Are you depressed?

Nowhere else to post this so here it goes.

I lost my job in January. From January - March I started looking for a job and then COVID hits at the height of my search, now suddenly no one is hiring and all the businesses are slowing down.

My girlfriend of 13 years left me the day after my birthday in June before I had a chance to propose to her, I had to return the ring, she had no idea and I never told her about it.

I have been hardly able to keep it together from the summer until now. I have no one to rely on for support.

Meanwhile all the politics and election stress has had an impact on everyone including me.

I managed to find a job but I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from depression. I spend most of my time mindlessly browsing HN or Reddit, eating whatever I find and sleeping late.

It has been an extremely stressful and emotionally exhausting time.

I'm living in Iran. Here the situation is disaster. it gets worth when you grow up in religious family. I can not listen to any music, watching any movie or even worth I can not play any video games easily.. Economical situation here is disaster so I can not rent a new apartment and move in.. I forced to go to male-only school, male-only high-school and even now I study computer science at a male-only university. And I can not have any girlfriend. Even I can not get near to girls.!! At my work all the people are male! all this situation get worth when you have to live in a country with a broken economy. My salary is 100 US$ per month. and lots of other harsh situation which I can not write here.

MY LIFE IS SO F.CKED UP. I have no idea what is life? what is future? my life is just like a robot who forced to do repetitive stuffs over and over again.. (I'm so sorry because of my awful English!!! :) )

Well, let's see.

My wife left me shortly before the pandemic started. I tried leaning on alleged friends for emotional support and they bailed on me. I don't have any family here in the US.

The pandemic hit and I had to stop practicing my sport.

My work output has been 10-20% of what it used to be even though I don't have kids to deal with, or any of the things that are driving folks crazy. It takes me around 2h to make myself get out of bed every day.

Fortunately, therapy has been helping little by little.

I lost my father recently and this has been the toughest period in my life. I grew up in India in a middle-class family and my father always went through unimaginable hardships just so that he can buy us chocolates and pay our tuition.

He was still young at 65 and there was so much that I wanted to see and share with him. Realizing that this is not ever going to happen itself kills me from the inside.

I'm doing okay now compared to a few weeks ago but I keep having breakdowns and depressing episodes every now and then.

I now know that I need to continue to live and be strong and do things for him and raise a family and spread love just like he did. I don't think I'll ever go back to living like before but I feel happy with the idea that I'll be taking it from here, keeping him in my thoughts every day, doing things he would do, talking and acting like he would, pass on his genes and finally go away like he did one day.

Remote work is not for me. I'm struggling pretty hard. I miss people. I miss my sense of being good at the parts of work that involved people. I'm shit at working alone. I'm not productive like some are, and all my best assets were how I could support people around me and help them love what they were doing. All I have left of work are the parts that make me feel badly every day.

Fuck this pandemic.

I was miserable before it was cool. Before the pandemic, I had a development job in the neighboring city.

I'd take a 2 hour commute each way, and when I got home, I'd immediately collapse, sleep, wake up, and head right back to work. I didn't check my phone, my voicemail, my email, or call anyone. Just sleep. I rarely ate.

I listened to a lot of death metal during that time. The pandemic hit, and I lost my job, then my apartment. I moved into an apartment with my elderly mother with dementia.

I still do some contract work for the old company, but I struggle with the bare minimum required to keep my old boss happy. Working at home is a fucking nightmare.

The loss of my decent paying job hosed my bankruptcy eligibility, so now I get to keep drowning in debt I have no means to pay off, while I try to find a way to get things back to normal.

Yeah, like many others here, I usually wish I could just die already. Sadly there are people who would be devastated if I departed. So, here I sit.

Here‘s an account of someone who answered no, I‘m not depressed. Hoping this offers some light to those who couldn’t answer the same way this time.

Like I said, I’m not depressed today but have definitely suffered my share of emotional pain following the loss of my mother and the loneliness that comes with moving to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language.

Here are two frameworks I came up with during those dark years, which still help me today. Not claiming this will help you too, though I hope it does, but perhaps you can find some use in it... even if only as inspiration to find your own frameworks.

Framework 1: Myself > the ones I love > the things I do.

I found these are the building blocks of a happy life, in this order. First I need to be content with myself and to know I‘m worth of respect and love, and no one can help me with this. Then I need to actively seek and nurture the love of others (family, friends, spouse). Only then should I focus on what I‘m doing with the rest of my time (my job, my hobbies).

Framework 2: „The Mix“

This is something that rather helps me keep a happy state of mind. Every week, I try to make sure I fill it with a good „mix” of the following “ingredients”:

- Socializing: of the “deep” kind. Meaning I want to talk to people I love and make an effort to really listen to what they are saying/feeling. To empathize. I’m more interested in a few (maybe starting with one) deep relationships.

- Movement: move my body somehow, preferably outside. I try to do this 4-5x a week. Sometimes it’s just a long walk, sometimes a run, sometimes a workout. Anything counts.

- Inspiration: watch, read, listen to anything or anyone that makes you dream of what life could be.

- Appreciation: make an active effort to objectively realize that some things in your life, even if sometimes only a small few, are positive. I usually do this at night, in bed, before falling asleep.

Hope this is useful in some way. Feel free to email if you need to talk (email in profile)

Not depressed myself but like 90% of the people I know is depressed, and it has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me, I live in a country with a huge economic crisis that have led people to the most horrible suffering you can imagine without being in a war state. Most of the causes for the depression are systematically caused by the government, people even ignore their mental health and are just struggling to survive.

What makes the whole thing worse is that there isn’t much help available, really few people can afford to really get professional help and there is no public help, some NGOs are doing the best they can but it’s impossible to help a society where mostly everyone has depression.

I am not familiar at all with any psychological studies being done in my country, but I believe that a lot of people in the field would like to work in here, there is so many things to study and observe.

For those wondering, my country is Venezuela

I had severe depression for a few years that became debilitating at the start of 2020 causing me to be unable to socialize or work or do anything but sleep. I was a terrible friend, parent, spouse, and employee. I tried multiple anti-depressants and therapists, but nothing helped. This august I found a psychiatrist that also did ketamine treatment and it was a miracle. Literally the day after my first treatment I wasn’t depressed and have had zero depressed feelings since. It was surreal. Depression had define my life for so long. I wish the treatment was more accessible, but unfortunately it is very expensive and not covered by insurance. If anyone is struggling and would like to learn more, please reach out.

I'm fighting every day to keep the depression at bay. I've been through the same thing as every one else this year, plus my sister took her on life in March and my startup that was flying in February, has been hammered by the pandemic.

I felt like I was about to slide back into depression in May. I needed something that I could accomplish that was completely within my control. I decided to start lifting weights. It has changed my life. I lift for one hour, four days a week. I thought it would be good for my mental health, but I didn't realize how quickly my muscles would grow.

I've never been muscular - I sit at a desk all day and code. In just a few weeks I could see significant changes in my body. Six months in and I look and feel like a completely different person. I love looking at myself in the mirror. (Sorry for oversharing a bit.)

Lifting is much easier than intense cardio for me, and it is helping me keep my head above water. I highly recommend it for anyone that might be having a hard time.

Reminder: winter is coming[0] & days are shorter so take care of yourselves pls

---

I believe depression is a spectrum so although I'm not depressed, I'm also not not depressed.

Right now I'm in a good place and I accredit this to a few things I did this past week:

- attended multiple virtual events (2 chat-based, 1 video)

- caught up with 2 friends via phone/video call

- went apartment hunting yesterday. Going outside for first time in a week + general excitement of moving out & exploring a new frontier is motivating

I'm 23 and I know life is a struggle. If you're reading this and are around that age + care about exploring personal development and mental health + want to connect, hit me up! Twitter - @radiunhuq

Thanks for asking :)

EDIT:

[0] In case you haven't heard of SAD (seasonal affective disorder), check it out: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affe...

Btw, HN can do polls too. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

Fuck yes. I left a stable job because I have a plethora of health issues and wanted to put the little energy and productivity I have into studying, so I went to Uni. I've burned through my savings (6k or so) in 11 months now and I'm almost going broke as my sick leave wasn't approved any longer.

My body literally don't cope with stress as my pituitary doesn't produce enough cortisol, testosterone or thyroxine. Now that I got the reject letter from our government, I've been panicking and feeling borderline suicidal because everything seems so hard and I feel like I can't do it. Fuck being sick.

I badly need my three year old to be in kindergarten so my wife can have six hours a day of just one child and possibly claim back part of our house and energy levels from the abyss.

I'm counting the days to next September.

I am not depressed now but I am doing the same things I do when I am depressed. I think the difference is compassion.

- it takes me hours to get out of bed but that's ok, I have loads of time during lockdown.

- I spend hours daily scrolling through HN and reddit but that's ok, it's good to switch off for a bit.

- I can only productively work 1-2 hours per day but that's ok, most people I ask is doing the same and that's probably all I ever achieved with the distractions of the office.

I hope this can help reframe things for others.

Extremely. Mostly can't focus, can barely get out of bed at all some days. Some people are trying to help with various aspects of this, and they're doing some good, but they're poorly coordinated and there's secondary damage when they get things wrong.

Out of money. I was trying to get my career back into play via Triplebyte + one or two contacts around the beginning of the year; I had some minor success, but my interviews promptly got cancelled as the pandemic ramped up. And I think my Résumé of Nothing is now even more of an infinite liability than it's been in any recent years. (I took enough of a hit at the end of 2018 to pretty much lose my ability to work, after some years of on-and-off self-underemployment, and spent 2019 trying to recover; what I managed to regain has mostly been undone again in 2020.) Oh, and video calls and screen sharing (things people want a lot of nowadays) are both tricky due to secondary effects.

I finally have a source of medication that requires less effort to keep going, and that might help stabilize. Wish me luck?

I'm not a doctor, of course, but for those who are depressed, but where it's not debilitating, or where you are not suffering from some kind of clinical depression where you need medical attention, I highly recommend that you immediately purchase the book "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life" by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, and put that information into practice as soon as you can.

What's the point of this? Yes, I am severely depressed among other issues I am facing. I haven't had a job in 3 years, after burning out and started having panic attacks. The finances are so stressful that are making me just numb. I can't make any decision, the executive part of my brain appears to have shut off.

Also, depression is not an illness. It's a defensive mechanism, just a symptom of a certain body state. It's a completely natural response.

Probably around a decade ago I was diagnosed with a slew of things and put on, among other drugs, SSRI's. I never felt depressed at time. Interestingly, I felt angry, powerless, etc. but not depressed. The drugs really didn't feel like they had any effect on my mental state or behavior.

Then maybe around 2017-2018, after living mostly in isolation (outside routine requirements like work, etc.), things started to go downhill. I spiraled into a period of what I'm sure is depression. Since, then? I might be able to crawl out of it every now and then (around mid-late 2019-2020 I had some sort of strong resolve come over me that lasted a few months) but ultimately just return a depressed, monotonous and sedentary state. I'm generally good enough and keeping together in public, but in my private life it's on full display display. The pandemic did good work to undo everything I had tried to fight it, but the isolation isn't anything new and I'd likely have returned to it in my own eventually.

Yes. I started a new job (software engineering again) at the start of the pandemic. I feel like I burned a bridge with my manager prior to leaving so ... I won't be able to return to that company in the future.

Haven't really spoken to anyone outside of work (tiny company, too) since March. Left to my own devices at work. Haven't seen anyone in person since April.

Spend most of my days online and alone. Attempted suicide over the summer. Not eating much, rapidly losing weight.

It's my birthday in a few weeks and most days, I don't want to live to see it.

Holy crap, that's a way higher percentage than I was expecting.

What are some of the reasons you all have for being depressed?

Also, is this possibly a self selective poll? Are non depressed people not bothering to answer?

Funny enough, I used to be depressed for almost my whole life and now I'm not. Two and a half years ago, I dropped out from an average university to be admitted in Harvard within one year. At that time I also had poor English, struggling to differentiate present and past simple tenses.

In just two years, I ruined relationships with my relatives, lost all friends, don't talk to anyone, got a horribly loose skin, had a mini-stroke and got tinnitus. Also, I became fluent in written English, lost more than 50 kilograms, and right now 70% done preparing for applying for SWE positions. It's tough, but I've never been happier. Never had so much progress before.

No, but taking 300mg of Effexor (venlafaxine) every single day (for reference, the maximum allowed dose is 375mg).

Venlafaxine is known for being one of the hardest antidepressants to stop taking once you start. It's like being physically addicted to it, if I skip it for just one single day, I start having seizures, dizziness and feeling like a zombie. People can take years to stop taking it by gradually decreasing the intake dosage very slowly to prevent the discontinuation effects or getting depressed again (been there three times already).

That said, I feel great right now. Not that I don't have some days that I'm mildly depressed (meds aren't a panacea), but I've been able to get to work in another city and get out of my parent's house for 2 years in a row since I've started psychotherapy. I'm now working on a great startup, earning enough to save every month, have a stable relationship and plans for the future.

If you're depressed, don't dismiss psychotherapy. It may take time to find the right professionals and the right meds - I needed some years, but lots of friends got it right on the first try. There are some DNA tests available to speed this up (they match drugs that are more prone to work with your genetics). I recommend everyone trying it. All the cons and side effects of venlafaxine definitely worth it for me - and you may not even need to take it to get as better, as there are antidepressants with "lighter" side-effects known to be very effective.

Take care of your mental health, HNers.

Never been better, personally.

I'm used to travelling a lot, I've been doing it since I was a wee baby thanks to my very international family, so it's been a very strange thing to be constrained to a single country for so long. Ignoring that though, I've been doing quite well. I was always a freelancer, so my job didn't really suffer much, I'm pretty much working exactly as much as I used to. My friend circle is all similarly international people, and we've grown accustomed to not seeing each other for months, sometimes years at a time so this is just another one of those periods for most of us. Since getting out of the house is a bit of a hassle, I mostly just do yard work now, it's very calming. Not much has changed, other than the inability of flying whenever I pleased like before, but I'm hopeful that those travel restrictions will loosen relatively soon, and once that happens I'm pretty much back where I started, which is a good place.

I'm not. I think I was mildly depressed up until the start of this fall (I'm a college student). I go to U of I and we've got a pretty good covid testing setup which basically means we can hang out with small groups of friends like pre-covid times. I think the catalyst for coming out of depression might have been acid, but most likely it was being able to meet with friends again. I saw this effect in my friends too, and they noticed it as well. I'm not saying acid is some miracle cure or something but I have a strong suspicion that it contributed in some small way.

Well yeah. At the start of covid, I was dealing with ptsd from a difficult childhood.. and after some time with a good therapist (for once) I've managed to work past a lot of issues, and finally built up the courage to come out as transgender.

Now I'm working with an endocrinologist on transitioning to female with hormone replacement therapy. Now I've been queer in intolerant environments before, but I have been pretty shocked with the way people have been treating me in the conservative area where I live. Basically I'm afraid of my own neighbours and have to drive an hour round trip into the city just to get groceries without being called a fag..

So, life is rough.. but getting a lot better. Thankfully my employer is being super supportive, as are all of my co-workers. Not speaking with my family though, I would have done this 10 years ago if it weren't for them actually :/

A yes/no questionnaire is the worst possible way to poll this issue.

I'm not depressed. Shit happens sometimes, but overall, it beats a lot of things that people have gone through in History.

Anytime I start feeding bad, I either go for a walk to get the blood flowing, or I realized that in 1914, teenagers were drafted and thrown into a trench to fight and die for 4 years. After that was said and done, the survivors got to experience the Spanish Flu, which killed more people than they meat grinder war they just survived. After a nice 12 year break (0 years if they were a farmer), they got to experience the Great Depression for 12 or so years, followed by WWII, which managed to be even more horrific than the first one.

I had an inability to focus and paralyzing procrastination until the election was decided. And then, like a miracle, it went away. :)

Not making a political statement with that, but we have a ton of stuff weighing over all of us right now, so be easy on yourself if you feel a bit down or unable to do anything like normal productivity - you are definitely not alone.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: (800) 273-8255

I was just talking to a friend about how deep my depression has gotten. It's at the point now where I'm too scared to go to sleep at night because I know it means I have to wake up and do another day.

I want a "I don't know" tick.

I'm depressed, anxious, and lost.

I'm 38, married, and I have two daughters.

My career seems to be stuck. I work in IT, but I don't think I'm actually very good in any specific aspect of it. I suck at debugging. I write Python but I never learned how to use the Python debugger. I'm no good at project management either. Every time I'm asked to give an estimate for something I feel like I'm pulling a random number out of my ass. It's even worse when I'm asked to make long term planning with a Gantt chart. I don't know how to advance my career. I don't know whether I want to pursue a technical path or a (project) management path. Just in terms of programming languages, there are so many out there that I don't know, but that I think I should know - e.g. rust, haskell, elixir, clojure, kotlin - and I'm anxious of missing out. Or shall I forge ahead and try to become a Master of Python? I tried to learn TypeScript and React and I just can't get it. Out of necessity, I do code review for a project written with TypeScript, React, and Next.js at work, and I just can't help falling asleep because everything seems incomprehensible. I don't really know how to get better at any of this.

I have no idea how to spend my free time. I have over 1000 games on Steam, GOG, Epic Store, EA Origin combined, but I open my game library and don't even know what I want to play. I bought most of these games from Humble Bundle, mostly when the bundles come with soundtracks because I just know I won't really play the games. I just listen to the soundtracks while I work. My wife isn't a gamer and there's nobody to play with me. I also have hundreds of ebooks bought from Humble Bundle and Story Bundle, and again, I have no idea what do read.

Since even before the COVID-19 pandemic, I have deleted all my classmates and ex-coworkers from Facebook, except one friend and his wife because he's more like a big brother to me than just a friend. Nobody tried to reconnect with me, neither via Facebook, nor by e-mail, nor by giving me a call. I have no friend to talk to. I eat the cheapest fast food lunch alone during work days and I just spend time mindlessly wandering the streets and the malls until lunch time is up.

When I'm off work and get home, I take care of watching over the little one do her homework, I have supper and I do the dishes, and then it gets late and I have no more energy to do anything useful.

For reasons that I would rather not say, I can't talk to my wife about my depression.

Yep. But surprisingly not as bad as I expected, given COVID, and ADHD+bipolar going into this mess. I've been reeeally depressed in the past, this isn't that. But feeling very burned out. Focus and working memory is really suffering. I'm too busy/tired to be bored but I feel novelty-deprived. I'm barely exercising and I know that's contributing but forming exercise habits is hard for me.

Would be great actually if anyone had tips on how to get exercise habits to stick. I've literally tried to addict myself to working out using nicotine gum, nope, nothing.

Last year: moved to PNW for a high paying job after participating in a mass exodus from a failed startup. Commuted 2hrs a day, crashed at home completely exhausted and got eaten alive by the seasonal depression. Cried on the drive home about twice a week because I was miserable. This year: covid hits, I go wfh full time. Decide to move to a new team. They're really great to work with and work is fun again. I have hours back in my day for all kinds of fun activities. Lockdowns were actually a blessing in disguise.

I'm reminded I'm depressed every time I take my anti-depressants. I know that I can't survive without them, having tried to come off them a few times, and going to a very dark place each time.

The hardest step when living with depression is doing something about it.

I wasted a decade of my life ignoring the signs. Don't be like me. If you think you are depressed, or even if you feel the world is just too hard to live in, go seek help. Your friends and family will thank you.

I'm depressed and I really can't do much about it.

I need to find a job to work part-time during my studies so I can afford rent, I need to do my degree so I can stay legal in this country and not have to go back to where it would be unsafe for me, I need to find a full-time job with visa sponsorship so I can stay after my degree is done to be able to stay.

I need to contribute at least a day or two worth of time every few weeks to my hobby to keep it alive and me - sane.

I need to cook for myself to save money.

I've no luck finding any jobs one way or another despite applying for loads I don't know if it's just me being a graduate with little work experience or the economy, probably a bit of both.

It's hard to do my hobby good when I feel like there are more pressing important responsibilities around. It's hard to give a heck about university when it's all online-only because of COVID.

Cooking for myself requires going outside to buy groceries. Anxiety intensified by the other things makes that difficult.

Things were looking up for me in September, graduating, being accepted to a new degree but now it's all just like an illusion fading away. Every time I wake up, I'm crushed by the pressure of all those things and just choose to scroll the internet for 12 hours a day and go to bed as soon as possible.

Am I depressed? No. Was I depressed? Maybe. I don't know if I've ever been depressed. But, there was definitely periods in my life where I felt miserable for a long time (6 months to years). During these times-- I was listless, lack motivation, and had typical symptoms for depression. However, it never crossed a threshold where I would call it depression. Mostly because I still felt like I was in control. When I didn't get out of bed for the day, it wasn't because I literally can't. I was just being lazy as shit. Of course, that fueled my sadness for a while because I would think I can fix this, but I'm not. Thus, spirally deeper.

Eventually, I had enough. I decided not be sad anymore. I'll never be Bill Gates, Bruce Lee, or any of my heroes. And, people in the third world can never all the opportunities I have. So, I decided it doesn't matter my situation. There is always some miniscule, tiny thing I can do to improve my situation. I started waking up earlier, journaling more, and stuck to these habits religiously. They became my anchor. Now I'm in a much better place. To everyone who is struggling. I hope you find your better place too.

So for years I was diagnosed as depressed, but I never really felt depressed just tired, really, really tired. After a suicide attempt I decided to just let go and find a therapist who I could really really relate with and let it all hang out. Low and behold this gentleman figured out what I had a feeling about all along but could not put a finger on it. What he figured out was that I had PTSD comorbid with ADHD, when I would get down in a hole via the PTSD the ADHD would leave me in a pattern in which I could not figure out how to put one foot in front of the other, which would leave me in the hole watching the world stack on top of me.

He said he had seen this a lot with "resistant" depression because it is not depression at all, it is PTSD coupled with ADHD/ADD which is a really bad and many times fatal combo. ADD makes you feel just as worthless as depression, and PTSD is a match in a dynamite factory coupled they can look a lot like resistant depression. I user anyone who suffers from resistant depression to at least have the checks for comorbid PTSD and ADD.

I feel like I am one of the few who is actually loving the WFH, and am feeling better than ever. Most of my coworkers complain about feeling isolated and looking forward to returning to the office, and I don't feel like I can tell them that I much prefer the current situation.

With WFH, I now have enough flexibility to work whenever I want to, which allows me to indulge my night owl instincts without it affecting my work, and also allows me to nap whenever I need during the day.

I am already a major homebody, so staying home almost every day fits me very well. I don't have a great need to meet people face-to-face, so the fact that most meetings are voice only works very well for me as well. Social interactions at work always stresses me out a bit, as I feel like I have to put on a performance whenever it happens.

I am not looking forward to when COVID-19 is under control and the office opens, as my employer has made it clear that we are all expected to return to the office once it is safe. Not only do I have to put on a performance all day long, I lose the commute time and flexibility of work hours.

Nope... I am the opposite. Kinda calm, and enjoying NYC/Manhattan being a quitter place.

I am mostly an introvert though, but had some major FOMO before covid.

I attribute this sense of tranquility/calmness as all that FOMO is gone, since pretty much everyone is in the same boat.

I also have created a routine and I go out every day, and work outside for at least one hour. Before it was in the parks, but now that is a bit chillier at outdoors at coffee places. Many coffee places have outdoor seating, so I use that as much as I can, before it gets too cold. I bundle up, and have noticed that I can work outside up to 42-44F so far. Not sure how will it be one it gets colder. Weather in NYC has been lovely so far though.

I miss playing sports though (soccer and volleyball), and the occasional dating, but I don't feel bad at all since everyone is in the same boat.

For the winter, I highly suggest to get some good yellow spectrum lighting in your apt. and also buy a powerful projector, and project movies/games in a whole wall. I have noticed that using a 2000lumens projector daily, instead a normal TV has made a huge improvement in my mood, and almost eliminated that SAD feeling you get in November.

TLDR: 1. Develop a routine where you go outside, to work/read, for at least one hour a day. Be friendly with the local baristas. Just somme chatting and in-person interaction every day, makes a huge difference.

2. Visit/explore different parts of the city, every week. Use a bike, so you don't have to use public transportation.

3. Buy a powerful projector, and watch TV/youtube, play games on it, for those days that the weather is not good.

4. Make your apt, room ambient look and feel nice, get some good lighting.

5. Get a regular cleaner. (I usually leave the apt. for most of the day when a cleaner comes). A clean/neat apt improves your mood a lot.

6. Start new things (either projects, books, games, whatever), so you don't feel stale, and experience new things.

Posting on a throwaway for reasons.

I take anti-depressants so yes, however, recently I'm not sure how effective they have been, or even if what I am feeling constitutes being depressed.

I find myself constantly oscilating between apathy, loneliness and irrational anger. I've never been a person who really has "friends" so to speak, I have acquaintances and family, I'm close with family but beyond that I don't have anyone I talk to outside of performing my job. It's not like I don't want people to talk to, but I find myself unsure of whether I can't or won't try to connect with others.

More often than not nowadays, I'll get the idea to watch a movie or read a book or just do something, and the idea excites me a little bit, right up until I get to the point where I need to actually do it, and then I just have this crushing moment where I cannot move passed the thoughts "I can't be bothered" or "what's the point?" To the point where I'll just scroll through youtube, looking at everything and have no motivation to watch anything.

Anger is the one that most confuses me, because I am fully conscious of the fact that it is completely irrational, but its still there. It's always things like people driving too slowly or inadvertently getting in my way at the supermarket, or things like a news article. The big one I've found is social media, I look on social media and see everyone looking happy and successful or even just saying something that I disagree with. But, whatever it is, it just makes me so mad.

I’m not really sure what to do, I know I should probably get help, but every time I think about that I keep thinking about how I’ve tried getting help before and here I am, still unhappy, and to top it off, getting worse.

I’ve been feeling the physical symptoms I associate with depression, but not the changes to cognition. I feel like I’m wearing an iron mask, if that makes any sense. Really heavy head with what feels like a layer of numbness between me and my surroundings. I have an appointment to talk about it with a doctor next week since I don’t want to spiral into something worse.

It’s odd to me that I’m not having the cognitive changes I associate with depression, like inability to focus or an overwhelming sense of dread. I’m surprised that things haven’t spiraled cognitively after 7 months of WFH and social distancing. I’m grateful to have a super energetic dog that needs walking twice a day, at least.

I usually use throw aways when talking about this kind of thing, but am trying to get better at doing my part to raise awareness of mental health issues in this field.

What have people found are the best ways to help normalize dealing with mental health issues in our industry?

Until recently, I was.

Every day before going to work I had anxiety. My workplace was extremly toxic, people talking behind each others back etc.

I got home and instead of hanging out with my gf and 6 months baby I escaped into video games, or news. For some reason, I blamed my family for my shitty life, and where mean to my gf.

I used to read a lot of books and be interested in a lot of stuff before, but the recent years all I have had energy for has been to browse my normal time killing websites. In my mind, the reason for this was that I was getting older (just turned 35).

Anyway, a while ago I got a "moment of clarity" that I just had to change my current path or give up completely and start drinking or something. I quit my job without having a new job. The first week after quitting nothing changed really, but week 2 then things really started to happen. The heavy anxiety in my stomach dissapeared. This in turn enabled me to do more stuff.

Another thing I did was deleting my Facebook account. I have been wanting to do that for years, but I have always resisted since I would then lose my way of communicating with a lot of "friends". Anyway, after a few days of that, I somehow felt that my head felt clearer. I was no longer filled with other peoples bullshit thoughts.

Inspired by this, I stopped reading newspapers online and started buying paper versions instead. That also had a positive impact on me.

My relationship with my family got sooooo much better. I started to having long conversation with my gf, something I realized I had barely had for a lot of time. Also, I started to feel all these feelings when being with my kid, and I am so happy that I now can be in the moment with her.

In two weeks I will start my new job. I don't know how it will be, but I know that if it sucks, I will talk about it with my gf instead of escaping into the internet.

I’ve been depressed for years. After years of short term gigs and constant moving I decided to give up that lifestyle. In late 2019 I moved to a place with family, got a corporate job, and attempted to develop a feeling of community. I was well on my way of forming new friendships and strengthening family ties when covid hit. Now, making friends is much harder and less satisfying. It’s harder to cultivate a feeling of community. My family is, in my opinion, reckless when it comes to covid so I don’t see them. All of my attempts to mitigate my depression came from improving social ties, and now it feels like that’s an impossible thing to do. On the other side, I’m use to isolation and loads of digital-only social contact, so 2020 doesn’t feel much different than 2018.

I suffer from borderline personality disorder and it's rough but usually treatable with lots of therapy and learning of "skills."

The covid crisis made my issues boil over to the point of losing relationships, friendships and attempting to take my own life twice (before I found the therapist).

Yes and no.

Getting laid off a couple weeks ago from my frontend/ux job of 6 years, and the job hunt since has been a bummer. But the positive is, I no longer have to work for a boss who underpaid, overworked, and did their best to make me feel worthless nearly every day these last 6 years :)

Have bipolar disorder and struggled with depression from 13 to 20ish. The right medication, and constant work on reframing your thinking makes a huge difference. I still struggle with mania and occasional bouts of depression, but it's no longer debilitating.

For me work has been very stressful, though I'm better off than most people, the pandemic did not affect me very much but I find work very toxic. I'm a very young software engineer at 23 in a country where most engineers you will find are 26 and above I got my first full time developer job when I was 19 fresh out of high school.

Most people consider me as smart but I'm not given the opportunity to use my skills. In late 2019 I had decided to resign my current job because I found it too toxic, I had been diagnosed with bipolar and things had been very hard before I had decided to go and see a therapist who when immediately saw me referred me to a psychiatrist and I've been on medication since then.

My manager convinced me to stay and offered me a small increase in salary and promised me that my voice will be heard. He also convinced me to take a contract that involved completing an app that I had been working on. he made a lot of promises to me. As soon as I accepted his new offer and rejoined the company, he changed again, I'm still faced with the issues I used face previously and as someone with bipolar, I get stressed easily and the company does not make it any easy for me. Last week I just decided to send my manager a notification about my planned exit next year. He's trying to convince me to continue staying... So I'm just wondering why s would someone want you to stay in a company without giving you the opportunity for growth? For me it feels like they just want to use me to do the hard work and then "The right people will take the credit", considering I don't have a university degree.

Are other young engineers who are talented face similar issues in other companies? Despite my age, I've been working with computers longer than most people around me. So I do know a lot and can easily do any task. A lot of people are just usually concerned with how do I know what I know? Most of the time people don't listen to me and when things go wrong or something is very technical they always want me to be the one to do that but I get no credit. Maybe I'm the problem. Is there something about me that makes it hard to be acceptable to these people?

Presently no, but I faced depression for almost six years.

I faced continuous failures in college between 2010 -2013. Dropped from one degree, tried another but didn't go well either.

Then with broken skills in coding, set out to build a startup with strangers (now close friends).

That was for three years and didn't work out either. There were times I didn't have money for food.

Couldn't go back home, as an introvert didn't feel like sharing even to people I was close to.

Situations changed in 2018, articles sharing my learnings hit an audience of 50-100K.

Got contract for a book, Linked-In was filled with job offers. Later, I got into a great startup.

Befriend uncertainty, I survived six years of depression, you can make through one. Stay Hopeful!

I've definitely had a few rough points since I started my current job early last year. I think I focused too much on my career that it left me with little energy for anything else.

I was finally starting to figure things out and get where I wanted to be in life at the beginning of the year but then the world got flipped upside down and it's been a rollercoaster since.

I almost want to say I was happy working from home, having more time for myself and my hobbies, but I was still looking forward to going back to the office because it brought back a (small) sense of normalcy and it definitely did.

Problem now is that I'm possibly days away from putting in my 2 weeks for a new SWE job in a sector that I'm super interested in and working with much cooler tech, but I'm scared. I'm extremely comfortable in my current role and it's very stable for the time being. I have no idea what the new role will be like - stress, long hours, etc. I know it'll be WFH for at least a few months to start, which I'm not looking forward to. I'm scared to leave my comfort zone in the middle of all this, and I'm worried it'll be terrible for my mental health going into the winter.

I know this isn't exactly the thread for this.. but I don't know where else to talk about it.

Yes. It’s hard to have empathy and not be.

As we grow up and become aware of our world, there’s too much shit going on everywhere to truly be happy anymore even if my own life was perfect, and there’s little good to look forward to.

At best we can hope for everything to keep shambling on and not collapse catastrophically. And the worst part? Even if everything did collapse it would be hard to feel sorry for us..

I daresay that never being depressed would be the odd behavior for a sane individual.

Important to note that "feeling depressed" and "having depression" are two different things.

Everyone feels depressed sometimes. Maybe your mom died, maybe you're getting divorced, maybe you lost your job. Feeling depressed is normal, but it doesn't mean you have clinical depression.

Clinical depression, or Major Depressive Disorder, is a specific condition and people often don't know all the symptoms.

If you experience the following, you may have clinical depression.

  - you experience a change in your previous functioning
  - symptoms occur for a period of 2 or more weeks
  - at least one symptom is either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure
  
  - plus 5 of the following, experienced in the 2-week period:
    You feel sad or irritable most of the day, nearly every day.
    You’re less interested in most activities you once enjoyed.
    You suddenly lose or gain weight or have a change in appetite.
    You have trouble falling asleep or want to sleep more than usual.
    You experience feelings of restlessness.
    You feel unusually tired and have a lack of energy.
    You feel worthless or guilty, often about things that wouldn’t normally make you feel that way.
    You have difficulty concentrating, thinking, or making decisions.
    You think about harming yourself or suicide.

If you think you have depression, contact your doctor and/or a psychotherapist, or review resources here: https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/help-for-depres...

(i am not a doctor)

One thing that has helped me is becoming involved with a men's group. It might not work for you but I see benefits in being able to discuss aspects of life with other men. This particular group has a training regimen to learn to open up and communicate. It starts slowly and then it ramps up. There are a ton out there but the one I'm part of is K4 Nation. They are currently taking enrollment for the January cohort of men.

What I would suggest is reading a book that have helped me a lot and may help you as well. "Man's Search For Meaning" from Viktor Frankl.

The author is an austrian therapist that founded the "logotherapy" (healing through meaning) after surviving WW2 concentration camps.

Is a very small book, and very easy reading, and at the time that I've read it, it helped me find the inner tools within myself to go on and achieve happiness.

The best thing about being at the very end of a big, long, dark whole in the ground, is that you can only go up.

I know that it's not easy to be you right now. But sometimes the worst things that happens to us, turn out to be blessings in disguise.

The bad news is that the healing needs to come from within you, nobody can help you from outside. Not therapists, not family or friends. They can only support you and help you reach your inner voice again to move forward.

Reading a book in itself is not going to help you either, but the thought process that come from it may help you start a different, happier path.

Think of this time as a turning point: There's the old you, and the new one, that needs to start over and reboot himself into something different and better.

I wonder..

The relationship fell apart, the startup is struggling

I am now playing videogames for 8hours on Friday and Saturday. And this week I am back to browsing cybersex type chats which were out of the picture for 5 years and I thought I kicked the habit. I am not even stimulated by them.

I hope I will deeply understand how useless all this hiding is and get back to social life.

But with ADHD meds you get into this loop.

Also covid messed up the sport my Vilks score dropped from 1370 to maybe 1200 and it’s just soul crushing

I am 37 and no kids, no girlfriend just a semi-failing startup. If not for the parents I think I’d be seriously considering the S-word, but I just can’t to this to them.

I think the problem is that I just don’t really care about myself - I eat only because I am clinging on to gym performance and knowing something is doing damage to my body or my personality doesn’t really matter. We are all just dust. I sometimes envy people who actually put their ego first and care about themselves so much.

Hell I quit smoking only because I wanted to win this girl, the most beautiful one, the queen. And it was a cool challenge to stop smoking so she never knows I did. And now she’s gone and it was a doomed relationship anyways

I've been off anti-depressants for a few months, having been on SSRIs for about a year.

I mostly feel fine off my meds, though lately I am finding it harder to stay positive. Random negative thoughts surface more often, and it's difficult at times to deal with them. I think the current situation with lockdown and covid is having a toll on my mental health.

I'm not depressed, but I'm scared I may end up depressed again...

We're not in the best decade either. Surely it makes things harder when very often you consider climate catastrophe, collapse, post pandemic economics. Your mental strength is seriously challenged.

Someone told me about talklife app. Never tried it but for english speakers it might be of use.

Also more and more I think it's good to cut off if possible, time off in the green is surprisingly "replenishing".

g'luck

I'm curious how everyone here is doing mentally. Do you consider yourself depressed, whether or not you've been clinically diagnosed?

I'm not depressed but I feel like every year has been getting progressively worse over the past decade. I'm working hard and taking significant risks. I achieved all my technical goals this year; some which seemed almost impossible, but financially-speaking, I keep getting poorer. The smarter I get, the harder I work, the poorer I get.

I'm at a point where I've identified all the things that are holding me back. I know exactly what's going on in the economy and society and so I can make sense of my own situation - But I can't think of a way to pull myself out of it without engaging in behavior that I consider unethical.

I feel like everyone in society is becoming progressively more selfish over time. It's become impossible to make new friends because relationships have become incredibly shallow, financialized and transactional. I don't even see the point of making friends anymore because it just feels like everyone is acting. People just don't meet my minimum standards to qualify for friendship these days.

I feel extremely lucky to not be experiencing depression right now. I for some reason seem to thrive with this stay at home stuff, maybe being a gamer as a kid and having my primary social outlet be friends online has helped. I tune into twitch streams and becoming a regular in certain channels feels like hanging out with a group of friends.

Please don't race who is more depressed here.

Also don't undervalue simple symptoms, as those can develop over time into clinical depression.

Take care,

I hesitate to write that I am depressed after reading so many tragic and heartbreaking comments... My everyday life just seems so good in comparison.

I've recently graduated from a university and I have my first full-time SWE job as a backend developer. Although I really like my job and I can barely imagine a better workplace, I really dread my everyday life.

Working 8+ hours every day is soul-crushing to me, and with all other errands and a good sleeping schedule, I barely have time and energy for the other things in life that I enjoy. Dating, working out, being social, finding a place to live, as well as being quarantined is just overwhelming with a full-time job, I feel.

Since I've been getting negative work reviews, I called a career counselor. When he said that "I got to man up and prioritize my work above everything else", I was severely depressed and suicidal.

Well, I don't know if I'm depressed but let's say that despite having a stable life; a loving wife that cares about me, a loving family and a stable job, I feel deeply unsatisfied and unhappy.

I hate my job because I feel unproductive, incompetent and frustrated all the time, despite having a good relationship with my wife our sex life has going to hell and I feel it's my fault because I don't feel sexually attracted to her like before. I can't connect with other people because I feel awkward and out place and feel like I don't have anything relevant to say so I always avoid conversations. For this reason I have lost many friends and I haven't made a new friend in 10 years.

I spent a lot of the time daydreaming, thinking of "what could've been" as if my life was done, but it isn't because I'm 35.

no, but optimism is dwindling by the day.

quit my job in 2018 as I was totally burnt out. figured id take a couple months off and get back to it. spent all of 2019 job hunting with no success. took my last interview in January 2020 which was also a dead end. beaten up and making zero money for all that time takes quite a toll. wife and i had our first child in march. have been a babysitter since then more or less. happy to have our child but feel totally worthless; zero income, zero prospects, tons of student debt, nothing to my name. have attempted freelance work but finding more than 15 minutes where I can sit down and do something is impossible. keep failing to start or finish things, missing deadlines. feel totally burnt out again. probably even more unlikely I can find a job at this point, no money to do anything. just completely stuck.

No. I normally wouldn't post since it probably comes off as insensitive, but since every comment seems to be talking about how depressed people are, I will give a counterpoint.

I've been pretty blessed. I was working remotely before COVID so it didn't really affect my life much other than being way more restricted in where I can travel. I've been nomadic the last couple years so the travel restrictions were an adjustment, but there are still places one can travel to. I'm currently in one of those countries that had no restrictions. Unfortunately it's looking like they're going to start making businesses close at 9pm, which sucks but isn't a huge deal since I can still work out of my favorite coffee shop during the day.

I find that my happiest times seem to be correlated with:

1. Having goals, and subsequently purpose and meaning. Doesn't have to be career-related by the way, can be a hobby or caring for a loved one

2. Having a sense of community with real in-person human contact. Intimacy is good to have too, or at least avoiding a complete lack thereof.

3. Accepting that which one cannot change

I get that the pandemic has made things more difficult, but we can still control our destiny to an extent and make the most of the cards we've been dealt. I had spent 3 months in the U.S. at my parents' house bored out of my mind before deciding to fly out to a random foreign country, and have had a blast here. I could've just stayed put at my parents' house and said "but I shouldn't do anything because the pandemic", but thankfully I didn't.

My sympathies to anyone who is out of work or depressed. But I do think it's healthier to look at our mental health as something that we can influence and control through our own life decisions and mindset, as opposed to just looking at it as a disease where cure = therapy / pills (not that there's anything wrong with therapy + appropriate medication).

Good on you for posting here and please follow all the advice about seeking professional help. It may take time but it will help. You will get through to the other side.

In my case, due to a buyout, I lost me job over two years ago and felt myself in a similar place as you.

What made it hard for me is I was 63(!) years old at the time . (I know what it is like to feel "over the hill" in technology employment.

After picking up my pieces, I started freelancing and haven't looked back. I've had more fun, on my terms, than my previous three decades in stressful tech jobs. That's the easy part.

The hard part was accepting my humanity and asking for help. Ask everybody and don't be ashamed to do it. You'll find out who your friends really are and you'll get the support you need.

Good luck. You'll make it.

I am so sorry to hear what you are going through. I suffer from clinical depression and did for years before I got help. I wish I had done it sooner.

Please get help. If you are in the US and feel like you are in a crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Trained crisis workers are available to talk 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your confidential and toll-free call goes to the nearest crisis center in the Lifeline national network. These centers provide crisis counseling and mental health referrals.

If you are not in a crisis, try calling 211. This number should direct you to your state's information and referral system. You can get referrals that way. Calls are anonymous.

Like others, sending good vibes your way.

I’m in a great situation. Good job, great family, enough money to not worry.

But I still answered yes. I was always prone to anxiety and depression, but Corona is fucking me up.

I’m trying to resume my normal life because getting sick is frankly a much better alternative than whatever this is.

After the second world view I constructed collapsed (after having gone through the same thing with my parents' world view a few years earlier), I was done. I was less than twenty years old.

Since then, I have built & collapsed yet another life philosophy, and am now mostly just trying to keep floating on the raft I've built from whatever I figured out works. It takes a lot of different tools to do this. I've allowed myself to be an addict by many definitions, because it works. All I can do is keep trying to hew toward preserving my health as much as I can stand. It's better to be able to be here than not, that's the best I've got.

I was horribly depressed in 2017. I am not today.

I have a toddler and started a new job which makes me work crazy hours as I'm competing for a manager role with a bunch of asian kids which not only are very smart but can work 12-14 hours a day including weekends. I used to work for a very simple role which was a very stable product just pure maintenance and FR nothing crazy. Fight after fight with wife, it makes you wonder many things in life. But I try to continue and think that after the pandemic, daycare, personal life will be better. Good luck to everyone and let's cheer up. We are alive that's the greatest gift

Yes. I don’t take care of myself the way that I should, and if I let that continue on for more than a week or two I get depressed.

I moved to an area with some pretty foul weather (month-long stretches of rain or snow every day are not uncommon), and that has made things worse since my primary source of exercise and probably my greatest joy in life is the outdoors.

But even when I was living in a sunnier climate I would frequently drift in and out of bouts of depression.

I am lucky to have a wonderful family who put up with me in the good times and the bad. I just wish I could be a better person for them.

If anybody wants to talk about their problems, feel free to send me a message. I've been through years of depression and anxiety, and I'm looking to help people in the same boat.

Can we have a similar poll for anxiety?

Whew. As someone that struggled with depression for nearly 15 years, as someone involved in the radical mental health movement for a long time, as a social scientist, as a Buddhist, as an activist...pulled so many different directions by seeing these numbers.

I guess all I have to say, with an immense amount of compassion, some frustration, and all the honesty in my heart is that "It doesn't have to be this way." And "It's not your fault, but it's still your one life."

I have a job and my parents try their best to support me, but since last year (before the covid) something broke in me and i can't enjoy anything.

Waking up is so hard, i started going to work late every day (flexible hour) and i can't sleep, i'm always anxyous and the medicine prescribed to me aren't helping. I'm tired all the time and i don't know what to do.

I constantly think about suicide but apparently is a sideeffect of what i'm taking so i'm not too worried about it.

I empathize with the isolated rats in the university of Texas study on isolation and addiction https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130123165040.h.... I’m not abusing substances, but I can tell that my isolated brain is acting differently than it does when I had daily social interactions in person.

Not at the moment, but I have seasonal mood swings that I usually control with the gym and taking a holiday to the northern hemisphere when the worst of it hits in winter.

This year was really rough on me mentally, being away from people and couped up in the house took its toll on me and I had no real way to fix it. It's crazy how everything can be objectively ok in your life, but something like this comes along and just completely messes you up emotionally.

Ok, here goes:

I think I might have depression. But my life is by all accounts pretty damn good. I don’t have any health issues, actually I’m fitter than most people. I make a great salary, have good relationships. I show up to work and do a good job.

However I’ve been managing this shitty feeling that I just can’t seem to shake. It’s been so long it’s my new normal. I get fatigued and agitated easily. I feel alone - even when I know I’ve got good people in my life. I’ve tried combatting this by reducing complications in my life. Limited possessions, no pets or anything to take care of, no subscriptions or services, just keep it simple. I’ve been trying to date, but oh man dating apps suck balls...

I severely limit alcohol consumption, and do self care things like get myself massages, take time out etc.

I’m the guy everyone looks up to, but the truth is most days once all the distractions are gone I feel pretty “meh” and just tired. I don’t talk to anyone apart from my friend / ex gf about this stuff.

Maybe it’s a distorted lense but I feel like the “help” out there is just like a bandaid to the problem. Like is there really no better solution other than stuffing yourself full of drugs and people telling you to go exercise (is 4 gym classes a week not enough?)?

People will say stuff like “it’s ok to ask for help”, but honestly I feel like there are real disadvantages to being labeled as “depressed”. Donating sperm, applying to become police officer, insurance are some examples.

A while back I tried Better Help, and maybe it wasn’t a good match, but it just left me feeling disillusioned with psychologists. Honestly I felt like the woman I was matched with didn’t care and was a bit dumb. Perhaps part of the problem is I’ve learnt to mask my feelings - it’s bloody hard to admit this stuff, yes I’m your typical male that doesn’t want to talk about his feelings...

Anyway, to summarise, I just feel a bit shit most days. I don’t hate myself, and I feel like life is absolutely worth living. I do have hope that there’s something I can do to improve my situation.

I suspect it might be “talk to a doctor” and / or “find a shrink that works for me”... although I have a level of skepticism about the whole thing.

Any anecdotes or recommendations would be helpful! I know the only way out is through taking action.

Good idea to post an anonymous poll.

Ever since I experienced ego death in the wake of a mental breakdown, around five years ago, my mental health has improved a lot :).

The prognosis for depression is excellent when the right help is given.

It's a shame on humanity that the prognosis is poor.

I was, what I thought, a special case of depressed. No hope of recovery. Hell, I didn't even have depression, it was just who I was inside! Constant terrible thoughts about myself and every day a torture. But it got better. It got sooo much better. Life is beautiful and I'm excited to live it.

My mother passed away two years ago, while I was an expat far away from home. a day later was her funeral, which I couldn't attend. She was a true friend to me. She hasn't lived for herself even for a moment. Losing her was the the most painful event for me so far. I can't even describe how painful is this. I can say yes I am depressed since then and maybe forever.

It seems surprising that a lot of people from the developed world have so much to complain, not that I am insinuating their complains but I am looking at just how hard it is to live in a country like mine (Nigeria), despite the horrendous living conditions we are very much resilient in facing day to day life challenges and depression is uncommon among us especially the youths.

Yes. But I have been for years. COVID has actually been somewhat good for me overall as it forced me to figure out for to be happier without external stimuli. I'm over 100 days sober now which has helped my overall mood dramatically.

Still depressed. Just my lows are not quite as low. Most days I can at least get something done. On good days I can even forget I'm depressed.

The pandemic doesn't really affect me. I social distance my whole life so this is a pretty natural time for me. I'm happier in the sense that I can work remote now and live in an area I like more. I get to do activities I always dreamed about every day now.

However, when things are generally going pretty well, it highlights how mundane life and especially work can be.

My depression started in the summer of last year because of health problems. My leg hurt from the knee up and I could not move properly. I did not leave the apartment for 2 weeks when it started. Not being able to move properly was a really bad experience for me, especially psychologically. I got sent from doctor to doctor, nobody knowing who to do with me. Later I started physical therapy, I do not think it helped, just the problem was slowly going away. It came back around Christmas making it the worse Christmas of my life. At least I was able to travel to my home country to visit my parents and the family. I started going to doctors again but the covid-19 hit and they all stopped seeing non critical patients. I basically turned to my own research about the problem, reading articles, watching videos about specific exercises, etc.

The travel restrictions because of covid-19 also meant I could not travel home, even if it is a neighboring country. I usually got every 2-3 months, it took 7 months to get there. I was planning a wedding with my girlfriend, in my home country, but all the plans got busted with the restrictions, but we were able to get a September slot for a small wedding. 2 weeks before the wedding my grandma died. My grandpa did not take it well, still is not taking it well, i am a bit afraid of him, that he is loosing the will to live. We buried my grandma a day before the wedding.

The back from my home country just missing another travel restrictions and back to dealing with the health issues. At the same time I decided to quite my job. I have been hating it for a while, because of a borderline abusive boss. He made a few good people leave the company and here was no way to replace him as he was also the owner. Fed up with everything, but I guess mostly my health issues affecting me daily I decided to quit. I found a company that looked cool, went to 5 rounds of interviews. At the end I had some doubts about the job, but I guess I just really wanted to leave the current job so I accepted.

I started the new job now in November and it sucks. It is an environment that makes me depressed, seeing all the broken stuff and chaos, unable to make a difference. I want to quite again, but I do not know where to go. I guess I have just too specific recommendations that are not easily fulfilled by not wanting to be some small cog in a corporate machine.

And I will not be able to travel home for Christmas because of the current covid-19 situation, will be first Christmas away from the family. But with a new family I guess.

Reading through here I see a lot of people who are just as depressed as me, anyone wanna have a be less alone video chat?

Yes, and I have been since I was a kid. There have been several periods when my personal and professional life have taken huge hits and I felt like I was set back several years on a number of occasions. It feels like it takes a lot of work just to have a relatively normal life. Still, I'm mostly doing fine.

Yes, and I have the nitrogen exit bag ready to go once the credit cards and cash run out. Thankfully, I have no family or friends or coworkers, so no one will be adversely impacted. https://youtu.be/aNCQuCKQxSo?t=53

I am also surprised by the numbers. At first I thought numbers would be lower.

I wonder if an equally useful question is “were you ever depressed?”

Im interested in seeing if there is an overlap of those that answered no. If they’ve overcome their depression and more importantly recognize what real depression feels like for them.

Depression is unfortunately a part of modern society now, and I think a growing reliance on technology is one of the main factors.

Technology seeks to make individuals happy, but in doing so they're consumed by screens and feeds and become physically isolated from other people...

I have existential depression. Or at least that's what Google tells me. Pretty close to nihilism. I don't believe life has any meaning. Hence I don't find anything worth doing. Yet I still do stuff. But life is depressingly hopelessly empty.

For everyone interested in mental health topics, follow kati Morton on Youtube. Thank me later.

Was already running on empty since a long time, then got hacked and lost a friend to covid, didn’t see anybody for 8 months, suffering from chronic and acute health conditions and hate where I live. It will get better but for now it sucks.

In a scale from 0 to 10, let's just say I hope nobody saw me while doing the dishes a while ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H5I6y1Qvz0

I am not depressed, but I think this talk is worth sharing: Devs and Depression by Greg Baugues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk

No, I'm very good thank you. I eat delicious meals almost every day, I have installed lights that imitate the sun, I exercice every day and I'm working on something that people want. Everything is just fine.

This is a frightening result. Please vote if you aren't depressed!

Try Becks Depression Inventar for better assesment https://deprese.euzona.cz/en-index.php

Yeah, I'm depressed on multiple levels.

[ I wrote a long text here about what is wrong/feels wrong, but I don't think I should share those thoughts. Only hurts more writing them down. :-( ]

I think I get pretty bummed out at times, but I don't think I'm depressed. Just stressed out, low self esteem, imposter syndrome, and I'm sure plenty of other problems.

I want to kill myself so I'm gonna go with "yes"

Home Office can seem like Groundhog Day. At least to me.

I went to the office for an entire week and feel really refreshed. After 8 month of Home Office, this is like vacation.

1 IP == 1 Vote

There's gotta be a better way to identify uniqueness.

Meta note: 4819 votes on the poll and 152 points on HN. I'm surprised that only 3% of people that vote on the poll are upvoting the story.

I initially thought this was about the site strawpoll.me. On a side note why does the caption above the chart says 'Advertisement' ?

Depression comes from sadness about events occurring in your life that you can not control or from when you got what you thought you always wanted and it turned out to not make you happy.

While it is possible to numb the pain with mindful thoughts or even medicine. And these have their place to lead us to an even better solution. The underlying issue will remain. But there is a master, someone in control. If you can, relinquish your life to the unseen hand. Look humbly to Jesus, who is Lord, and he won't turn you away.

Has there ever been another one of these on HN? I can't tell if HN is just abnormally depressed or it became more so in time.

I'm ready to say good riddance to 2020.

Consider non-institutionalized ideas:

- music (including live music (streaming is fine))

- dance

- talking with random people about mostly anything (dialup smartphone app)

- rest

- something else

My wife and I need ivf / icsi to get kids. We are now on fifth try.

It gets harder and harder to pull it together...

Yes. I'm about 35 and I've been depressed for the past 20 years. I now have a relatively high paying job in a startup working remotely from a house I own in a forest. That was my dream, and it's great when I think about it.

But I live alone and I have no friends IRL. I've been practicing social distancing way before it was cool, and like most people it's affecting me. I've been alone without friends or lovers in major cities for most of my life before so the isolation with or without people around is not new.

Before covid I used to go to a few festivals or camps every year and do environmental activism regularly, and that'd keep the loneliness at bay, although the connections with the people I'd meet were superficial and short lived.

Being into environmental activism means that I don't see the current world situation in a very positive way to say the least. And my job, while high paying, offer no meaning at all to my life. But it pays for everything else and that's great. I've traveled without money for a couple of years before and it was great, but I prefer the security money give me in the capitalist society I'm trapped in.

I think about suicide a lot, but I'd never do it because of how it'd affect my parents and sibling, they are great and don't deserve that. I also like to live a life of contemplation in the forest and hacking stuff and following new scientific discoveries, it's just the craving for intimacy and companionship that ruins everything. Maybe when I get older I'll learn to fully let got of it, it's already a bit easier that a decade ago.

I guess the answer is probably to talk about all of that to a therapist, but I've been trying for years to make myself see one without success for now.

Yes. It seems I lack the ability to be deeply happy even when everything is great

Nope. Somehow I got all the mania and none of the depression. Lucky draw.

How do you know if you are? I was hoping this would be a diagnostic test.

My observation is that most smart people are very prone to depression if they stop and think about stuff. And yeah, the ongoing global pandemic, social isolation and economical crisis isn’t making that any better.

I was close to burnout early this year when I decided to quit the job market altogether (I was a programmer). I decided to start doing something else instead (teaching people how to program). I'm still doing programming, but only as a hobby, or on projects I pick. My stress levels dropped significantly, and I work much less for only a 20% decrease in pay.

That being said this COVID situation is starting to take a toll. I'm only meeting with friends in open spaces and with 1.5 meters between us. No lan parties, and stuff like that. I really hope that next year we'll get a vaccine and we can return to a more normal lifestyle because I'm starting to feel like a pit bull with half of its mouth sewn shut.

More good person you are, more depressed you will be.

I was mildly depressed for about 8 months, I self-diagnosed. I think I'm actually out of it. I once read a HN comment that depression is that your mental model of how you think the world works is severly different to how it actually works. For me, that description was a lot better than anything I've heard in my psychology classes [1].

That's why I got a mild depression, my view of the world was not suited for the switch from fresh EU grad to working person (long story short: no FAANG interviews, and the one that I did clear at an SF startup later said "not enough experience, good problem solving skills though").

So I got a lot of jealousy/envy to my American counter parts when looking for a job. Combine that with not finding a job for 12 months, because of FAANG expectations (I just wanted a shot, never got one at FAANG, it used to feel really painful as I worked 8 years to get all qualifications -- CS bachelor/master, TA stuff, professional software dev stuff -- but now I'm fine with it). It weighed me down. Some people on HN offered referrals, but I always doubted on cashing them in, because I want to feel super certain, which I never do.

Ironically, I got a job during COVID (May 2020). The job offer was a mediocre one, but a job is a job, especially after a 12 month search. My contract didn't get extended though (I was offered a demotion to a junior role, I didn't take it, IMO I'm not a culture fit), but it doesn't matter. The job gave me perspective, it pulled me out of my mild depression (along with some self-applied CBT, meditation, identifying my cognitive distortions, etc.).

I have an amazing runway, so I'm probably going to do a lot of side projects. I've always wanted to do it and it's hard to give yourself permission for it, because the risk is insane. Or at least, that's how it feels now. Survivorship bias, or lack of it, will tell whether it was insane ;-)

I'm not cut out to be an employee. I'm too interdisciplinary and want to stay that way (otherwise I'm going to have some psychological/emotional issues). I might be an amazing early employee fit for certain companies, but Dutch startups aren't really that entrepreneurial. Which is another part how my mental model doesn't fit the real world. As a Dutchie, I'm too Americanized while not being an American citizen. And I'm noticing some strong psychological issues (and benefits) with that.

So yea, this story goes to show that in my case it was a mix of having a wrong view of the world, checking expectations and learning to not compare myself to others as that gave me chronic stress.

I hope it helps someone. If you identify with it and want to talk about your situation, feel free to email me.

I need an "I don't know" option too.

I am, and I feel I have nobody to talk to

Probably. Doing mushrooms has helped loads - granted aside from slacking off at my job there isn't really much else to do during quarantine ;)

I don't know... I think I am

I don't know how anyone navigates 2020 without a substantial spiritual relief valve.

I have had severe depression for over a decade now, I am in my mid-twenties so since a bit before adolescence, roughly. Majority of my life. Been taking various medications for a decade. Nothing works. I don't really remember what it's like to not be depressed.

For those who do not have a point of reference for this disease, here's a semi-accurate description, or as short as I can fit in a few sentences: imagine telling yourself that you're an empty husk of a human being, or that you'll never be happy - et cetera, it's different for everyone - and imagine doing that every day or almost every day for a decade. It wears on you. Eventually you believe it.

There are a number of factors which make it hell and there are few options.

Everyone says they're willing to talk; I'm sure some or most of my friends/family are truthful, but a. it's impossible to know whether they're genuine about that beforehand, since it's a rather heavy discussion, and b. even if they're truthful and willing, I am scared more than anything of pushing friends away - having them consciously or subconsciously avoid me, even somewhat. I realized that being with my friends is the only thing which brings me joy in life, and probably ever has for the most part. I'm probably anhedonic. I've brushed with suicide but never attempted, but if I pushed my friends away I would probably do so.

Psychiatry exists and it is a good option. Unfortunately, unlike other disciplines in medicine where a course can be charted given enough information, there is practically never enough information to figure out the best course of treatment. The way we figure out which medication(s) work is by trial and error. I have a decade-long spreadsheet and nothing has worked, except for a mood stabilizer that does not actually help the depression, just prevents minute-to-minute swings. Most psychiatrists, or at least the ones I've tried except one, are not willing to be aggressive with drugs and dosages since that isn't necessary in most patients. It takes several weeks or even a couple of months to titrate a drug to a dosage high enough to prove it doesn't work. More aggressive drugs and dosages tend to have worse side effects and withdrawals, to make things even worse, but if you've tried all the first-line drugs then the available options become less mainstream and fewer psychiatrists will have the experience to deal with them.

Therapy works for some people, cognitive behavioral therapy works for some people. It doesn't work for me because I don't have the strength to put enough effort into it. It's heavily dependent on the therapist.

Finding psychiatrists and therapists is a crapshoot. The state of reviews and patient feedback is pitiful. Legitimately good professionals have a months-long waitlist and may be too expensive anyway. Who insurance covers is also a crapshoot.

If I'm in a particularly bad state, I can't tell anyone, not friends, family, doctors (especially internists and other non-subject matter experts), therapists, and so on because I don't want to be hospitalized. Involuntary hospitalization does the opposite of helping: best case I leave in a worse state than when I went in. Worst case I would leave actively suicidal since it disrupts your life heavily. I was hospitalized once because my family and I didn't know that it wouldn't help. It absolutely drove me insane, almost literally. Many physicians won't hesitate to pull that trigger for liability reasons (emphasis required for how fucked our system is) and its impossible to know who's trigger-happy. Friends and family don't know that it's hell. The suicide hotline is exists only to funnel suicidal people to involuntary hospitalization. That may be useful in many cases but it teaches you after one instance to never express these emotions, to lie to psychiatrists/therapists, to never call a helpline.

I'm stuck in this body, unable to express what I want or need, except perhaps on here, where there is even a slight change intelligent discussion may occur, and from where I cannot be traced (or at least it's sufficiently unlikely). But I won't get any emotional relief from it, either.

I had a friend who died by suicide a few years ago. The scary part is that I am certain he came to that conclusion and course of action logically, for reasons I certainly will not list here. And I have come to those same conclusions, except I do not have the cajones to actually go through with it, and I am scared of death. But it will come for me in the blink of an eye anyway, no matter what I do.

Yes

if this is about covid19, the asia pacific is curious why.

Yeah, I just got done coming to terms with the fact that women hate me because I'm ugly and weird and unhealthy and that's also why my family didn't like me growing up, and the second I start making progress fixing it this shit happens. I'm 28 now. I have to go from totally weird and ugly as shit (might need surgery) to having an enjoyable career, a wife who's not repulsed or settling during temporary depression, and a normal social life before 30 or else I'm really a loser. I will probably be a loser.

Are you married , live with a SO or have another person or relative in your life?

Have you perceived any income in the last 12 months?

Are you able to legally work in the country you live in?

Do you own a house or rent a place?

Do you have any friends?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you are already doing way better than me. I am not depressed. I know it does not work like that, but sometimes a little bit of appreciation for the things we already have helps.

I feel like I should leave these here:

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association: 1-800-662-HELP

National Suicide Prevention Helpline: 1-800-273-TALK

Free Crisis Text Helpline: 741-741

Trevor project Helpline (crisis intervention specialized in LGBT issues) : 1-866-488-7386

No.

never mind