Michael Abrash once told about a study where the participants were shown a ball on the screen and the idea was to push the controller up, in an effort to keep the ball above a virtual line in the middle of the screen.
The first group was unknowingly given full control of the ball via the control, the second randomly was given some control, the third group had no control.
Only those with a depression diagnosis were able to properly assess when they had no control.
Curiously, overestimating leads to the correct behavior here: since attempting to control the ball has no cost, the only bad outcome would be deciding to not control it when you could have done so. This can be avoided by always attempting to control it. I wonder if the result of the study would persist if inaction was sometimes the right choice?
Gets back to the distinction between life as puzzle and life as game. Depressives may be better puzzle solvers, but optimists play the game better.
Edit - or the distinction between the picture-theory of language and the tool-theory. Depressives draw a more accurate picture but optimists make better use of the "tools"
Which is why the optimal strategy is to be optimist most of the time, but fall into depressive mood when we encounter a lot of obstacles. Use that depressive time to assess your situation and then start changing it, fueled by your normal optimism.
The issue is, if the obstacles we encounter are too many then we remain in low mood for too long, and that state becomes permament. Early in human evolution, when we were all living at savanah all the dangers and obstacles were short-term. This is entirely different in civilized society.
do you know that depression is a real disease and not some frame of mind you can choose to be in or excuse at will? i get the point of your post but the terminology is really wrong.
> A DSM diagnosis distinguishes an episode (or 'state') of depression from the habitual (or 'trait') depressive symptoms someone can experience as part of their personality.
Depressive mood != depressive disorder. The terminology isn't wrong.
What can I search to read more about picture theory of language vs tool theory? It sounds really interesting but when I google I only get results about picture theory of lang.
Read Wittgenstein. Or, don't read Wittgenstein, but read about Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein pioneered the picture theory of language--i.e. the idea that language represents the world. He later gave up on this idea and began to think about language as a tool. He coined the term "language-game".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language-game_(philosophy)
its an everyday struggle, but noting down the things which i am thankful for, such as wife, kid, some particular incident which could have been much worse but ended being manageable etc. has helped me a lot. It's a slow process though.
Further, what was different in each group amongst their constituent members who did/did not have depression? Did each subset perform differently within each group?
There's a great book called "Learned Optimism" which at one point talks about a very similar phenomenon, established by research.
The gist of it is that depressed people perceive reality more accurately. The author posits that it's one of the reasons who depression even exists. The world is a nasty, brutal place, and interpreting it accurately has its advantages, especially in our early evolutionary time period.
I guess you'd have to sustain the argument for group selection in general first. On the individual level, it wouldn't surprise me if the more 'seasonal' variations of depression are an evolved resource conservation strategy (now maladaptive), in a season (winter) when 'pickings are slim'.
I always have to remind myself that evolution doesn't optimise for happiness.
Animals get depressed, and manifest all the same behavior patterns humans do during depression. It's a much older phenomenon than human society.
There are a number of good theories on what the function of depression is. The best I've seen is that it's the brain's deep problem-solving mode for when an organism needs to hunker down and deal with hard problems it doesn't know how to solve easily. The mind slips into rumination mode and turns a problem over again and again in hopes of discovering some new insight about it and cracking it.
There doesn't need to be a "function;" the conclusion of the paper puts it pretty well:
"In summary, compared to nondepressed indi-
viduals, depressives are “nay-sayers”. Depressives
may be sadder but they are not wiser; rather, so-
called “depressive realism” results from the bias
of depressives to say “no”"
Cell division is obviously important for organisms to function, but it can run amok - that's cancer. Similarly, pessimism is sometimes a useful approach to solving a problem, but it becomes debilitating when it's out of control.
Depression is not a "problem solving mode" or anything like that; it's a disease. Depression (the medical condition, not just pessimism or being sad sometimes) is totally and completely draining. Someone who is depressed does not have the energy to solve the problem of "should I take a shower today," let alone "hunker down and deal with hard problems."
Sorry to pick on you, I just find the comment threads on articles like this so frustratingly ignorant sometimes.
Given the existence of depression in the animal kingdom, and it's persistence in humans despite its nonadaptive qualities, this accumulation of coincidences strongly suggests that it definitely had some adaptive purpose at some point.
If everyone knew about this, democracy might be more effective. We would only elect depressed people to positions of power, favoring their superior acumen. The most convincing speeches would be nihilist considerations on the uselessness of trying and the futility of life, then we would know, "this is the one who sees things as they are". One issue, though, might be that the military commander in chief might try to use that power against themselves.
Edit: Reading further into the article, it seems my utopia is actually unrealistic, how unfortunate.
Winston Churchill is another good example of a depressed (or possibly bipolar) leader (Churchill's "black dog"). Interesting that they are both war-time leaders.
On Lincoln, the recorded remarks of a fellow Illinois legislator are particularly interesting (from the article):
"He Sought company, and indulged in fun and hilarity without restraint, or Stint as to time[.] Still when by himself, he told me that he was so overcome with mental depression, that he never dare carry a knife in his pocket."
Some people - they don't call themselves psychiatrist on purpose - say that depression is not a (mental) illness but a normal human reaction to "abuse". The Psychopath Code by Hintjens [1] describes how different entities (persons, societies, government, etc.) can "abuse" you. Putting the two things together gives an interesting view on depression.
For me it is not surprising that people who have been "abused" in the past don't get fooled that easy the second time. IMHO the persons who successful overcome depression acquire some kind of "super power". The power which comes also with stoicism.
I'm sorry but this is just crazy talk, no pun intended. My depression has hurt me in so many ways even if I'm 'over' it. It hasn't made me this world-weary stoic, it has hurt my ability to be an effective person, relate with others, socialize, be optimistic, etc. There's no silver lining to it. I think a lot of these extremist opinions are very dangerous and on the level of anti-vax stuff because they can cause death. 2% to 9% of people that have been diagnosed with depression in their lifetime will go on to complete suicide. These are non-trivial numbers.
Ok, let me elaborate the opinion of the few non-psychiatrists I mentioned. They say that people with depression need professional help, but they have a nonorthodox definition of "help". If you are opressed by a dictatoric goverment the "help" can be leaving the country and getting your family out there. If you are in a bad relationship you can break up. If you have a soul-sucking job you can resign. These are all depressing situations you "are allowed to" feel depressed about because this is the normal human reaction to them. But getting out of them can help you.
That's not depression. That's being depressed. They're two radically different things.
Being depressed is when you're in a bad mood because your favourite sports team has lost a match.
Depression is when you cannot think rationally because you're ill and your brain isn't working properly.
Really, there needs to be a better name for this. Calling it 'depression' makes it sound too trivial. It's not; it's an illness. Once you've got depression, you're screwed, because your mental processes aren't working properly. Your value system gets twisted and distorted so that you can't make rational choices any more. Even if you recognise the action you need to take you get out of it, you may not be able to take it --- because you have a fricking brain malfunction. It's got nothing to do with willpower or choice. It's an illness that takes your free will away.
I'm with the parent here; these non-psychiatrists sound like they're talking dangerous nonsense.
I've overcome extreme treatment resistant depression. In my experience, fixing how you think and interpret events is the only permanent solution. If your thinking leads to depression, drugs will only work temporarily.
If my sports team has lost a match I am sad, disappointed or angry. In a situation like this I would never use the word "depressed", but I am not a native speaker, so who knows, maybe I am wrong at this point.
IMHO the main question is whether you take responsibility for your situation or not. Actually great responsibility comes with great power and not vice versa. Calling depression an illness you give up your responsibility and give up also your power over it.
On the other hand depression is an illness, obesity is an illness, homelessness is caused mainly by mental illness (we had this newly on HN), there were times where under average intelligence was considered as an illness. A brave new world of lack of responsibility...
The most frustrating part of the depressed vs depression terminology was that it led people who've never had depression to feel like they can relate to what someone going through depression is going through. It made them feel qualified to talk about depression, offer advice or try to "help" in all those ways that people try to help that are just so counterproductive.
Plainly put, if you've never experienced depression, you have no idea what it's like...even people who have experienced depression often have no idea what it's like for other sufferers. The normal downs that you've experienced have nothing in common with what a depressed person experiences. It's like someone who only sees in black and white trying to talk about colors by talking about shades of greys. Until you experience real color, you're only qualified to make second-hand observations.
I get where people are coming from when they want to call it an illness. I believe that rather than an attempt to offload responsibility, it's an attempt to clarify a very poorly chosen label for the condition. Depression, as a word, just feels too accessible to someone who hasn't been in it.
You can make getting out of "the condition" to your own responsibility, if you want, even if getting there was not your fault. Or you can discuss the terminology of depression and clarify the label of "the condition" believing that this is not offloading the responsibility.
It is your life, it is up to you what you make out of it.
Unfortunately I can not build a 500 billion $ industry on this advice.
My suggested lack of first hand experience is irrelevant.
To understand why people who disagree with you find this kind of advice frustrating, substitute some unambiguously physical, serious illness for 'depression', and re-read your comment. You need to start by convincing people that your preferred theory of depression is accurate, rather than giving them advice that only makes sense from that perspective.
And on a topic like this, where first-person experience is a crucial part of the subject matter and third-person science is still inconclusive, of course your own (lack of?) experience is relevant.
Knowing how it feels to have a broken arm does not make us to a doctor and this experience is irrelevant if we talk about healing a broken arm.
A short story [1]:
George Dantzig was a graduate student at UC Berkeley. Near the beginning of a class for which Dantzig was late, professor Jerzy Neyman wrote two examples of famously unsolved statistics problems on the blackboard. When Dantzig arrived, he assumed that the two problems were a homework assignment and wrote them down. According to Dantzig, the problems "seemed to be a little harder than usual", but a few days later he handed in completed solutions for the two problems, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue.
tl;dr: You can deal with hard problems if you think that dealing with them is your job and your own responsibility. Calling negative emotions "depression" and labelling as an illness means offloading responsibility and giving up the fight. You define yourself by the fights you pick and not by the pills you take.
> IMHO the main question is whether you take responsibility for your situation or not. ... Calling depression an illness you give up your responsibility and give up also your power over it.
Except the terrifying thing about depression is that you don't have any power over it. It takes your ability to make decisions away. You can't take responsibility over it, because you can't take responsibility over anything --- it's just not physically possible.
> A brave new world of lack of responsibility...
Be very careful; you're extremely close to saying that if people have depression then it's their own fault.
That's the kind of crap that leads to people inventing causal explanations when teenagers from perfectly healthy backgrounds are depressed, instead of treating the actual problem. Source: my experience with exactly such a shitty counsellor as a teenager.
There are also lots of people being killed by drugs prescribed to help treat depression, many of them are suicides as well. These are not long-term solutions.
The parent comment seems to be suggesting that people with depression need to take control of their own life by recognizing what makes them unhappy in order to overcome it. There is nothing harmful about that.
I'm torn between wanting to close this tab immediately before I get irrationally furious at people who probably mean well, and wanting to battle this out with every comment like yours in the small hope that it changes at least one person's attitude towards depression.
> The parent comment is suggesting that people with depression need to take control of their own life by recognizing what makes them unhappy in order to overcome it.
Your comment is suggesting that depression -- clinical depression, not, "boo hoo things are tough right now and I'm unhappy" -- is the depressed person's own fault and all they need to do is change everything in their life until they're happy.
It's really wrong.
When you learn to levitate by taking control of your own life and recognizing what makes you happy, then you will have something to teach people who suffer from depression. Until then, I beg that you do more reading on the subject, and I'm happy to offer some of the material that I've found most useful.
It's somewhat unfortunate that Allie Brosh's most famous work ended up being about her depression, but: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-... -- when she published this, people struggling with depression suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said, "YES, yes, this is it exactly!" It's a great and easy primer into the depressed mindset.
The stigma of depression -- which, unfortunately, is exacerbated by well-meaning but not well-informed people on the subject -- is one factor that prevents sufferers from seeking the help they need: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/stigma-as-...
Stephen Fry, bless his heart, was at the beginning of the more recent efforts for sufferers to come forward, in spite of their fears about stigma, and discuss the disease: http://www.stephenfry.com/2013/06/only-the-lonely/
I completely I agree with you as well, there are many reasons a person could be depressed including strictly scientific/medical reasons. However, I still feel very strongly those "boo hoo" items build up to create new problems or worsen existing ones in a significant way regardless of clinical status. To ignore that seems negligent.
I'm enthusiastic about life advice when it's practical and presented to people who are searching for it. So, to that extent, I thought your upthread comment was great.
But when people confuse that with advice for depression, I rush to change their minds about that, because it is a form of pop psychology which is pervasive and adds to the challenges faced by people suffering with depression.
Yeah, unsolicited life advice is definitely a problem for depressed people and doctors suggesting medicine can fall into that category sometimes too. I would never criticize a person about the treatment they've found to work for them or prevent them from trying new ones to attempt figure that out.
Many studies have demonstrated that the brain can modulate inflammation and immune activity. Ergo even if it was just a result of inflammation (which it isn't) you can absolutely think your way into and out of depression. Your attitude of powerlessness is harmful to people who buy into it.
>Your comment is suggesting that depression -- clinical depression, not, "boo hoo things are tough right now and I'm unhappy" -- is the depressed person's own fault and all they need to do is change everything in their life until they're happy.
I dunno, to me it reads as a (possibly) clumsily articulated suggestion to manage depression. Suggesting that one recognize and address the problem doesn't preclude the idea the problem is depression and addressing it to take control of one's life means seeking treatment. Maybe they're just speaking the generic advice and assuming the reader can put the pieces together.
Part of my own journey with depression was realizing that when I got agitated over posts that imply or even explicitly portray a "just cheer up and get over it" attitude towards depression, I was just doing it for the temporary rush of indignation. I wasn't helping anyone. Not the person I responded to, and certainly not passerby readers. Eventually I realized, the smart response wasn't to disagree, it was to make a friendly expansion on that post for any passerby readers who might not know. There's no reason to assume malice unless someone is openly asserting clinical depression is a lie and depressed people are just bummed out. And even in that case the best possibly outcome is still achieved with a friendly retort that still focuses the message on utility to the passerby readers.
Thank-you. There is so much misconception in this thread its driving me crazy. I just went to the psych today to start pill roulette again and find a new therapist.
There is absolutely no reason for me to be unhappy and generally I'm not, I just don't feel anything except for some anxiety. I have an amazing job, an extremely supportive family, a nice apartment, several close friends. Yet, there are some mornings I struggle to get out of bed. There's no external source in my life currently (or past really) that is causing this. I have been diagnosed with ADHD, Depression, and Anxiety, several of my other family members (brothers, mother, grandmother, etc.) have some or all those things too. It's a very real, biological, sometimes genetic thing. It's a very complicated beast. There's no just recognizing it and overcoming it. Yes, I recognize a lot of my symptoms are caused by my brain, but that doesn't do a lot for me to be able to just overcome it when I can't even find the motivation to brush my teeth. It takes help, and a long time retraining your mind to not just immediately assume you're a worthless piece of shit not worthy of anything.
It's beatable, but when you're in the state of mind of a depressed person, you're not going to see that immediately.
I've had depression my entire adult life, and have been in a very similar circumstance to you.
I've been trying to 'think my way out of it' for many years, but it was never achievable. Finally a few months ago I bit the bullet and went to see a Clinical Psychologist, who quickly recommended me to a Psychiatrist and have started medication.
I've always been extremely skeptical of anti-depressants given the nature of them and all the talk surrounding them.
However, The effects of this medication have literally changed my life in the span of about 4-6 weeks. It was definitely the missing link in what I needed to do 'fix' my brain (chemically) to get everything onto the right path.
Man I seriously sympathise with you. Allow me to extend my warmest congratulations and an invitation to join the 'shitty brain cooties trifecta' club. Unless you are someone who experiences greater confidence when taking amphetamines (not I), it's so bloody hard to treat these three conditions simultaneously!
Want to get out of bed in the morning? Sure thing, but good luck concentrating on anything when combining SSRIs with ADHD brain. Don't want to break out in a cold sweat at the prospect of being called on in a work meeting? No problemo, I hope you enjoy discovering the hidden depression sub-basement, and you thought you were already at the bottom of the pit.
Then there's all the crazy drug-drug interactions with CPY2D6 inhibiting anti-depressants and whatever else you might be on. I gets better if it's something like prozac or paroxetine, as both are simultaneously substrates and inhibitors of that enzyme (i.e. they inhibit their own metabolism so have non-linear DRCs... ah wacky fun).
But don't worry, you don't actually need drugs! All you need are positive thoughts filled with hopes and dreams, you filthy junkie.
/rant
On a more serious note, the only sustainable pharmacological treatments I can think of are:
- Dexamphetamine & beta-blockers (better chances if your anxiety is closer to a 'panic' disorder). This worked pretty well for me, until my local government health authority decided I couldn't be trusted with 'dangerous' drugs like dex. Far better to cast me back into the pit than to fuel our local ice epidemic, since clearly smoking meth is 'pretty much the same thing' as taking dex under medical supervision.
- Monotherapy with a non-reverse-able MAOI (e.g. Parnate, Nardil). Although good luck finding a psych willing to prescribe one, even if you can demonstrate you understand the interaction risks and know how to mitigate them.
There's a difference between beating depression, which the parent comment is talking about, and being 'over' depression, which is what your comment is talking about.
Beating depression requires mastering one's own inner life and changing the mechanics of how one thinks and interprets the world. This really does give you super powers coming out of it. And it makes you essentially depression-proof. Those 2% to 9% of people committing suicide are not people who have beat depression.
Getting 'over' depression is what happens when the depressed individual experiences a change in life circumstances or another external or temporary internal event that removes the depression for now. That depression can always come back, and among the people I know who haven't beat depression, it always seems to. They never get the 'super powers' because they never beat it.
Most of the highly successful, most gregarious people I know were deeply depressed at one point, beat it, and became expert problem solvers with superhuman capacities for perseverance. You could take their business from them, have them walk in on their spouse cheating on them, and find out their children aren't theirs and they'd be sad for a week or two then get right back on with rebuilding their lives again as soon as they finished deconstructing the problem and mapped out a new path for themselves.
Depression almost seems like a gauntlet certain high potential individuals have to pass through. Some of them make it through the gauntlet and get those super powers. Others don't make it through the gauntlet, step out for a breather, then go back in again. Then maybe they make it through that time, or maybe it's back out, then back in again. I have family members who've been sucked into the depression gauntlet repeatedly without ever beating it, and you can tell they have the potential for 'super powers', but never get them.
Would you elaborate on the "super powers" that you hint at here as being reserved for those who have made it to the Post-Depression state?
As a clinically depressed person, I am, in some ways, still very much caught up in the "gauntlet" you describe here. It would be interesting to hear what I can look forward to when I finally.. purchase your online course?
I had a lot of success with a combination of SSRIs and the cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques laid out in the book Feeling Good by psychiatrist David Burns. It's a pretty dry read, but my overall takeaway is that many forms of depression and anxiety are the result of flawed cognitive biases, and that with some practice you can learn to recognize them and catch yourself. (The SSRI helped dull the despair and worry enough to make that self-analysis possible.)
In a weird way, it's like you learn to treat yourself like any other human. If I got stood up for a date, my Asshole Brain would tell me my life was pointless, I'm ugly and unlovable, I'll be alone forever, etc. If a friend was in the same situation, my Good Guy Brain tells them the real, logical things: that it sucks but it's not your fault, the date probably had an emergency or just sucks at life, there are lots of other people to date, etc.
So it's a practice of learning to treat yourself like you'd treat that friend. Obviously it's not that simple - you can read these words and nod your head along with them, but in the middle of a depressive episode, it's like the engines cut out on your airplane and you don't know how to fly and why bother flying anyway. Pilots have to study and train for hours before they can fly a plane, but life just throws you right in the mix. It takes a BUNCH of study and training and thought experiments, plus maybe discussing with a therapist or support group or Internet strangers, but eventually you can learn to recognize these emotionally difficult situations and engage the Good Guy Brain before the Asshole Brain takes over.
This is exactly how I had assessed my situation. I had been largely depressed for the entire duration of my college, and no matter what I did I simply couldn't come out of it. However, with a slight improvement in the circumstances I could get back on track. But, it was just getting back on track and I realized that if the circumstances were to change I would be back to my state being depressed. I was so scared of going back to that fucked up state that I decided to radically change my thinking and behavior patterns until I could stomach the the nastiest crap hurled at me. Now I wouldn't say that I have any super powers even though it has been more than two years since I made that resolve, but I sure as hell am more happy and productive than ever in my life. Surprisingly, it's the practice of stoic philosophy (to me it means Karma Yoga, pioneered in the book Bhagwat Geeta, which bears uncanny resemblance to the stoic philosophy pioneered by Seneca and Markus Aurelius) that has helped stabilize my ever confused mind.
>Depression almost seems like a gauntlet certain high potential individuals have to pass through.
Aeschylus thought so too:
>He who learns must suffer; and even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God.
You mean well, and what you're saying may be helpful to people who struggle with certain feelings from time to time.
But statements like these are extremely frustrating for people with actual depression.
Depression is not just a state of mind you can change through will power. Here's a fun thing to do: if everything you believe about depression is applied to a broken arm or colorblindness and sounds ludicrous, then it's wrong.
For example: "Beating a broken arm requires mastering one's own inner life and changing the mechanics of how one thinks and interprets the world..."
Or: "Getting 'over' colorblindness is what happens when the colorblind individual experiences a change in life circumstances or another external or temporary internal event that removes the colorblindness for now."
Depression changes the way you think. It removes your motivation for improving. I didn't pick these examples randomly; depression is a colorblindness of emotion. It is insidious, and nasty, and "thinking your way out of it" is something that's going to be regarded in the future the way that we regard blood-letting a fever now.
There are treatments for it, with varying side effects, and there are some tactics people prone to depressive episodes can use to try to lessen the impact of their depression, but depression itself is not something you "beat". At best, it's something you learn to live with: having a broken brain for the rest of your life.
I've been severely depressed in my life. I think both you and OP are correct.
You're applying the broken arm analogy incorrectly.
Depression is a broken mind. Yes? A broken thought pattern, or response system, or something along those lines. Right?
Therefore beating depression requires fixing that. Fixing your mind. When you put it into words, that comes out as: "requires mastering one's own inner life and changing the mechanics of how one thinks and interprets the world"
Because that's what fixing your mind is.
Applied to the broken arm analogy it becomes: "fixing a broken arm requires fixing your broken bone and learning how to use that arm again"
Doesn't sound so crazy anymore does it?
> Depression changes the way you think. It removes your motivation for improving.
Which is why fixing the way you think is the only way you can fix depression. Whether that's through drugs, through sheer willpower, or by chanting prayers on top of a mountain in the himalayas. It all boils down to fixing the way you think.
There's mounting evidence that depression is a biological disease, not a woo-woo problem with your mind. You seem to be presupposing that the mind somehow exists outside of biology, and that probably isn't the case.
At best, advice like this is geared towards coping with it.
While advice for coping -- from people, like you, who know what they're talking about -- is good and helpful (when limited to that context), the notion that depression is a thing that can be beat through sheer willpower should be beat back with the same intensity as the argument that sleeping with virgins will cure AIDS, and for the same reason.
I'm not saying it's a woo-woo problem of the mind. But it is a problem of the mind in that it's literally defined as "a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of low mood that is present across most situations.[1] It is often accompanied by low self-esteem, loss of interest in normally enjoyable activities, low energy, and pain without a clear cause."
"mental" disorder --> mind stuff;
Symptoms: "low mood, low self-esteem, loss of interest, low energy, pain". All mind stuff as well.
Yes, it often requires drugs, and yes it usually/often/maybealways has an underlying cause of biological issues. But fixing it still requires fixing your mind. Because that's what's broken - your mind.
The point is that just because something is a mental issue, doesn't mean you can fix it with will power and thought changes alone. But you definitely can't fix it without will power and thought changes.
I like to think of beating depression like beating addiction. You first need to fix the biological stuff, and then you have to mentally keep making sure you don't slip back. Maybe forever. You need willpower to not go back down that road, to avoid situations that trigger depression in you, or hell, just to keep eating right and exercising and to make your mental health a priority because it does help.
As my shrink used to say: the drugs give you the chance, but you do the work to fix your thoughts.
Yeah, I get where you're going with it, and believe me, I'm not looking for excuses to disagree with you. (I upvoted you above; not sure why your comment in particular, of all the responses, got downvoted.)
There are a couple of points I feel compelled to push back on though.
First is the word "fix". This might seem like quibbling, but that really bothers me, and I think for not-trivial reasons. When a problem is fixed, it doesn't recur. Addiction and depression are never fixed. They can be coped-with, they can be treated, a person can live a (well, mostly) normal life as an addict or with depression. I think this is important because any advice or treatment offered to people with depression should be practical and it's critical not to imply, "this will fix you."
The other is that we have to be exceedingly careful when suggesting mental changes as a treatment for depression, because that can easily be misinterpreted by other people to mean that depression is caused by "bad thinking", or that a person struggling with depression can "just think their way out of it", and I submit this entire HN thread as evidence for that (and could probably dig a few more out of my comment history). That, I think, is distinctly unhelpful for people struggling with depression. They will tend to already be struggling with those thoughts as it is: "why am I broken? Come on me! Be better! Just be happy! Everyone else is happy!" and having other people show up and offer, essentially, the same advice, is really harmful.
And fwiw I too am speaking from far too much experience, both personal and family.
You're right, fixing is the wrongf terminology to use because depressed peoplr aren't broken per se. It's harmful to suggest they are especially since thinking that is one of the core tenets of depression.
Fwiw I don't think mental changes treat depression. I think they're the result of treating it. At the least they go hand in hand with the process.
Mental changes aren't a sufficient step to get out of depression, but they are a required step.
It's hard to put these things into words because they're on the intuitive side of my brain, but thanks for the chance to try.
As for the downvoters, screw 'em. I got points to burn. Maybe what I'm saying can help some people make some sense of the process.
I think you and the other commenters may be closer to agreement than you think, and perhaps just mixing terminology. By my reading they are both saying that sheer will is not the answer, and are not suggesting a dualistic mind either.
If the mind is the brain and vice versa, then it might stand to reason that in some cases the thought<->physiology<->environment feedback cycle that traps one in depression can be addressed not by willpower, but by selectively interrupting whatever part of the feedback cycle is easiest to access or most pronounced for a particular depressed person.
> in some cases the thought<->physiology<->environment feedback cycle that traps one in depression can be addressed not by willpower, but by selectively interrupting whatever part of the feedback cycle is easiest to access or most pronounced for a particular depressed person.
I've wondered about that for many years, and it's the strategy I adopted for myself a very long time ago, but I've seen scant evidence for either its effectiveness for most other people or any evidence for its basis in reality.
Like I just said elsethread, I'm more concerned here with other people misinterpreting the suggestions being offered and then sharing those with people with depression in a way which is ultimately harmful. I'm probably being a little louder than I need to be about it.
Depression is the result of how you interpret things. While genetics can make you more susceptible, thought is always the root cause. Your belief in the inevitability of depression is only leading to more depression.
> Depression is the result of how you interpret things.
This kind of thinking is precisely why I stick around to argue about this subject when it pops up.
You have cause and effect reversed, and you're not up-to-date on current medical research. The science has advanced far beyond, "you're depressed because you're thinking bad things."
I think it's likely that within the next 50 years a treatable, biological, root cause will be found which is somehow related to all of these, and I hope that by then the lay-public will have moved away from the opinion they share with Scientology.
> Your belief in the inevitability of depression is only leading to more depression.
You have misinterpreted the purpose of my comments. I'm not here to tell people with depression how to improve their lives, because I'm not qualified to do that (words which I wish everyone on HN would hear in their head before they write anything about anything). I'm just here to clear up common misconceptions about the causes of depression and what it's like to experience it.
My experience is very similar to the post/experience from throwaway7312 above.
> You mean well, and what you're saying may be helpful to people who struggle with certain feelings from time to time. But statements like these are extremely frustrating for people with actual depression.
Discussing depression goes down-hill everytime someone pivots to what people "should" or "shouldn't" say.
We're not trying to actively console someone with depression here, we're merely having a discussion on our thoughts/ideas/experiences of depression, so I think your defensive retort is quite misguided.
Regardless, I agree with your statement, but I'm at a loss to your intent.
I've been depressed and yeah, it's not really helpful when others say something that translates to:
> Depression is the result of how you interpret things.
But looking back on it - at least from my perception and reality of the world; it's 100% truth.
However, is stating this helpful? is it the right approach to trying to help someone who is going through depression? absolutely not.
Don't let the social politics muddy the raw discussion when appropriate, please.
> Your belief in the inevitability of depression is only leading to more depression.
This was definitely the biggest hurdle for me.
The echo-chamber of "This isn't your fault! depression is a disease we'll have a cure for one day!".
The vortex of negativity and the constant apathy was fed by these sorts of statements.
Mindfulness was my cure.
An ultimatum of either "I end my life" or "I do what is within my control, to change the way I think."
It's alot more complicated than that in reality, but the heart of what I'm trying to say is there.
> "thinking your way out of it" is something that's going to be regarded in the future the way that we regard blood-letting a fever now
As someone who spent more than a decade struggling with a diagnosed depression and the numbness that came from trying to get better with 5 different prescription drugs that addressed a few symptoms while making the whole thing a lot worse, what worked for me was, eventually, thinking my way out of it. And it's funny that you compare it to some medieval treatment because the method I used to think my way out of it has been taught for 2500 years. The key is you can't just try to think your way out of it. There is a specific technique to meditation and mindfulness that the watered down versions of mindfulness training miss. Go to the source and learn the traditional practice, not the bits and pieces that psychiatrists have tried to marry with more recent psychotherapeutic theory.
Now with daily anapana/vipassana practice, I'm able to live much more in the present moment, which allows for enjoyment and sadness free from the suffering that I now realize was manifesting in my depression. It's a form of delusion to deny or ignore the truth of what's happening right now, no matter how simple that truth might be. And when I delude myself often enough, I start to feel depressed. It's cause and effect, and I see it so clearly now. But now that I understand the cause and how to stop causing it, I can recognize when I'm feeling depressed and bring myself out of it.
Nothing used to frustrate me more than people insinuating that I could fix my depression by just trying harder. And that's what "think yourself out of it" sounded like to me. My motivation was so zapped that that kind of advice just made me more despondent. So I want to make it clear that thinking your way out of depression is not a matter of trying harder. In fact once it clicks, it becomes easier...like riding a bicycle downhill. And that's a good metaphor, because if thinking your way out of it is riding a bicycle, how effective you are at it and how hard you have to work depend entirely on which direction you point, not how hard you pedal.
I appreciate your opposing take. There is a lot of push back against non traditional remedies, and also against the pharmaceutical route (in both cases, deserved). As someone else who is suffering, I have found comfort in meditation, mindful practices, and most importantly acceptance. These mental states allow me to function enough to exercise or eat well, or mind my sleep or stay away from drugs (which provides a physiological basis for "getting better"). So I agree you can't just think your way out, but the right frame of mind can provide the momentum to put the rest of the pieces together.
I think depression is closer to an inability to walk because of muscle atrophy: you can't tell them to just get over it and start walking, but retraining the muscles is a critical part of treatment.
I like this a lot, fwiw. I don't disagree with anyone that says changing mindset is part of an effective treatment, nor will I argue with anyone that says it worked for them.
This comment is also well intentioned, but you're really trying to counter someone who might not be 100% correct with an analogy that gets us farther from the truth.
Learning to live with depression _is_ the super power that the parent comment mentioned. That's the ultimate solution you say anyone can come to, and in fact, that is exactly what OP has described; you just put it more blandly.
Can't understand why you're getting downvoted. My experience with depression is like yours. It's easy to romanticize mild depression. It's impossible to romanticize serious depression: an utter inability to feel, which paradoxically results in a sucking black hole of numb despair; not being able to get out of bed, never mind go to work, talk to friends, or engage with the world in any meaningful way; and ultimately suicide. Depression is not "sadness." It's not stoicism. It's a complete disconnection from reality with zero upside.
Sadly, the reddit/HN hivemind has decided the stoicism is the current hot fad for young male techies and anything that remotely sounds like a positive for it will be trumped up as justification for it. This article is being misrepresented to promote that view.
Did you read the highly upvoted thread above saying depression is just in the mind, people who beat it gain "super-powers", and ranting about stoicism and meditation?
There is a hell of a lot of deeply condescending woo here.
I was just about to post the final portion of the conclusion:
In summary, compared to nondepressed indi-
viduals, depressives are “nay-sayers”. Depressives
may be sadder but they are not wiser; rather, so-
called “depressive realism” results from the bias
of depressives to say “no”.
Clearly a lot of people just didn't read it at all... and didn't even skim the major portions.
To be fair, it's pretty poor abstract-writing to not hint at the conclusion in the abstract. That's the _job_ of the abstract, to summarize the contents, not to be a 'teaser' where you don't know what you're going to get without reading the whole article!
The treatment/theraputic perspective is that depression is a treatable disease of the brain, one that can be modified by changes in behavior/thinking and/or by medication.
(Note: the paper paints a mixed picture but concludes with the generally-accepted scientific model that depressive realism is rarely accurate)
...It's strange how I've been seeing more and more about how Depression is somehow "Rational" lately. That kind of thinking reinforces depression, and is part of the core of the illness. Also this meta-study doesn't assess whether depressed individuals also overestimate helplessness. (One of the studies in the paper only tests if they underestimate control in an experiment, which might sound like the same thing at first blush but it isn't) Broken clock is right twice, poorly-designed studies, and all that...
I would imagine that it is about as useful to talk about "Depression" as it is to talk about "Cancer". There are so many forms, expressions, and causes of depression, requiring wildly different approaches to treatment, that I think we do a great disservice by lumping them all under the same umbrella term.
> There are so many forms, expressions, and causes of depression, requiring wildly different approaches to treatment, that I think we do a great disservice by lumping them all under the same umbrella term.
While individuals with mental illnesses often have unique/situational characteristics, there are common causes and symptoms of such illnesses, hence our ability to categorize illnesses by name. Because the causes and symptoms are similar, medical professionals and therapists can prescribe appropriate cognitive, pharmaceutical, and other treatment plans.
Telling yourself your depression is unique just feeds into the idea that it's unsolvable and that depression is rational...
One thing I don't understand is how a brain-state can ever be considered abnormal. It can be considered disadvantageous, or advantageous in some aspects only, but in no way be "normal". What are the normal facial features?
It's not a matter of abnormal vs normal, it's a matter of dysfunctional versus functional in various situations. It's also a matter of the brain itself inhibiting healthy functioning of the entire body (in the case of depression and similar illnesses) The mind is the body, most especially the brain.
What if the situation/environment the person is in is disfunctional? Wouldn't a "functional" mind within a "dysfunctional" environment purposefully "inhibit healthy functioning of the entire body" as a warning sign that a new environment is needed?
No. No matter what the state of the environment, a mental illness is not going to improve the situation, if only because it limits the ability to change the environment. In fact, that is the definition of mental illness: it causes problems in dealing with life.
A "healthy" mind in a dysfunctional environment can produce physical symptoms that mimic mental illness---anxiety for example---which makes diagnosis difficult, and is the root of the difference between the blues and clinical depression.
>A "healthy" mind in a dysfunctional environment can produce physical symptoms that mimic mental illness
Im not sure I understand. When you say "mimic mental illness", are you saying that environmental factors cannot cause a "healthy" mind to get a "real" mental illness?
I have no solid data on that and I am not a mental health practitioner in any sense.
But to my mind, no. The problems of a healthy mind in an unhealthy environment are easy to solve: change the environment and the problem goes away. On the other hand, problems such as my depression get only temporary relief from changing the environment; the only long term relief has been drug treatment.
Normal facial features are a nose with two nostrils that can intake air in a specific way, a mouth with lips and a palate of a certain shape, etc. mental illness isn't a mole on the cheek, it's a cleft palate that's prevents swallowing normal food.
Mental illness is such a broad category that I'm not invalidating all mental problems. Clearly Schizophrenia is real and serious condition. However, even with that said, I think the view on schizophrenia, and mental illness that the general society has is very toxic, produces conflict, and makes an otherwise benign issue larger than it necessarily is.
Furthermore not all mental conditions are illnesses.
"Many people have mental health concerns from time to time. But a mental health concern becomes a mental illness when ongoing signs and symptoms cause frequent stress and affect your ability to function."
"A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a [...] behavioral or mental pattern that may cause suffering or a poor ability to function in life. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as a single episode. Many disorders have been described, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders."
It might be said that, when the outcome density
is increased, the typical participant displays
irrational optimism.
The slot machine industry figured that out about two decades ago. Slots today have a lot more small payoffs than they used to. Lotteries have also increased the number of small payoffs. The expectation ratio is no better, but dividing it up differently keeps some people playing.
Deprived of happiness is terribly conspicuous. For optimists, this fact plays no part in their existential computations. For pessimists, however, it is axiomatic.
Whether a pessimist urges us to live “heroically” with a knife in our gut or denounces life as not worth living is immaterial. What matters is that he makes no bones about hurt being the Great Problem it is incumbent on philosophy to observe. But this problem can be solved only by establishing an imbalance between hurt and happiness that would enable us in principle to say which is more desirable—existence or nonexistence. While no airtight case has ever been made regarding the undesirability of human life, pessimists still run themselves ragged trying to make one. Optimists have no comparable mission. When they do argue for the desirability of human life it is only in reaction to pessimists arguing the opposite, even though no airtight case has ever been made regarding that desirability. Optimism has always been an undeclared policy of human culture—one that grew out of our animal instincts to survive and reproduce—rather than an articulated body of thought. It is the default condition of our blood and cannot be effectively questioned by our minds or put in grave doubt by our pains. This would explain why at any given time there are more cannibals than philosophical pessimists.
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