Just a touch of optimism here. I suffered from depression for 7 years, then started meditation. I can say I am now very happy after 4 years of regular practice. I don't really care if my brain was a bit damaged then. Don't lose hope, everyone has a big potential of happiness just waiting to be explored inside. Have a happy life!
My experience with meditation has allowed me to be more accepting of my emotions, beyond just happiness - oddly enough, being willing to be unhappy has made me happier. But there are times I am rightfully sad and I allow those feelings to be felt and let go.
Maybe for you there is a lot of untapped happiness - by all means, ride that wave if you've got it. I had to figure out that I don't have that, my ocean moves with different currents.
> oddly enough, being willing to be unhappy has made me happier.
Suppressing, fighting, and avoiding feelings usually strengthens them. By contrast, calm compassionate and curious observation will often allow them to dissipate "on their own".
Deal with bad feelings like you deal with an angry person: listen seriously. Often they just want to be heard.
I am agreeing with the other comment(s) here asking if you could explain further how has meditation specifically helped you? And what/how do you meditate?
I too feel that there's another happy universe inside my head were I to distract myself to believe in another reality. But it's just biological facts that come to maul me and digesting uncomfortable thoughts by yourself is not very efficient way of solving the issue. I am not living up to my potential and the momentary voices, although painful, are a reminder to me that I have to change something to feel good about myself. I think in the heart of it is the need for a constant validation through something, other people's love and affection mostly, that you can feel that your life is worth living.
In the sense same thing (maybe) that you can do with meditation and keep those positive neural pathways from growing shut.
I’m not a fan of meditation, but recognizing that you can actually choose how to feel can be very empowering.
I suspect that some people get locked in a catch-22 like the following:
1) Because they feel down, they empathize with other people who feel down, and find it personally important to be just, helpful, extra considerate, and thoughtful toward others.
2) Because of this, any indication of injustice or discomfort feels like a personal affront to their values and identity.
3) Any anger or pain resulting from this causes a reaffirmation of #1, and the cycle is reinforced.
Well I can tell you a story about the other end of spectrum for self-reinforcing thoughts.
I don't know if you have a social anxiety but after an embarrassing social incident you ruminate on your behaviour right? Well take that to its ultimate level and you are constantly being possessed with thoughts about not thinking about a thought that is driving you insane.
Just a small idea of the feedback loop: think about a thought. Now try not to think about it. Well you probably can do it but think that you are so anxious that you actually cannot do it. And the act of thinking about it makes you anxious so there's really no way of exiting the loop. Anxiety makes you anxious so to say and you feel fear so terrible that it makes fear you even more. You wake up thinking about it and you fall asleep.
Yeah it might not sound relatable but were you to discover the feeling that I mean. Oh boy. There exists emotions inside of us so terrible that you'd wish no human would have to discover. What cured it or well stopped the loop was distracting myself long enough for the anxiety to dissipate and not to remember the feeling (and therefore not to reinforce it). If there was a similar way to do it but for a happy thought I'd be all for it.
>after an embarrassing social incident you ruminate on your behaviour
I like to reframe this as gratitude for the opportunity to reflect on a situation and come up with ideas for what I could have done differently, and eager to find analogous opportunities to test these new ideas out. Get enough of these opportunities and do enough “social experiments” and you can become more socially gifted than most.
Generally I reframe everything in terms of its positive effects, and I’ve found that some people are disbelieving — “you can’t possibly really think that way.” But it’s fantastically effective for my happiness, and I’ve noticed that excessive irrational positivity is also quite socially magnetic.
> There exists emotions inside of us so terrible that you'd wish no human would have to discover.
This. I have this terrible feeling that I cannot explain; It is so nebulous that trying to decipher it has taken lots of time, effort, intense/extreme emotional roller coasters, and I still don't know how to suppress it.
I feel like I have literally lost several brain cells in the span of a year, lost several IQ points, lost my ability of sharp logical reasoning, analytical/critical thinking and also memory retaining power.
All that I have now is emotional instability, irritability, impulsive anger.
I'm sorry that I am pouring my symptoms here, which should definitely be dealt with a shrink. But whatever.
I have the same feeling, although it is going on for more than a year. More like three. Sometimes it feels like I had a small stroke or something like that (just as a comparison, I don't want to insult anyone who had a stroke which is a thousand times worse than what I have).
Just three years ago it was so easy to learn new things, to discover... now it feels like my brain is failing me. I have to say, I feel disabled. And I hope it will get better again. Because right now it sometimes feels hard to even hold a conversation and not forgetting what other people told me ten seconds ago. And my whole train of thought feels so... scatty, if that's the right word for it. Scatterbrained. There is a psychological term for it - thought disorder, and it's a symptom of depression, but I do not feel depressed in a clinical sense. Also my grades are still ok, at a US college it would be around an A- or B+.
I miss my "old" brain though. I'll definitely try meditation.
> Because right now it sometimes feels hard to even hold a conversation and not forgetting what other people told me ten seconds ago.
Oh my God! You just described me! I forget so many things that were told to me moments ago. It's getting harder by day because I have a job now, and it's getting tougher everyday. I have to keep in mind what the clients describe, and even if I'm jotting them down, I tend to forget what was said 5 seconds ago. For example, if I was told to do something in a sequence, I would totally mess it up. I can't perform a task in a sequence. Like for instance, if they ask me to perform a task in this particular order of A->B->C, I would do F->10->#.
I seem to have lost my resolute mannerism. I rage at everything. i rage quit, rage fight. I used to solve challenges that come to me logically, now I just approach in a violent way. Like, if someone is being a bully, kill him, if someone is doing a task ineffectively, shoot him. I have episodes of deep depression and in that time I get a lot of suicidal and homicidal thoughts. Sometimes I fear myself that, given a heated situation, if someone tells me I am wrong, old-me would have approached in a logical manner and solved it diplomatically, now I just fear myself that I would kill anybody who is confronting me. I feel like if I unleash my anger onto someone, I would go to pour all my bundled up anger of over 2 years on that person and maybe kill him; My anger is pressuring up day by day.
I feel like I have so many things to do to improve myself or come out of it, but I'm too tired, lazy and impatient. Just wanted to get these things off of my chest man. Maybe this is the first time I'm opening up to someone. I should see a shrink.
For what it's worth, you've so eloquently described what I've struggled to put into words for years, so whatever brain cells you still have up and running are probably more than enough. Hang in there.
Sorry to hear you had to go through it. I feel like I'm getting damn close to finally escaping something very similar now, after several years of it dominating my life.
It's was largely a psychosomatic thing for me. It started with an RSI that I'd had for years, then I read about people with horrible RSI problems which turned out to be psychosomatic (through Sarno et al). Unfortunately, because I was already in a fairly paranoid state at this time from various things like a recent Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis (and pushing myself to use computers even though it felt painful)—while I felt I had enough evidence to confirm that my problem was psychosomatic, learning this made things go very wrong.
It seemed to me like my mind/body were sort of attacking me and giving me the RSI, and if it's not strictly physical, why should it have to be limited to my wrists? Every semi-controllable aspect of my body started going out of whack if I were to think about it happening (e.g. blushing, sweating, etc.). The longest lasting of these was a very distinct squeezing sensation on my forehead—just like a hand were placed on top of it, in a specific position. The intensity varied with my concern about it. There were times where I noticed everything was fine for a few moments and the sensations were absent—but as soon as I'd check for them they'd immediately come back and my thoughts would be dominated about how the situation was evolving moment to moment.
Anyway, I started meditating about 2.5 years ago (spent about a year reading about it before starting a regular practice, mostly avoiding it initially because I'd tried a couple times and it would horribly exacerbate the forehead squeezing sensations), and it's helped me tremendously. It's kind of like it restored a balance in which parts of my mind activate under different conditions: ordinarily someone is anxious and perhaps even aware of it, but they don't try making it go away through thinking about it—they trust at least to a certain extent that their body/mind know what they're doing and the response there is correct, and the 'problem' resolves on its own. At that point in time I essentially never left the conscious thought mode.
I can see all those possibilities of acting in one way or the other now—not perfectly, but pretty well often times. And the more clearly I see it the more often I make the choices which make things better rather than worse—finally escaping the feedback loop (woo!).
I've got a lot of thoughts on meditation now, and they're mostly positive at this point, but I also don't think I'd have gone so far with it unless I had absolutely no other choice. And it does seem a bit scary at times (mostly just from hearing stories)—but I think people tend to be fine as like as they 'take it easy': avoid extremes. I went through an extended phase where that bothered me a lot, but I feel pretty good about it now.
Oh man, I love the delicious irony of this statement. I wonder if meditation actually helped with your ego problem or just made it stronger. Have you taken psychedelics or started a spiritual practice yet?
It has definitely helped. I'm thinking less about useless stuff and feel significantly more calm and 'out of my head'. That said, I still think about things that interest me and meditation is one, so I've got some thoughts on it ;) (And I do still think about things that are probably useless and don't really interest me—but the amount has massively dropped off.)
> I wonder if meditation actually helped with your ego problem or just made it stronger
Interestingly, I think it did get worse before it got better—but I'm confident saying it's significantly better now. Not every time, but also not infrequently, I can watch it get better over the course of a few minutes during a breath watching meditation session.
I think some about how there might be room in my worldview for something that could be called spiritual. The closest I get for now is having an appreciation for how little we really comprehend of what reality is, and I enjoy trying to get an understanding of its 'character' nonetheless (but more like in getting to know another person's—not something analyzed necessarily). I guess you could call it a reverence for the mystery we're a part of.
> Ironically, it's when we heal ourselves that we can actually be of the highest service to those who are hurting.
I think it's a two fold improvement, you stop being an emotional burden to others who worry about you and you are also more able to support them with their other worries.
And in many cases the relationships we co-create when wounded are co-dependent and so those "worriers" who view emotions as a burden ultimately can't help us anyway -- if they haven't made peace with their own despair, for example, they will never be able to make room for us and will only amplify the pain.
Once we take responsibility for our own pain, we are less drawn to hide out taking responsibility for others instead of dealing with our own. And that allows us to lovingly empower others to take responsibility for their pain as well.
Of course, we can model what that looks like, we can help them feel pain that they are afraid to touch, but once we show them it's safe to hold, they will reorient towards it quite organically in my experience.
> Ironically, it's when we heal ourselves that we can actually be of the highest service to those who are hurting.
Beautifully said. After creating my own healing, I feel compelled to give back in some way. Anytime I see a thread like this, it's a reminder how much work there is to do.
Have you ever calmed yourself down when you've been upset? Or recognize that you're getting emotional and take extra care when you choose your next words? That's the type of thing I believe your parent is getting at. This is some of the motivation behind techniques like CBT. It's not implying that people choose to feel depressed, but that one can have some control over how one is feeling when in the throes of otherwise overpowering emotion.
I would describe those as coping strategies to avoid maladaptive behavior, not changing the underlying emotional state. I find it hard to see how "actually choose how to feel" can mean anything but the latter.
Then I believe, given the greater context, that you're choosing to read it uncharitably. If your point is to search for greater clarification and mutual understanding, as opposed to argument, I think you can likely do better than your current approach.
> If your point is to search for greater clarification and mutual understanding, as opposed to argument
I don't believe those things are actually opposed in any meaningful way. Also, I think it's possible to take the principle of charity too far. At some point, it's just as much putting words in people's mouths as a knee-jerk misinterpretation.
I do meditation. I don’t suffer from depression, however. It has helped me in living a more tranquil inner life. Less anger, more understanding, not just of myself but of others as well. It has definitely fostered more human connection and the value of vulnerability. How? I developed more awareness of what I cling to, which is the source of almost all my undesirable emotions. YMMV.
I like to use Calm most times but I started out by studying Mahayana Buddhism and some advaita. I practice meditation in accordance with those ideas.
I've started keeping a sleep spreadsheet (bed time, wake time, get out of bed time) to give me some actual data for myself for exactly how much sleep I'm getting.
The plasticity of the brain is tremendous. I would not be surprised if it turns out that long-term meditation and other techniques not only reverse damage from depression completely, but eventually leave their own signature changes (which are beneficial) on the brain's structure.
Would love to hear more about the type of meditation you practice. How long, how often. How hard was it to get started and be consistent. That sort of thing.
Not the OP, but I also got into meditation a while ago, and it helped a lot with my seasonal depression. I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book, which I actually found from someone on Hacker News raving about it. It's really straightforward with describing the goals and techniques for each stage.
I'm wondering if I've been depressed for too long for things to reach me.
I've bought that same book, probably after reading the same post about it, but I have at most read a few pages, and managed to meditate maybe a few times since then.
The world is complete information overload for me. I currently urgently need to:
1) learn a new language
2) practice meditation
3) learn react / unit testing / ML / distributed systems stuff
4) learn basic social skills
5) actually live life a little
6) ...
I say "currently", but this has been true for years.
I've suffered and still suffer from a lot same in the past. I hope sharing what's helped me can help someone else who feels like theirs so much to do / learn, but starting never happens.
For me, it's often been a result of procrastination but, just in the past couple of years, have I began to understand the source of the procrastination. My issue was fear. Fear that I would fail learning [_whatever new thing_], or not reach a deep enough state of meditation. So, my fear was compounded with some judgement of my ability.
At the moment, I'm practicing what I call "lowering the barrier to entry" and shelving perfectionism. I used to dream of progress as the grandiose "a-ha" moments; however, the reality is that progress is made up of many small moments over time.
As much as it pains me to suggest "agile for your life," I have found some success in having a personal backlog and trying to determine what matters to me most. It's the kind of thing life coaches charge you a lot of money to tackle, but most engineers / tech workers are accustomed to:
- Decide the project's top 10 priorities
- Place a value on each
- Determine their effort
- Break each down into subtasks
- Plan a chunk of work
- Start
I would also ask yourself where your motivation lies. Is it extrinsic or intrinsic. What inspires you to learn ML or React? I struggled with learning music for a long time because it always felt like something I was "supposed" to do. I still want to, but I have to come to terms with the source of that motivation.
Living is as easy as being "here," yet that's paradoxically hard for our stimulus driven brains. I've found slowing down, tasting things, feeling textures, and listening more have made me more aware and present. If you ever feel dead inside, deploy on Friday at 5.
Finally, I'll add all of this is easier to type and intellectualize than it is to live. To me, it often feels like a constant fight of putting time into the things I value to grow as I envision myself X months / years into the future.
I'm already prioritizing / cutting things that aren't absolutely necessary. I have a long backlog and it's just discouraging to see how long the items have been on there. The truth is probably that I have largely given up on myself, gradually over many years, and it feels like it has reached a point of no return.
There's just too much negative and not enough positive. I have really fought my way through life, always with the vague hope that I could turn things around. Now that I'm getting old, things are getting even harder. Seeing more and more white hair in the mirror, skin starting to sag. And I'm still plagued by terrible anxiety and depression and an overwhelming lack of self confidence. The isolation is scaring the hell out of me. It's nothing new for me, but at my age it's just much more difficult to fix.
When I slow down, I notice how damaged I am and how little I pay attention to that and to getting better. Of course this happens because I don't believe I can fix it. I don't want to pay attention because that just hurts.
I actually started reading the book about meditation and meditated for a good bit. What I read also made perfect sense to me. My brain is super reactive and scattered all over the place, and I believe it's part of the reason why I don't manage to change. I just can't focus on anything long enough because there are burning fires everywhere, and my mind is pushed around and locks onto whatever is making the most noise.
I have random jolts of anxiety and adrenaline that get triggered by thoughts, many of them repetitive. I don't even notice usually because it's so normal and everything has been bad for so long. Many repetitive toxic memories / beliefs about myself. Basically all the bad stuff that in theory you can work on with CBT and all other approaches.
Anyway, on a positive note, I have also spent some time on pluralsight and enjoyed it. You're right about questioning the motivation - it's not really me. It's mostly fear. I'm worried what happens if I lose my current job. I feel insecure about my technical skills, and the idea about ML is mostly about proving something to myself, dispelling the self doubt. My interviewing skills are...well, abysmal. I'm basically not employable through a standard hiring process even though I think I'm one of the more valuable employees where I'm at now.
There's an amazing interview with Gabor Mate on Tim Ferriss's podcast [1] where he frames early trauma and its effect on people in later life in a really succinct way.
I've listened to it 3 - 4 times, because he has a really interesting frame of mind that depression is an adaptation to trauma we've experienced at some point when emotions where too much to digest. The psychedelic bit is interesting, but I would say less say than the content before.
> I don't want to pay attention because that just hurts.
~5 years of cognitive behavioral therapy really helped me and I cannot say enough about it. It provided me with all the tools to make emotions and life manageable.
> I have random jolts of anxiety and adrenaline that get triggered by thoughts, many of them repetitive
I think a lot of people have these. It's even been linked to lack of sleep [2]. I think with mindfulness / meditation you begin to observe the thoughts and question where did they come from, and why here and now.
> I feel insecure about my technical skills, and the idea about ML is mostly about proving something to myself, dispelling the self doubt. My interviewing skills are...well, abysmal. I'm basically not employable through a standard hiring process ...
I have multiple friends who feel the same way. Of the past 7 or 8 interviews I've had for front-end and backend work, there's only been 2 or 3 where a difficult "Google style of problem" was involved. They're out there and solvable, but do take some practice. Before I 'studied' for interviews years ago, I thought the solutions people came up with were these magical, on-the-spot sort of things. Mostly, it's just practice and pattern recognition.
I began working my way through leetcode easy problems, and worked up to solving medium. I would solve the way I was acquainted with, and then go see if there was a solution with a better optimization. If there was -- I would re-do the problem and log everywhere to understand the better solution.
What I did to get better at interviews:
- Practiced my "2-3 minute spill" ... the intro where you tell the interviewer your entire career in not enough time
- Took interviews for jobs I had no interest in (Be careful though! I took one of those because I ended up liking the team / place)
- Worked on mastering the language / environment I work in
- Did 1 - 2 leetcode problems a day, often repeating one that I just barely grasped.
I hope this helps. I feel like I was in your exact shoes just a few years ago, and still don the same shoe strings and soles now.
whoa absolutely in the same boat. So fickle and can't pin down an interest - but now I've lost most motivation to even take up interest in anything altogether.
Well, tbh I don't experience it as lack of interest, I just struggle to keep up with everything. I prioritize work because not earning money isn't an option yet.
That combined with my general depression and lack of support pretty much takes all my energy. I have a little bit left here and there, but it's simply not enough to get far with anything. It's very discouraging to start anything because it instantly feels overwhelming and I know I have more must do queued up that I'm deprioritizing to get this technically optional thing done. How can I read for hours in a day if I need to do house keeping stuff, send bills to insurance for reimbursement that are a year old, get that health checkup done, ... and so on. So much stuff to do. I don't know why I experience life like this. Everyone seems to have so much discretionary time to spend, especially if they do as little as I do.
Here's some advice from a fellow beginner.
After many failed attempts to make it stick, what worked for me was a combination of two things:
- Reading about meditation in general just to learn more about it out of curiosity, not necessarily looking for instructions. This helped create a mental model of what it entailed, what to expect, what to look for. I read different books over the years, but I really like how Sam Harris describes his experience with it in his podcast.
- This app: https://insighttimer.com/ I've tried multiple apps but this one really made the difference for me. There are thousands of meditations to choose from, you can filter by duration, and there's a bit of gamification too. Another important thing, there's no "meditation course" to follow - you just search a meditation session that looks right for your mood and the time you have and that's it. These features combined removed all the friction I always found as a beginner. At first I started with only 5 to 10 minutes every morning, guided meditation with breathing exercises. As time went by, I felt I was improving in gaining control of the experience and started doing longer sessions with just soft music as background. Make it a daily routine, start small, do your best but don't be too hard on yourself.
Meditation excerbated the anhedonic symptoms of my treatment resistant depression quite severely.
Fortunately for me, it sent me back into treatment with a psychiatrist that put me on the only class of antidepressants that actually works. (Recent studies in which they throw out everyone who does not respond to treatment, handily gaming the statistics in the process, notwithstanding.) I'm unlikely to ever see remission, but I'm definitely doing better now.
Before anyone suggests it, I'm experienced enough to know I wasn't 'doing it wrong'. Being 'stuck' in the present is how depressive anhedonia feels.
Having dealt with years of clinical depression and not getting much done beyond basic 'just in time' survival I want to say the following:
Meditation may unlock or bring you closer to the bad stuff you've been avoiding dealing with that has been making you depressed or feel bad. You need to put in a lot of work and plow through it with persistence, even if in that moment you don't feel like it. It may be difficult if you feel like you're covered in mud and darkness but there is light at the end of the tunnel even if you can't see it at the moment.
I don't want to preach and I don't know your situation but I offer my perspective regardless. I may be talking completely past you because I'm not familiar with the term organic depression, and that's ok, maybe someone else will find this helpful.
I grant there may be some mechanism that can be fixed alleviated by chemicals acting on the body but everything is connected, body-mind-soul. As far as I can tell, depression is in essence a negative feedback loop of bad thoughts that flood your brain and body incessantly creating negativity and sluggishness that further shape your thoughts and behaviour.
A depressed person may not even realize their mind may be constantly telling them they suck or they're not worthy or whatever, but that is, as all thoughts and emotions are, illusionary in the sense that you don't have to take that as your own. You don't have to associate your being or identify as that chatter or the phenomenon passing through that body. You're purer and more beautiful and more deserving of love than that.
Thoughts can have tremendous energy especially if you get provoked by or stuck to them. What prolonged persistent meditation practice (say at least 2x30 min per day) may help one achieve is a sort of mental clarity or non separateness from/non attachment to thoughts, seeing how the mind really works.
> As far as I can tell, depression is in essence a negative feedback loop of bad thoughts that flood your brain and body incessantly creating negativity and sluggishness that further shape your thoughts and behaviour.
Science have a thoroughly incomplete and yet much more detailed and nuanced understanding of depression. I suggest you look into it, if you are interested enough to have an opinion on the matter.
I meditated for over an hour a day for several years - I had long term injuries that needed me to sit motionless several times a day while I treated them, so I would get myself set up, and the meditate through the session. (It wasn't a painful or otherwise sensate process.) I'd had started meditation earlier than that, with some classes and literature in college.
I'm actually up in arms now against people who insist that mediation/yoga/SSRIs/most therapists can make a damn bit of difference in the case of actual depression. I wasted 20 years of my life listening to them, when the people those things are going to help aren't actually depressed to begin with.
> I'm actually up in arms now against people who insist that mediation/yoga/SSRIs/most therapists can make a damn bit of difference in the case of actual depression. I wasted 20 years of my life listening to them, when the people those things are going to help aren't actually depressed to begin with.
Woah, "actual depression"... hardcore!
The problem isn't other people. You are the problem. Your ego is so big that it bleeds through your posts, as if it's crying out for someone to stop it.
CBT has been shown to be as effective as Prozak. We can't outright discount the impact therapy may have. All depression is "organic" depression, such that it manifests itself physically. This doesn't persist as if in a bubble independent of all other life factors; things are interconnected, they can all fall into a downward spiral, and spring back up together.
Did you read what I posted? You're making my case for me.
Did you even read the title of the article you are commenting on?
Neither CBT nor Prozac are effective treatments for actual depression. And CBT can be very counterproductive if the underlying depression hasn't been successfully treated. If this is the case, the depressed person is being set up for failure. Prozac, on the other hand, is snake oil.
People who respond to CBT alone aren't depressed. They are suffering situational stressors and a lack of cognitive behavioural skills. People helped by SSRIs are by and large simply regressing to the mean.
This isn't to say that CBT therapy doesn't have benefit to someone recovering from depression - but that it's not a cure, it's not a resolution, it's a hand helping you back up once you are well - but not until the depression is treated first.
> Before anyone suggests it, I'm experienced enough to know I wasn't 'doing it wrong'.
Hello, Walter's ego!
You were meditating incorrectly because everyone does in the west. It's not a mindfulness life hack, and there are millennia of spiritual and philosophical background that are ignored when people claim it's simple. And as I'm sure you know, the Buddha taught that ignorance causes suffering.
I had the best few weeks of my life when I started Parnate. Unfortunately the effect petered out, and upping the dosage wasn't an option.
The US is one of the few countries in the world where you can get adequate MAOI therapy, I think, which is unfortunate for the rest of the world.
The only thing I can get where I am now is Selegiline, and even that made the doctor uncomfortable.
Ouch. The first few days on MAOIs was eye-opening: I realized what it was like for 'other people', and realized why I had felt so misunderstood for so long - I was being misunderstood :) Other people had had no reference to my distress, and I had had no reference of life without it.
I tried all the MAOIs, and ended up on EMSAM - it's Selegilene in a patch form. The other (oral) MAOIs caused such profound drop in blood pressure and pulse pressure that I would frequently get the mid-low 'roaring' tinnitus that is evidence of an event causing permanent hearing damage. I also collapsed several times. I'm getting the roaring now from time to time with the EMSAM, but I really don't have any option but to suffer the hearing loss at this point.
(Fyi: doctors - even ENT specialists aren't aware that low blood pressure - even extremly short term, acute episodes - causes hearing damage, despite a significant body of academic literature on the matter.)
I have been taking it in combination with a modest amount of Provigil and caffeine, under my psychiatrists guidance. Caffeine is a much more powerful stimulant when combined with an MAOI. IMHO, it's the combination of the three that is helping me. If I stop taking either of the stimulants, I start feeling worse after a few days. I'm not cured by any means - yet, however I'm better than I have in memory. My SO concurs, too.
(I've been on EMSAM since ~September. I spent the rest of last year going on and off all the others)
IMHO, you may want to try it in combination with other drugs. Stimulants worked for me, but I'm on the ADHD spectrum, which may have something to do with it.
I had the same experience when I started Parnate - I really thought I was cured. It was a night and day difference. I still remember just walking down the street and feeling like things are overall pretty ok and I'm gonna figure everything out over time. I remember thinking how impossible my previous state was and how it was no wonder I hadn't made any progress all that time.
I also seem to respond to stimulants only. I have tried to get provigil but that's also impossible without a sleep study and a diagnosis for narcolepsy. I have access to Ritalin but it's a bit too intense when I use it occasionally, and I'm scared of long term side effects for dopamine receptors.
I'm currently taking Wellbutrin, which works (I know because I tried to stop a few months ago and I went from depressed to suicidal), but it's clearly not enough. I could take Selegiline intermittently on top of that, but it's a dangerous game to combine these. I also take a ton of supplements which seem to do something, but the problem is a lack of consistency.
I think the consistency is probably the big theme overall - I also have positive effects from caffeine if I go over my standard daily dose, but I don't see anything that requires dosage escalation as a long term solution.
Are you taking Selegiline at standard doses? I've thought about trying it again with a higher dosage into a range where it stops being selective.
12 mg patch - it's non-selective at this point. ( Fwiw, due to it being the patch, I haven't been watching my diet at all. In a post market study of ~40,000 people over and extended period, there were two hypertensive crises reported, which IMHO, are more likely to be misdiagnoses than anything else.)
Fwiw, you may want to try it with 1-3 cups of coffee next time - it may make the difference for you. Ritalin is, well, crunchy. I don't like it either. It's less unpleasant than adderral, I suppose.
The downside of the patch? The US is the only country where a drug invented in the 60s, and a delivery system invented in the 90s, that would have cost $250/month out-of-pocket in 2014, costs $250/month after insurance. The out-of-pocket would be $2300/month. Obscene.
Same here. I tried every medication, and saw dozens of psychiatrists and therapists. Nothing helped. I started meditating daily, as well as consuming various ‘gurus’ like Tolle and Sadhguru. Depression lifted steadily over a period of several months as I learned to stop thinking about myself. I’ve been ok to happy for 2 years.
What sort of meditation do you do? I tend to do a bit of "focus on your breath" meditation for 5 minutes at a time throughout the day, but I feel like I'm missing something deeper
I am 26, and I suffered depression and other mental health issues for many years. I have to tell you: it is hard to survive. Till this day, 1 year after my first attempt, I still cannot recover from my mental illness. I am back to school studying neuroscience and psychology, but ironically I still end up being depressed.
No words can describe the hardship a mental illness patient has to endure. It sucks and it sucks so much I have been cutting myself constantly again. Bipolar, depression, personality disorder. I have them. I overdose and continue to abuse my psychotic drugs on a regular basis in order to stabilize my mood and sleep schedule.
As I am typing this, I am already losing my mind but I will be fine in a few hours, but the cycle will repeat. I feel like I am The Boy Who Cries Wolf, but in reality, I am not.
Can I die? No. I am 26 and I have been hospitalized several times already. Friends will leave, family will be worried, and I can lose my job. On social media, I either have to stay positive or just keep my mouth shut so no one needs to see the negativity. I guess the reason I want to express my struggle in public from time to time is to because I want to outside of my social circle. I have pretty much abandoned social media in general. I depend on approvals and romantic love to substation my self-worth because I have none. I compensate my insecurities and lack of self identity by trying to be other people's "savior".
If you have a family or a friend who is suffering some form of mental illness, yeah, give them constant reassurance. It's very difficult to find someone to talk to without being judged and offer advice such as "you have to control your mind." I can't when I am not in control of my mind. I feel possessed and that's what mental illness is. It's a possession of an uncontrolled mind.
No need to report to my ex-employer / future employer. I am safe, and currently I am not employed anyway (well just resigned).
From a random keyboard in a small town in the Midwest, my heart goes out to you, Internet stranger. I'm so sorry that you have had to endure this kind of suffering.
I had fairly severe depression for several years (although probably not as bad as yours), and it affected my self-esteem, like yours seems to be affecting you. It's just not your fault, friend. Easy for me to say, right? But go easy on yourself. You didn't ask for the combination of genes & environment that has predisposed you to this.
I'm sure you have professionals to advise you on the best course of treatment, but for what it's worth, regular exercise has helped me tremendously, as much as medication and self-acceptance.
Make tiny steps every day, eventually you will climb out of it. Remind yourself what the truth is all the time so your overwhelming feelings don't lead you to bad decisions.
Pay attention to how your mood and actions affects others negatively, use this to motivate yourself to do something, anything, to make permanent change in your life.
Many of us here have dealt with this, you are not alone. Resist the urge to feel bad for yourself, it's a vicious cycle. Find someone else to take care of or help, it will give you a little boost and remind you to not slip back into despair. And be careful about talking with others that are depressed about your experiences, as I felt like it was two drowning people holding onto eachother while they sank lower. (my personal experience, yours may vary if you are both fighting it together)
Find things to smile about, think about good things to look forward to, fight against this.
Thanks for sharing, I think it's important for the world to get better at understanding these sorts of problems. I've dealt with plenty of mental health issues myself, and can definitely empathize with the frustration you're feeling. I hope things get better for you.
> Well, I think it is safe to assume that Long Term Happiness changes the brain "permanently" in the same manner.
That would be a poor assumption. The "change" that was observed by the researchers was an increase in the amount of a protein which is an indicator for brain inflammation. Per the article, you see the same type of inflammation with diseases like Alzheimers. The takeaway is that depression is a progressive illness and current treatment doesn't address this progression.
Yes, there is. You just aren't looking in the right places.
Employers. Employees. Insurance companies and those that pay for insurance. Governments that provide health care to some or all of its citizens. Taxpayers that fund those programs.
There is nothing about inflammation or Alzheimers in the title or anything else that would provide any kind of information. "Permanently changes the brain" is a meaningless buzzword.
> The research shows that people with longer periods of untreated depression, lasting more than a decade, had significantly more brain inflammation compared to those who had less than 10 years of untreated depression.
I don't intend to shitpost but I think it's a good idea to question the usage of the word "significant" almost immediately unless it's coming from a physics or statistics PhD.
Thanks for the Link to the book, I put it on my list!
I have read "Relaxation Response" a few years back (https://www.amazon.com/Relaxation-Response-Herbert-Benson/dp...) and shortly after have practiced this method every day for 6 weeks with my partner. We did this by listening to the meditation "Bring Mindfulness to Your Day"[0] early in the morning and i recall this being a beautiful period of serenity for both of us. Highly recommend the meditation - her voice alone is incredibly calming, plus: it gave a good overview of different meditation techniques.
Hrmph. Poppycock. I grew up with depression. I suffered from it for over two decades. Between Ayahuasca and daily meditation, I have most definitely unwoven any of these "permanent" changes.
You can always, always get better. The brain is plastic. The spirit is fearless.
I totally agree. I was/am stuck in a similar place, but during a wellness workshop my speaker reminded everyone that the brain is like a muscle: you can train it to perform as desired so long as you condition it every day.
I'm not suggesting it is as easy as physical exercise, but this definitely changed my perspective on my personal well-being.
After dabbling for awhile with nothing but a pillow and my psyche, I participated in a 10-day silent meditation program by Dhamma. They do them in many places; they're free -- the food was great, the instruction, and the accommodations were excellent. It was powerful.
Daily meditation is a slow, gradual process. A couple years of consistent practice in most case should result in a noticeable change in perspectives. I enjoy Headspace for the routine but philosophically Andy never gets too deep. That can be good a general audience, but for the intellectual, perhaps not.
I mentioned Ayahuasca; I know this is not everyones cup of tea and hesitate to recommend it to due to the amount of New Age dogma and legal ambiguity that surrounds it. But in my own personal experience, I had something deep, a knot in my spirit that needed to be unwoven.
My Opa (German for Grandfather) was conscripted in WW2, work-camps, forced enlistment, combat, murder, torture, the whole wretched shabang. He escape, to Canada, had a family. He was, as a result of his environments, understandably terrorizing. He suffered. My father suffered. My brother suffered. I suffered. Born into it, like I mentioned.
As a busy etch-a-sketch becomes a clean slate for new art, so did my mind, body, and spirit after Ayahuasca. It was only when that knot had been removed that the tools I had learned through meditation could take me, day by day, into a beautiful new narrative where I am content and fulfilled.
Perhaps you need something to get that knot out. I truly hope that you find it, and give you all my love and empathy, dear stranger.
It can be hard to change habits however instead of trying 'not to do something' you start focusing on doing something else entirely great changes can happen. Try it. You do need it enforce it few times but you can drop a lot of bad habits this way just because it doesnt matter to you anymore.
And changing location can make it a lot easier to actually changing the focus. The only question is how you "bring the changed focus home". It's easy to redefine/-invent yourself when you are removed from the environment in which you suffer, but it does not solve the problem. What it does though, is help you realize that your suffering is not permanent and that it is possible to overcome it. The real work comes when you return to the "old" environment. Personally, after having been away for 5 years I got sucked back into "my old self" quickly after my return and I had to consciously close a few doors, let go of some friendships and have the courage to put myself out there again and trust that I am "ok" and that what i need comes to me. It's an ongoing process. Saying "yes" to what comes to me also helps create pleasant experiences for myself.
> In their other research, the authors have also proposed that the serotonin receptors that psychedelics interact with are involved in bringing about “a state of rapid plasticity that is conducive to major change (e.g. in outlook and/or behaviour)—when such change feels necessary (e.g. to aid mental or physical survival). Such a function may be related to humans’ unique capacity for adaptability.”
So it seems plausible that ayahuasca may be helpful to people in cases like this. (Of course, additional evidence being that psilocybin seems very helpful for people with depression)
Can attest to this, but it's probably incrementally harder as you age. Best hack/alter your brain as early as possible. Same goes for any habit-forming.
Does the simple expectation of happiness exasperate the symptoms of depression? I found Dr. Jordan Peterson's commentary on this a helpful perspective.
"Life is complex and tragic and difficult, and the problem with the public portrayal of the ideal state of humanness as happiness is that it makes all of these young people feel ashamed of their own suffering. They feel that if they’re suffering and if they find their life tragic in its essence that that means there’s something wrong with them, and instantly that makes it impossible for them to communicate anything real about their own tragedy."
To be clear, Peterson's commentary is not original. M. Scott Peck, the Buddha, and literally 100s of other philosophers and psychologists have shared similar insights.
Remarkably, those thinkers managed to share this insight without offending half the population in order to drive book sales and line their pockets.
tldr; there are better sources of this idea than Mr. Peterson.
To be honest, as a socially awkward middle aged male who has made a few missteps in my life, Jordan Peterson is the only one I've heard in the last decade say that I might have something unique and good to offer the world instead of being a piece of shit who needs to shut up and let other people speak first.
This is worth quite a lot to someone like me. If you're trying to understand your enemy, you should understand just how powerful this is.
(Incidentally I've read The Road Less Traveled, didn't get much out of it, and find Peck to be much more sanctimonious than Peterson is.)
That's because he encourages you to blame your personal lack of social adjustment on women/feminism/PC-culture and not yourself. It's the same with most gateway-alt-righters like the "skeptics." There's a happy middle ground between recognizing the dumbest elements of PC/social-justice culture and swinging the other way on the pendulum because someone absolved you of agency
> That's because he encourages you to blame your personal lack of social adjustment on women/feminism/PC-culture and not yourself.
Have you ever actually read him? His main message is to sort out your own life, then, when that's in order, start improving things around you. It's the exact opposite of blaming others, it's taking responsibility for yourself. And finding meaning in this struggle, and the difference you can make, instead of through fleeting happiness.
This is a message that underperforming white men simply never hear anymore, and it's quite a startle to have it sink in, in my experience.
What message do you think he sends to women? What messages does he send men about women?
Does he argue that the dominance of men in society (in the sense that the small group of people with power are mostly men) is natural and thus acceptable?
I have not read his book; I’m asking you because it sounds like you have and you derived value from it.
> What message do you think he sends to women? What messages does he send men about women?
20% of his audience is women, and that's not a small number, so it's probably better to ask one of them. He relays a lot of science about statistical sex differences, none of which has really been controversial in 40 years (in his own professional field) until recently becoming politicized. Just coming from the point of view that this is the reality you need to navigate.
Another message he sends is to be a lot more careful and respectful about sexual relationships than current social norms suggest.
> Does he argue that the dominance of men in society (in the sense that the small group of people with power are mostly men) is natural and thus acceptable?
In his own words, no, he is not saying that at all. :) He explains his position here pretty well in the Cathy Newman interview. It's much more nuanced than the common caricatures of him are.
I've watched his youtube videos/lectures. I have nothing against his advice to sort yourself out, that's common sense. I have a hard time believing that underperforming white men never hear that anymore considering I am a white man, know many other white men, and none would tell you that all of your problems are someone else's fault. What I object to is that he's just used as a useful idiot (not really an idiot though considering how much money he makes from speaking) for people looking to spread an agenda of hate and who are rallying against "neomarxism," which is just a loaded term people use to engender dislike for things like gender rights. It's an extension of the Nazi conspiracy of "cultural Bolshevism" and later the alt-right's "cultural Marxism".
The original poster was right, you don't need to look to someone like him hear a message as basic and timeless as "happiness is fleeting and some of your problems are your own fault."
Sorry if you think he's only a useful idiot. For me, I credit him a lot with working out of long term depression. And putting me in a state to turn my life around for the better.
"That's because he encourages you to blame your personal lack of social adjustment on women/feminism/PC-culture and not yourself. It's the same with most gateway-alt-righters like the "skeptics." There's a happy middle ground between recognizing the dumbest elements of PC/social-justice culture and swinging the other way on the pendulum because someone absolved you of agency"
No you clearly did not pay attention to them at all whatsoever and no one should listen to you. Jesus christ this repulsively ignorant commentary.
> The original poster was right, you don't need to look to someone like him hear a message as basic and timeless as "happiness is fleeting and some of your problems are your own fault."
I'm not sure how you consider this professor an "idiot," useful or not. He has been spreading a similar message for decades, and continues to derive meaning from the world from a behavioral-psychological perspective. I see his desire to help people coming from his innate desire (being a clinical psychologist). I also find it hard to find flaws in the belief system he works from (not religion, but the perspective on our need for meaning).
It would be useful to give clear examples of where he is truly provoking for the sake of it and for the sake of book sales.
To say that he's saying nothing original is wholly wrong. And to lambaste someone for sourcing knowledge from a modern public source is ridiculous. How do you sort yourself out if you cannot proceed without knowing the true source of an idea?
Watch some of his lecturing that isn't about gender and see that he's passionate, engaging, knowledgable, human, visibly wants to help his students grow into better more considered people, and if "half the population" choose to take offense at one of his opinions that alone doesn't define him.
The idea may not be completely original but it is articulate of the current condition. And he provides a different context.
He is an established clinical psychologist, having counseled 1000's of patients, taught at Harvard and has thousands of citations to his published papers.
Knowing the baseline of troublesome thoughts, I find incredibly helpful. "Am I normal?" is a common thought of mine, but I have no frame of reference besides my immediate family.
The idea that insightful thoughts can't/won't be offensive is counter-productive to intellectual progression.
I don't think it was implied that Buddha is beyond reproach, but I mean... "Life is suffering" is literally the core piece of philosophy from Buddhism, a hugely popular religion/philosophy. Seems weird to quote some random psychologist like it's some new and unique insight.
> To be clear, Peterson's commentary is not original. M. Scott Peck, the Buddha, and literally 100s of other philosophers and psychologists have shared similar insights. Remarkably, those thinkers managed to share this insight without offending half the population in order to drive book sales and line their pockets.
What point are you trying to make with this snide remark?
That sources should be disregarded if their ideas “offend” 50% of the population (a claim for which you provided no evidence)?
That sources should be disregarded if they made money from book sales? This would mean disregarding almost all sources.
That a commentary is "unoriginal" if someone in the past has "shared similar insights"? This is pure nonsense.
One could argue that quoting a source who is a bit of a lightning rod for controversy makes the conversation more complicated than it needs to be if there is an alternative source available.
I don't care either way on JP and his book sales, but you have to admit that the quote boils down to "Life is suffering". Which has been the the core belief of Buddhist philosophy since it started. So yeah, that's a pretty unoriginal idea to attribute to someone else.
Not in any meaningful sense. Clearly the quote contains more than that. It's like saying "everything boils down to A = A" (Aristotle, Metaphysics), therefore anything following from that is an "unoriginal" idea.
The degree of offense-taken, doesn't necessarily reflect the validity of the thought. How a message is received by society, is obviously dependent on the society of that culture. Those philosophers you mentioned, were received in entirely different time periods and cultures. Saying Peterson's message is worse, because more people are offended today, than probably offended in 400 B.C. by Buddha's message, is completely ignoring context and not really a fair criticism.
Peterson gets a bad rap, by people sensationalizing his message and then labelling him as sexist and transphobic.
If you listen to enough of his stuff, you'll realize he is neither of those things (not sure what evidence ever existed of him being sexist), though I can understand why people would think he is transphobic. His original argument against using the non binary gender pronouns is more against legislated coerced speech for people in his position in particular (a professor at an Ontario, Canada university) as opposed to being against transgender people. That being said, he interpreted the laws incorrectly and when confronted with this point, my own impression is he doubled down on his position by saying he won't use the words as it is a neomarxist agenda to coerce people to use these words as opposed to strictly folks who truly feel they are neither male nor female wanting to be labeled appropriately. Ultimately, he did say that if an individual sincerely asked him to use a non standard pronoun, he would.
> evidence for neuroprogression (ie, increasing brain pathology with longer duration of illness) is scarce.
I get that this is an academic paper, so they need empirical evidence to base their study, but this is a case, to me, of anyone who has ever hung out long enough with depressed people whether that is going to support groups or living in a toxic environment, that, anecdotally, it is very apparent that this is the case.
Additionally, as a casual purveyor of recent neuroscience, the findings aren't surprising, not to take away from the accomplishments. Long term <any state of mind> permanently changes the brain. The brain isn't this static object where all your innate characteristics are bestowed upon you at birth -- your brain changes every day. Fighting this millennial-long engrained preconception is going to be the biggest challenge for a wide variety of mental health concerns in terms of getting public buy in to actually start solving the mental health crisis this country is currently facing.
Definition #2: a person or group that spreads or promotes an idea, view, etc.
I will admit it probably wasn't obvious that's what I was aiming for -- to clarify -- I mentioned depression support groups and family that suffer from depression in my first sentence. I now spend time trying to support others who are struggling with mental health (my family included) with what I study -- articles, books, journals, publishings, and whatever lectures I have time to watch on youtube.
Bio, psycho, social. You have to realize that depression is caused by everything from sleep, to the food you eat, to your daily habits, to how your relationship with your parents is, to how you treat your dating partners. A drug can't make up for all these things.
It seems to me that the psychological component makes conquering the other two impossibly difficult for some people with depression. In that case medication could temporarily take that dimension out of the equation so the person can actually get some beneficial work done on the other parts of their lives. Medication should be seen as a temporary "crutch" in my view.
That's how I explain my history to myself. I have failed to get significant beneficial work done while I could.
It is really hard if you're deficient in all areas. I'm facing biological / physical health issues, I'm socially isolated and I experience toxic mental patterns. Whatever I try, I will drag these issues around with me.
Good luck, I wish you all the best. Be aware of your negative thought patterns. Absolutist statements like your last sentence is not necessarily true and a real symptom of depression. Change your internal monologue and good things can follow. Change it to "at this moment these issues are holding me down".
Right, it's a symptom. Dealt with depression for nearly 2 decades, and tackling all the baseline needs vigilantly, not least of which the social ones, had the strongest impact.
It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, but Jonathan Blow’s “Ideas for a programming language about games” and all the subsequent videos have totally revolutionized how I code: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9VCN6UkyQ
The irony of it is I’m a JavaScript programmer and Blow hates JavaScript, he thinks it’s antithetical to his style of coding.
But really, I think the ideas are very generic: he proposes what I think of as “data-driven programming” which in my head means “only move the bits you have to.”
And that core idea maps to any substrate. Blow is offended by the idea of targeting something other than processor instructions, and Jai (his new language) develops along those lines.
But I have no problem applying the same ideas to V8... you can really use any substrate... I could target Minecraft blocks and code in the same way. It just requires stepping back and asking what the minimum number of writes needed to get that substrate where it needs to be. And then rather than writing some monstrous declarative programming structure like Rails or Webpack, you just write the minimal function calls needed to make those bits flip and thing more.
Blow writes a whole new language and compiler based on those concepts, but I find the ideas translate to any arbitrary API target.
"Long term depression" canonically describes decreased synaptic "connection strength" and is certainly not a bad thing (otherwise, your neural net's weights all tend towards 1).
"Chronic depression" would be a much better term for the title.
Happiness is sort of like a flexible muscle. At first, you may need to consciously and actively push on it, but it'll stretch, and over time, it takes less effort to stretch it further.
Of course, it's not exactly similar, because sadness/anger push up against happiness, and stuff needs to be eliminated or looked at from another angle to remove the obstacles.
I'd also recommend Wim Hof stuff.. the breathing technique is great.
> Others may have persistent episodes over a decade with worsening symptoms, and increasing difficulty going to work or carrying out routine activities.
long term anything changes the brain, this is how neural connections work.... if you're long term depressed it solidifies connections, if you're long term 'happy' it reconnects others and solidifies those. as other person said, meditation can help a lot in this, and/or self-reflection.
This was my first thought too. The article doesn't mention this at all.
It sounds like they just pulled people off the street, tested for the protein, and assumed causality. Wouldn't they have to had tested the same subset of people over time to make their claim?
There is a lot of research showing that psychological stress (and social defeat in particular) causes microglial over-activation and neuroinflammation, which then results in the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
