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Wow, this hits surprisingly close to home. I do not feel existential fear about everything, do not take any antidepressants or anything like that... I just ver

Wow, this hits surprisingly close to home. I do not feel existential fear about everything, do not take any antidepressants or anything like that... I just very rarely feel happy, or passionate about anything, at all anymore. My job just burned it all out. I felt depressed for few months, though I am not really 'depressed-stay-in-a-bed' type of person. I do live normally, I am just feeling sad and indifferent about anything. I told my manager that I am almost done with my mortgage and he asked in return if I am planning to quit my job... And the worst thing is that job is not bad, I would say it is quite good. Good pay, paid time off, remote... It is just so freaking pointless and stupid. I would prefer doing anything other than working there really, today I did groceries and it felt more rewarding. Oh well, maybe I should stay in my previous project like the moral of the story tries to incline instead going for bigger pay.

AlwaysRock 2y ago
Not to diagnose you over the internet based on one comment... But it does sound like you are suffering from depression. It would be worth talking to a therapist if you havnt. I did when I felt similarly and it changed my life.
- notevenreal 2y ago
  You can absolutely be depressed because of your circumstances. Put a gorilla in a small room with nothing to do for weeks and watch it become depressed. We've built a society that values all the wrong things, and then overworks people until they break. Therapy is great, but you can't always fix broke things by gaslighting yourself into thinking they aren't really broken.
  - ericmcer 2y ago
    Agree I am in the same boat as the parent comment and tried going to therapy but I felt foolish talking to the therapist. There wasn't some deep buried traumatic event that was manipulating my behavior in unseen ways, or some chemical imbalance that was altering my behavior and mood. I just don't like my job but it pays really well and has great benefits and I am scared to face the bundle of uncertainties that come with quitting.
    - nuancebydefault 2y ago
      If you don't like doing your job, well paid or not, best is to switch jobs. Life's too short for feeling miserable in your job.
  - rachofsunshine 2y ago
    Therapy, and even psychiatric treatment like antidepressants, are not the same thing as gaslighting yourself. When I tried an antidepressant for the first time, I thought the same thing you do. "I don't need medication! I'm sad because everything is terrible, and getting worse!". Everything was terrible. Everything was getting worse. The worst day of my life would come about a year later; I wasn't wrong that I was in very deep trouble. I was poor and getting poorer, my life had been decaying for years, and I could see that I would be out on the street very soon if my course didn't change, which was true (I found a place to go with a matter of hours left before I'd have been pitching a tent). What I WAS wrong about was that that meant I couldn't be depressed, in the sense of "having major depressive disorder". Antidepressants DO NOT make you happy. They don't make you ignore your problems. The day they kicked in for me, I was every bit as aware of the situation I was in as I had been when I began taking them a few weeks before. I still knew I was in deep trouble, I still had many things I wanted to change about myself. My values were not any different. The difference, though, is that I wasn't drowning. This comic - https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/magically/ https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vac... - describes my feelings almost exactly. It was like the difference between being inside a wildfire, and standing on a hilltop with a vantage point on it. The problem is still there and you still want to solve it, but you can pause, strategize, and turn the volume down enough to hear yourself. Now, in my case, it turns out I had been depressed in some form for most of my life, so this was a profound revelation to me. You mean most people's internal voices don't spend days abusing them for every small error? You can just like, go about your day and not have an internal voice telling you how worthless you are? I genuinely did not know that that was possible. What people who "don't get it" don't realize, I think, is that major depressive disorder - the "chemical imbalance", in layperson's terms - can both occur on its own AND as a response to ongoing life stresses, in the same way that lung cancer can be genetic OR a response to toxic air. And depression is, somewhat by nature, self-sustaining once it is established: depression interferes with you doing precisely the things you'd need to do to not be depressed. Working on things you're invested in, exercising, getting social contact and support, all of these things are far harder when you're depressed than they would be if you weren't. When you get on an antidepressant, you're not making your problems go away. You're just helping yourself interrupt the feedback loop that traps you within those problems. You still have to solve the problems, and that's why you still go to therapy. But therapy + antidepressants are more effective than therapy alone because it is far easier to apply what you learn in therapy when your mind isn't tearing itself apart with fear and pain. Today, my depression is much better managed, because I've had a long time to learn to understand it from a position of safety. I still spiral into it sometimes. But the loops are not unbreakable now, because I'm trained to recognize them and interrupt them. Because of my time on medication, I know what part of my mind that screaming abuse comes from, and I can better separate it from myself. I'm better, on any axis you care to measure: I'm 60 pounds lighter, make ten times the income, have more experiences, am better-liked, have had more fulfilling and durable relationships, whatever. And if I had not gotten on a medication, I would've been rotting in the ground for about six years now. (That is not to say that we don't need broader societal reforms to fix what is putting all of our brains under enough stress to cause damage. We should absolutely pursue those, and we should expect our world to get sicker until we succeed, in the same way that a polluted city should expect cancer rates to increase. But that's not mutually-exclusive with antidepressants being an extremely valuable part of individual recovery, in the same way that regulating pollution is not mutually-exclusive with treating someone's cancer.)
- npodbielski 2y ago
  Maybe I am. Maybe I should. Thing is, here, therapist are not very good. I heard from some friends about their experiences and their friends and relatives experiences. Most of the time the solution is to take antidepressants. Thing is, chemical solution to your life problem is not real solution. Well it helps the same as alcohol I guess. But does it solves anything actually? Right now I am just working on something that I think would be possible to sell, or make money from. Being my own company, on my own terms and make money from it - that would help. Maybe I will show it on HN at some point, though I am a bit afraid people telling me that I worthless.
  - rachofsunshine 2y ago
    I'd encourage you to read my reply to the sibling comment to yours. In brief: depression is a feedback loop, because it interferes with your ability to take the actions you need to take to be less depressed. If you've been depressed for a while, that loop is probably pretty well-established. Antidepressants make the feedback weaker, and that lets you begin to work on breaking the loop. Antidepressants don't solve your problems, and they don't make you unaware of them. They just make the problems easier to work on. They don't make you weak. They give you the ability to work on being stronger.
    - npodbielski 2y ago
      I did read it. I think I understand your point. If this is how I feel? I do not think so. I mean I did pretty good job with chores around my house last summer. It was nice. It was fulfilling. Not like my job feels like. I do try to work on myself decided to go on diet probably I will try to take on some exersices once the winter is gone... etc. It is not like I lie in bed over the weekend or play video games all the time eating chips. Just this job... I need money to support my family but it is freaking waste of my time. Even more when I think about my side project waiting for me to have time to work on it. I could play some Lego with my kids and this would be more enjoyable. My job feels like crawling through barbed wire because some guy decided that just walking on pavement is not struggle enough. Is this depression? IMHO no. But no doctor can argue with you if you say that you are feeling pain so maybe this persistent state of misery could be depression for some.
ericmcer 2y ago
I really hard relate to this. The most brutal part is that 4+ days off seems to get my brain going again. I get excited about doing things, I start having ideas for writing projects, coding projects, games, etc. Then the 5 day weeks kick in and I become flat again. I am not sure if it is just the nature of software jobs? The level of mental engagement and uncertainty we deal with is pretty high. Forcing yourself to do deep focused work for several hours a day every day while staring at a screen and doing remote meetings must cause some kind of schism. I love not commuting but I do wonder if working in person would help fix this.
- npodbielski 2y ago
  > I love not commuting but I do wonder if working in person would help fix this. In my case I think it would help a lot. I feels kind of lonely in this job too. There is no chatter or jokes, discussing news, tech meetups, nothing. Most of the day it is just 'please look at this PR' or 'Can customer have to active addresses' communication. And I rather social person. But I can't commute because I have small kids that needs to be driven to and from kindergarten everyday. And in a small city IT does not exists so either commuting or remote work.
- throwaway39483 2y ago
  > I love not commuting but I do wonder if working in person would help fix this. In my experience, no. "Coworker" is universally recognized as a slur for a reason. Think about "coworker music", etc. You go to work and pretend to care about sports or the Drake-Kendrick feud or cape movies (dude Brode Screenguy was so sick in Capeman CXXVIII) and make small talk around the office cooler. Then you go back to your desk and look like you're working. The managers are watching - it's an open office - sometimes they get up and walk around and make idle and foreboding chitchat, and sometimes you are pulled into a hey-how's-it-going that turns into a meeting on your way to the bathroom. Sometimes I take my 9ams from home. I turn off my webcam and look at my phone. It doesn't matter. Meetings are enrichment for the ex-finance bro who likes to hear himself talk, and necessary for the other managers, most of whom struggle to read and write. (The people in this thread who complain that the story is too long are likely in the top 50% of literacy skills for tech jobs - they're consuming written text as a hobby. Most people don't do this because they can't.)

AlwaysRock 2y ago

Not to diagnose you over the internet based on one comment... But it does sound like you are suffering from depression. It would be worth talking to a therapist if you havnt. I did when I felt similarly and it changed my life.

notevenreal 2y ago
You can absolutely be depressed because of your circumstances. Put a gorilla in a small room with nothing to do for weeks and watch it become depressed. We've built a society that values all the wrong things, and then overworks people until they break. Therapy is great, but you can't always fix broke things by gaslighting yourself into thinking they aren't really broken.
- ericmcer 2y ago
  Agree I am in the same boat as the parent comment and tried going to therapy but I felt foolish talking to the therapist. There wasn't some deep buried traumatic event that was manipulating my behavior in unseen ways, or some chemical imbalance that was altering my behavior and mood. I just don't like my job but it pays really well and has great benefits and I am scared to face the bundle of uncertainties that come with quitting.
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    If you don't like doing your job, well paid or not, best is to switch jobs. Life's too short for feeling miserable in your job.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  Therapy, and even psychiatric treatment like antidepressants, are not the same thing as gaslighting yourself. When I tried an antidepressant for the first time, I thought the same thing you do. "I don't need medication! I'm sad because everything is terrible, and getting worse!". Everything was terrible. Everything was getting worse. The worst day of my life would come about a year later; I wasn't wrong that I was in very deep trouble. I was poor and getting poorer, my life had been decaying for years, and I could see that I would be out on the street very soon if my course didn't change, which was true (I found a place to go with a matter of hours left before I'd have been pitching a tent). What I WAS wrong about was that that meant I couldn't be depressed, in the sense of "having major depressive disorder". Antidepressants DO NOT make you happy. They don't make you ignore your problems. The day they kicked in for me, I was every bit as aware of the situation I was in as I had been when I began taking them a few weeks before. I still knew I was in deep trouble, I still had many things I wanted to change about myself. My values were not any different. The difference, though, is that I wasn't drowning. This comic - https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/magically/ https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vac... - describes my feelings almost exactly. It was like the difference between being inside a wildfire, and standing on a hilltop with a vantage point on it. The problem is still there and you still want to solve it, but you can pause, strategize, and turn the volume down enough to hear yourself. Now, in my case, it turns out I had been depressed in some form for most of my life, so this was a profound revelation to me. You mean most people's internal voices don't spend days abusing them for every small error? You can just like, go about your day and not have an internal voice telling you how worthless you are? I genuinely did not know that that was possible. What people who "don't get it" don't realize, I think, is that major depressive disorder - the "chemical imbalance", in layperson's terms - can both occur on its own AND as a response to ongoing life stresses, in the same way that lung cancer can be genetic OR a response to toxic air. And depression is, somewhat by nature, self-sustaining once it is established: depression interferes with you doing precisely the things you'd need to do to not be depressed. Working on things you're invested in, exercising, getting social contact and support, all of these things are far harder when you're depressed than they would be if you weren't. When you get on an antidepressant, you're not making your problems go away. You're just helping yourself interrupt the feedback loop that traps you within those problems. You still have to solve the problems, and that's why you still go to therapy. But therapy + antidepressants are more effective than therapy alone because it is far easier to apply what you learn in therapy when your mind isn't tearing itself apart with fear and pain. Today, my depression is much better managed, because I've had a long time to learn to understand it from a position of safety. I still spiral into it sometimes. But the loops are not unbreakable now, because I'm trained to recognize them and interrupt them. Because of my time on medication, I know what part of my mind that screaming abuse comes from, and I can better separate it from myself. I'm better, on any axis you care to measure: I'm 60 pounds lighter, make ten times the income, have more experiences, am better-liked, have had more fulfilling and durable relationships, whatever. And if I had not gotten on a medication, I would've been rotting in the ground for about six years now. (That is not to say that we don't need broader societal reforms to fix what is putting all of our brains under enough stress to cause damage. We should absolutely pursue those, and we should expect our world to get sicker until we succeed, in the same way that a polluted city should expect cancer rates to increase. But that's not mutually-exclusive with antidepressants being an extremely valuable part of individual recovery, in the same way that regulating pollution is not mutually-exclusive with treating someone's cancer.)
npodbielski 2y ago
Maybe I am. Maybe I should. Thing is, here, therapist are not very good. I heard from some friends about their experiences and their friends and relatives experiences. Most of the time the solution is to take antidepressants. Thing is, chemical solution to your life problem is not real solution. Well it helps the same as alcohol I guess. But does it solves anything actually? Right now I am just working on something that I think would be possible to sell, or make money from. Being my own company, on my own terms and make money from it - that would help. Maybe I will show it on HN at some point, though I am a bit afraid people telling me that I worthless.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  I'd encourage you to read my reply to the sibling comment to yours. In brief: depression is a feedback loop, because it interferes with your ability to take the actions you need to take to be less depressed. If you've been depressed for a while, that loop is probably pretty well-established. Antidepressants make the feedback weaker, and that lets you begin to work on breaking the loop. Antidepressants don't solve your problems, and they don't make you unaware of them. They just make the problems easier to work on. They don't make you weak. They give you the ability to work on being stronger.
  - npodbielski 2y ago
    I did read it. I think I understand your point. If this is how I feel? I do not think so. I mean I did pretty good job with chores around my house last summer. It was nice. It was fulfilling. Not like my job feels like. I do try to work on myself decided to go on diet probably I will try to take on some exersices once the winter is gone... etc. It is not like I lie in bed over the weekend or play video games all the time eating chips. Just this job... I need money to support my family but it is freaking waste of my time. Even more when I think about my side project waiting for me to have time to work on it. I could play some Lego with my kids and this would be more enjoyable. My job feels like crawling through barbed wire because some guy decided that just walking on pavement is not struggle enough. Is this depression? IMHO no. But no doctor can argue with you if you say that you are feeling pain so maybe this persistent state of misery could be depression for some.

ericmcer 2y ago

I really hard relate to this. The most brutal part is that 4+ days off seems to get my brain going again. I get excited about doing things, I start having ideas for writing projects, coding projects, games, etc. Then the 5 day weeks kick in and I become flat again. I am not sure if it is just the nature of software jobs? The level of mental engagement and uncertainty we deal with is pretty high. Forcing yourself to do deep focused work for several hours a day every day while staring at a screen and doing remote meetings must cause some kind of schism. I love not commuting but I do wonder if working in person would help fix this.

npodbielski 2y ago
> I love not commuting but I do wonder if working in person would help fix this. In my case I think it would help a lot. I feels kind of lonely in this job too. There is no chatter or jokes, discussing news, tech meetups, nothing. Most of the day it is just 'please look at this PR' or 'Can customer have to active addresses' communication. And I rather social person. But I can't commute because I have small kids that needs to be driven to and from kindergarten everyday. And in a small city IT does not exists so either commuting or remote work.
throwaway39483 2y ago
> I love not commuting but I do wonder if working in person would help fix this. In my experience, no. "Coworker" is universally recognized as a slur for a reason. Think about "coworker music", etc. You go to work and pretend to care about sports or the Drake-Kendrick feud or cape movies (dude Brode Screenguy was so sick in Capeman CXXVIII) and make small talk around the office cooler. Then you go back to your desk and look like you're working. The managers are watching - it's an open office - sometimes they get up and walk around and make idle and foreboding chitchat, and sometimes you are pulled into a hey-how's-it-going that turns into a meeting on your way to the bathroom. Sometimes I take my 9ams from home. I turn off my webcam and look at my phone. It doesn't matter. Meetings are enrichment for the ex-finance bro who likes to hear himself talk, and necessary for the other managers, most of whom struggle to read and write. (The people in this thread who complain that the story is too long are likely in the top 50% of literacy skills for tech jobs - they're consuming written text as a hobby. Most people don't do this because they can't.)