
What Crippling Depression Feels Like to Me - moereza
https://medium.com/@mohammadrezaghaemi15/what-crippling-suicidal-unbearable-depression-feels-like-to-me-25f280f8931b
======
dvt
This might get down-voted, and I don't mean to sound mean-spirited, only to
spark a conversation.

I have a problem with the recent influx of (what should we call it?)
"depression porn" \-- where this kind of mental suffering is weirdly lauded
and shared, authors are "brave" for writing it, and so on. Obviously some
people have crippling depression; some people also have life-altering
injuries, stage 4 cancer, dying children, etc.

Further, can a random internet reader truly be insightful regarding anyone's
personal struggles? Other than meaningless platitudes ("You got this!"), what
can the internet truly offer? It seems like OP has given up on life -- which
is a real shame, considering he's only 32 (incidentally, my age) -- but
there's nothing anyone can realistically do.

~~~
DoreenMichele
People with very big problems often find they are at a loss as to how to find
a path forward in part because it is socially unacceptable to talk about the
kinds of problems they have. If you can't even talk about something, or you
have to only talk about it "in the right way" (while you are utterly miserable
and struggling to do anything), this is a barrier to problem solving.

But I think we also generally need to do a better job of distinguishing
between life circumstances that are inherently depressing and people whose
circumstances seem fine, but they are depressed anyway due to brain wonkiness.

It isn't necessarily _crazy_ to look at your life, realize it is a shitty,
shitty life with no real solutions and decide "Death seems like the only hope
of an end to my suffering." and thus become suicidal. (This is the basis for
_Right to die_ laws -- the idea that it isn't crazy to want to end it in some
situations.)

------
mr_overalls
> People are violent. . . people are hurtful. . .

And so on. The steady stream of negative over-generalizations about "people"
that can exist in the mind of a severely depressed is the real lesson of this
article.

> My psychiatrist doesn’t want to help me or support me in any way to kill
> myself. People are unsupportive.

I've been fairly severely depressed myself, several decades ago. The first
thing my psychiatrist did was address the collection of negative cognitive
biases that I'd managed to collect - much like this author - regarding myself,
other people, the structure of society, etc. And in my own case, that initial
reinterpretation of my attitudes was very helpful. I recovered and - aside
from pretty low-key "winter blues" \- haven't been depressed since then.

I do wonder why the author's cognitive biases seem so resistant to treatment.

Moe Reza, if you're reading this, I just want to tell you that recovery is
possible, and that life can absolutely be worth living. But you've got the
difficult task of recognizing this collection of negative attitudes as the
main cause of your sadness and hopelessness, not as any kind of accurate
reflection of reality that justifies suicide.

~~~
jp57
I had the same thought about the passivity and sense of helplessness in the
face of struggles that don't sound excessively abnormal. Given the title of
the article, I have to believe that this is deliberate.

Whether this is "learned helplessness" or has some other cause, I couldn't
say. But it seems to be intimately tied to the writer's depression.

I hope he finds treatment that works.

------
wozer
People really are like that when the circumstances are bad: violent, hurtful,
sadistic, selfish, insensitive, inconsiderate

But circumstances can always change. And then people are different, too!

