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This reminds me of a talk by Michael Yapko titled "Keys to unlocking depression"[1], where he said: "My first job was working in a psychiatric facility and I w

This reminds me of a talk by Michael Yapko titled "Keys to unlocking depression"[1], where he said: "My first job was working in a psychiatric facility and I was the admissions person. It was my job to admit new patients to the unit. ... "I would interview people who had been through the worst experiences that you could imagine. People who had been raped, tortured, mutilated, people who had fled their homelands literally with bullets whizzing past their head, people who lost their entire family in one fell swoop in a plane crash or a car crash, people who had suffered the worst adversities you could possibly imagine. "When I would interview these people it would be easy to appreciate why they were broken, why they were so despairing, why they had given up on life. ... But what fascinated me clinically ... was when I interviewed people who had been through these horrific experiences, people who probably should have been depressed but they weren't, and I wanted to know why not. What is it about the way these people are coping that somehow serves to insulate them against depression?"* [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU

agumonkey 5y ago
There's something about depression when your mental model of the world becomes a swamp. I've never been through losses as horrible as Yapko describes, but I'd say these people had still a clear yes/no point of view on how to live. What I'm curious is how these people avoided PTSD though..
- laurent92 5y ago
  That is a good observation. Nothing so bad for me (except 15 years battling) but I had always assumed everyone with a higher education was more or less decent, until my breakup at 23. I’m 38. The violence of it stunned me. And the worst violence, is that everyone is fine with what women do to men at breakup - when the same people would be up in arms if a male were a “pervert narcissist” telling truths in a vexating way, while they don’t mind that my girlfriend asked me to move to another country only to dump me there without notice, without remotely thinking that I would be homeless for 3 days and it was winter, and would be too disoriented to recover abroad or to choose to come back. I know, expecting people who say “I love you” to mildly care for you after breakup is a childish expectation. I… I didn’t know. I had been fed popular songs usually saying “We broke up but I wish you the best”. I didn’t know someone who loved me could suddenly make me homeless because I wasn’t pleasing her in bed anymore. This is violent. And society is fine with that, and people don’t tell that normal girls might do that, while they warn all the time about pervert narcisssists. For 15 years I oscillated between good person, gay, misogynist, or worse, and cut ties with 98% of my friends and all my family. But clearly, my mental model of people’s interactions is a swamp: I both understand nothing of why people are unnecessarily mean gratuitously, and both understand very clearly that we are pieces of meat. I could now strangle kittens without any feeling right now, and yet I don’t do that and still donate to charities, because I try to believe in a world of decent people. Which the world clearly is not. My mental model is a swamp, this is correct. Sorry for going out of topic.

agumonkey 5y ago

There's something about depression when your mental model of the world becomes a swamp. I've never been through losses as horrible as Yapko describes, but I'd say these people had still a clear yes/no point of view on how to live. What I'm curious is how these people avoided PTSD though..

laurent92 5y ago
That is a good observation. Nothing so bad for me (except 15 years battling) but I had always assumed everyone with a higher education was more or less decent, until my breakup at 23. I’m 38. The violence of it stunned me. And the worst violence, is that everyone is fine with what women do to men at breakup - when the same people would be up in arms if a male were a “pervert narcissist” telling truths in a vexating way, while they don’t mind that my girlfriend asked me to move to another country only to dump me there without notice, without remotely thinking that I would be homeless for 3 days and it was winter, and would be too disoriented to recover abroad or to choose to come back. I know, expecting people who say “I love you” to mildly care for you after breakup is a childish expectation. I… I didn’t know. I had been fed popular songs usually saying “We broke up but I wish you the best”. I didn’t know someone who loved me could suddenly make me homeless because I wasn’t pleasing her in bed anymore. This is violent. And society is fine with that, and people don’t tell that normal girls might do that, while they warn all the time about pervert narcisssists. For 15 years I oscillated between good person, gay, misogynist, or worse, and cut ties with 98% of my friends and all my family. But clearly, my mental model of people’s interactions is a swamp: I both understand nothing of why people are unnecessarily mean gratuitously, and both understand very clearly that we are pieces of meat. I could now strangle kittens without any feeling right now, and yet I don’t do that and still donate to charities, because I try to believe in a world of decent people. Which the world clearly is not. My mental model is a swamp, this is correct. Sorry for going out of topic.