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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 l

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.
    - throw_away 6y ago
      This article from late April addresses this phenomenon: https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of-people-anxious-and-depressed-but-some-sufferers-actually-feel-better-now https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of...
    - surfpel 6y ago
      I think it’s even deeper than that. Human society has changed a lot really quickly, it would be unreasonable to expect a seamless transition. Similar to how wild animals in captivity suffer from tremendous stress due to their environment, the pressures from living in our society are massive. Compared to say living in 1000 AD. Family units are smaller, life is more fast paced and it’s way more complicated with all the credit cards, the often difficult legal system, and ever present “connection” to one another through messaging and social media. During this pandemic I’ve deleted all my social media accounts and even though I’m less “connected” now, I feel much better than before and the world even feels more real to me.
      - deleted 6y ago
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      - deleted 6y ago
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    - DanielleMolloy 6y ago
      My worktime shifted more towards evening / night which is good for me because I’m a night owl and seemingly can only think very deeply at night. Having to work 9-5 with all its distractions can make me depressed as I start to make more mistakes or don’t really „get into“ things and produce shallow work. After being unsatisfied with my work for some time I tend to lose trust in my abilities. Did you observe something similar for you? Some colleagues also shifted towards evenings (many more evening chats right now).
    - retsibsi 6y ago
      I don't know how widely this applies, but sometimes undirected anxiety is harder to deal with than being worried about a specific thing. And if you're going to be anxious no matter what, then external circumstances might not affect the intensity of the anxiety as much as would seem logical. So it's possible that some people have benefited from having a very concrete threat to focus on, and relatively clear steps to minimise the risk. (I'm not trying to push this too far: I assume it mostly applies to people who have enough control over their lives to take the necessary precautions, and who are fortunate enough that the threat to them and their loved ones remains a possibility rather than a tragic reality. And I know that the exact opposite can happen: sometimes external threats just multiply the pre-existing anxiety and make it even harder to cope.)
warent 6y ago
Do you live in a city? It sounds like you might enjoy living in a small town much more. Many small towns are very similar to what you just described all the time.
- gtm1260 6y ago
  I thought I wanted to live in a City but quarantine has made me realize I actually want to live in a small town/countryside.
- tylerFowler 6y ago
  Have to choose the town wisely... in extremely small towns you might find people go out of their way to interact with you more and are generally more interested in your private business. Part of my family lives in small towns and I think they have less privacy than I do.
- kitotik 6y ago
  As a self-proclaimed weirdo and staunch individualist, small towns can be very difficult to just mind your own business in. Literally everything you do or don’t do tends to get noticed and talked about amongst the residents. There’s something to be said for the anonymity of large urban center.
  - _jal 6y ago
    Absolutely. I grew up in a tiny town, and loved the ability to get way out in the middle of nowhere with no humans around. And hated practically everything else about it. Small towns make your business everyone's. There's a desperation for gossip that's just gross to me, and worse, if you don't play along, you're an outcast. Which worked fine for me, except it makes you a target for local shitheads. I get why others might like it if they're social extroverts who fit whatever local majority-normal is, if not, a city is a far better place to live.
  - temporaryvector 6y ago
    I agree with this. I have though about it extensively, as an introvert who hates large cities, and I think (at least for me) a city between 500k and 1 million inhabitants spread out over a sizeable area is ideal. It has some of the benefits of a large city and some of the benefits of a small town, and I think it strikes a good balance between being anonymous in a crowd while having enough space for myself to live comfortably. Such a city would also have the population to find enough people with similar interests/hobbies to have clubs and meetups.
HighlandSpring 6y ago
Did you seek out carnivore/animal-centric nutrition in response to gut issues, mental health or something else? I keep stumbling upon anecdotes of significantly improved states of mind since going keto/carnivore. Have you found any discussions putting forward a proposed mechanism behind these reportings?
- jesperado 6y ago
  Not OP but I'm consuming a mostly carnivore diet, I struggled with gout for years and since I went keto and then pretty much carnivore I haven't had a flare up. I eat meat, fish, eggs, cheese and cauliflower (my stool seem fine with or without fiber but a little bit makes me feel more "flushed out", lol). The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) and dehydration in my opinion and the carnivore diet and/or keto pretty much takes care of that, it eliminates the carbs and meat in my experience makes you drink a lot of water. It is also a lot easier to maintain your weight (also very important in the gout equation) on carnivore, I find it really hard to over eat, you hit satiety fast and I find that there is a lot less noise in the hunger signals. My stomach now days only makes itself reminded when I truly need energy, no "fake" cravings. My mental state also seem clearer, I find fat to be a smoother source of energy then carbs. Fat is a slow stable burn while carbs is a violent explosive burn, which is cool every now and then but you pay a price for it.
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    > The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) Citation? Because isn't gout generally thought by the medical establishment to be caused by high-protein, low vegetable diets that raise uric acid?
    - srle 6y ago
      Yes. The carnivore diet stuff is just straight up garbage fad dieting except it sounds cool or whatever so it appeals to insecure dudes. No real substance to it, and everyone I’ve ever seen promote just spits out the same bullshit claims as every other fad diet testimonial (“no more brain fog”) Unless you’ve been instructed to by an actual doctor, switching to a meme internet diet promoted by morons like Jordan Peterson is probably not a great idea.
renewiltord 6y ago
Not a response to parent comment, but does anyone know of studies of people that describe their self-assessment? My impression is that most people think they're weirder than they are, i.e. most people fall within a band of what everyone would call normal, but they often self-assess as weird in one way or the other. i.e. for parameter X which typically ranges between x and x' and for which people estimate themselves at x1, they typically severely underestimate the size of the range (x,x') and conclude that x1 is outside it, when it's really inside it.
- andai 6y ago
  I think I'm normal, and everyone else tells me I'm weird :)
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Haha, but is it the case that maybe those people (or perhaps even everyone) tell everyone else at some point that they're weird? i.e. one problem with this is that if someone calls lots of people weird, their calling you weird isn't significant. And I'm certain everyone has been called 'weird' at some point in their lives, so merely having been called weird is insufficient to actually be weird.
    - oigursh 6y ago
      The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- wayoutthere 6y ago
  It really depends! Some forms of mental illness come with an inability to understand the illness as one of the diagnostic criteria -- this is part of why so many people are internally resistant to diagnosis. I was diagnosed as bipolar 2 a few years ago, and I just assumed the mood swings I dealt with were normal. Doesn't everyone occasionally get too enthusiastic during a meeting? Or call in sick because they can't get out of bed? Turns out no, everyone has mood swings from time to time but mine were more predictable and severe enough they were preventing me from doing the things I wanted to. Hence the diagnosis and medication. This is why mental health professionals are important. It can go both ways -- sometimes folks are just neurotic and overanalyzing themselves, and sometimes they're oblivious to the mental illness they do have. Medication and life changes help, but the first step is to see a professional who can help you sort through whether your mood issues rise to the level of clinical or not.
OriginalPenguin 6y ago
You're eating raw meat? Like high quality beef carpaccio? Or supermarket meat you don't cook, or?
false_kermit 6y ago
My therapist told me that a lot of her anxious clients are actually doing really well with all this, because now everybody is anxious and it feels less alienating.
bsanr2 6y ago
So much of American how society functions is going to be rethought after this - telework, hygiene, respect for healthcare and "essential" workers - but somehow, I don't think "the dignity and health of shy or introverted people" is going to be part of that. Extroverts are finally seeing what the other side looks and feels like, but rather than reconsider how their privilege might come at the expense of our health and happiness, they're clawing at their cages like rabid beasts to get out and "get back to normal." And if you have to live with one, you know that the first few weeks were bliss, until they started getting antsy and began offloading their nervous energy on you. Can't win.
kull 6y ago
So true. I also feel less pressure. In normal times, you should be out Friday evening, now it’s normal to stay home alone.
code_duck 6y ago
Same for me. I was already out of work and could barely eat at restaurants due to a few years of emerging health problems, so the idea that we're supposed to stick around the house and get groceries delivered was easy to accept. It actually felt like a nice change from my habits. I like some of the political changes it is catalyzing, such as how some people are gaining a better understanding of why the government should provide a functional social safety net, and mandate things like paid sick leave. However, it's been hard to witness and deal with the effects I've seen on other people. My roommate has been extremely stressed out. It makes me feel sad to see all the restaurants and bars that are closed down, and normally busy districts deserted at 6:00 on a Friday. I feel bad for people who have no choice but to continue working in high-risk jobs, and those whose businesses will be interrupted for quite some time, such as concert organizers. And, of course, for the hundreds of thousands of people who have died and their families.
burnte 6y ago
I also have a history of depression, 20+ years on an antidepressant manages it very well, but I'm an extrovert, so this has me climbing the walls. It's been difficult to deal with for me.
particleandwave 6y ago
Sadly, I experienced the opposite. I also have a history of depression and panic disorders (not social, however), and I was getting better before the quarantine. When the quarantine struck about a week after I started feeling hopelessness as if I have no control in life anymore. Like things, bad things will happen to me, and I will not be able to cope with it. Then memories over past mistakes took over, and I started obsessing on every little bad thing I've ever done. As time went by these thoughts filled my head for the most of the day, and because of quarantine restrictions, I wasn't able to do much to shake them off. Anybody else experienced something similar?
- tripzilch 6y ago
  I found I just break down without human contact. Thoughts. No thoughts. Staring, not moving. It's not good. I'm thankful that the lockdown restrictions are easing up a bit where I live and I can meet with friends again. Otherwise I'd have been arguing to take it slower with opening up, if it wasn't taking such a toll on me.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
catsdanxe 6y ago
I am the opposite. My depression and anxiety has gotten worse since I have been stuck working from home. The social interaction I got at work has been significantly reduced.

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.
  - throw_away 6y ago
    This article from late April addresses this phenomenon: https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of-people-anxious-and-depressed-but-some-sufferers-actually-feel-better-now https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of...
  - surfpel 6y ago
    I think it’s even deeper than that. Human society has changed a lot really quickly, it would be unreasonable to expect a seamless transition. Similar to how wild animals in captivity suffer from tremendous stress due to their environment, the pressures from living in our society are massive. Compared to say living in 1000 AD. Family units are smaller, life is more fast paced and it’s way more complicated with all the credit cards, the often difficult legal system, and ever present “connection” to one another through messaging and social media. During this pandemic I’ve deleted all my social media accounts and even though I’m less “connected” now, I feel much better than before and the world even feels more real to me.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - DanielleMolloy 6y ago
    My worktime shifted more towards evening / night which is good for me because I’m a night owl and seemingly can only think very deeply at night. Having to work 9-5 with all its distractions can make me depressed as I start to make more mistakes or don’t really „get into“ things and produce shallow work. After being unsatisfied with my work for some time I tend to lose trust in my abilities. Did you observe something similar for you? Some colleagues also shifted towards evenings (many more evening chats right now).
  - retsibsi 6y ago
    I don't know how widely this applies, but sometimes undirected anxiety is harder to deal with than being worried about a specific thing. And if you're going to be anxious no matter what, then external circumstances might not affect the intensity of the anxiety as much as would seem logical. So it's possible that some people have benefited from having a very concrete threat to focus on, and relatively clear steps to minimise the risk. (I'm not trying to push this too far: I assume it mostly applies to people who have enough control over their lives to take the necessary precautions, and who are fortunate enough that the threat to them and their loved ones remains a possibility rather than a tragic reality. And I know that the exact opposite can happen: sometimes external threats just multiply the pre-existing anxiety and make it even harder to cope.)

warent 6y ago

Do you live in a city? It sounds like you might enjoy living in a small town much more. Many small towns are very similar to what you just described all the time.

gtm1260 6y ago
I thought I wanted to live in a City but quarantine has made me realize I actually want to live in a small town/countryside.
tylerFowler 6y ago
Have to choose the town wisely... in extremely small towns you might find people go out of their way to interact with you more and are generally more interested in your private business. Part of my family lives in small towns and I think they have less privacy than I do.
kitotik 6y ago
As a self-proclaimed weirdo and staunch individualist, small towns can be very difficult to just mind your own business in. Literally everything you do or don’t do tends to get noticed and talked about amongst the residents. There’s something to be said for the anonymity of large urban center.
- _jal 6y ago
  Absolutely. I grew up in a tiny town, and loved the ability to get way out in the middle of nowhere with no humans around. And hated practically everything else about it. Small towns make your business everyone's. There's a desperation for gossip that's just gross to me, and worse, if you don't play along, you're an outcast. Which worked fine for me, except it makes you a target for local shitheads. I get why others might like it if they're social extroverts who fit whatever local majority-normal is, if not, a city is a far better place to live.
- temporaryvector 6y ago
  I agree with this. I have though about it extensively, as an introvert who hates large cities, and I think (at least for me) a city between 500k and 1 million inhabitants spread out over a sizeable area is ideal. It has some of the benefits of a large city and some of the benefits of a small town, and I think it strikes a good balance between being anonymous in a crowd while having enough space for myself to live comfortably. Such a city would also have the population to find enough people with similar interests/hobbies to have clubs and meetups.

HighlandSpring 6y ago

Did you seek out carnivore/animal-centric nutrition in response to gut issues, mental health or something else? I keep stumbling upon anecdotes of significantly improved states of mind since going keto/carnivore. Have you found any discussions putting forward a proposed mechanism behind these reportings?

jesperado 6y ago
Not OP but I'm consuming a mostly carnivore diet, I struggled with gout for years and since I went keto and then pretty much carnivore I haven't had a flare up. I eat meat, fish, eggs, cheese and cauliflower (my stool seem fine with or without fiber but a little bit makes me feel more "flushed out", lol). The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) and dehydration in my opinion and the carnivore diet and/or keto pretty much takes care of that, it eliminates the carbs and meat in my experience makes you drink a lot of water. It is also a lot easier to maintain your weight (also very important in the gout equation) on carnivore, I find it really hard to over eat, you hit satiety fast and I find that there is a lot less noise in the hunger signals. My stomach now days only makes itself reminded when I truly need energy, no "fake" cravings. My mental state also seem clearer, I find fat to be a smoother source of energy then carbs. Fat is a slow stable burn while carbs is a violent explosive burn, which is cool every now and then but you pay a price for it.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  > The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) Citation? Because isn't gout generally thought by the medical establishment to be caused by high-protein, low vegetable diets that raise uric acid?
  - srle 6y ago
    Yes. The carnivore diet stuff is just straight up garbage fad dieting except it sounds cool or whatever so it appeals to insecure dudes. No real substance to it, and everyone I’ve ever seen promote just spits out the same bullshit claims as every other fad diet testimonial (“no more brain fog”) Unless you’ve been instructed to by an actual doctor, switching to a meme internet diet promoted by morons like Jordan Peterson is probably not a great idea.

renewiltord 6y ago

Not a response to parent comment, but does anyone know of studies of people that describe their self-assessment? My impression is that most people think they're weirder than they are, i.e. most people fall within a band of what everyone would call normal, but they often self-assess as weird in one way or the other. i.e. for parameter X which typically ranges between x and x' and for which people estimate themselves at x1, they typically severely underestimate the size of the range (x,x') and conclude that x1 is outside it, when it's really inside it.

andai 6y ago
I think I'm normal, and everyone else tells me I'm weird :)
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Haha, but is it the case that maybe those people (or perhaps even everyone) tell everyone else at some point that they're weird? i.e. one problem with this is that if someone calls lots of people weird, their calling you weird isn't significant. And I'm certain everyone has been called 'weird' at some point in their lives, so merely having been called weird is insufficient to actually be weird.
  - oigursh 6y ago
    The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
wayoutthere 6y ago
It really depends! Some forms of mental illness come with an inability to understand the illness as one of the diagnostic criteria -- this is part of why so many people are internally resistant to diagnosis. I was diagnosed as bipolar 2 a few years ago, and I just assumed the mood swings I dealt with were normal. Doesn't everyone occasionally get too enthusiastic during a meeting? Or call in sick because they can't get out of bed? Turns out no, everyone has mood swings from time to time but mine were more predictable and severe enough they were preventing me from doing the things I wanted to. Hence the diagnosis and medication. This is why mental health professionals are important. It can go both ways -- sometimes folks are just neurotic and overanalyzing themselves, and sometimes they're oblivious to the mental illness they do have. Medication and life changes help, but the first step is to see a professional who can help you sort through whether your mood issues rise to the level of clinical or not.

OriginalPenguin 6y ago

You're eating raw meat? Like high quality beef carpaccio? Or supermarket meat you don't cook, or?

false_kermit 6y ago

My therapist told me that a lot of her anxious clients are actually doing really well with all this, because now everybody is anxious and it feels less alienating.

bsanr2 6y ago

So much of American how society functions is going to be rethought after this - telework, hygiene, respect for healthcare and "essential" workers - but somehow, I don't think "the dignity and health of shy or introverted people" is going to be part of that. Extroverts are finally seeing what the other side looks and feels like, but rather than reconsider how their privilege might come at the expense of our health and happiness, they're clawing at their cages like rabid beasts to get out and "get back to normal." And if you have to live with one, you know that the first few weeks were bliss, until they started getting antsy and began offloading their nervous energy on you. Can't win.

kull 6y ago

So true. I also feel less pressure. In normal times, you should be out Friday evening, now it’s normal to stay home alone.

code_duck 6y ago

Same for me. I was already out of work and could barely eat at restaurants due to a few years of emerging health problems, so the idea that we're supposed to stick around the house and get groceries delivered was easy to accept. It actually felt like a nice change from my habits. I like some of the political changes it is catalyzing, such as how some people are gaining a better understanding of why the government should provide a functional social safety net, and mandate things like paid sick leave. However, it's been hard to witness and deal with the effects I've seen on other people. My roommate has been extremely stressed out. It makes me feel sad to see all the restaurants and bars that are closed down, and normally busy districts deserted at 6:00 on a Friday. I feel bad for people who have no choice but to continue working in high-risk jobs, and those whose businesses will be interrupted for quite some time, such as concert organizers. And, of course, for the hundreds of thousands of people who have died and their families.

burnte 6y ago

I also have a history of depression, 20+ years on an antidepressant manages it very well, but I'm an extrovert, so this has me climbing the walls. It's been difficult to deal with for me.

particleandwave 6y ago

Sadly, I experienced the opposite. I also have a history of depression and panic disorders (not social, however), and I was getting better before the quarantine. When the quarantine struck about a week after I started feeling hopelessness as if I have no control in life anymore. Like things, bad things will happen to me, and I will not be able to cope with it. Then memories over past mistakes took over, and I started obsessing on every little bad thing I've ever done. As time went by these thoughts filled my head for the most of the day, and because of quarantine restrictions, I wasn't able to do much to shake them off. Anybody else experienced something similar?

tripzilch 6y ago
I found I just break down without human contact. Thoughts. No thoughts. Staring, not moving. It's not good. I'm thankful that the lockdown restrictions are easing up a bit where I live and I can meet with friends again. Otherwise I'd have been arguing to take it slower with opening up, if it wasn't taking such a toll on me.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

catsdanxe 6y ago

I am the opposite. My depression and anxiety has gotten worse since I have been stuck working from home. The social interaction I got at work has been significantly reduced.