5 ms·

You had a depressive episode, and you recovered. It's not getting older, but the fact that time heals most brains just like exercise and antidepressants do. Ab

You had a depressive episode, and you recovered. It's not getting older, but the fact that time heals most brains just like exercise and antidepressants do. About 70% recover within 12 months [1] [1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12204924/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12204924/ Edit: OP said "Was depressed that [...]" and also mentions death of a loved one. Even if I'm wrong, personally I really wish someone mentioned MDD as a possibility to me earlier. I felt similarly, and I thought all my focus and motivation problems were because I was lazy; but it was quite the opposite, I was fighting depression very hard. I lost so many years of my life reading about death coping skills, optimizing diet and exercise, learning how to be less lazy (?) when it had absolutely nothing to do with any of those.

huijzer 4y ago
> You had a depressive episode, and you recovered. You’re quick in jumping to conclusions.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Agree. I hate my job and clock watch. But I enjoy other things in life. When I get screened for depression it never comes up as a problem. So it seems you can be fine and still watch the clock.
  - sinenomine 4y ago
    Have you considered living frugally and investing most of your income into stock index & crypto to become financially independent?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      That would be nice. I have a family to support and make under $100k. Financial independence is decades away at best.
    - bennysomething 4y ago
      Just one thing, I became really interested in this too. It made me very unhappy that I didn't have it it. Sort of jealous of everyone who does have it. I see a contradiction now in what I wanted: living frugally to be free of pointless desires but in the end craving that so badly it was ruining my best years. (Ps I still throw as much as I can afford in a pension because I'm terrified of being poor with no ability to earn when I'm older) Anyway just my take, I'd still love to be financially free but I've accepted I won't be.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        I-bonds are looking like a good option for the next year or so.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
graderjs 4y ago
Not attacking you in particular but responding to a sentiment evoked by your comment, that I think is all too common: The pathologization of everything is what's abnormal. So, what happened? Guy went through some grief, had normal emotional responses, understandably reconsidered what's important and felt suffocated in a workplace as an employee, after facing the fact that his dad spent a huge chunk of his life in a similar situation and then was gone...highlighting how many missed opportunities there were in that retirement that his dad worked for and never got to enjoy. It's a completely normal emotional Arc to go through and I think it would be abnormal cognitive processing to not go through those emotions and thoughts in the face of an event like that. Subsequently the guy probably found a new relationship and then, falling in love and he forgot to some extent about the depth of the sadness, and life began to take on a new hope, brightness and meaning and, like he said, he had a kid and that would have changed his perspective again... and now he's happy what he's doing and appreciative, and grateful. Maybe him going through the trauma of losing his father did result in him making some sort of subtle internal attitude adjustments or discovering a perspective that ended up with him having more joy in life. That's one way that challenge in life is supposed to work. Anyway so that's the story: the guy had a completely normal Arc and then what does society make it mean? Society (or the extent to which our culture pathologizes normal experience), makes it mean that it this guy's arc must be abnormal or the guy must be mentally ill or it must be depression. That's the crazy thing. People come along and say, oh my God that's depression, or that's some sort of mental illness. And it's like, no it's not: that's someone experiencing normal human emotions and living for real in their life and feeling it and thinking about it. The idea that normal is just a constant smooth tone of some collection of happy emotions and an upward trend and then anything else is like depression or any sort of reconsideration is some sort of abnormal, or mental illness kind of case, I mean that is the sick, crazy thing and I think it's a sickness, it's a mental illness, of our Society... at least the extent to which our society has a culture that views people's individual emotional arcs as abnormal.
- sinenomine 4y ago
  I find it sad that instead of designing mood-enhancing small molecules and making these available to anybody so desiring, we have to text each other with long screens of elaborate copes. This concrete cope presented in the parent comment denies existence of depression, which is really a non-sequitur when we have a solid evidence for substantial heritable differences in baseline happiness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346667/ Every human being deserves happiness, it should be an intrinsic natural good, not a scarce lottery prize it is now.
grenoire 4y ago
I mean... you're extrapolating very hard. The results are not controlled for a completely unchanged lifestyle. Plus, the study specifically shows that people undergoing primary/mental care recover sooner.
robocat 4y ago
> You had a depressive episode Armchair diagnoses of mental health problems is very very bad - perhaps you should see a psychologist yourself because you are most likely damaging others? Even worse, you are ignoring the fact that we can all be situationally “depressed”. You know, when your job feels like shit, and you can’t enjoy your family or friends or anything? But you change your work situation, and the very next day you are invigorated and energetic and you enjoy work again, and you enjoy your family and friends; and the change is lasting? Or when your job feels like shit, but you have a wonderful time in the evenings or on the weekend. You are unlikely to get either of the above if you are clinically depressed (although bipolar may be an exception to that).

huijzer 4y ago

> You had a depressive episode, and you recovered. You’re quick in jumping to conclusions.

giantg2 4y ago
Agree. I hate my job and clock watch. But I enjoy other things in life. When I get screened for depression it never comes up as a problem. So it seems you can be fine and still watch the clock.
- sinenomine 4y ago
  Have you considered living frugally and investing most of your income into stock index & crypto to become financially independent?
  - giantg2 4y ago
    That would be nice. I have a family to support and make under $100k. Financial independence is decades away at best.
  - bennysomething 4y ago
    Just one thing, I became really interested in this too. It made me very unhappy that I didn't have it it. Sort of jealous of everyone who does have it. I see a contradiction now in what I wanted: living frugally to be free of pointless desires but in the end craving that so badly it was ruining my best years. (Ps I still throw as much as I can afford in a pension because I'm terrified of being poor with no ability to earn when I'm older) Anyway just my take, I'd still love to be financially free but I've accepted I won't be.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I-bonds are looking like a good option for the next year or so.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

graderjs 4y ago

Not attacking you in particular but responding to a sentiment evoked by your comment, that I think is all too common: The pathologization of everything is what's abnormal. So, what happened? Guy went through some grief, had normal emotional responses, understandably reconsidered what's important and felt suffocated in a workplace as an employee, after facing the fact that his dad spent a huge chunk of his life in a similar situation and then was gone...highlighting how many missed opportunities there were in that retirement that his dad worked for and never got to enjoy. It's a completely normal emotional Arc to go through and I think it would be abnormal cognitive processing to not go through those emotions and thoughts in the face of an event like that. Subsequently the guy probably found a new relationship and then, falling in love and he forgot to some extent about the depth of the sadness, and life began to take on a new hope, brightness and meaning and, like he said, he had a kid and that would have changed his perspective again... and now he's happy what he's doing and appreciative, and grateful. Maybe him going through the trauma of losing his father did result in him making some sort of subtle internal attitude adjustments or discovering a perspective that ended up with him having more joy in life. That's one way that challenge in life is supposed to work. Anyway so that's the story: the guy had a completely normal Arc and then what does society make it mean? Society (or the extent to which our culture pathologizes normal experience), makes it mean that it this guy's arc must be abnormal or the guy must be mentally ill or it must be depression. That's the crazy thing. People come along and say, oh my God that's depression, or that's some sort of mental illness. And it's like, no it's not: that's someone experiencing normal human emotions and living for real in their life and feeling it and thinking about it. The idea that normal is just a constant smooth tone of some collection of happy emotions and an upward trend and then anything else is like depression or any sort of reconsideration is some sort of abnormal, or mental illness kind of case, I mean that is the sick, crazy thing and I think it's a sickness, it's a mental illness, of our Society... at least the extent to which our society has a culture that views people's individual emotional arcs as abnormal.

sinenomine 4y ago
I find it sad that instead of designing mood-enhancing small molecules and making these available to anybody so desiring, we have to text each other with long screens of elaborate copes. This concrete cope presented in the parent comment denies existence of depression, which is really a non-sequitur when we have a solid evidence for substantial heritable differences in baseline happiness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346667/ Every human being deserves happiness, it should be an intrinsic natural good, not a scarce lottery prize it is now.

grenoire 4y ago

I mean... you're extrapolating very hard. The results are not controlled for a completely unchanged lifestyle. Plus, the study specifically shows that people undergoing primary/mental care recover sooner.

robocat 4y ago

> You had a depressive episode Armchair diagnoses of mental health problems is very very bad - perhaps you should see a psychologist yourself because you are most likely damaging others? Even worse, you are ignoring the fact that we can all be situationally “depressed”. You know, when your job feels like shit, and you can’t enjoy your family or friends or anything? But you change your work situation, and the very next day you are invigorated and energetic and you enjoy work again, and you enjoy your family and friends; and the change is lasting? Or when your job feels like shit, but you have a wonderful time in the evenings or on the weekend. You are unlikely to get either of the above if you are clinically depressed (although bipolar may be an exception to that).