing they do is needed. All professions justify their own existence.
presiozo 6y ago
I wonder what's the correlation between this and people being underpaid. I'm fortunate enough to have my own house after graduation so I don't have to pay rent. But I have friends that don't have this luxury and man, they are struggling. Besides eating and rent they can't afford anything else in a month. No question here what's giving them these feelings
- virvar 6y ago
  I live in Denmark, where we lift a lot of the burden of civilisation together, to give everyone access to education, health/elderly/child care as well as a solid security system for those who get unemployed. And here society is hard enough these days, pressing more and more people beyond their limits. I really wonder how you all do it in America.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    We’re particularly nuts if you want the short answer.
  - mdszy 6y ago
    That's what they don't tell you - a whole lot of people straight up DON'T do it. A whole lot of people are homeless. Many people never go to the doctor because they can't afford it.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > And here society is hard enough these days, pressing more and more people beyond their limits. I really wonder how you all do it in America. It's all relative. Someone in the US is looking at failed states in Central America and Africa and thinking the same thing. One day, people will look at Denmark and think the same. Objectively people may be having a better or worse time in different places at different times, but how you personally feel about your situation is all relative at the end of the day.
  - paulddraper 6y ago
    Exceptionalism.
crocodiletears 6y ago
The nation's been psychologically wrong-footed during an election year where the incumbent is the most controversial president in decades (one who's been impeached, even), the challenging party's primary process has been subjected to accusations of corruption and favoritism (at best) by the presumed nominee's opposition, and been riddled with suspicious errors. That alone would be a memorable storm and a half for our political history, but it coincides with a sweeping collapse in institutional trust, economic hardship, concerns of government overreach, and fear of mortal peril. And we're just inaugurating the decade.
- pjc50 6y ago
  And there's a global pandemic on and people are stuck inside.
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    Wait, that too? Woof. Not great.
- samdamsamm 6y ago
  America has a profound ability to diagnose individual problems, and an active inability to diagnose social problems. The American psychological industry cannot be let off the hook. DSM-5 is a handbook for how to blame society’s failures on individuals. We need scientific doctors capable of considering not only the realities they are allowed to accept but also the realities of the actually existing world in which their patients live. We desperately need legitimate mental health institutions, but for-profit healthcare and for-profit education cannot provide that.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    I think you mean the American psychiatric industry, rather than psychological industry. DSM is produced by both, but the over-medication of America is 100% driven by the psychiatrists (as they can actually prescribe drugs).
amriksohata 6y ago
I strongly feel there is a link between modern foods and our gut/brain axis that is causing a lot of this.
- atomashpolskiy 6y ago
  You may be interested in watching Robert Lustig's lectures.
MrBeansForReal 6y ago
This, if true, would be suicides sky-rocketing. Psychology... science... so called.
forgingahead 6y ago
Probably correlates very closely with the increase in hysterical media and news reporting.
- orwin 6y ago
  Either you're overestimating how most people consume news media, or i'm underestimating it. Unless you think the fact that journalists are more often depressed and/or anxious make their reporting more "hysterical". In this case you might be onto something.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  Kinda like "A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression".
boomboomsubban 6y ago
Though this is a troubling outcome, the questions asked seem a little vague for the times. Basically everyone will "feel down" or "feel nervous" given the risk facing them and their loved ones. I feel nervous every time I go to the grocery store, but it would need to be causing problems in my life to be clinical anxiety.
nca-peripherals 6y ago
Before this incident (I've been through a few disasters and violent incidents), I was already on my 13th antidepressant (vilazodone) which doesn't appear to be working. Also on propranolol, clonidine, atomoxetine, carbamazepine, baclofen, gabapentin, and 40 mg/day of CBD. I buy CBD isolate (pure CBD) in bulk and make my own sublingual tincture using a precisely-measured ratio of ingredients comprising: - Organic coconut oil - Vitamin E T50 - Grape seed / citrus extract - CBD in a dark glass container filled into sterile saline spray bottles for use. If you don't do this, then you're probably either being cheated or don't know what you're taking. Anyhow, so far this new antidepressant doesn't seem to be working so the dose is getting upped. If this doesn't work, it's back to mirtazapine and weight gain. The only other options involve anticholinergics, extrapyramidal issues, electricity, magnets, and/or brain surgery. I also have gradually, over the past few years, developed some sort of neurological decline vaguely reminiscent of vascular, frontotemporal, or Lewy body dementia or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (I was born cyanotic over several hours because of incompetent Kaiser Permanente doctors and was hit in the head extremely hard as a teenager twice and didn't receive proper medical care). I can barely speak, I stutter a lot, my memory is disappearing, and my level of consciousness and clarity is declining. I can't code in any language anymore and I used to work in Rust, Haskell, C, Crystal, and so on. My sleep is a mess... one or a few hours here and there at all times of the day. I use every bit of concentration to write this. If it's an incurable condition, I will go somewhere very, very remote in Montana or Wyoming and breathe nitrogen.
- tokamak-teapot 6y ago
  It sounds like you're in a bad place. Lots of us have been there. Seek help from others, please. There are people around, hopefully in your local area, who can help.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    Sounds like they are and have been.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
JSavageOne 6y ago
As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope. The U.S. is more and more resembling a failed state, a mere shadow of what it used to be.
- 3pt14159 6y ago
  Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Canada and elsewhere too.
  - rwc 6y ago
    uh “Attractive, fit, intelligent” seems like a winning combination regardless of the era.
    - huonpine 6y ago
      Yes, but Attractive, fit and intelligent are different in every era.
  - sdwa 6y ago
    I agree about the toxicity of social media, it's why I don't have an Instagram and, well, Facebook is dead among my generation anyway so it's not an issue. >Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. Is this a real problem though? I've heard about how women rate most men as below average, yada yada, but monogamy is still dominant, it's not like these hot men are building harems---on aggregate the vast majority will end up with a life partner, just as always. Am I missing something?
GoodJokes 6y ago
Capitalism is the single largest cause of depression. Pass it on.
supercanuck 6y ago
I mean how much data and analysis do we really need at this point to realize America is a complete shit show at the moment. Statistics be damned, Inductive Reasoning needs to take center stage here.
- paulddraper 6y ago
  Ah, very insightful. Is there a consensus on what makes it bad and how it should be remedied?
  - all2 6y ago
    Well, yes. For the last four years I've been hearing about this orange cartoon character and what an awful impact he's had. There was something about Russia and the orange man, but that went away after about 3 years. Then the orange man was taking credit for some other guy's economic expansion. Now there's this virus thing, and I'm hearing the orange man is making a terrible job of it. According to my sources, the remedy is to remove the orange man.
    - Applejinx 6y ago
      That's a start. Also, this is the first I've heard that Russia went away. Where ever did it go? And who told you that it was gone? Seems like a pretty big (and historically well understood…) thing, and most unlikely to randomly disappear.
      - coliveira 6y ago
        Justice decided they cannot/don't want do anything about it and the Republican dominated senate decided they don't want to hold the president accountable for anything.
    - paulddraper 6y ago
      It depends how much you trust your sources about the cartoon character.
aszantu 6y ago
As a person with a history of depression and social anxiety I really do feel calmer since the crisis started, as if my state of mind was made for this kind of life. Less people on the streets, it's quieter, no one breathing down my neck in the supermarket, home office, no expectations on how to pick my clothes, how to behave, no trying to hide the weird stuff I eat (carnivore, high meat, raw, cooked and aged whatever gets on the plate), no forced socializing.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  I agree. It's not that my state of life is that great: in many ways it's a side-effect of a nasty upbringing that did me harm, and I'd be better off without it and am actively pursuing repair of some of these mental issues. But given that I've spent my life with a set of challenges, this crisis has given me space to sort out what parts of it are ME and what parts are issues needing to be fixed. That's pretty valuable. Even better, I don't think we'll ever go back to boisterous 'forced socializing or you are a bad person!' attitudes. There are now conditions attached, and that's reasonable (and opens the door to conditions like 'I don't have coronavirus, but when I socialize like you guys do I panic')
  - surfpel 6y ago
    I also relate to this. My hope for cultural change post pandemic is that the shift towards remote work will persist after it's over. I love being an engineer but I can't stand working in an open office or commuting 2 1/2 hours a day.
    - buran77 6y ago
      For a while I wondered if I'm the outlier since I feel substantially better now than I did before going into isolation. Then some of my close friends who were on anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication told me the same. They actually stopped taking the medication for months with no signs that the symptoms are coming back. It's anecdotal and I have no idea how widespread this is or why it happens, at least to people for whom self-isolation didn't work in the past. I can only imagine that the isolation may relieve some of the social pressure without leaving you with the feeling that you have to go to extraordinary measures to achieve it, it doesn't feel so self inflicted like self-isolation does under regular conditions. Now it's an external cause and applies to everybody.
rb808 6y ago
I can't read the article but does it say what it was before covid? I'm not sure if this is a virus related thing or just a longer term trend.
conistonwater 6y ago
Diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression are very broad because they are necessary as tools for practicing doctors seeing patients (as opposed to applying them to a random selection of people). If you turn the process back, and just ask how many people in the population fit under them, you'll always, even in normal times, get an unexpectedly large number. That doesn't imply that anything is wrong or that anything needs to be done about it, doctors don't use them like that. This is approximately the same phenomenon that causes medical students to self-diagnose themselves with every disease they learn about: one of the fundamental factors missing from such a diagnosis is that they haven't walked into a clinic. It's not a bug in the diagnostic criteria, it's just a misapplication of them. One of the main ways of fighting over-diagnosis is to not apply diagnostic criteria for every known condition to random people who you have no a priori reason to suspect they might have those conditions.
- ssivark 6y ago
  This is an important point about the role of priors — especially if one is using a statistical (correlation based) proxy for what is actually a causal question. But here’s a practical question: imagine a universal healthcare mandate which allows people to get a mental health check-up every year. What criteria should the doctors use? Would the diagnostics have to change significantly?
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    What do practitioners do in countries with universal healthcare?
    - chipperyman573 6y ago
      You still need to actively persue the healthcare even if your country pays for it.
      - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
        I will say the barriers are definitely lower though when i compare my home country Australia to my adopted country the USA. Sure you need to actively pursue healthcare in Australia but the barriers are just so much lower. A great example is http://www.cancerscreening.gov.au/internet/screening/publishing.nsf/Content/bowel-cancer-screeningkit-eligibility http://www.cancerscreening.gov.au/internet/screening/publish... You fill in the details and you're mailed a reply post paid bowel cancer screening kit.
karatestomp 6y ago
Shit, our terrible healthcare system's given me what'd probably qualify as clinical anxiety for longish periods several times in the last few years, and that's despite being well into the top 20% most economically-fortunate Americans, consistently having health insurance, and not having really serious or chronic medical problems in my immediate family.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  Same here. I am totally terrified of being in an accident or having a serious disease and then getting wiped out financially as I have seen others in similar situations. If you are lucky things usually work out but it can easily happen that you are liable for a $60000 helicopter ride or a $300000 hospital bill because somebody (not even you) has filled out some paperwork incorrectly.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    > I am totally terrified of being in an accident or having a serious disease and then getting wiped out financially For majority of people through history, a serious accident or disease would wipe them out biologically, not just financially. Were they totally terrified throught their lives because of it? I don't think so. It's all a matter of perspective. I personally try to accept that my life will end, the ending will likely be agonizing and nasty, and it can happen at any moment. I don't know a lot about meditation, but I think some strains of meditation schools tend to focus a lot on this fact, with daily contemplation of decaying bodies etc. It's an ancient tradition which may actually contain a lot of wisdom.
- ropable 6y ago
  As a non-American, the US healthcare system is the #1 reason I would consider as a counter-argument against immigrating there by a wide margin.
munificent 6y ago
I recently read "Man's Search for Meaning", written by a psychologist who survived several years in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Frankl's main thesis is that humans have a deep need for meaning in their life, which he defines as producing some kind of work, caring for others, or having enriching experiences. This strongly resonates with me. I believe America's consumer culture undermines this need. Many work "bullshit jobs" only to be able to afford to consume things — the work itself is not for anything more meaningful than a paycheck. Mass manufacturing lets us care of most of our material needs ourselves so there is less culture around caring for each other than there used to be. There are an infinite number of "experiences" available, but most are simply consuming a thing created by someone else and endlessly reproduced. There is nothing particularly enriching about watching the latest Hollywood spectacle, nearly instiguishable from the previous ten movies in the franchise. Frankl observed about his fellow prisoners that people could survive anything if they had something to live for. But when our lives are meaningless and we fill that void with shallow pleasures and distractions, we are ill-equipped to have the resilience needed to get through something like the current pandemic. When something bad enough is going on that Netflix no longer takes your mind off it, then to what do you turn?
- caleb-allen 6y ago
  It seems that American culture and/or economics have, in recent decades, moved toward primarily consumption rather than primarily production. My point of view is that the backlash and anger against capitalism I perceive from younger generations is a result of how unfulfilling consumerism really is. I think individualism and personal liberty has been conflated with a selfish sort of consumerism, from the end consumer up through corporate cultures. Want something new? Buy it! Are you a business wanting to make inroads in a new sector? Don't research and produce. Acquire! It is no surprise to me, then, that corporate debt is at an all time high, corporations and individuals are less prepared and resilient than ever, and that this crisis is violently exposing that.
  - munificent 6y ago
    > I think individualism and personal liberty has been conflated with a selfish sort of consumerism Yes. It's important to note, too, that this isn't something American people spontaneously decided to do. It was a deliberate strategy by rich business owners to sell the country on the idea of consumerism being great (because it was great for their businesses).
irrational 6y ago
What age? I've noticed way more young people (teenagers and early 20s) exhibiting signs of anxiety and depression than people my own age (mid 40s). I never knew anyone with anxiety or depression growing up. But that probably has a lot more to do with mental illness not being discussed back than it not being around. But, even among me friend group nobody exhibited the signs that I see so clearly prevalent among my own kids' friend groups. Is it social media? Some chemical that has entered our environment? Is it something having to do with growing up in a post-9/11 world?
- danharaj 6y ago
  late stage capitalism
  - seibelj 6y ago
    This a low-effort comment
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  I think they would say that their future prospects are a lot dimmer than yours were, precisely because boomers have strip-mined civilization for their own benefit and left your kids' generation holding the bag. At 37, I'm among the oldest of the millennials and I don't entirely agree with that assessment, but I think that's what they'd say.
  - irrational 6y ago
    That doesn't explain teenagers. My teens and their friends are not aware of that sort of things at all. That is more of a college-student mentality.
    - danharaj 6y ago
      Teenagers are sensitive to the cognitive dissonance that accompanies learning how society works and their place in it, even if they're not yet able to articulate those feelings. Some are more precocious than others but anything a college student would be able to tell you about their relationship to society was developing for years beforehand.
tracerbulletx 6y ago
In las vegas, our unemployment rate is very close to hitting a third so. No surprise there.
austincheney 6y ago
I suspect a third of Americans are now displaying symptoms of mental health disorders that were already present. Mental health disorders are drastically under reported in the US, and due to various stigmas most people are unwilling to except mental health illnesses as actual illnesses until they are prepared to harm someone. This is the number one problem most police officers deal with when engaging with the public. Many people have mental health disorders they are not aware of resulting in all manners of poor decisions and disorderly conduct. Some of these disorders are severe and demand medication and some are exaggerated by existing medications. I recommend talking with experienced police officers and listening to some of their war stories. My sister-in-law is also a managing mental health counselor and says the number of undiagnosed mental health disorders could represent as much as 40% of the population. In my own experience I find that people hide from this by frequently changing their social situation and environment through out the day, such as driving to an office. When you are stuck at home full time with nowhere to go suddenly coping and distraction mechanisms are gone which becomes clear to the coinhabitants. I am on my fifth military deployment so I have gone through this a few times, and you can readily see the people lacking of a regular rhythm of emotional stability and stress management. You are with these people all the time as you live, socialize, and work with them. On a military deployment you can’t rely on a frequent change of scenery to hide your insanity. The most common example of excuse that people would hide behind pre-pandemic is finances. Bad financial situations are stressful, but stress is not a mental health disorder. Extreme stresses though often exacerbate pre-existing illnesses. In that regard bad finances don’t produce mental health disorders as frequently as suggested but instead exaggerate pre-existing conditions that become more clearly identifiable. The difference between stress and a mental health disorder is something called homeostasis, which is the ability of the brain to return to a state of regular emotional equilibrium following an incidence of high stress. The military refers to the cognitive process of actively maintaining homeostasis as resiliency and it’s part of our annual training. The inability to return to resume functions of prior behavior following a major stressor is likely the result of a mental health illness. https://www.academia.edu/4970988/Mental_Health_DSM-V_mental_disorder_and_homeostasis_dream_sleep_and_day_time_interaction_of_cerebellum_and_cerebrum_in_the_regulation_of_behaviour_emotion_and_cognition https://www.academia.edu/4970988/Mental_Health_DSM-V_mental_...
ConcernedCoder 6y ago
What a world we live in... Tucker Carlson on Fox News yesterday tried to directly correlate the findings in this study to other news agency reports ( lies according to Tucker ) on the coronavirus... see the video @ around 6:50ish headlining this story on Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-cnn-msnbc-are-peddling-panic-moral-judgment-not-science-and-data-in-coronavirus-coverage https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-cnn-msnbc-are...
idoby 6y ago
With psych stuff, I can't help but wonder how much of it is shooting the arrows and then placing the target...
jjice 6y ago
I'd like to see anxiety and depression rates associated with age and social media usage. In my personal experience, social media gave me a lot more negative feeling than positive. I know a lot of people handle it better than I do, but I'd still like to see. I'm also curious if this is associated with more diagnoses because we've become more aware of these issues as a society, or if this can be associated with the internet and our modern "always on" lives. My guess is that the former is more of a reason, but I'd love to see some studies in this area.
Havoc 6y ago
I find the direct linkage to corona to be a little misleading. My gut feeling says this is a broader sign of the times: * Rising youth unemployment * Gig economy & the uncertainty that comes with it * Crushing study debt * Little hope of owning property * Rapidly increasing inequality * Offshoring & automation * Healthcare system where serious sickness can lead to financial ruin * Debt fueled systems (or credit score if you prefer - a system that kicks people when they're down) I'd venture that the sane response is anxiety or depression. But yeah sure go ahead and blame it on the immediate trigger - COVID
- danans 6y ago
  It could be both: Everything you listed has been turning the screws into people for a while, but this event has pushed people with those pre-existing anxieties over the top to needing clinical intervention. It's similar to how the economy had a number of fragilities prior to COVID19 - actually, in a sense they are the same, given that people are the economy.
- pathseeker 6y ago
  >* Rising youth unemployment Before COVID? >* Little hope of owning property This realistically only applies in a few hot cities in the US and to low income groups. The middle class still can easily achieve home ownership in most of the US. >* Rapidly increasing inequality This is just a political talking point. It has no realistic impact on the day-to-day life of the bulk of the population. Whether Jeff Bezos has 1 billion or 1 trillion doesn't really matter to someone making 90k living in Chicago. >* Healthcare system where serious sickness can lead to financial ruin Again, this doesn't apply to a huge portion of the US population because they have health insurance. Remember that the reason that healthcare is so hard to change in the US is because it works for the majority of the population.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > Again, this doesn't apply to a huge portion of the US population because they have health insurance. Let me guess you've never had to use yours for anything major.
courtf 6y ago
I believe the existential crisis so many are experiencing has been caused by the pandemic, but perhaps not in the way one might expect when approaching the problem rationally. Yes, we are more isolated, and perhaps concerned for the safety of ourselves or our loved ones, or even for some abstract concept of community or society, but depression is characterized by anhedonia: the inability to feel pleasure. Are we all sitting around, so preoccupied by the crises of the day that we have become numb to pleasure? That doesn't describe depression, although perhaps anxiety. I would describe depression as the loss of most strong feelings, not only pleasurable ones, and that is why death becomes so alluring: fear of death has been numbed as well. No, an existential crisis is rooted in the meaning, or lack thereof, we are able to ascribe to our lives. And the pandemic has in many ways restricted our connections to those sources of meaning. Whatever stories we were telling ourselves about our life's purpose, the plotlines we imagined for ourselves, have been disrupted. The student has had their university all but taken from them. They cannot experience it in quite the same tangible way as they once did. The same is true for the worker who derives his meaning from labor. For many, that connection has been damaged, if not severed. It is the loss of meaning that accompanies the dawning realization that our sources of meaning were nothing more than illusions to begin with. We realize now that life goes on without these guiding influences; that the rituals we perform do not in fact earn us the favor of the Gods. We come upon the idea that perhaps life really is meaningless and that we were in fact only existing previously because of a foolish, irrational faith. It has been thrust upon us, entirely by happenstance (and not because of any rational deduction or brilliance on our parts), that we are fools, rubbing our prayer beads and voluntarily deluding ourselves into thinking that some bit of our finite, meaningless lives could somehow persist alongside the infinite. "For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite."
- daseiner1 6y ago
  fine points up to the third paragraph. you said yourself that the pathways of meaning have been blocked - of course then things would feel meaningless! there’s doesn’t need to be a Meaning to life for life to have meaning
eee_honda 6y ago
no paywall: https://archive.fo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/26/americans-with-depression-anxiety-pandemic/?arc404=true https://archive.fo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/202...
davidw 6y ago
US politics are making me seriously anxious. Will I have to leave if I want my kids to grow up in a healthy democracy? Where would we go? Will there be violence before/after the election or transfer of power? More than anything, I don't have much of a sense of hope for something better. Maybe things go ok and "the bleeding stops", but it'll still be a long, difficult slog to start fixing all that's broken. Oh, yeah, and there's also a deadly pandemic on the loose.
- hedora 6y ago
  You forgot that global warming will displace 1/3 of the earth’s population by 2070, and that the WHO is now estimating that the coronavirus response will lead to 1 billion starving people (1/7 of the population), up from their beginning of year estimate of 135M. That’s 10x more people than died in WWII (including civilians on all continents). As a percentage of population, it’s 3x more than WWII. In the WHO numbers, I don’t think starvation implies death, but it’s clear the earth has never seen a humanitarian crisis of this scale. (Edit: my percentage of population math was off. It’s 4-5x WWII on that metric.)
tamaharbor 6y ago
Just wait until the hyperinflation begins...
korethr 6y ago
Given the stress of the current crisis, this does not surprise me. The topic of the news for the past two months now is that there's a doom plague, a mask might not save you, people are violating quarantine to spread the plague, the economy is going to collapse, and Trump is making it all worse. People have lost their jobs, are being told they can't work, that they must stay home, they must stay away from other people, they must be afraid, etc and so forth. So in light of that, it does not surprise me at all that depression and anxiety are ramping up in the adult population. Neither does the breakdown by age surprise me, with it being worst amongst 18-29 year-olds, and declining with age. I would love to see a finer breakdown in that category. Here is my hypothesis: For the youngest of adults, especially those just now entering adulthood or their professional careers, this is probably the first societal shock they've experienced. They did what they were supposed to according to The Plan of How The World Works. They persevered through the soul-crushing hell that is high school, and got the best grades they could, and applied for colleges, and are ready to become adults. Or maybe they didn't get quite so good grades or dropped out and were banking on being able to support themselves with some kind of basic labor or service job. Or maybe they've taken out all the student loans to go to college, and are coming into what's supposed to be the beginning of their professional career to an economy that's about to collapse. Or if they haven't graduated, now there's the uncertainty if whether or nor they'll be able to finish their degree, with there being question about when/if campuses will open back up, or whether the online classes offered as substitutes will actually do any useful teaching. Regardless of the myriad variations available in the above, the basic situation remains the same: here they are, their life finally about to begin, and now the economy is collapsing, everyone's dying, a fascist oompa loompa controls the government, and generally the world is over. Well, shit. Now what? I speak somewhat hyperbolically in describing the above, of course, but I stand by my basic point: The youngest adults are beginning their adulthood in fairly bad situation. And unless they're old enough to remember the previous societal shocks that were supposed end the world, but didn't, it's all to easy to come near the despair event horizon or even cross it. Compare those who are a little older, or hell, a lot older. They've seen the Housing Crisis, War, 9/11, the dot-com bubble, and so on and so forth. And yet, they didn't die and are still here. Odds are, at least one of the previous crises made their life worse for a time, or messed up what was supposed to be a bright future or golden opportunity. And yet, they didn't die, and are still here. And the older they are, odds are, the more times they've seen that the world was about to end, and then didn't. And the more likely they've internalized the lesson that in crises like these, how well they come out of it depends largely on their attitude and how they apply themselves to getting through it. And so we see that with the older and older age groups, the anxiety and depression numbers are lower and lower. This post might sound a bit ranty, and like I am projecting, and I'd be lying if I tried to claim there weren't threads of that woven through it. But it is not my intention for this to be just a "toughen up you whippersnappers and get off my lawn!" type post. No, if I had to have a message for the youngest of adults, it's this: I get it. The world just got turned upside down an nobody knows what's coming next. But, the future is not over, and things will get better. There are still opportunities to be found, and you _can_ come out of this stronger.
werber 6y ago
I thought i had conquered my anxiety with lifestyle changes and then this happened. For someone who depends on their community but lives alone, this is major. I’m sick of people shaking me off for feeling depressed despite their introversion or their social circle being their family. For those of us alone, and isolated, who are extroverted, this blows the big one. I feel crazy every day. I’m not even sure if i want to code anymore. I miss meetings. I find myself crying with no reason everyday. Like I’m a middle aged man and this is honestly the hardest non self induced hardship I’ve ever dealt with. Oh... damn
pstuart 6y ago
I'm a very mild type II bipolar, and I recognize that depression is a biochemical affair, but the situational aspect cannot be ignored either. I have ongoing anxiety over the fascist coup that has taken place in the US, as well as the fact that we're cooking the planet and being actively blocked to try to remediate that. I don't know how to be at peace with that.
- whiddershins 6y ago
  I might encourage you to reconsider the reality tunnel you are subscribing to. Not because it is false, but because it is opinion-based, and interpretive, and reliant on certain assumptions. If it is making you miserable, it might be worth exploring a different, equally compelling, version of reality.
  - pstuart 6y ago
    I'm always welcome to new input, but the two cases I cited have compelling facts behind them. Being that I'm not thrilled to carry these notions, I'd be more than happy to have my mind "changed". Go for it: change my mind. I'm not spoiling for a fight -- I genuinely don't like being "wrong."
    - penagwin 6y ago
      Not op, but to phrase it another way, consider if it's benificial to worry about - vote for who you want etc. But that doesn't mean you have to watch every political "event" - you'll just burn yourself out. I'm not saying bad things aren't happening - just that if there's nothing more you can do, try not to envolope your life with it. It's like high school drama - it can feel like it's your entire world but in reality it doesn't necessarily matter.
      - pstuart 6y ago
        I understand what you're saying and I would if I could (and I try). But my understanding of things is that shit's gonna get a lot worse. If it was just me I'd say fuck it, party and watch the world burn. But I have kids, and I don't want to go down without a fight.
kbos87 6y ago
I went through a several years long period of pretty extreme anxiety. I went through sleepless nights, racing thoughts, near panic attacks on public transportation (for seemingly no reason!) In retrospect, it was a pretty terrible time, despite the fact that a lot of things were going well in my life from an outsiders perspective. I can honestly say that therapy along with a lot of introspection got me to a much better place, despite my doubts from time to time. For anyone going through it, know that it actually, honestly is something you can get past with help.
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
if you want to understand what's going on zoom out and look at the last 200 years of civilization and society. Nietzsche is probably the best resource who predicted this. You can read "Ecco Homo" or "Thus spoke Zarathistra" and see the parallels in our modern life. He predicted the herd mentality which we've created. We despise and fear mental pain which is required for growing and most of us rather Netflix'n'Chill than read a book. Parents who put their kids on Ritalin or give them a tablet to be quiet. Then as part of the herd-mentality we have the social-justice-warriors and activists and the cancel-culture preachers who try to fill this void with their own faulty logic (as a way to cope with their own pain - knowing something terrible is happening but drawing dangerous and false conclusions they are nothing but fools). Today we have also the PsychologyIndustrialComplex which is filled with people who have no idea what they're talking about. It's no surprise that the product of all this is collective depression, rising nihilism and anti-natalism, and hate. Technology's (and Science and Academia in general) role in this is to produce ways of "making things easier" (coping mechanisms) but no longer to produce greatness. So science and knowledge as taught today is not the way out but part of the cause. Here are a few videos, though you should probably read the books if you can: 1) Nietzsche and Psychology: How To Become Who You Are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyCzLbcAvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyCzLbcAvk 2) Nietzsche and Morality: The Higher Man and The Herd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE67Ye91Ii0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE67Ye91Ii0 3) Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: The Last Man and The Superman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhMJl11JUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhMJl11JUo 4) Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Becoming Gods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrVnjpVdWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrVnjpVdWE there is also "The conspiracy against the human race" by Thomas Ligotti (which was stolen by the producers of "True Detectives" for a monologue without giving credits). https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace
particleandwave 6y ago
The quarantine made my depression and anxiety disorder much worse. About two weeks into quarantine, I started feeling paralysing sorrow about everything that ever happened to me, and the view of the future became grim. I guess the time alone made me confront my problems in a way I couldn't handle, so I resumed my psychotherapy and went back on anti-depressants. I still haven't figured out the way to get out of this only-bad-thoughts loop. Morning Yoga helps a bit, and sports, in general, seem to take the stress away, though not for long. Maybe someone can share their experiences coping with that?
- derpa 6y ago
  you need to face your problems head-on, yoga will not help with that
effnorwood 6y ago
They don’t. Fake news.

354 points by xoxoy 6y ago

I'm telling you, the elite of this country in the 90s and the early 2000s sold this whole country up the creek. Both sides of the political spectrum pushed ultra capitalist policies and broke the common fabric of America. All meaningful blue collar work was outsourced, large swaths of intelligent highly competitive workers insourced from other countries, artificial boosting of financial assets, etc. The old America is rotting, the new America we see is bright and shiny. This will take a long time to fully surface, 50 years maybe, but it will eventually.

fermienrico 6y ago
Not just America, but all nations have decided that let's gut out the local manufacturing of goods, allow complete exploitation of labor in one country and then reap the benefits. Now there is only one place that knows how to make stuff. Executives benefited tremendously at the expense of their homeplace. This way the entire fabric of the country tears apart and gets so tangled that voices of reason, science, truth and liberty gets drowned and no one knows what to believe anymore. The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced. Don't worry, services are starting to go to this centralized authoritarian regime too, not just physical goods.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced. Divide et impera. But it doesn't even have to be a conspiracy and "class warfare", it seems that "enemy action" is hard to tell apart from "we've just let things happen and this is what happened".

Exmoor 6y ago

http://archive.vn/7dj2r http://archive.vn/7dj2r

Exmoor 6y ago

>“What’s worrying is the effect this situation is clearly having on young adults.” I wonder if this is a perverse side effect of normalcy bias [0]? For me, a person in middle age, I can look back at my life and see a lifetime of fairly stable history with only a few traumatic events (9/11, 2008 crash). If you're 22, the current circumstances make up a much larger portion of your life. >The toll has also hit the poor much harder, according to the Census Bureau data — throwing into even sharper relief mental health disparities that have long existed. This seems completely, and sadly, reasonable. You probably couldn't design a situation in a lab that would screw over the poor more than COVID-19. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

username90 6y ago
A young person is building their life, lockdown is preventing them from doing that. For example a person looking to build a family will miss out on a few months they could find a partner, and the fertility clock is ticking
- ithkuil 6y ago
  Arguably the fertility clock is ticking harder for those who in their late thirties just realized perhaps it's ok to stop waiting for full employment stability before starting to consider a family.
  - username90 6y ago
    A large majority of people in their late thirties have already established a family, they wont show up in statistics.
    - ithkuil 6y ago
      Wow. I just checked the average age of motherhood in the USA and it's 26yo. That's 6 years less than in the country I'm living; perhaps my intuitions about what it's normal in a modern society are heavily skewed (and in my social circles it's even worse, with age if motherhood around 35yo, largely due to effects caused precarious work)

ReticentVole 6y ago

The 'cure' of endless and pointless lockdowns is indeed proving worse than the disease, particularly when the CDC estimates overall mortality from the virus will be only 0.4%: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/data-cdc-estimates-covid-19-mortality-rate/275-fc43f37f-6764-45e3-b615-123459f0082b https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/data-cd... For reference the seasonal flu is 0.2%, for which we do... precisely nothing.

marcell 6y ago
I'm confused by the downvotes on this. The comment is quoting CDC numbers, this is not some fake news report. The 0.4% mortality for coronavirus is the CDC best estimate. The 0.2% is from the CDC website for the 2017 flu season. Edit: The parent comment has apparently been flag removed. But it was claiming that the reaction to coronavirus (lockdown) is worse than the damage from the virus, and used the above comparison to flu mortality to support this claim. I'm not sure why this comment was flag removed, since it used data to support a position.
- username90 6y ago
  People made the issue political in USA. So instead of thinking rationally and discussing facts people just vote along the party lines. Downplaying the disease makes them think that you are right wing and hence should be down-voted.
  - nunodonato 6y ago
    it just shows how brainwashed people are, even here on HN. Bogeyman corona is coming to eat you all!! Disregard facts, turn on the tv and continue to spit out fear.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  I'll bite. That percentage represents a million people in the US. It also doesn't represent the number of people who may experience shortened lifespans due to damage to their lungs or other organs. Also, the comment suggests that we do nothing for the flu, which is patently false. We organize massive vaccination efforts every year to combat the flu, we have readily available tests, and we have a well understood model for how it spreads and how to treat it (including antivirals if caught early.) Comparing it to the flu seems to be arguing in bad faith along political lines rather than deeply examining the issue.

catalogia 6y ago

I feel fortunate that I have a south-facing balcony I can sunbath on during the day. Sunlight is a great antidote for many people when they're feeling blue, but this has now become inaccessible to many. Sunlight through windows just doesn't cut it; glass blocks too much UV.

Pfhreak 6y ago

I've dealt with depression and anxiety for many years. I just want to tell anyone who happens to read this: it's ok to ask for help, it's ok to go to therapy, it's ok to use antidepressants. Find the tools that work for you and keep asking for help when you need it. (Believe me, I know how hard it is.)

spicyramen 6y ago
Isn't antidepressants in America one of the reasons of the opioid crisis...?
- akiselev 6y ago
  No, that would largely be Purdue Pharmaceuticals misleading doctors regarding dosage and timing along with an unhealthy dose of fentanyl from China.
- CaptainZapp 6y ago
  I assume that's a genuine question and that you're not trolling. Opioids are a very different class of drugs than anti depressants (including medication to treat anxiety). While people with mental issues may use opioids for self medication, no reasonable psychiatrist would ever prescribe such medication for psychological issues. Oxy and their ilk were massively pushed by Purdue and their "colleagues" as a non-addictive pain relief if applied correctly. They lied, of course, and that's where the US is now with the opioid crisis, since those drugs were massively over-prescribed. It can't be mentioned enough that if you have serious mental issues then appropriate medication may be one of the pillars to help you out of the deepest circles of hell. While it maybe a crutch (sometimes temporary, sometimes long term) it can be immensely helpful if properly prescribed and monitored and seriously be the difference between life and death. edit: slight clarification
  - MrBeansForReal 6y ago
    I think he is right. Many depressed, long-term unemployed folk must have had pains of various kind as depression symptoms. I think most folk have used opioids to "treat" their depression, nothing else. Something like Ruskies with vodka when their empire was collapsing. The difference is at least their elites weren't in denial about it.

tathougies 6y ago

Well, duh, the expected prevalence of any disease diagnosed entirely by the fiat of a group of people enriched by the disease being more prevalent is pretty close to 100%. In other words, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is not to deny the reality of depression and anxiety but to cast doubt on the diagnostic criteria purveyed by a special interest group whose members get richer and more respected the more they can convince the world that the thing they do is needed. All professions justify their own existence.

presiozo 6y ago

I wonder what's the correlation between this and people being underpaid. I'm fortunate enough to have my own house after graduation so I don't have to pay rent. But I have friends that don't have this luxury and man, they are struggling. Besides eating and rent they can't afford anything else in a month. No question here what's giving them these feelings

virvar 6y ago
I live in Denmark, where we lift a lot of the burden of civilisation together, to give everyone access to education, health/elderly/child care as well as a solid security system for those who get unemployed. And here society is hard enough these days, pressing more and more people beyond their limits. I really wonder how you all do it in America.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  We’re particularly nuts if you want the short answer.
- mdszy 6y ago
  That's what they don't tell you - a whole lot of people straight up DON'T do it. A whole lot of people are homeless. Many people never go to the doctor because they can't afford it.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > And here society is hard enough these days, pressing more and more people beyond their limits. I really wonder how you all do it in America. It's all relative. Someone in the US is looking at failed states in Central America and Africa and thinking the same thing. One day, people will look at Denmark and think the same. Objectively people may be having a better or worse time in different places at different times, but how you personally feel about your situation is all relative at the end of the day.
- paulddraper 6y ago
  Exceptionalism.

crocodiletears 6y ago

The nation's been psychologically wrong-footed during an election year where the incumbent is the most controversial president in decades (one who's been impeached, even), the challenging party's primary process has been subjected to accusations of corruption and favoritism (at best) by the presumed nominee's opposition, and been riddled with suspicious errors. That alone would be a memorable storm and a half for our political history, but it coincides with a sweeping collapse in institutional trust, economic hardship, concerns of government overreach, and fear of mortal peril. And we're just inaugurating the decade.

pjc50 6y ago
And there's a global pandemic on and people are stuck inside.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  Wait, that too? Woof. Not great.
samdamsamm 6y ago
America has a profound ability to diagnose individual problems, and an active inability to diagnose social problems. The American psychological industry cannot be let off the hook. DSM-5 is a handbook for how to blame society’s failures on individuals. We need scientific doctors capable of considering not only the realities they are allowed to accept but also the realities of the actually existing world in which their patients live. We desperately need legitimate mental health institutions, but for-profit healthcare and for-profit education cannot provide that.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  I think you mean the American psychiatric industry, rather than psychological industry. DSM is produced by both, but the over-medication of America is 100% driven by the psychiatrists (as they can actually prescribe drugs).

amriksohata 6y ago

I strongly feel there is a link between modern foods and our gut/brain axis that is causing a lot of this.

atomashpolskiy 6y ago
You may be interested in watching Robert Lustig's lectures.

MrBeansForReal 6y ago

This, if true, would be suicides sky-rocketing. Psychology... science... so called.

forgingahead 6y ago

Probably correlates very closely with the increase in hysterical media and news reporting.

orwin 6y ago
Either you're overestimating how most people consume news media, or i'm underestimating it. Unless you think the fact that journalists are more often depressed and/or anxious make their reporting more "hysterical". In this case you might be onto something.
dntbnmpls 6y ago
Kinda like "A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression".

boomboomsubban 6y ago

Though this is a troubling outcome, the questions asked seem a little vague for the times. Basically everyone will "feel down" or "feel nervous" given the risk facing them and their loved ones. I feel nervous every time I go to the grocery store, but it would need to be causing problems in my life to be clinical anxiety.

nca-peripherals 6y ago

Before this incident (I've been through a few disasters and violent incidents), I was already on my 13th antidepressant (vilazodone) which doesn't appear to be working. Also on propranolol, clonidine, atomoxetine, carbamazepine, baclofen, gabapentin, and 40 mg/day of CBD. I buy CBD isolate (pure CBD) in bulk and make my own sublingual tincture using a precisely-measured ratio of ingredients comprising: - Organic coconut oil - Vitamin E T50 - Grape seed / citrus extract - CBD in a dark glass container filled into sterile saline spray bottles for use. If you don't do this, then you're probably either being cheated or don't know what you're taking. Anyhow, so far this new antidepressant doesn't seem to be working so the dose is getting upped. If this doesn't work, it's back to mirtazapine and weight gain. The only other options involve anticholinergics, extrapyramidal issues, electricity, magnets, and/or brain surgery. I also have gradually, over the past few years, developed some sort of neurological decline vaguely reminiscent of vascular, frontotemporal, or Lewy body dementia or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (I was born cyanotic over several hours because of incompetent Kaiser Permanente doctors and was hit in the head extremely hard as a teenager twice and didn't receive proper medical care). I can barely speak, I stutter a lot, my memory is disappearing, and my level of consciousness and clarity is declining. I can't code in any language anymore and I used to work in Rust, Haskell, C, Crystal, and so on. My sleep is a mess... one or a few hours here and there at all times of the day. I use every bit of concentration to write this. If it's an incurable condition, I will go somewhere very, very remote in Montana or Wyoming and breathe nitrogen.

tokamak-teapot 6y ago
It sounds like you're in a bad place. Lots of us have been there. Seek help from others, please. There are people around, hopefully in your local area, who can help.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Sounds like they are and have been.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

JSavageOne 6y ago

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope. The U.S. is more and more resembling a failed state, a mere shadow of what it used to be.

3pt14159 6y ago
Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Canada and elsewhere too.
- rwc 6y ago
  uh “Attractive, fit, intelligent” seems like a winning combination regardless of the era.
  - huonpine 6y ago
    Yes, but Attractive, fit and intelligent are different in every era.
- sdwa 6y ago
  I agree about the toxicity of social media, it's why I don't have an Instagram and, well, Facebook is dead among my generation anyway so it's not an issue. >Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. Is this a real problem though? I've heard about how women rate most men as below average, yada yada, but monogamy is still dominant, it's not like these hot men are building harems---on aggregate the vast majority will end up with a life partner, just as always. Am I missing something?

GoodJokes 6y ago

Capitalism is the single largest cause of depression. Pass it on.

supercanuck 6y ago

I mean how much data and analysis do we really need at this point to realize America is a complete shit show at the moment. Statistics be damned, Inductive Reasoning needs to take center stage here.

paulddraper 6y ago
Ah, very insightful. Is there a consensus on what makes it bad and how it should be remedied?
- all2 6y ago
  Well, yes. For the last four years I've been hearing about this orange cartoon character and what an awful impact he's had. There was something about Russia and the orange man, but that went away after about 3 years. Then the orange man was taking credit for some other guy's economic expansion. Now there's this virus thing, and I'm hearing the orange man is making a terrible job of it. According to my sources, the remedy is to remove the orange man.
  - Applejinx 6y ago
    That's a start. Also, this is the first I've heard that Russia went away. Where ever did it go? And who told you that it was gone? Seems like a pretty big (and historically well understood…) thing, and most unlikely to randomly disappear.
    - coliveira 6y ago
      Justice decided they cannot/don't want do anything about it and the Republican dominated senate decided they don't want to hold the president accountable for anything.
  - paulddraper 6y ago
    It depends how much you trust your sources about the cartoon character.

aszantu 6y ago

As a person with a history of depression and social anxiety I really do feel calmer since the crisis started, as if my state of mind was made for this kind of life. Less people on the streets, it's quieter, no one breathing down my neck in the supermarket, home office, no expectations on how to pick my clothes, how to behave, no trying to hide the weird stuff I eat (carnivore, high meat, raw, cooked and aged whatever gets on the plate), no forced socializing.

Applejinx 6y ago
I agree. It's not that my state of life is that great: in many ways it's a side-effect of a nasty upbringing that did me harm, and I'd be better off without it and am actively pursuing repair of some of these mental issues. But given that I've spent my life with a set of challenges, this crisis has given me space to sort out what parts of it are ME and what parts are issues needing to be fixed. That's pretty valuable. Even better, I don't think we'll ever go back to boisterous 'forced socializing or you are a bad person!' attitudes. There are now conditions attached, and that's reasonable (and opens the door to conditions like 'I don't have coronavirus, but when I socialize like you guys do I panic')
- surfpel 6y ago
  I also relate to this. My hope for cultural change post pandemic is that the shift towards remote work will persist after it's over. I love being an engineer but I can't stand working in an open office or commuting 2 1/2 hours a day.
  - buran77 6y ago
    For a while I wondered if I'm the outlier since I feel substantially better now than I did before going into isolation. Then some of my close friends who were on anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication told me the same. They actually stopped taking the medication for months with no signs that the symptoms are coming back. It's anecdotal and I have no idea how widespread this is or why it happens, at least to people for whom self-isolation didn't work in the past. I can only imagine that the isolation may relieve some of the social pressure without leaving you with the feeling that you have to go to extraordinary measures to achieve it, it doesn't feel so self inflicted like self-isolation does under regular conditions. Now it's an external cause and applies to everybody.

rb808 6y ago

I can't read the article but does it say what it was before covid? I'm not sure if this is a virus related thing or just a longer term trend.

conistonwater 6y ago

Diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression are very broad because they are necessary as tools for practicing doctors seeing patients (as opposed to applying them to a random selection of people). If you turn the process back, and just ask how many people in the population fit under them, you'll always, even in normal times, get an unexpectedly large number. That doesn't imply that anything is wrong or that anything needs to be done about it, doctors don't use them like that. This is approximately the same phenomenon that causes medical students to self-diagnose themselves with every disease they learn about: one of the fundamental factors missing from such a diagnosis is that they haven't walked into a clinic. It's not a bug in the diagnostic criteria, it's just a misapplication of them. One of the main ways of fighting over-diagnosis is to not apply diagnostic criteria for every known condition to random people who you have no a priori reason to suspect they might have those conditions.

ssivark 6y ago
This is an important point about the role of priors — especially if one is using a statistical (correlation based) proxy for what is actually a causal question. But here’s a practical question: imagine a universal healthcare mandate which allows people to get a mental health check-up every year. What criteria should the doctors use? Would the diagnostics have to change significantly?
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  What do practitioners do in countries with universal healthcare?
  - chipperyman573 6y ago
    You still need to actively persue the healthcare even if your country pays for it.
    - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
      I will say the barriers are definitely lower though when i compare my home country Australia to my adopted country the USA. Sure you need to actively pursue healthcare in Australia but the barriers are just so much lower. A great example is http://www.cancerscreening.gov.au/internet/screening/publishing.nsf/Content/bowel-cancer-screeningkit-eligibility http://www.cancerscreening.gov.au/internet/screening/publish... You fill in the details and you're mailed a reply post paid bowel cancer screening kit.

karatestomp 6y ago

Shit, our terrible healthcare system's given me what'd probably qualify as clinical anxiety for longish periods several times in the last few years, and that's despite being well into the top 20% most economically-fortunate Americans, consistently having health insurance, and not having really serious or chronic medical problems in my immediate family.

Ididntdothis 6y ago
Same here. I am totally terrified of being in an accident or having a serious disease and then getting wiped out financially as I have seen others in similar situations. If you are lucky things usually work out but it can easily happen that you are liable for a $60000 helicopter ride or a $300000 hospital bill because somebody (not even you) has filled out some paperwork incorrectly.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  > I am totally terrified of being in an accident or having a serious disease and then getting wiped out financially For majority of people through history, a serious accident or disease would wipe them out biologically, not just financially. Were they totally terrified throught their lives because of it? I don't think so. It's all a matter of perspective. I personally try to accept that my life will end, the ending will likely be agonizing and nasty, and it can happen at any moment. I don't know a lot about meditation, but I think some strains of meditation schools tend to focus a lot on this fact, with daily contemplation of decaying bodies etc. It's an ancient tradition which may actually contain a lot of wisdom.
ropable 6y ago
As a non-American, the US healthcare system is the #1 reason I would consider as a counter-argument against immigrating there by a wide margin.

munificent 6y ago

I recently read "Man's Search for Meaning", written by a psychologist who survived several years in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Frankl's main thesis is that humans have a deep need for meaning in their life, which he defines as producing some kind of work, caring for others, or having enriching experiences. This strongly resonates with me. I believe America's consumer culture undermines this need. Many work "bullshit jobs" only to be able to afford to consume things — the work itself is not for anything more meaningful than a paycheck. Mass manufacturing lets us care of most of our material needs ourselves so there is less culture around caring for each other than there used to be. There are an infinite number of "experiences" available, but most are simply consuming a thing created by someone else and endlessly reproduced. There is nothing particularly enriching about watching the latest Hollywood spectacle, nearly instiguishable from the previous ten movies in the franchise. Frankl observed about his fellow prisoners that people could survive anything if they had something to live for. But when our lives are meaningless and we fill that void with shallow pleasures and distractions, we are ill-equipped to have the resilience needed to get through something like the current pandemic. When something bad enough is going on that Netflix no longer takes your mind off it, then to what do you turn?

caleb-allen 6y ago
It seems that American culture and/or economics have, in recent decades, moved toward primarily consumption rather than primarily production. My point of view is that the backlash and anger against capitalism I perceive from younger generations is a result of how unfulfilling consumerism really is. I think individualism and personal liberty has been conflated with a selfish sort of consumerism, from the end consumer up through corporate cultures. Want something new? Buy it! Are you a business wanting to make inroads in a new sector? Don't research and produce. Acquire! It is no surprise to me, then, that corporate debt is at an all time high, corporations and individuals are less prepared and resilient than ever, and that this crisis is violently exposing that.
- munificent 6y ago
  > I think individualism and personal liberty has been conflated with a selfish sort of consumerism Yes. It's important to note, too, that this isn't something American people spontaneously decided to do. It was a deliberate strategy by rich business owners to sell the country on the idea of consumerism being great (because it was great for their businesses).

irrational 6y ago

What age? I've noticed way more young people (teenagers and early 20s) exhibiting signs of anxiety and depression than people my own age (mid 40s). I never knew anyone with anxiety or depression growing up. But that probably has a lot more to do with mental illness not being discussed back than it not being around. But, even among me friend group nobody exhibited the signs that I see so clearly prevalent among my own kids' friend groups. Is it social media? Some chemical that has entered our environment? Is it something having to do with growing up in a post-9/11 world?

danharaj 6y ago
late stage capitalism
- seibelj 6y ago
  This a low-effort comment
ryanwaggoner 6y ago
I think they would say that their future prospects are a lot dimmer than yours were, precisely because boomers have strip-mined civilization for their own benefit and left your kids' generation holding the bag. At 37, I'm among the oldest of the millennials and I don't entirely agree with that assessment, but I think that's what they'd say.
- irrational 6y ago
  That doesn't explain teenagers. My teens and their friends are not aware of that sort of things at all. That is more of a college-student mentality.
  - danharaj 6y ago
    Teenagers are sensitive to the cognitive dissonance that accompanies learning how society works and their place in it, even if they're not yet able to articulate those feelings. Some are more precocious than others but anything a college student would be able to tell you about their relationship to society was developing for years beforehand.

tracerbulletx 6y ago

In las vegas, our unemployment rate is very close to hitting a third so. No surprise there.

austincheney 6y ago

I suspect a third of Americans are now displaying symptoms of mental health disorders that were already present. Mental health disorders are drastically under reported in the US, and due to various stigmas most people are unwilling to except mental health illnesses as actual illnesses until they are prepared to harm someone. This is the number one problem most police officers deal with when engaging with the public. Many people have mental health disorders they are not aware of resulting in all manners of poor decisions and disorderly conduct. Some of these disorders are severe and demand medication and some are exaggerated by existing medications. I recommend talking with experienced police officers and listening to some of their war stories. My sister-in-law is also a managing mental health counselor and says the number of undiagnosed mental health disorders could represent as much as 40% of the population. In my own experience I find that people hide from this by frequently changing their social situation and environment through out the day, such as driving to an office. When you are stuck at home full time with nowhere to go suddenly coping and distraction mechanisms are gone which becomes clear to the coinhabitants. I am on my fifth military deployment so I have gone through this a few times, and you can readily see the people lacking of a regular rhythm of emotional stability and stress management. You are with these people all the time as you live, socialize, and work with them. On a military deployment you can’t rely on a frequent change of scenery to hide your insanity. The most common example of excuse that people would hide behind pre-pandemic is finances. Bad financial situations are stressful, but stress is not a mental health disorder. Extreme stresses though often exacerbate pre-existing illnesses. In that regard bad finances don’t produce mental health disorders as frequently as suggested but instead exaggerate pre-existing conditions that become more clearly identifiable. The difference between stress and a mental health disorder is something called homeostasis, which is the ability of the brain to return to a state of regular emotional equilibrium following an incidence of high stress. The military refers to the cognitive process of actively maintaining homeostasis as resiliency and it’s part of our annual training. The inability to return to resume functions of prior behavior following a major stressor is likely the result of a mental health illness. https://www.academia.edu/4970988/Mental_Health_DSM-V_mental_disorder_and_homeostasis_dream_sleep_and_day_time_interaction_of_cerebellum_and_cerebrum_in_the_regulation_of_behaviour_emotion_and_cognition https://www.academia.edu/4970988/Mental_Health_DSM-V_mental_...

ConcernedCoder 6y ago

What a world we live in... Tucker Carlson on Fox News yesterday tried to directly correlate the findings in this study to other news agency reports ( lies according to Tucker ) on the coronavirus... see the video @ around 6:50ish headlining this story on Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-cnn-msnbc-are-peddling-panic-moral-judgment-not-science-and-data-in-coronavirus-coverage https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-cnn-msnbc-are...

idoby 6y ago

With psych stuff, I can't help but wonder how much of it is shooting the arrows and then placing the target...

jjice 6y ago

I'd like to see anxiety and depression rates associated with age and social media usage. In my personal experience, social media gave me a lot more negative feeling than positive. I know a lot of people handle it better than I do, but I'd still like to see. I'm also curious if this is associated with more diagnoses because we've become more aware of these issues as a society, or if this can be associated with the internet and our modern "always on" lives. My guess is that the former is more of a reason, but I'd love to see some studies in this area.

Havoc 6y ago

I find the direct linkage to corona to be a little misleading. My gut feeling says this is a broader sign of the times: * Rising youth unemployment * Gig economy & the uncertainty that comes with it * Crushing study debt * Little hope of owning property * Rapidly increasing inequality * Offshoring & automation * Healthcare system where serious sickness can lead to financial ruin * Debt fueled systems (or credit score if you prefer - a system that kicks people when they're down) I'd venture that the sane response is anxiety or depression. But yeah sure go ahead and blame it on the immediate trigger - COVID

danans 6y ago
It could be both: Everything you listed has been turning the screws into people for a while, but this event has pushed people with those pre-existing anxieties over the top to needing clinical intervention. It's similar to how the economy had a number of fragilities prior to COVID19 - actually, in a sense they are the same, given that people are the economy.
pathseeker 6y ago
>* Rising youth unemployment Before COVID? >* Little hope of owning property This realistically only applies in a few hot cities in the US and to low income groups. The middle class still can easily achieve home ownership in most of the US. >* Rapidly increasing inequality This is just a political talking point. It has no realistic impact on the day-to-day life of the bulk of the population. Whether Jeff Bezos has 1 billion or 1 trillion doesn't really matter to someone making 90k living in Chicago. >* Healthcare system where serious sickness can lead to financial ruin Again, this doesn't apply to a huge portion of the US population because they have health insurance. Remember that the reason that healthcare is so hard to change in the US is because it works for the majority of the population.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > Again, this doesn't apply to a huge portion of the US population because they have health insurance. Let me guess you've never had to use yours for anything major.

courtf 6y ago

I believe the existential crisis so many are experiencing has been caused by the pandemic, but perhaps not in the way one might expect when approaching the problem rationally. Yes, we are more isolated, and perhaps concerned for the safety of ourselves or our loved ones, or even for some abstract concept of community or society, but depression is characterized by anhedonia: the inability to feel pleasure. Are we all sitting around, so preoccupied by the crises of the day that we have become numb to pleasure? That doesn't describe depression, although perhaps anxiety. I would describe depression as the loss of most strong feelings, not only pleasurable ones, and that is why death becomes so alluring: fear of death has been numbed as well. No, an existential crisis is rooted in the meaning, or lack thereof, we are able to ascribe to our lives. And the pandemic has in many ways restricted our connections to those sources of meaning. Whatever stories we were telling ourselves about our life's purpose, the plotlines we imagined for ourselves, have been disrupted. The student has had their university all but taken from them. They cannot experience it in quite the same tangible way as they once did. The same is true for the worker who derives his meaning from labor. For many, that connection has been damaged, if not severed. It is the loss of meaning that accompanies the dawning realization that our sources of meaning were nothing more than illusions to begin with. We realize now that life goes on without these guiding influences; that the rituals we perform do not in fact earn us the favor of the Gods. We come upon the idea that perhaps life really is meaningless and that we were in fact only existing previously because of a foolish, irrational faith. It has been thrust upon us, entirely by happenstance (and not because of any rational deduction or brilliance on our parts), that we are fools, rubbing our prayer beads and voluntarily deluding ourselves into thinking that some bit of our finite, meaningless lives could somehow persist alongside the infinite. "For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite."

daseiner1 6y ago
fine points up to the third paragraph. you said yourself that the pathways of meaning have been blocked - of course then things would feel meaningless! there’s doesn’t need to be a Meaning to life for life to have meaning

eee_honda 6y ago

no paywall: https://archive.fo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/26/americans-with-depression-anxiety-pandemic/?arc404=true https://archive.fo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/202...

davidw 6y ago

US politics are making me seriously anxious. Will I have to leave if I want my kids to grow up in a healthy democracy? Where would we go? Will there be violence before/after the election or transfer of power? More than anything, I don't have much of a sense of hope for something better. Maybe things go ok and "the bleeding stops", but it'll still be a long, difficult slog to start fixing all that's broken. Oh, yeah, and there's also a deadly pandemic on the loose.

hedora 6y ago
You forgot that global warming will displace 1/3 of the earth’s population by 2070, and that the WHO is now estimating that the coronavirus response will lead to 1 billion starving people (1/7 of the population), up from their beginning of year estimate of 135M. That’s 10x more people than died in WWII (including civilians on all continents). As a percentage of population, it’s 3x more than WWII. In the WHO numbers, I don’t think starvation implies death, but it’s clear the earth has never seen a humanitarian crisis of this scale. (Edit: my percentage of population math was off. It’s 4-5x WWII on that metric.)

tamaharbor 6y ago

Just wait until the hyperinflation begins...

korethr 6y ago

Given the stress of the current crisis, this does not surprise me. The topic of the news for the past two months now is that there's a doom plague, a mask might not save you, people are violating quarantine to spread the plague, the economy is going to collapse, and Trump is making it all worse. People have lost their jobs, are being told they can't work, that they must stay home, they must stay away from other people, they must be afraid, etc and so forth. So in light of that, it does not surprise me at all that depression and anxiety are ramping up in the adult population. Neither does the breakdown by age surprise me, with it being worst amongst 18-29 year-olds, and declining with age. I would love to see a finer breakdown in that category. Here is my hypothesis: For the youngest of adults, especially those just now entering adulthood or their professional careers, this is probably the first societal shock they've experienced. They did what they were supposed to according to The Plan of How The World Works. They persevered through the soul-crushing hell that is high school, and got the best grades they could, and applied for colleges, and are ready to become adults. Or maybe they didn't get quite so good grades or dropped out and were banking on being able to support themselves with some kind of basic labor or service job. Or maybe they've taken out all the student loans to go to college, and are coming into what's supposed to be the beginning of their professional career to an economy that's about to collapse. Or if they haven't graduated, now there's the uncertainty if whether or nor they'll be able to finish their degree, with there being question about when/if campuses will open back up, or whether the online classes offered as substitutes will actually do any useful teaching. Regardless of the myriad variations available in the above, the basic situation remains the same: here they are, their life finally about to begin, and now the economy is collapsing, everyone's dying, a fascist oompa loompa controls the government, and generally the world is over. Well, shit. Now what? I speak somewhat hyperbolically in describing the above, of course, but I stand by my basic point: The youngest adults are beginning their adulthood in fairly bad situation. And unless they're old enough to remember the previous societal shocks that were supposed end the world, but didn't, it's all to easy to come near the despair event horizon or even cross it. Compare those who are a little older, or hell, a lot older. They've seen the Housing Crisis, War, 9/11, the dot-com bubble, and so on and so forth. And yet, they didn't die and are still here. Odds are, at least one of the previous crises made their life worse for a time, or messed up what was supposed to be a bright future or golden opportunity. And yet, they didn't die, and are still here. And the older they are, odds are, the more times they've seen that the world was about to end, and then didn't. And the more likely they've internalized the lesson that in crises like these, how well they come out of it depends largely on their attitude and how they apply themselves to getting through it. And so we see that with the older and older age groups, the anxiety and depression numbers are lower and lower. This post might sound a bit ranty, and like I am projecting, and I'd be lying if I tried to claim there weren't threads of that woven through it. But it is not my intention for this to be just a "toughen up you whippersnappers and get off my lawn!" type post. No, if I had to have a message for the youngest of adults, it's this: I get it. The world just got turned upside down an nobody knows what's coming next. But, the future is not over, and things will get better. There are still opportunities to be found, and you _can_ come out of this stronger.

werber 6y ago

I thought i had conquered my anxiety with lifestyle changes and then this happened. For someone who depends on their community but lives alone, this is major. I’m sick of people shaking me off for feeling depressed despite their introversion or their social circle being their family. For those of us alone, and isolated, who are extroverted, this blows the big one. I feel crazy every day. I’m not even sure if i want to code anymore. I miss meetings. I find myself crying with no reason everyday. Like I’m a middle aged man and this is honestly the hardest non self induced hardship I’ve ever dealt with. Oh... damn

pstuart 6y ago

I'm a very mild type II bipolar, and I recognize that depression is a biochemical affair, but the situational aspect cannot be ignored either. I have ongoing anxiety over the fascist coup that has taken place in the US, as well as the fact that we're cooking the planet and being actively blocked to try to remediate that. I don't know how to be at peace with that.

whiddershins 6y ago
I might encourage you to reconsider the reality tunnel you are subscribing to. Not because it is false, but because it is opinion-based, and interpretive, and reliant on certain assumptions. If it is making you miserable, it might be worth exploring a different, equally compelling, version of reality.
- pstuart 6y ago
  I'm always welcome to new input, but the two cases I cited have compelling facts behind them. Being that I'm not thrilled to carry these notions, I'd be more than happy to have my mind "changed". Go for it: change my mind. I'm not spoiling for a fight -- I genuinely don't like being "wrong."
  - penagwin 6y ago
    Not op, but to phrase it another way, consider if it's benificial to worry about - vote for who you want etc. But that doesn't mean you have to watch every political "event" - you'll just burn yourself out. I'm not saying bad things aren't happening - just that if there's nothing more you can do, try not to envolope your life with it. It's like high school drama - it can feel like it's your entire world but in reality it doesn't necessarily matter.
    - pstuart 6y ago
      I understand what you're saying and I would if I could (and I try). But my understanding of things is that shit's gonna get a lot worse. If it was just me I'd say fuck it, party and watch the world burn. But I have kids, and I don't want to go down without a fight.

kbos87 6y ago

I went through a several years long period of pretty extreme anxiety. I went through sleepless nights, racing thoughts, near panic attacks on public transportation (for seemingly no reason!) In retrospect, it was a pretty terrible time, despite the fact that a lot of things were going well in my life from an outsiders perspective. I can honestly say that therapy along with a lot of introspection got me to a much better place, despite my doubts from time to time. For anyone going through it, know that it actually, honestly is something you can get past with help.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

if you want to understand what's going on zoom out and look at the last 200 years of civilization and society. Nietzsche is probably the best resource who predicted this. You can read "Ecco Homo" or "Thus spoke Zarathistra" and see the parallels in our modern life. He predicted the herd mentality which we've created. We despise and fear mental pain which is required for growing and most of us rather Netflix'n'Chill than read a book. Parents who put their kids on Ritalin or give them a tablet to be quiet. Then as part of the herd-mentality we have the social-justice-warriors and activists and the cancel-culture preachers who try to fill this void with their own faulty logic (as a way to cope with their own pain - knowing something terrible is happening but drawing dangerous and false conclusions they are nothing but fools). Today we have also the PsychologyIndustrialComplex which is filled with people who have no idea what they're talking about. It's no surprise that the product of all this is collective depression, rising nihilism and anti-natalism, and hate. Technology's (and Science and Academia in general) role in this is to produce ways of "making things easier" (coping mechanisms) but no longer to produce greatness. So science and knowledge as taught today is not the way out but part of the cause. Here are a few videos, though you should probably read the books if you can: 1) Nietzsche and Psychology: How To Become Who You Are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyCzLbcAvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyCzLbcAvk 2) Nietzsche and Morality: The Higher Man and The Herd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE67Ye91Ii0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE67Ye91Ii0 3) Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: The Last Man and The Superman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhMJl11JUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhMJl11JUo 4) Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Becoming Gods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrVnjpVdWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrVnjpVdWE there is also "The conspiracy against the human race" by Thomas Ligotti (which was stolen by the producers of "True Detectives" for a monologue without giving credits). https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace

particleandwave 6y ago

The quarantine made my depression and anxiety disorder much worse. About two weeks into quarantine, I started feeling paralysing sorrow about everything that ever happened to me, and the view of the future became grim. I guess the time alone made me confront my problems in a way I couldn't handle, so I resumed my psychotherapy and went back on anti-depressants. I still haven't figured out the way to get out of this only-bad-thoughts loop. Morning Yoga helps a bit, and sports, in general, seem to take the stress away, though not for long. Maybe someone can share their experiences coping with that?

derpa 6y ago
you need to face your problems head-on, yoga will not help with that

effnorwood 6y ago

They don’t. Fake news.