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Thank you, Mark, for writing this. I have lost three close friends in the past three months to depression. Their deaths were so similar it was shocking; they w

Thank you, Mark, for writing this. I have lost three close friends in the past three months to depression. Their deaths were so similar it was shocking; they were all among the most brilliant people I had known, and all had been suffering from depression almost their entire lives. At the funeral of the one who was closest to me, another girl told a story of how on one day when his depression was particularly bad, he boasted in his great success for the day: Getting out of bed to brush his teeth. Bear in mind this was a kid who spoke Russian and Arabic fluently, who loved the arts, was incredible at chess, was a great musician, and took Calculus BC in 9th grade. Absolutely brilliant. He was a fighter, he was stubborn, he was young, and some say he took his own life. I prefer to say that depression took his life. Sorry for getting so personal, but I simply can't take any of the comments that say "just get over it." Depression is as real and as disabling as being paralyzed; it may not happen to everyone, but to say things like, "You need to be stronger" are no more appropriate to the depressed than they are to the paralyzed. But most of all, if any of you are reading this who have depression, keep fighting. Recognize your brain lies to you, and no matter what it says there are many people who love you and it will get better.

nnq 14y ago
> your brain lies to you Indeed, I've been saying this to myself in dozens of situations, not just depressive moods. If you actually believe it when you say it, it's like a sort of mantra that can replace any pill! ...but unfortunately people suffering from clinical depression can't get themselves into the "saying it and believing it mode".
- opminion 14y ago
  Perhaps a digested, weighted, real-world-mapped version of Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases [1] would be useful as mantra. Just the kind of thing that xkcd does with posters, actually. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_...
- shahar2k 14y ago
  it's what I've told others too, it's like living behind a filter, and every thought and every idea is focused on the negative and false. and the thing is, that I've had it for so long, a decade maybe? probably was there before I even recognized what it was. but for me it comes and goes, and when it comes I've learned to see the filter, it's just harder to remember what things look like in reality. but I'm doing well, I dont have it quite as bad as some, and it goes away and I've learned to cope and figure out and get past it, but... it's never going to stop coming back, and I also know it brings back a kind of brightness and sharpness when it leaves, something I actually do enjoy. I'm sometimes dysfunctional because of it, but mostly... I'm just me, I do alright and I'd rather not change me just yet, so for now I'll deal with it, because it helps me help others.
andreasklinger 14y ago
I love the comparison to being paralysed. Being "mentally paralysed" is actually a good description.
- dtf 14y ago
  It does feel to me to be one of the cognitive routes into a depressive state. A cluster of problems can overwhelm thinking and mood to such a deep level that it descends beyond reasoning. It's "analysis paralysis" that has worked its way deep into less rational parts of the brain to become a standard mode. Once your brain loses its sense of agency it just kind of collapses in on itself, stewing in an abstract gloop of impossibilities.
- lusr 14y ago
  And even if you move past the paralysis, trying to cure oneself of depression is like trying to debug the operating system of your mind using a debugger running the exact same flawed logic that you're trying to debug! Worse, those bugs are live and their nature is to slowly but surely corrupt the rest of the system software pertaining to beliefs, memory, perception and thought processing. Eventually you reach a point where it's almost impossible to tell what's a lie and what's real, or how to non-dysfunctionally process what you do discover! This is why therapy is so critical - you have an objective third party to help debug things, identify your blindspots and point out where the bugs in your beliefs and thought processes are. A reference manual for identifying and repairing dysfunctional thinking is also incredibly valuable and to that end I recommend David Burns' "Feeling Good" to anybody in this situation.
  - pvnick 14y ago
    I just wanted to reply to give another endorsement to David Burns' Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336 http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/03808...) - I personally use the Feeling Good Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281326 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281326) which is the exact same thing but a little condensed. It's a big book which can be hard to tackle with depression. Guys, if you're suffering from depression or anxiety, this is the be all and end all of lasting treatments that works. I actually Ctrl-F'ed for it when I opened this thread.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Thank you for a quote I will now use always going forward Depression took his life Every other disease and illness is personified outside the body - only depression is treated as a choice we make instead of a illness we caught. Thank you and I am sorry for your loss.
pfortuny 14y ago
What you say about 'getting out of bed to brush his teeth' is exactly what my friend, a psychiatrist, told another friend of mine about his illness: you have to value EACH and EVERYTHING you do, even if it is just getting up and having a shower. Help, help, help, support, support, support, being able to talk to someone who just listens and does not say 'cheer up' because you CANNOT either cheer or up. Perceive that you are loved and you are counted upon even when you feel the opposite, and that you are not seen as a nuisance (which is what one thinks in that state). So hard to help, so much in need of it.
throwaway_toby 14y ago
> Recognize your brain lies to you Thank you for re-emphasizing this. I believe it is the single most important bit of knowledge we can have about depression. My wife has been struggling with depression on and off for years, and it always frustrates me how she in the depressed periods seemingly belittles and obliterates all the good things that happen around her, while all inconveniences and imperfections, big or small, are considered capital P Problems. I didn't know much about depression to start with, but it was pretty apparent that this imbalanced outlook was keeping her depression going and making it worse. If we overslept one day and one of the kids missed the first class at school (for the first time in over a year), she conceives this a significant failure, the teacher will be giving her Looks from now on, and if it happens just fifteen more times this year we are in risk of the child being kicked out of school. While in my view, I think the teacher doesn't care if it happens once, but rather is very happy with us for generally sending a happy and well-dressed child to school, who generally has her homework in order and has been taught that both reading and learning are fun. So I try to point out the positive things whenever I can, and explain how the negative things won't cause and real damage to us. It does help, but obviously she resists the "fake obnoxious rose-tinted world view" because she can clearly see how everything is wrong. The problem with this is that this endless list of lengthy explanations of everything that is wrong and how wrong it is, and the constant trivialization of the happy moments of the day, is slowly rubbing off on me. For a long time I was oblivious to how this affected me, until last year after she had gotten better, I suddenly crashed. At nights, I would lie awake for hours - heart pounding - thinking about how I have not done anything useful or significant ever, and how everyone I loved would in the best case be dying painfully of liver failure in old age or something like that. I could barely watch the news, because every distant little tragedy would affect me personally and making me useless for the rest of the day. When my children were running out of bed because they forgot to give me good-night hugs I would sometimes feel absolutely nothing. Fortunately, my wife is pretty sharp and noticed the problem even though I myself didn't even notice that anything was wrong. She told me that I showed signs of depression, and we decided to keep pressure down for a few months - less travelling, less ski trips, forget about redecorating the hallway, etc. That helped, and the knowledge that my brain lies to me helped, even though it ran much deeper than I had imagined: my brain constructs both my thoughts, my reasoning, and my impressions. Having to use this same lying bastard brain to "fix" the brain is pretty damn tricky. We're both pretty much recovered now, but I have two pieces of advice to give: 1. Depression is contagious. If a close loved one is suffering, be sure to constantly keep an eye on yourself. 2. While the brain lies, memory is pretty reliable. When you have difficulties dealing with something, try to remember how you used to react to this before.
gosu 14y ago
>no matter what it says there are many people who love you I hear this platitude all the time and I don't think that it's constructive. Disconnectedness and depression go hand in hand, in my experience. You may be blessed to have many people who love you, but a decent portion of the human population objectively doesn't, and can recognize it. So saying such a thing to a depressed person seems to run a high risk of rubbing their loneliness in their face.
Chattered 14y ago
> Sorry for getting so personal, but I simply can't take any of the comments that say "just get over it." Depression is as real and as disabling as being paralyzed; it may not happen to everyone, but to say things like, "You need to be stronger" are no more appropriate to the depressed than they are to the paralyzed. The difference is that it is not always possible to talk someone out of paralysis, but I'd like to think it is possible to talk some people out of depression. So I'd prefer to think of calls to "be stronger" as an attempt at remedying someone's health problems, and not a judgement on their character. I'll back right off claiming that "be stronger" is an effective remedy, of course. In terms of arguing for a more sensitive language, there is a call (citation needed) to avoid the phrase "commit suicide" which implies that suicide is still a crime that one "commits."
- DanBC 14y ago
  I avoid the term "commit suicide" because of the link to sins and crime. People attempt suicide, or they complete suicide. > but I'd like to think it is possible to talk some people out of depression. Here's the thing: It is possible to talk someone out of depression. But that talk is a carefully crafted therapeutic talk, applied by an experienced trained therapist. Talking to someone without knowing what you're doing probably isn't going to be a long term help. And it might even be harmful.
- iSnow 14y ago
  >The difference is that it is not always possible to talk someone out of paralysis, but I'd like to think it is possible to talk some people out of depression. Nope. Best thing you can do is have their backs covered and stand by for emergencies while they untangle themselves from depression. Oh yeah, and cover your own ass, depression is contagious.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    Sometimes it is; that's what therapy (sans medication) is about. That said, it's something best left to the professionals. You generally can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into.
illuminate 14y ago
"Recognize your brain lies to you" If that was possible in all cases, the concept of mental illness and chemical imbalances would not exist.

nnq 14y ago

> your brain lies to you Indeed, I've been saying this to myself in dozens of situations, not just depressive moods. If you actually believe it when you say it, it's like a sort of mantra that can replace any pill! ...but unfortunately people suffering from clinical depression can't get themselves into the "saying it and believing it mode".

opminion 14y ago
Perhaps a digested, weighted, real-world-mapped version of Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases [1] would be useful as mantra. Just the kind of thing that xkcd does with posters, actually. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_...
shahar2k 14y ago
it's what I've told others too, it's like living behind a filter, and every thought and every idea is focused on the negative and false. and the thing is, that I've had it for so long, a decade maybe? probably was there before I even recognized what it was. but for me it comes and goes, and when it comes I've learned to see the filter, it's just harder to remember what things look like in reality. but I'm doing well, I dont have it quite as bad as some, and it goes away and I've learned to cope and figure out and get past it, but... it's never going to stop coming back, and I also know it brings back a kind of brightness and sharpness when it leaves, something I actually do enjoy. I'm sometimes dysfunctional because of it, but mostly... I'm just me, I do alright and I'd rather not change me just yet, so for now I'll deal with it, because it helps me help others.

andreasklinger 14y ago

I love the comparison to being paralysed. Being "mentally paralysed" is actually a good description.

dtf 14y ago
It does feel to me to be one of the cognitive routes into a depressive state. A cluster of problems can overwhelm thinking and mood to such a deep level that it descends beyond reasoning. It's "analysis paralysis" that has worked its way deep into less rational parts of the brain to become a standard mode. Once your brain loses its sense of agency it just kind of collapses in on itself, stewing in an abstract gloop of impossibilities.
lusr 14y ago
And even if you move past the paralysis, trying to cure oneself of depression is like trying to debug the operating system of your mind using a debugger running the exact same flawed logic that you're trying to debug! Worse, those bugs are live and their nature is to slowly but surely corrupt the rest of the system software pertaining to beliefs, memory, perception and thought processing. Eventually you reach a point where it's almost impossible to tell what's a lie and what's real, or how to non-dysfunctionally process what you do discover! This is why therapy is so critical - you have an objective third party to help debug things, identify your blindspots and point out where the bugs in your beliefs and thought processes are. A reference manual for identifying and repairing dysfunctional thinking is also incredibly valuable and to that end I recommend David Burns' "Feeling Good" to anybody in this situation.
- pvnick 14y ago
  I just wanted to reply to give another endorsement to David Burns' Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336 http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/03808...) - I personally use the Feeling Good Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281326 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281326) which is the exact same thing but a little condensed. It's a big book which can be hard to tackle with depression. Guys, if you're suffering from depression or anxiety, this is the be all and end all of lasting treatments that works. I actually Ctrl-F'ed for it when I opened this thread.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

Thank you for a quote I will now use always going forward Depression took his life Every other disease and illness is personified outside the body - only depression is treated as a choice we make instead of a illness we caught. Thank you and I am sorry for your loss.

pfortuny 14y ago

What you say about 'getting out of bed to brush his teeth' is exactly what my friend, a psychiatrist, told another friend of mine about his illness: you have to value EACH and EVERYTHING you do, even if it is just getting up and having a shower. Help, help, help, support, support, support, being able to talk to someone who just listens and does not say 'cheer up' because you CANNOT either cheer or up. Perceive that you are loved and you are counted upon even when you feel the opposite, and that you are not seen as a nuisance (which is what one thinks in that state). So hard to help, so much in need of it.

throwaway_toby 14y ago

> Recognize your brain lies to you Thank you for re-emphasizing this. I believe it is the single most important bit of knowledge we can have about depression. My wife has been struggling with depression on and off for years, and it always frustrates me how she in the depressed periods seemingly belittles and obliterates all the good things that happen around her, while all inconveniences and imperfections, big or small, are considered capital P Problems. I didn't know much about depression to start with, but it was pretty apparent that this imbalanced outlook was keeping her depression going and making it worse. If we overslept one day and one of the kids missed the first class at school (for the first time in over a year), she conceives this a significant failure, the teacher will be giving her Looks from now on, and if it happens just fifteen more times this year we are in risk of the child being kicked out of school. While in my view, I think the teacher doesn't care if it happens once, but rather is very happy with us for generally sending a happy and well-dressed child to school, who generally has her homework in order and has been taught that both reading and learning are fun. So I try to point out the positive things whenever I can, and explain how the negative things won't cause and real damage to us. It does help, but obviously she resists the "fake obnoxious rose-tinted world view" because she can clearly see how everything is wrong. The problem with this is that this endless list of lengthy explanations of everything that is wrong and how wrong it is, and the constant trivialization of the happy moments of the day, is slowly rubbing off on me. For a long time I was oblivious to how this affected me, until last year after she had gotten better, I suddenly crashed. At nights, I would lie awake for hours - heart pounding - thinking about how I have not done anything useful or significant ever, and how everyone I loved would in the best case be dying painfully of liver failure in old age or something like that. I could barely watch the news, because every distant little tragedy would affect me personally and making me useless for the rest of the day. When my children were running out of bed because they forgot to give me good-night hugs I would sometimes feel absolutely nothing. Fortunately, my wife is pretty sharp and noticed the problem even though I myself didn't even notice that anything was wrong. She told me that I showed signs of depression, and we decided to keep pressure down for a few months - less travelling, less ski trips, forget about redecorating the hallway, etc. That helped, and the knowledge that my brain lies to me helped, even though it ran much deeper than I had imagined: my brain constructs both my thoughts, my reasoning, and my impressions. Having to use this same lying bastard brain to "fix" the brain is pretty damn tricky. We're both pretty much recovered now, but I have two pieces of advice to give: 1. Depression is contagious. If a close loved one is suffering, be sure to constantly keep an eye on yourself. 2. While the brain lies, memory is pretty reliable. When you have difficulties dealing with something, try to remember how you used to react to this before.

gosu 14y ago

>no matter what it says there are many people who love you I hear this platitude all the time and I don't think that it's constructive. Disconnectedness and depression go hand in hand, in my experience. You may be blessed to have many people who love you, but a decent portion of the human population objectively doesn't, and can recognize it. So saying such a thing to a depressed person seems to run a high risk of rubbing their loneliness in their face.

Chattered 14y ago

> Sorry for getting so personal, but I simply can't take any of the comments that say "just get over it." Depression is as real and as disabling as being paralyzed; it may not happen to everyone, but to say things like, "You need to be stronger" are no more appropriate to the depressed than they are to the paralyzed. The difference is that it is not always possible to talk someone out of paralysis, but I'd like to think it is possible to talk some people out of depression. So I'd prefer to think of calls to "be stronger" as an attempt at remedying someone's health problems, and not a judgement on their character. I'll back right off claiming that "be stronger" is an effective remedy, of course. In terms of arguing for a more sensitive language, there is a call (citation needed) to avoid the phrase "commit suicide" which implies that suicide is still a crime that one "commits."

DanBC 14y ago
I avoid the term "commit suicide" because of the link to sins and crime. People attempt suicide, or they complete suicide. > but I'd like to think it is possible to talk some people out of depression. Here's the thing: It is possible to talk someone out of depression. But that talk is a carefully crafted therapeutic talk, applied by an experienced trained therapist. Talking to someone without knowing what you're doing probably isn't going to be a long term help. And it might even be harmful.
iSnow 14y ago
>The difference is that it is not always possible to talk someone out of paralysis, but I'd like to think it is possible to talk some people out of depression. Nope. Best thing you can do is have their backs covered and stand by for emergencies while they untangle themselves from depression. Oh yeah, and cover your own ass, depression is contagious.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  Sometimes it is; that's what therapy (sans medication) is about. That said, it's something best left to the professionals. You generally can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into.

illuminate 14y ago

"Recognize your brain lies to you" If that was possible in all cases, the concept of mental illness and chemical imbalances would not exist.