6 ms·

There are many paths into depression, and many paths out of it. But as someone that once fell into a decade+ of depression and could not get out, I think that o

There are many paths into depression, and many paths out of it. But as someone that once fell into a decade+ of depression and could not get out, I think that one key is to try to get back on top of it quickly. It's a bit like getting further and further out of shape that way, because of the changes of thought patterns and self-image and socialization patterns etc - the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut. (And yet, just like that example, you can always start where you are at, and sometimes even a bit of change can be more dramatic and exhilarating than you think it would be - perhaps walking up the stairs without getting winded feels like a huge victory, if you aren't focused on how long it will be until you run that marathon) In my own experience, and in working with people with severe depression, I have found two things to be almost universal. One is that the pathway out involves better noticing of small shifts in consciousness in the present moment - depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on. The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world.

nextaccountic 5y ago
> But as someone that once fell into a decade+ of depression and could not get out, I think that one key is to try to get back on top of it quickly. Hi, I'm not a native speaker and Google-fu didn't help with this, so.. what do you mean by "get back on top of it"? What actions does it entails?
- sergiosgc 5y ago
  Not a native speaker either, so take this with a grain of salt. I read it as acting promptly, staying ahead of the problem, do not postpone remedial action.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  "get back on top of it" is a symbolic form of speech. Picture two wrestlers. The one on top is in control. The one on the bottom is powerless, subjugated.
- kreeben 5y ago
  I think what they may have meant is, don't wait until you are certain you have hit rock bottom and then start to work on the things that will make you feel better, do it now. Not five minutes from now. Now now. Because there is no bottom. Your inner void in infinite. And the longer you fall the longer is the climb upwards. Or I just read too much into what they said and then projected my own knowledge of my personal misery onto the topic at hand.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  It's based on the idiom "stay on top of things" which has lots of explanatory resources (but apparently no clear etymology).
  - nextaccountic 5y ago
    > To “stay on top of” something means to be continuously aware of it and give it your regular attention. Oh, cool, didn't know it! Yeah, giving regular attention to one's mental health, and being proactive in treating things as they appear, is a good advice.
- knome 5y ago
  >get back on top of it 'on top of it' indicates to 'be in control' the 'get back' to 'regain' as used this is then 'regain control of yourself', rather than allowing the depression to continue its course.
  - podgaj 5y ago
    And to this point, why do we fear depression so much? Why is it not something to welcome instead of fighting and trying to control? Maybe the fighting is what is causing the problem? I will tell you when I ended my battle with depression, my suffering ended. My depression as still there but my suffering was gone. (Please read my other posts here)
- runeg 5y ago
  I tend to use urbandictionary.com a lot if I come across an idiom or slang. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=get%20back%20on%20it https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=get%20back%2... ('Get back on it' and 'Get back on top of it' can be used in the same context. 'Get' is more in the context of a verb for motion/movement/to do as opposed to acquire. Not sure if this helps.)
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
In my early twenties I had a virtuous flywheel effect going, and didn't realize it until it abruptly stopped. It was shocking. Now I take very seriously how dependent I am on my external circumstances for what might look like intrinsic motivation.
- jan_Inkepa 5y ago
  COVID lockdown totally messed up my life momentum on that front - I had a pretty carefully constructed routine and losing that was bad - I'm not so robust otherwise it turns out. Still haven't gotten my shit back in order. Flywheel is a good metaphor!
  - bigbaguette 5y ago
    Lockdowns messed me up real bad too, and with hindsight I actually noticed how our whole beings adapted subconsciously to this nothingness. And this is equally matched by the difficulty to re-adapt when we reopened. Still rough after a month already.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    It's funny, because lockdown actually helped me get out of a funk. I wasn't having to wake up any more to go into work at half five, and was able to get into good sleeping/eating habits, as well as exercise habits both at home and when the gym reopened. Granted, I was blessed to have a job that kept me paid without doing a lot of work, so I had plenty of time to pursue interests and exercise and healthy lifestyle. Going back into the school full-time in August killed me.
  - vagrantJin 5y ago
    On the contrary, lockdown helped me get off liquor. I had left my previous gig due to burnout and had taken alcohol as a coping device. For some reason, the monotonous routine and long commute took a lot out of me personally. Still not sure what caused it exactly. Lockdown made me get some control of my life, schedule it on my terms and it was liberating. I literally felt lighter and more at ease, back to balanced normality as some might put it. I'm afaid I still have no full grasp of what is going on in my own mind and body. At least not in terms that would be scientifically acceptable.
pbrw 5y ago
> the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world. Can give some examples of such activities?
- mongol 5y ago
  Exercise
- loceng 5y ago
  Yoga, massage, Wim Hof method, saunas, acupuncture, water fasting, hiking, etc. And then there are a number of plant medicines (or other chemicals/entheogens like MDMA, ketamine, Ayahuasca/psilocybin/DMT, kambo, hape, etc) that temporarily alter your sensitivities, your connection or experience with sensory systems - which in part can be healing due to providing you a strong new perspective via the contrast and memory of that contrast opening up new possibilities - leading to the opening of your mind and heart; Ayahuasca and other are also known to have compound(s) in them that perpetuate or facilitate neuronal growth, meaning new pathways more rapidly being able to form, allowing possibility that if deeply entrenched, stuck in say a state of depression, new pathways and logic gates can or will open; this is where the current spiritual-ceremonial-psychedelic community fails currently, in adequately supporting the integration work - as with temporary separation from ego (arguably eventually possible to lead to ego death or ego dissolution) you can tap into unhealed/unprocessed emotional trauma that's been being suppressed at or fully since a childhood trauma (that you likely didn't beforehand understand as being traumatic) - which you may be able to process partly to fully on your own - but you may have extreme difficulty at some point, or not have the precise guidance to allow you to quickly get passed a block; for example there's a specific sound therapy developed nearly 70 years ago in France that is perhaps the only therapy to unblock a certain type of energetic flow/processing block. And in my own brutal experience with healing to reconnect to my body, in the process of opening my mind and heart, I also reconnected to my physical body and the immense level of physical pain from injuries I had accumulated throughout my life - now 38 - the pain level being overwhelming for my nervous system only soon after getting LASIK eye surgery 7 years ago, the damage caused to everyone's corneas that get it as the corneas can't heal properly contrary to the propaganda by the industry - where it was LASIK that finally "broke the camel's back" - initially causing a strong tension and pain down the right side of my neck, along with a strong-constant general agitation, but where that evolved to central sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain, where all sensations in my body were amplified to 100% of my mind or consciousness' ability to perceive pain - severe enough that my executive function has been fucked for the majority of the last 5 years; it's been a rough 5 years, to say the least, however as I've had dozens of stem cell treatments to heal all the sources of pain, injuries, I've gradually been able to reduce the severity of dysfunction and limitations that pain has put on me - though I have more work to do - I'm able to more often to connected to hope.
agumonkey 5y ago
I see a stupid principle in nature. Never let any system deviate out of the mean. The sooner you invest in restoring good habits, good spirit, even if life sucks even if you dont feel like it it really is the shortest path to normalcy. Once you're too far off the middle there seems to be no end to the bottom, thing only get worse, and your brain stays in negative rationalisation mode potentially forever. Also our minds are very relativistic and you can always find a reason why your pain is impossible to fix. I think we share the same conclusion. Especially about benefits of the somatic path.
- loceng 5y ago
  Pain captures our attention, negativity feeds pain. It makes sense: pay attention to your body if you're injuring yourself, and stop moving forward if you keep injuring yourself blindly-unskillfully moving forward in life continuing to injure yourself (and likely others). And the reason negativity feeds pain seems to be at least two-fold: everything in the body is connected and so emotional pain uses at least some of the same pathways as physical pain, and this is perhaps how or where the mind-body connection interfaces - being able to read off eachother via biofeedback loop; think a negative thought that stresses the body, the body tightens causing discomfort that then stresses the body-mind - and the reverse: learning to visualize an infinitely fast beam of healing light encompassing you and forcing its way through whole being as part of self-directed positive reinforcement visualization practice; in part this is a practice of getting as much of your mind active and flowing at once, which can be tough from a longtime stagnant-depressed mind due to suppressed or repressed feelings or sensations or unprocessed trauma. TL;DR - Mind-body: "Pay attention to me or I'm going to force you to [learn why you're in pain, how to heal it, and how to stop from continuing to hurt from it]!"
porker 5y ago
> The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world. I second this. To me it makes a big difference but it has to be kept up; it's not a "done and you'll feel better for a few weeks" but a daily step to take. If it works for you and you haven't explored Peter Levine and somatic experiencing, that can be a good next step to see what your body responds to. Unfortunately none of this helps with my seasonal depression which hit last week. Tried light boxes and vitamin D in previous years - no relief through any. Only 4-5 months to get through...
- stevewodil 5y ago
  No experience trying this myself, but there are people who do "light therapy"
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Can move somewhere it’s always sunny? Not that that really helps if my experience is any indication, but I’m only one person. I tried a sunlight lamp at 10000lm, which was impressive while it was on, but stepping out of my room in the evening messed with me so hard that I never used it again.
  - orzig 5y ago
    I'd recommend continuing to play with it - I use sunlight lamps and there are definitely levels that work for me without wrecking my night vision for the rest of the house. Of course, you can also brighten the rest of the house, even during the evening!
  - sjg007 5y ago
    You are supposed to use a sunlamp for only 30mins a day first thing in the morning. Is that what you did?
  - laurent92 5y ago
podgaj 5y ago
> depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on. Nothing but toxic positivity. I have depression and three suicide attempts. What stops me now? Not caring if I am depressed and learning from the lessons it gives me. Depression is only a disease or a disorder because our society does not give you the time to understand it and listen to it. Nope, got to get back to work otherwise out on the street with you! I love my depression, it lets me see a world so few others see. No less true than the common or manic world. And that depressive world still acts upon the other worlds but you all just do not see it.
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Plenty of other people do not love their depression, and find it painful and limiting. Dismissing that experience as rooted in "toxic positivity" isn't fair: it's perfectly legitimate to desire a feeling of well-being.
  - podgaj 5y ago
    I don’t love it in a way that I crave it. I love It’s because it is. It’s a total acceptance. It can come and go out of my life and I don’t care. It’s just depression. I am not depressed, there is depression. And I wanna make the clear distinction between what most people here are calling depression is not depression but is in fact sadness.
- llamataboot 5y ago
  I would agree with you that most of our mental and emtional health conditions are both within us and within a context, and that being “crazy” can be a perfectly good and even useful and healthy response to an insane world. But I assure you, I had no desire to stay in the state I was in which was dull grey, numb, dissociated, and isolated. I spent enough years meditating with it that I wasn’t intensely suffering without exactly, though i can’t say I ever got to acceptance and peace. But I wanted something different for my one finite life.
  - podgaj 5y ago
notacoward 5y ago
> the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut. One specific part of this is the difficulty of finding a therapist (in the US). I've had to go through that recently on behalf of a family member. It involves a lot of effort to find and contact providers, talking to strangers about personal things, having most of them reject your case, etc. This has been difficult enough even for me. The people who most need help - especially those with executive function or social anxiety issues - are also most likely to be defeated by the difficulty of getting it. That's a sick system. Schools and employers, who are often the sources of stress inducing or exacerbating mental health problems, could and should do a lot more to make the process easier.
- foxyv 5y ago
  What is worse, so many therapists in the USA are barely competent to handle even basic issues and there is no way to weed out the bad apples if you even get to choose. Insurance doesn't cover adequate care. (Usually 2-3 sessions a YEAR) Also, since it's a part of our horrible medical system it's usually suffering from the same opaque billing and corruption that our hospitals do.
  - echoradio 5y ago
    > Insurance doesn't cover adequate care. (Usually 2-3 sessions a YEAR) This is incorrect. The passage of the ACA required insurance companies to lift the limits on visits for mental health. As someone who has dealt with the mental health system in the U.S. for 20+ years, I remember the time before the ACA and after — a big difference. But even with insurance, it’s not a guarantee to find someone who will treat you. I’ve had the experience of calling a long list of providers who accepted my insurance, but weren’t taking new patients.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  This problem is worsened by the pandemic btw. The demand for mental healthcare has never been higher, but the healthcare system is breaking under they strain as workers are also dealing with burnout. (Also, hospitals and insurance rarely give due to psych it deserves.)
ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
I think one of the huge milestones is getting someone who is in a depressive state of mind to recognize that their lived experience is a function of this cognitive state and may even, in many situations, be a manifestation of an actual condition. I think especially really smart folks who become depressive can easily fall into a trap of rationalizing their depression. One of the toughest things is getting to a point to recognize that the entire body of "data" that your mind is using to make those rationalizations, and the rationalization itself, doesn't fall "outside" the depression. It's such a tricky thing because of it.
alexpetralia 5y ago
When I was depressed, I distinctly remembering having discovered: "I cannot think myself out of this!" Unlike most things in my life, which I could think myself out of (quite successfully!), this one I could not. That had a pretty profound effect on my core epistemology thereafter. The thing which really helped me was retreating to my friends and family (who, thankfully, could get me out of my own head).
- onecommentman 5y ago
  Congratulations on discovering that great truth on your own. You are more than your brain/mind. The sooner anyone experiences (not derives or speculates) that truth the better. It is a vaccination of sorts against a whole host of mental maladies, including depression. The brain/mind by itself can’t deeply heal the brain/mind. But the heart, soul, spirit, etc. (topics rarely mentioned on HN) can. If you can’t solve a problem in the original mind space, transform the problem into another non-mind space where it is more easily solved, then return to the original mind space. See, it’s just math. That presumes you can connect with your heart/soul/spirit/ elan vital/etc.. Probably the first place to start. If you’ve lost that ability, you really need to reclaim it. The rest often follows pretty naturally. There are lots of paths to follow to reclaim the connection. Choose wisely. (Hint: they won’t ask for a CC number up front) And I will now take my robe and staff and depart. :-) Congratulations again.

nextaccountic 5y ago

> But as someone that once fell into a decade+ of depression and could not get out, I think that one key is to try to get back on top of it quickly. Hi, I'm not a native speaker and Google-fu didn't help with this, so.. what do you mean by "get back on top of it"? What actions does it entails?

sergiosgc 5y ago
Not a native speaker either, so take this with a grain of salt. I read it as acting promptly, staying ahead of the problem, do not postpone remedial action.
wombatmobile 5y ago
"get back on top of it" is a symbolic form of speech. Picture two wrestlers. The one on top is in control. The one on the bottom is powerless, subjugated.
kreeben 5y ago
I think what they may have meant is, don't wait until you are certain you have hit rock bottom and then start to work on the things that will make you feel better, do it now. Not five minutes from now. Now now. Because there is no bottom. Your inner void in infinite. And the longer you fall the longer is the climb upwards. Or I just read too much into what they said and then projected my own knowledge of my personal misery onto the topic at hand.
maxerickson 5y ago
It's based on the idiom "stay on top of things" which has lots of explanatory resources (but apparently no clear etymology).
- nextaccountic 5y ago
  > To “stay on top of” something means to be continuously aware of it and give it your regular attention. Oh, cool, didn't know it! Yeah, giving regular attention to one's mental health, and being proactive in treating things as they appear, is a good advice.
knome 5y ago
>get back on top of it 'on top of it' indicates to 'be in control' the 'get back' to 'regain' as used this is then 'regain control of yourself', rather than allowing the depression to continue its course.
- podgaj 5y ago
  And to this point, why do we fear depression so much? Why is it not something to welcome instead of fighting and trying to control? Maybe the fighting is what is causing the problem? I will tell you when I ended my battle with depression, my suffering ended. My depression as still there but my suffering was gone. (Please read my other posts here)
runeg 5y ago
I tend to use urbandictionary.com a lot if I come across an idiom or slang. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=get%20back%20on%20it https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=get%20back%2... ('Get back on it' and 'Get back on top of it' can be used in the same context. 'Get' is more in the context of a verb for motion/movement/to do as opposed to acquire. Not sure if this helps.)

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

In my early twenties I had a virtuous flywheel effect going, and didn't realize it until it abruptly stopped. It was shocking. Now I take very seriously how dependent I am on my external circumstances for what might look like intrinsic motivation.

jan_Inkepa 5y ago
COVID lockdown totally messed up my life momentum on that front - I had a pretty carefully constructed routine and losing that was bad - I'm not so robust otherwise it turns out. Still haven't gotten my shit back in order. Flywheel is a good metaphor!
- bigbaguette 5y ago
  Lockdowns messed me up real bad too, and with hindsight I actually noticed how our whole beings adapted subconsciously to this nothingness. And this is equally matched by the difficulty to re-adapt when we reopened. Still rough after a month already.
- dorchadas 5y ago
  It's funny, because lockdown actually helped me get out of a funk. I wasn't having to wake up any more to go into work at half five, and was able to get into good sleeping/eating habits, as well as exercise habits both at home and when the gym reopened. Granted, I was blessed to have a job that kept me paid without doing a lot of work, so I had plenty of time to pursue interests and exercise and healthy lifestyle. Going back into the school full-time in August killed me.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  On the contrary, lockdown helped me get off liquor. I had left my previous gig due to burnout and had taken alcohol as a coping device. For some reason, the monotonous routine and long commute took a lot out of me personally. Still not sure what caused it exactly. Lockdown made me get some control of my life, schedule it on my terms and it was liberating. I literally felt lighter and more at ease, back to balanced normality as some might put it. I'm afaid I still have no full grasp of what is going on in my own mind and body. At least not in terms that would be scientifically acceptable.

pbrw 5y ago

> the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world. Can give some examples of such activities?

mongol 5y ago
Exercise
loceng 5y ago
Yoga, massage, Wim Hof method, saunas, acupuncture, water fasting, hiking, etc. And then there are a number of plant medicines (or other chemicals/entheogens like MDMA, ketamine, Ayahuasca/psilocybin/DMT, kambo, hape, etc) that temporarily alter your sensitivities, your connection or experience with sensory systems - which in part can be healing due to providing you a strong new perspective via the contrast and memory of that contrast opening up new possibilities - leading to the opening of your mind and heart; Ayahuasca and other are also known to have compound(s) in them that perpetuate or facilitate neuronal growth, meaning new pathways more rapidly being able to form, allowing possibility that if deeply entrenched, stuck in say a state of depression, new pathways and logic gates can or will open; this is where the current spiritual-ceremonial-psychedelic community fails currently, in adequately supporting the integration work - as with temporary separation from ego (arguably eventually possible to lead to ego death or ego dissolution) you can tap into unhealed/unprocessed emotional trauma that's been being suppressed at or fully since a childhood trauma (that you likely didn't beforehand understand as being traumatic) - which you may be able to process partly to fully on your own - but you may have extreme difficulty at some point, or not have the precise guidance to allow you to quickly get passed a block; for example there's a specific sound therapy developed nearly 70 years ago in France that is perhaps the only therapy to unblock a certain type of energetic flow/processing block. And in my own brutal experience with healing to reconnect to my body, in the process of opening my mind and heart, I also reconnected to my physical body and the immense level of physical pain from injuries I had accumulated throughout my life - now 38 - the pain level being overwhelming for my nervous system only soon after getting LASIK eye surgery 7 years ago, the damage caused to everyone's corneas that get it as the corneas can't heal properly contrary to the propaganda by the industry - where it was LASIK that finally "broke the camel's back" - initially causing a strong tension and pain down the right side of my neck, along with a strong-constant general agitation, but where that evolved to central sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain, where all sensations in my body were amplified to 100% of my mind or consciousness' ability to perceive pain - severe enough that my executive function has been fucked for the majority of the last 5 years; it's been a rough 5 years, to say the least, however as I've had dozens of stem cell treatments to heal all the sources of pain, injuries, I've gradually been able to reduce the severity of dysfunction and limitations that pain has put on me - though I have more work to do - I'm able to more often to connected to hope.

agumonkey 5y ago

I see a stupid principle in nature. Never let any system deviate out of the mean. The sooner you invest in restoring good habits, good spirit, even if life sucks even if you dont feel like it it really is the shortest path to normalcy. Once you're too far off the middle there seems to be no end to the bottom, thing only get worse, and your brain stays in negative rationalisation mode potentially forever. Also our minds are very relativistic and you can always find a reason why your pain is impossible to fix. I think we share the same conclusion. Especially about benefits of the somatic path.

loceng 5y ago
Pain captures our attention, negativity feeds pain. It makes sense: pay attention to your body if you're injuring yourself, and stop moving forward if you keep injuring yourself blindly-unskillfully moving forward in life continuing to injure yourself (and likely others). And the reason negativity feeds pain seems to be at least two-fold: everything in the body is connected and so emotional pain uses at least some of the same pathways as physical pain, and this is perhaps how or where the mind-body connection interfaces - being able to read off eachother via biofeedback loop; think a negative thought that stresses the body, the body tightens causing discomfort that then stresses the body-mind - and the reverse: learning to visualize an infinitely fast beam of healing light encompassing you and forcing its way through whole being as part of self-directed positive reinforcement visualization practice; in part this is a practice of getting as much of your mind active and flowing at once, which can be tough from a longtime stagnant-depressed mind due to suppressed or repressed feelings or sensations or unprocessed trauma. TL;DR - Mind-body: "Pay attention to me or I'm going to force you to [learn why you're in pain, how to heal it, and how to stop from continuing to hurt from it]!"

porker 5y ago

> The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world. I second this. To me it makes a big difference but it has to be kept up; it's not a "done and you'll feel better for a few weeks" but a daily step to take. If it works for you and you haven't explored Peter Levine and somatic experiencing, that can be a good next step to see what your body responds to. Unfortunately none of this helps with my seasonal depression which hit last week. Tried light boxes and vitamin D in previous years - no relief through any. Only 4-5 months to get through...

stevewodil 5y ago
No experience trying this myself, but there are people who do "light therapy"
Aeolun 5y ago
Can move somewhere it’s always sunny? Not that that really helps if my experience is any indication, but I’m only one person. I tried a sunlight lamp at 10000lm, which was impressive while it was on, but stepping out of my room in the evening messed with me so hard that I never used it again.
- orzig 5y ago
  I'd recommend continuing to play with it - I use sunlight lamps and there are definitely levels that work for me without wrecking my night vision for the rest of the house. Of course, you can also brighten the rest of the house, even during the evening!
- sjg007 5y ago
  You are supposed to use a sunlamp for only 30mins a day first thing in the morning. Is that what you did?
- laurent92 5y ago

podgaj 5y ago

> depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on. Nothing but toxic positivity. I have depression and three suicide attempts. What stops me now? Not caring if I am depressed and learning from the lessons it gives me. Depression is only a disease or a disorder because our society does not give you the time to understand it and listen to it. Nope, got to get back to work otherwise out on the street with you! I love my depression, it lets me see a world so few others see. No less true than the common or manic world. And that depressive world still acts upon the other worlds but you all just do not see it.

GavinMcG 5y ago
Plenty of other people do not love their depression, and find it painful and limiting. Dismissing that experience as rooted in "toxic positivity" isn't fair: it's perfectly legitimate to desire a feeling of well-being.
- podgaj 5y ago
  I don’t love it in a way that I crave it. I love It’s because it is. It’s a total acceptance. It can come and go out of my life and I don’t care. It’s just depression. I am not depressed, there is depression. And I wanna make the clear distinction between what most people here are calling depression is not depression but is in fact sadness.
llamataboot 5y ago
I would agree with you that most of our mental and emtional health conditions are both within us and within a context, and that being “crazy” can be a perfectly good and even useful and healthy response to an insane world. But I assure you, I had no desire to stay in the state I was in which was dull grey, numb, dissociated, and isolated. I spent enough years meditating with it that I wasn’t intensely suffering without exactly, though i can’t say I ever got to acceptance and peace. But I wanted something different for my one finite life.
- podgaj 5y ago

notacoward 5y ago

> the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut. One specific part of this is the difficulty of finding a therapist (in the US). I've had to go through that recently on behalf of a family member. It involves a lot of effort to find and contact providers, talking to strangers about personal things, having most of them reject your case, etc. This has been difficult enough even for me. The people who most need help - especially those with executive function or social anxiety issues - are also most likely to be defeated by the difficulty of getting it. That's a sick system. Schools and employers, who are often the sources of stress inducing or exacerbating mental health problems, could and should do a lot more to make the process easier.

foxyv 5y ago
What is worse, so many therapists in the USA are barely competent to handle even basic issues and there is no way to weed out the bad apples if you even get to choose. Insurance doesn't cover adequate care. (Usually 2-3 sessions a YEAR) Also, since it's a part of our horrible medical system it's usually suffering from the same opaque billing and corruption that our hospitals do.
- echoradio 5y ago
  > Insurance doesn't cover adequate care. (Usually 2-3 sessions a YEAR) This is incorrect. The passage of the ACA required insurance companies to lift the limits on visits for mental health. As someone who has dealt with the mental health system in the U.S. for 20+ years, I remember the time before the ACA and after — a big difference. But even with insurance, it’s not a guarantee to find someone who will treat you. I’ve had the experience of calling a long list of providers who accepted my insurance, but weren’t taking new patients.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
This problem is worsened by the pandemic btw. The demand for mental healthcare has never been higher, but the healthcare system is breaking under they strain as workers are also dealing with burnout. (Also, hospitals and insurance rarely give due to psych it deserves.)

ChicagoBoy11 5y ago

I think one of the huge milestones is getting someone who is in a depressive state of mind to recognize that their lived experience is a function of this cognitive state and may even, in many situations, be a manifestation of an actual condition. I think especially really smart folks who become depressive can easily fall into a trap of rationalizing their depression. One of the toughest things is getting to a point to recognize that the entire body of "data" that your mind is using to make those rationalizations, and the rationalization itself, doesn't fall "outside" the depression. It's such a tricky thing because of it.

alexpetralia 5y ago

When I was depressed, I distinctly remembering having discovered: "I cannot think myself out of this!" Unlike most things in my life, which I could think myself out of (quite successfully!), this one I could not. That had a pretty profound effect on my core epistemology thereafter. The thing which really helped me was retreating to my friends and family (who, thankfully, could get me out of my own head).

onecommentman 5y ago
Congratulations on discovering that great truth on your own. You are more than your brain/mind. The sooner anyone experiences (not derives or speculates) that truth the better. It is a vaccination of sorts against a whole host of mental maladies, including depression. The brain/mind by itself can’t deeply heal the brain/mind. But the heart, soul, spirit, etc. (topics rarely mentioned on HN) can. If you can’t solve a problem in the original mind space, transform the problem into another non-mind space where it is more easily solved, then return to the original mind space. See, it’s just math. That presumes you can connect with your heart/soul/spirit/ elan vital/etc.. Probably the first place to start. If you’ve lost that ability, you really need to reclaim it. The rest often follows pretty naturally. There are lots of paths to follow to reclaim the connection. Choose wisely. (Hint: they won’t ask for a CC number up front) And I will now take my robe and staff and depart. :-) Congratulations again.