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Genuine question (which I accept may be too personal to answer): what does depression in someone that young look like? How is it different from the expected ho

Genuine question (which I accept may be too personal to answer): what does depression in someone that young look like? How is it different from the expected hormonal changes that an adolescent is expected to go through?

0134340 11mo ago
Probably something like Boy Interrupted[0]. Sad story and something I can sympathize with having some of the same feelings very early on despite having a rather normal upbringing and siblings not showing signs of it. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Interrupted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Interrupted
potsandpans 11mo ago
It's incredible that my last four comments are down voted to -1, for engaging in genuine dialog across topics. @dang it's hard to believe that I'm not being brigaded.
- amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
  My advice as a long time participant here: pay no attention to upvotes or downvotes. Sometimes they seem to be completely unrelated to whatever you said. Stay curious.
- tomhow 11mo ago
  And several of your comments before that were upvoted. Are we to regard those as suspicious? Of the recent downvoted comments, one was a complaint about moderation that anyone who has paid attention to dang's track record here over more than a decade knows is baseless. (And if you think the top comment on any thread is a bad one, you can always choose to be a helpful contributor to the community and email us to let us know). Of the other two of your downvoted comments, none were downvoted by the same users. The choice is yours to make an effort to observe the guidelines and be a positive contributor to HN, or alternatively to keep using HN for political/ideological battle and complain to the moderators when things don't go your way, but it's clear what others in the community want to see.
  - potsandpans 11mo ago
    > when things don't go your way, You're a ridiculous person. > or alternatively to keep using HN for political/ideological battle Which ones? The one about ML and programming languages? Or the one about asking a genuine question about an experience with childhood depression? Or the one observing that you and dang unevenly apply moderation rules? Or the one commenting about how you can't say the word for the literal definition of fascism on this site without getting downvoted? Or the one about dishwashers? Where's my ideological battle? You have no credibility. You unlike dang, don't do a good job. Go ahead and ban me or put me on a cool down to prove my point.
    - tomhow 11mo ago
      I've scanned your full list of comments and can find plenty that have an ideological flavor to them, and others that are in the flamewar style, but are not so clearly related to politics/ideology. I'm not interested in getting into an argument about which of your comments are ideological or not. That's not the issue. What is the issue is the hostile and inflammatory style of commenting towards other community members and HN as a whole. It's notable in this instance: - You posted a series of comments about controversial topics, having established a history of participating on HN with this persona of being a brave combatant for, I don't know, some worldview or philosophy that you seem to be fighting for; - When a handful of your comments receive even a solitary downvote, you call in "the cops" (dang) to come to your aid, with a claim of "brigading"; - When we investigated and found that, no, there's no "brigading", some of those comments are not even net-downvoted anymore, and that any downvotes you're getting are to be expected given your combative style of commenting, you've responded with these incoherent attacks on moderation/moderators. Whether we all agree that many of your flamewar-style comments really are, in fact, political/ideological, is not the point and seems to be a way for you to deflect from being held to account for your conduct. What I'm saying to you is that people who care about making HN better have all kinds of ways of showing it, and it begins with making an effort to observe the guidelines, and it also involves engaging respectfully with other community members and the moderation system. We are always, always working to make HN better and our moderation approaches better, and we always welcome and engage with feedback, as dang has been doing with you in another subthread today. But we've both been doing this job long enough to sense when someone isn't really wanting to help make HN better at all.
jdietrich 11mo ago
As someone who has been seriously depressed from an early age, I can tell you that it looks exactly like the DSM/ICD criteria - a lack of energy, loss of appetite, loss of interest in all activities, insomnia, feelings of worthlessness, suicidal thoughts and pervasive sadness and hopelessness. Some people would rather believe that pediatric depression isn't real, rather than confront the reality of a loved and cared-for child who is constantly tearful, severely underweight, sleeps for three or four hours a night, spends most of their time staring into space and frequently talks about wanting to die. Depression is an utterly dreadful illness and should not be confused with normal sadness or unhappiness.

0134340 11mo ago

Probably something like Boy Interrupted[0]. Sad story and something I can sympathize with having some of the same feelings very early on despite having a rather normal upbringing and siblings not showing signs of it. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Interrupted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Interrupted

potsandpans 11mo ago

It's incredible that my last four comments are down voted to -1, for engaging in genuine dialog across topics. @dang it's hard to believe that I'm not being brigaded.

amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
My advice as a long time participant here: pay no attention to upvotes or downvotes. Sometimes they seem to be completely unrelated to whatever you said. Stay curious.
tomhow 11mo ago
And several of your comments before that were upvoted. Are we to regard those as suspicious? Of the recent downvoted comments, one was a complaint about moderation that anyone who has paid attention to dang's track record here over more than a decade knows is baseless. (And if you think the top comment on any thread is a bad one, you can always choose to be a helpful contributor to the community and email us to let us know). Of the other two of your downvoted comments, none were downvoted by the same users. The choice is yours to make an effort to observe the guidelines and be a positive contributor to HN, or alternatively to keep using HN for political/ideological battle and complain to the moderators when things don't go your way, but it's clear what others in the community want to see.
- potsandpans 11mo ago
  > when things don't go your way, You're a ridiculous person. > or alternatively to keep using HN for political/ideological battle Which ones? The one about ML and programming languages? Or the one about asking a genuine question about an experience with childhood depression? Or the one observing that you and dang unevenly apply moderation rules? Or the one commenting about how you can't say the word for the literal definition of fascism on this site without getting downvoted? Or the one about dishwashers? Where's my ideological battle? You have no credibility. You unlike dang, don't do a good job. Go ahead and ban me or put me on a cool down to prove my point.
  - tomhow 11mo ago
    I've scanned your full list of comments and can find plenty that have an ideological flavor to them, and others that are in the flamewar style, but are not so clearly related to politics/ideology. I'm not interested in getting into an argument about which of your comments are ideological or not. That's not the issue. What is the issue is the hostile and inflammatory style of commenting towards other community members and HN as a whole. It's notable in this instance: - You posted a series of comments about controversial topics, having established a history of participating on HN with this persona of being a brave combatant for, I don't know, some worldview or philosophy that you seem to be fighting for; - When a handful of your comments receive even a solitary downvote, you call in "the cops" (dang) to come to your aid, with a claim of "brigading"; - When we investigated and found that, no, there's no "brigading", some of those comments are not even net-downvoted anymore, and that any downvotes you're getting are to be expected given your combative style of commenting, you've responded with these incoherent attacks on moderation/moderators. Whether we all agree that many of your flamewar-style comments really are, in fact, political/ideological, is not the point and seems to be a way for you to deflect from being held to account for your conduct. What I'm saying to you is that people who care about making HN better have all kinds of ways of showing it, and it begins with making an effort to observe the guidelines, and it also involves engaging respectfully with other community members and the moderation system. We are always, always working to make HN better and our moderation approaches better, and we always welcome and engage with feedback, as dang has been doing with you in another subthread today. But we've both been doing this job long enough to sense when someone isn't really wanting to help make HN better at all.

jdietrich 11mo ago

As someone who has been seriously depressed from an early age, I can tell you that it looks exactly like the DSM/ICD criteria - a lack of energy, loss of appetite, loss of interest in all activities, insomnia, feelings of worthlessness, suicidal thoughts and pervasive sadness and hopelessness. Some people would rather believe that pediatric depression isn't real, rather than confront the reality of a loved and cared-for child who is constantly tearful, severely underweight, sleeps for three or four hours a night, spends most of their time staring into space and frequently talks about wanting to die. Depression is an utterly dreadful illness and should not be confused with normal sadness or unhappiness.