6 ms·

What if you're depressed because you're afraid of death? (I wouldn't say I'm depressed -- not in the clinical sense anyway; but I do spend what I imagine is an

What if you're depressed because you're afraid of death? (I wouldn't say I'm depressed -- not in the clinical sense anyway; but I do spend what I imagine is an abnormal amount of time thinking about it because of mother's passing away when I was younger).

rip747 14y ago
what you describe is emotionally based, not chemically based. There is a HUGE difference.
- dia80 14y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. Ultimately all thoughts / brain function rely on "chemicals". The idea of purely "chemical" mental distress is also severely strained - consider "there is a 0% chance your current feelings are influenced by your environment / past". It's all a bit more of a spectrum. There is serious money behind the chemical mental-distress-as-an-illness interpretation. If it's a medical problem then you need a medical solution. Anti-depressants anyone? They are being taken in such vast quantities they are starting to poison the water. [1] [1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21882-antidepressants-in-water-trigger-autism-genes-in-fish.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21882-antidepressants-...
  - rip747 14y ago
    no... what you've saying is false. There is a HUGE difference in feeling sad about a traumatic or past event versus the chemicals in your brain not working properly. also this conversation is about true clinical depression and the difference between it and just feeling sad; it's not about some conspiracy theory of how every doctor wants us to be on meds or the fact that flushing medication down the toilet is poising our water supply. please stay on topic if you want to continue the converation
    - dia80 14y ago
      It's a little brash to dismiss published evidence as a conspiracy theory. You may think it flawed but then please at least make an intelligent criticism. Who gets to decide what is "feeling sad" with a cause and what is idiopathic "chemical malfunction". Care to offer any references? Objective diagnostics? I included the bit about antidepressants to caution swallowing the prevailing medical model hook line and sinker with out pause for thought as to it's assumptions. Pretty sure that's on topic.
      - rip747 14y ago
        its simple. if my wife doesn't take her medication she spirals down into a deep depression. it doesn't matter if she's at (what everyone would say) the happiest moments of her life, she's going to get depressed. now flip that when she's taking her meds, she is able to handle and snap out of it if things aren't going so well like any other normal person would. She still gets sad and feels bad, but _she gets over it_, where as if she's off her meds, _she doesn't_. i'm involved with this and see it on a daily basis.
        jnorion 14y ago
        But just because it's true for your wife doesn't mean it's unequivocally true for everyone else. You can't make that kind of sweeping statement.
    - duaneb 14y ago
      Arguably emotion is just the perception of underlying chemicals. I agree, it's too difficult to separate the two, and it's hardly necessary for treatment. Add to this the fact that emotions can cause brain damage (it's called PTSD) and the two become impossible to separate. So... there may not actually be a huge difference in feeling sad about trauma and chemical problems. Not all chemical problems are genetic.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Please stop. You are promoting a stigmatising, out of date, notion of mental illness which is based on ignorance. You are suggesting (whether you know it or not) that some depression is "real" (and based on a chemical imbalance) and some depression is not real (and is not based on a chemical imbalance). This is unhelpful, and potentially dangerous. It leads people to think that medication is the only way to treat depression. Medication is not the only way to treat depression; medication alone is unlikely to be much use for long term resilience. The "Chemical imbalance" model is too simple and has too many flaws to be much use.
pathdependent 14y ago
Consider seeing a therapist. Seriously. Most people have exposure to death when they are young, but for some people -- for whatever reason -- it's more traumatic. It can become corrosive, subtly or not so subtly, affecting the decisions you make in a harmful way. Personally, I had cancer at a young age, and for years it screwed up the way I saw the world, without me even recognizing it. It took another crisis-type event for me to recognize it. Trust me, if it is something you are already cognizant of, it's better to deal with it now to prevent future crises, then to wait until then.
kanamekun 14y ago
That sounds like anxiety to me? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety#Existential_anxiety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety#Existential_anxiety They can occur together too...
cbs 14y ago
What if you're depressed because you're afraid of death? In that case, you shouldn't take any advice from HN unless that advice is to talk to a professional. It's a lot like legal advice, sure people on the internet can talk about the issues, but they're probably wrong and even if they're right it's still unwise to take what they say at face value. The people with the professional capacity to help you can't do it well online for all the obvious reasons.
- corin_ 14y ago
  It's like legal advice but only in so much as you should take it with a pinch of salt and consider talking to professionals. I disagree with "they're probably wrong", because unlike in legal matters, where there is a right and a wrong, in mental health topics it is all very subjective - not only in that two people (even two professionals) might disagree on the best treatment for one person, but in that different people will react differently to different options.
- jnorion 14y ago
  That only partially makes sense. For comments/suggestions found on HN that have potential side effects, absolutely take them with a grain of salt and consult a professional... i.e. medication, psychedelics, etc. But for some of the suggestions, the advice is fantastic. Exercise more? Eat healthier foods at regular intervals? Practice positive thinking about the world and your life? Any one of them could help. ALL of them could help. And they can't hurt. Take every piece of "no-strings-attached" advice you can... and then ALSO consult a professional.
DanBC 14y ago
Anxiety is normal and usually healthy. An Anxiety disorder is neither normal nor healthy. Anxiety disorders can be incredibly debilitating, causing considerable distress to people and being very disruptive. Luckily, they often respond well to treatment. Consider cognitive behaviour therapy - this can be applied by a therapist; or self applied by a book or website. "Mind over Mood" is a recommended book, but there are others just as good.
nova 14y ago
... "Death is bad," said Harry, discarding wisdom for the sake of clear communication. "Very bad. Extremely bad. Being scared of death is like being scared of a great big monster with poisonous fangs. It actually makes a great deal of sense, and does not, in fact, indicate that you have a psychological problem." ...
- DanBC 14y ago
  When you're about to bunjee jump off a bridge you should be scared. When you're walking down a dark road you probably should feel some fear. But some people fear death all the time - they're sitting at home, watching tv, and they can feel their heart beating, and they think it's beating in a weird way, and that causes them to feel fear, which causes a bunch of physical reactions. Tense muscles, sweating, breathing changes; the person becomes aware of these and instead of ascribing them to fear they think these are the start of a heart attack. This causes even more fear and anxiety. Their heart is now hammering. They are "hyper aware" of their heart beat and breathing and sweating. They may well feel pain. This is not "in their head". It is real actual pain. It is the same pain that you would feel if someone punched you in the arm. They call an ambulance. They are taken to hospital. In that situation no doctor is going to say "Don't be stupid, you're not having a heart attack" (because people do have heart attacks), so the doctor will strap the person to all sorts of machines. But this doesn't relieve the anxiety. If anything, it just makes things worse. "They wouldn't spend all this money and time if it was just anxiety! I wouldn't be in hospital for this long if there was nothing wrong!" And, when all the results come back negative that doesn't relieve anxiety either. "Oh God! It must be really serious, because they can't find it on their tests! Maybe it's cancer!" Anxiety disorders quickly develop a strong grip on sufferers. Behaviours can be extraordinary. You only have to see the rituals that people with OCD go through to realise this.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Are you speaking from specific knowledge? I thought anxiety was a general physical symptom --- that your body response as though you are facing extreme stress, even when you aren't. I didn't think specific irrational fears where really relevant. (Maybe a fear of failure at work/school/flying-on-airplane-safely , economic colllapse, crime, etc). Or maybe it is the same as what you are saying....
Evbn 14y ago
There is only one guaranteed way to "lose" at life -- and that is to not play. Everythkng else has a chance of winning maybe, so try something. You don't know everything. No one does. No one ever will. One thing I know is this: if you treat yourself right today, tomorrow will be better for you than if you don't. Maybe tomorrow you will figure something out, so give yourself the best chance you can: have a good meal (without a lot of sugar or animal fat) , do 20 minutes of moderate to intense cardio exercise, turn off your computer at least 90 minutes before bed, take a shower, write down (on paper) whatever is troubling or busying your mind today, then get a good 8+ hours of sleep, and tomorrow, just pick one item from that paper list and do one little thing to make it a little better. I promise that tomorrow will be at least a little better than today, and a little better is always better than worse. Give people a reason to say, "That's XceleratesMom's kid. She sure did a great job with Xcelerate, even though she didn't get as much time as she deserved."

rip747 14y ago

what you describe is emotionally based, not chemically based. There is a HUGE difference.

dia80 14y ago
That's a false dichotomy. Ultimately all thoughts / brain function rely on "chemicals". The idea of purely "chemical" mental distress is also severely strained - consider "there is a 0% chance your current feelings are influenced by your environment / past". It's all a bit more of a spectrum. There is serious money behind the chemical mental-distress-as-an-illness interpretation. If it's a medical problem then you need a medical solution. Anti-depressants anyone? They are being taken in such vast quantities they are starting to poison the water. [1] [1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21882-antidepressants-in-water-trigger-autism-genes-in-fish.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21882-antidepressants-...
- rip747 14y ago
  no... what you've saying is false. There is a HUGE difference in feeling sad about a traumatic or past event versus the chemicals in your brain not working properly. also this conversation is about true clinical depression and the difference between it and just feeling sad; it's not about some conspiracy theory of how every doctor wants us to be on meds or the fact that flushing medication down the toilet is poising our water supply. please stay on topic if you want to continue the converation
  - dia80 14y ago
    It's a little brash to dismiss published evidence as a conspiracy theory. You may think it flawed but then please at least make an intelligent criticism. Who gets to decide what is "feeling sad" with a cause and what is idiopathic "chemical malfunction". Care to offer any references? Objective diagnostics? I included the bit about antidepressants to caution swallowing the prevailing medical model hook line and sinker with out pause for thought as to it's assumptions. Pretty sure that's on topic.
    - rip747 14y ago
      its simple. if my wife doesn't take her medication she spirals down into a deep depression. it doesn't matter if she's at (what everyone would say) the happiest moments of her life, she's going to get depressed. now flip that when she's taking her meds, she is able to handle and snap out of it if things aren't going so well like any other normal person would. She still gets sad and feels bad, but _she gets over it_, where as if she's off her meds, _she doesn't_. i'm involved with this and see it on a daily basis.
      - jnorion 14y ago
        But just because it's true for your wife doesn't mean it's unequivocally true for everyone else. You can't make that kind of sweeping statement.
  - duaneb 14y ago
    Arguably emotion is just the perception of underlying chemicals. I agree, it's too difficult to separate the two, and it's hardly necessary for treatment. Add to this the fact that emotions can cause brain damage (it's called PTSD) and the two become impossible to separate. So... there may not actually be a huge difference in feeling sad about trauma and chemical problems. Not all chemical problems are genetic.
DanBC 14y ago
Please stop. You are promoting a stigmatising, out of date, notion of mental illness which is based on ignorance. You are suggesting (whether you know it or not) that some depression is "real" (and based on a chemical imbalance) and some depression is not real (and is not based on a chemical imbalance). This is unhelpful, and potentially dangerous. It leads people to think that medication is the only way to treat depression. Medication is not the only way to treat depression; medication alone is unlikely to be much use for long term resilience. The "Chemical imbalance" model is too simple and has too many flaws to be much use.

pathdependent 14y ago

Consider seeing a therapist. Seriously. Most people have exposure to death when they are young, but for some people -- for whatever reason -- it's more traumatic. It can become corrosive, subtly or not so subtly, affecting the decisions you make in a harmful way. Personally, I had cancer at a young age, and for years it screwed up the way I saw the world, without me even recognizing it. It took another crisis-type event for me to recognize it. Trust me, if it is something you are already cognizant of, it's better to deal with it now to prevent future crises, then to wait until then.

kanamekun 14y ago

That sounds like anxiety to me? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety#Existential_anxiety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety#Existential_anxiety They can occur together too...

cbs 14y ago

What if you're depressed because you're afraid of death? In that case, you shouldn't take any advice from HN unless that advice is to talk to a professional. It's a lot like legal advice, sure people on the internet can talk about the issues, but they're probably wrong and even if they're right it's still unwise to take what they say at face value. The people with the professional capacity to help you can't do it well online for all the obvious reasons.

corin_ 14y ago
It's like legal advice but only in so much as you should take it with a pinch of salt and consider talking to professionals. I disagree with "they're probably wrong", because unlike in legal matters, where there is a right and a wrong, in mental health topics it is all very subjective - not only in that two people (even two professionals) might disagree on the best treatment for one person, but in that different people will react differently to different options.
jnorion 14y ago
That only partially makes sense. For comments/suggestions found on HN that have potential side effects, absolutely take them with a grain of salt and consult a professional... i.e. medication, psychedelics, etc. But for some of the suggestions, the advice is fantastic. Exercise more? Eat healthier foods at regular intervals? Practice positive thinking about the world and your life? Any one of them could help. ALL of them could help. And they can't hurt. Take every piece of "no-strings-attached" advice you can... and then ALSO consult a professional.

DanBC 14y ago

Anxiety is normal and usually healthy. An Anxiety disorder is neither normal nor healthy. Anxiety disorders can be incredibly debilitating, causing considerable distress to people and being very disruptive. Luckily, they often respond well to treatment. Consider cognitive behaviour therapy - this can be applied by a therapist; or self applied by a book or website. "Mind over Mood" is a recommended book, but there are others just as good.

nova 14y ago

... "Death is bad," said Harry, discarding wisdom for the sake of clear communication. "Very bad. Extremely bad. Being scared of death is like being scared of a great big monster with poisonous fangs. It actually makes a great deal of sense, and does not, in fact, indicate that you have a psychological problem." ...

DanBC 14y ago
When you're about to bunjee jump off a bridge you should be scared. When you're walking down a dark road you probably should feel some fear. But some people fear death all the time - they're sitting at home, watching tv, and they can feel their heart beating, and they think it's beating in a weird way, and that causes them to feel fear, which causes a bunch of physical reactions. Tense muscles, sweating, breathing changes; the person becomes aware of these and instead of ascribing them to fear they think these are the start of a heart attack. This causes even more fear and anxiety. Their heart is now hammering. They are "hyper aware" of their heart beat and breathing and sweating. They may well feel pain. This is not "in their head". It is real actual pain. It is the same pain that you would feel if someone punched you in the arm. They call an ambulance. They are taken to hospital. In that situation no doctor is going to say "Don't be stupid, you're not having a heart attack" (because people do have heart attacks), so the doctor will strap the person to all sorts of machines. But this doesn't relieve the anxiety. If anything, it just makes things worse. "They wouldn't spend all this money and time if it was just anxiety! I wouldn't be in hospital for this long if there was nothing wrong!" And, when all the results come back negative that doesn't relieve anxiety either. "Oh God! It must be really serious, because they can't find it on their tests! Maybe it's cancer!" Anxiety disorders quickly develop a strong grip on sufferers. Behaviours can be extraordinary. You only have to see the rituals that people with OCD go through to realise this.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Are you speaking from specific knowledge? I thought anxiety was a general physical symptom --- that your body response as though you are facing extreme stress, even when you aren't. I didn't think specific irrational fears where really relevant. (Maybe a fear of failure at work/school/flying-on-airplane-safely , economic colllapse, crime, etc). Or maybe it is the same as what you are saying....

Evbn 14y ago

There is only one guaranteed way to "lose" at life -- and that is to not play. Everythkng else has a chance of winning maybe, so try something. You don't know everything. No one does. No one ever will. One thing I know is this: if you treat yourself right today, tomorrow will be better for you than if you don't. Maybe tomorrow you will figure something out, so give yourself the best chance you can: have a good meal (without a lot of sugar or animal fat) , do 20 minutes of moderate to intense cardio exercise, turn off your computer at least 90 minutes before bed, take a shower, write down (on paper) whatever is troubling or busying your mind today, then get a good 8+ hours of sleep, and tomorrow, just pick one item from that paper list and do one little thing to make it a little better. I promise that tomorrow will be at least a little better than today, and a little better is always better than worse. Give people a reason to say, "That's XceleratesMom's kid. She sure did a great job with Xcelerate, even though she didn't get as much time as she deserved."