4 ms·

I agree, though possibly for different reasons. Those support systems may or may not be weaker than they were in generations past, but they are certainly more l

I agree, though possibly for different reasons. Those support systems may or may not be weaker than they were in generations past, but they are certainly more likely to say "I can't help you, go get professional help" than in the past. In some ways this is a good thing. It is good if bipolar people get the medication they need faster, and can start living their best lives. But as someone who almost died to depression, the "help" out there is criminal. It is not a disease we have a cure for, in fact it's not clear to me it's even a disease in most sufferers, but a healthy and rational response to societal decay. I do not believe some disorders will ever be satisfactorily explained by individual-centric medicine, in the same way history will never be satisfactorily explained by great man theory.

KolibriFly 1y ago
Yeah, calling depression a "disorder" sometimes misses the point entirely when despair is a logical response to how things are
- nradov 1y ago
  Cheer up! For the average HN user, things are better now than they ever have been in human history.
  - bevesce- 1y ago
    Why is that a reason to cheer up? When I think about it, I’m miserable most of the time—and knowing that life was even worse for most people throughout history only makes me feel sadder.
    - scotty79 1y ago
      I think he was being sarcastic. But on the internet you can't really tell. Adopt absurdism. Nothing really matters and it's grotesquely hilarious at the same time. That might cheer you up. Occasionally.
      - nradov 1y ago
        Not sarcastic. Only people who are ignorant about history believe that things are really bad today. If you live in an industrialized country that isn't in the middle of a shooting war then things are objectively pretty awesome compared to the average conditions that humans have endured.
        scotty79 1y ago
        Only ignorant people think individuals can find comfort in averages. Recently I heard Neil Degrasse Tyson saying that people came up with averages more recently than with calculus. It's not something people find relevant naturally.
        gadabout 1y ago
        > Recently I heard Neil Degrasse Tyson saying that people came up with averages more recently than with calculus. It's not something people find relevant naturally. Whoa now. That may be true within a strict scope of the "arithmetic mean" definition of "average", however, the idea of average as a 'concept' is much older. As an easy example, early references to agrarian yields (crop farming and how much food they produce) talk about average size of crop harvests, etc. Early tablets from Mesopotamia talk about average yield size, and those are dated 700ish BC.
    - nradov 1y ago
      Turn that around and ask yourself why that's a reason to be miserable. Your sadness is a choice. Be miserable if you want to but that won't improve the circumstances for yourself or anyone else.
  - probably_wrong 1y ago
    If my finger is broken and someone says "Cheer up! Your neighbor lost his leg and is in an incredible amount of pain", I may feel sympathy for my neighbor but, crucially, my finger still hurts just as much.
    - nradov 1y ago
      Some of you guys need to cowboy up and quit whining about trivial problems. A broken finger is a minor injury (nothing even remotely like a lost leg), and usually easily managed with basic medical treatment. Get it splinted, pop an ibuprofen, and move on. It seems like a lot of HN users have led such soft, sheltered lives that they fall apart when faced with the slightest adversity.
    - DisruptiveDave 1y ago
      Right, it won't change the fact that the finger injury is sending pain signals to your brain. But it just might change what you do in reaction to that signal.
  - wat10000 1y ago
    Cheer up, the lake of shit you’re caged in is at its lowest level on record. Slightly more seriously, things will be on an upward trajectory until they aren’t. There are some decent reasons to think we might be nearing the peak.
    - nradov 1y ago
      That's a meaningless claim, devoid of any evidence. At most points in human history there were decent reasons to think we were near the peak. And yet with some occasional temporary valleys, average human living conditions continued to improve.
      - wat10000 1y ago
        At most points in human history, the global economy was not so tightly integrated, and major powers didn't have the ability to devastate the globe in an afternoon. There is a significant meaning to my claim, which is that it's unconvincing to make exactly the sort of "it has always worked out before" argument that you're making here.
        acheron 1y ago
        The current time is not special just because it's when you're alive.
        wat10000 1y ago
        Conversely, the current time isn't like the past just because it immediately follows the past.
- falcor84 1y ago
  I know where you're coming from, but despair is never the logical response. Whatever the situation is, it's better to do something about it, even if it's just to rage and call for help, rather than to quietly despair. Regardless of how bad things are, we still have hope, both as individuals and as a civilization.
  - DrillShopper 1y ago
    > despair is never the logical response My partner is disabled and her transplanted kidney is failing. She will, in the next year or two, need dialysis and then a kidney transplant. Her Medicaid will be cut. The hospital she goes to will be closed. Both as a result of a bill that just passed. The average kidney transplant out of pocket costs $250,000, and because her first transplant happened before she met me, my insurance will deny her coverage because it's a pre-existing condition. We are in the process of trying to move to a different location, get her a job while she's going through kidney failure (not easy since nobody wants to hire a sick person, and definitely not at a workload that would give them benefits), and I'm in the process of trying to move us out of the country (I'm a dual citizen, she is not, so that's holding things up). At what point in that is despair not a logical emotion, even when we're doing something about it? What is illogical about being so overwhelmed with circumstances that it makes you question whether waking up tomorrow is a net positive or negative? Please explain.
    - tblt 1y ago
      Despair seems eminently logical in your situation; I felt it, when I put myself in your shoes, reading your comment. That is not to say it need take precedence, or supremacy, to that most human of emotions: hope. I have hope, that you and your partner will prevail, and live a life agreeable to both your terms. I’m sure many who read your story will too. Please, lean on hope, not despair.
  - anal_reactor 1y ago
    > Regardless of how bad things are, we still have hope, both as individuals and as a civilization. No we don't. Evidence: falling birthrates is the society collectively deciding that live ain't worth it. Personally, I think this is the real reason why we don't see aliens - any advanced civilisation will eventually reach a point where it realizes that life ain't worth it.
spicyusername 1y ago
One thing that makes me nervous about a culture that is so quick to forward people to therapists, is that therapy is not some ironclad medical practice, like you might imagine heart surgery to be. Therapy, and psychology in general, is one of the weakest areas of science, still based mostly on mysticism, large personalities, and weak statistical correlations. And that is assuming you even can get a "good" therapist, and not some schmuck who just happened to nab the degree. I would go so far as to say that 90%+ of problems that are served in therapy sessions are better served by the regular participants in an intimate social network, friends and family, than some "expert" who is incentivized, knowingly or not, to send you into the pharmaceutical pipeline or, as this article describes, hand you a bunch of random labels you can forever use to psychologically handicap yourself with.
- Paracompact 1y ago
  Nature abhors a vacuum, and humans abhor problems without definitive solutions. I don't think there has ever been a moment in human history where a civilization, when confronted with a great societal ill, has sincerely admitted that they have no idea how to solve it. Before science, natural disasters were the punishment inflicted by displeased gods on humanity, and through piousness or sacrifice they could be averted, or through divination predicted. Incurable diseases, especially psychiatric, were explained karmically or by folk wisdom. But while we might have science today, we still have disasters and diseases. Instead of shamans and religious leaders, now politicians and activists promise easy solutions that are within arm's grasp, "if only the people currently in charge weren't so corrupt and incompetent." But change is incremental at best, and where it concerns depression specifically, it appears only to be getting worse.

KolibriFly 1y ago

Yeah, calling depression a "disorder" sometimes misses the point entirely when despair is a logical response to how things are

nradov 1y ago
Cheer up! For the average HN user, things are better now than they ever have been in human history.
- bevesce- 1y ago
  Why is that a reason to cheer up? When I think about it, I’m miserable most of the time—and knowing that life was even worse for most people throughout history only makes me feel sadder.
  - scotty79 1y ago
    I think he was being sarcastic. But on the internet you can't really tell. Adopt absurdism. Nothing really matters and it's grotesquely hilarious at the same time. That might cheer you up. Occasionally.
    - nradov 1y ago
      Not sarcastic. Only people who are ignorant about history believe that things are really bad today. If you live in an industrialized country that isn't in the middle of a shooting war then things are objectively pretty awesome compared to the average conditions that humans have endured.
      - scotty79 1y ago
        Only ignorant people think individuals can find comfort in averages. Recently I heard Neil Degrasse Tyson saying that people came up with averages more recently than with calculus. It's not something people find relevant naturally.
        gadabout 1y ago
        > Recently I heard Neil Degrasse Tyson saying that people came up with averages more recently than with calculus. It's not something people find relevant naturally. Whoa now. That may be true within a strict scope of the "arithmetic mean" definition of "average", however, the idea of average as a 'concept' is much older. As an easy example, early references to agrarian yields (crop farming and how much food they produce) talk about average size of crop harvests, etc. Early tablets from Mesopotamia talk about average yield size, and those are dated 700ish BC.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Turn that around and ask yourself why that's a reason to be miserable. Your sadness is a choice. Be miserable if you want to but that won't improve the circumstances for yourself or anyone else.
- probably_wrong 1y ago
  If my finger is broken and someone says "Cheer up! Your neighbor lost his leg and is in an incredible amount of pain", I may feel sympathy for my neighbor but, crucially, my finger still hurts just as much.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Some of you guys need to cowboy up and quit whining about trivial problems. A broken finger is a minor injury (nothing even remotely like a lost leg), and usually easily managed with basic medical treatment. Get it splinted, pop an ibuprofen, and move on. It seems like a lot of HN users have led such soft, sheltered lives that they fall apart when faced with the slightest adversity.
  - DisruptiveDave 1y ago
    Right, it won't change the fact that the finger injury is sending pain signals to your brain. But it just might change what you do in reaction to that signal.
- wat10000 1y ago
  Cheer up, the lake of shit you’re caged in is at its lowest level on record. Slightly more seriously, things will be on an upward trajectory until they aren’t. There are some decent reasons to think we might be nearing the peak.
  - nradov 1y ago
    That's a meaningless claim, devoid of any evidence. At most points in human history there were decent reasons to think we were near the peak. And yet with some occasional temporary valleys, average human living conditions continued to improve.
    - wat10000 1y ago
      At most points in human history, the global economy was not so tightly integrated, and major powers didn't have the ability to devastate the globe in an afternoon. There is a significant meaning to my claim, which is that it's unconvincing to make exactly the sort of "it has always worked out before" argument that you're making here.
      - acheron 1y ago
        The current time is not special just because it's when you're alive.
        wat10000 1y ago
        Conversely, the current time isn't like the past just because it immediately follows the past.
falcor84 1y ago
I know where you're coming from, but despair is never the logical response. Whatever the situation is, it's better to do something about it, even if it's just to rage and call for help, rather than to quietly despair. Regardless of how bad things are, we still have hope, both as individuals and as a civilization.
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  > despair is never the logical response My partner is disabled and her transplanted kidney is failing. She will, in the next year or two, need dialysis and then a kidney transplant. Her Medicaid will be cut. The hospital she goes to will be closed. Both as a result of a bill that just passed. The average kidney transplant out of pocket costs $250,000, and because her first transplant happened before she met me, my insurance will deny her coverage because it's a pre-existing condition. We are in the process of trying to move to a different location, get her a job while she's going through kidney failure (not easy since nobody wants to hire a sick person, and definitely not at a workload that would give them benefits), and I'm in the process of trying to move us out of the country (I'm a dual citizen, she is not, so that's holding things up). At what point in that is despair not a logical emotion, even when we're doing something about it? What is illogical about being so overwhelmed with circumstances that it makes you question whether waking up tomorrow is a net positive or negative? Please explain.
  - tblt 1y ago
    Despair seems eminently logical in your situation; I felt it, when I put myself in your shoes, reading your comment. That is not to say it need take precedence, or supremacy, to that most human of emotions: hope. I have hope, that you and your partner will prevail, and live a life agreeable to both your terms. I’m sure many who read your story will too. Please, lean on hope, not despair.
- anal_reactor 1y ago
  > Regardless of how bad things are, we still have hope, both as individuals and as a civilization. No we don't. Evidence: falling birthrates is the society collectively deciding that live ain't worth it. Personally, I think this is the real reason why we don't see aliens - any advanced civilisation will eventually reach a point where it realizes that life ain't worth it.

spicyusername 1y ago

One thing that makes me nervous about a culture that is so quick to forward people to therapists, is that therapy is not some ironclad medical practice, like you might imagine heart surgery to be. Therapy, and psychology in general, is one of the weakest areas of science, still based mostly on mysticism, large personalities, and weak statistical correlations. And that is assuming you even can get a "good" therapist, and not some schmuck who just happened to nab the degree. I would go so far as to say that 90%+ of problems that are served in therapy sessions are better served by the regular participants in an intimate social network, friends and family, than some "expert" who is incentivized, knowingly or not, to send you into the pharmaceutical pipeline or, as this article describes, hand you a bunch of random labels you can forever use to psychologically handicap yourself with.

Paracompact 1y ago
Nature abhors a vacuum, and humans abhor problems without definitive solutions. I don't think there has ever been a moment in human history where a civilization, when confronted with a great societal ill, has sincerely admitted that they have no idea how to solve it. Before science, natural disasters were the punishment inflicted by displeased gods on humanity, and through piousness or sacrifice they could be averted, or through divination predicted. Incurable diseases, especially psychiatric, were explained karmically or by folk wisdom. But while we might have science today, we still have disasters and diseases. Instead of shamans and religious leaders, now politicians and activists promise easy solutions that are within arm's grasp, "if only the people currently in charge weren't so corrupt and incompetent." But change is incremental at best, and where it concerns depression specifically, it appears only to be getting worse.