

Wil Shipley on OCD and depression - yters
http://wilshipley.com/blog/2005/05/on-being-crazy.html

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jhancock
Thanks to Will for sharing a well written article.

I am careful not to diagnose myself or others and using labels: OCD, ADD,
depressive, etc... The reason I am careful about labeling is I don't think the
diagnoses are accurate enough. I have concluded that maybe we can't always
identify the disorders, maybe we can't cure the disorders, but we can coup
with and more openly discuss the symptoms.

If you are someone that suffers from the behavioral patterns discussed in the
article, try various methods to break the behavior bit by bit.

Here are tools I use: exercise, cook a meal (it has a beginning and an end.
You get to enjoy it in a short time frame. Not like software development which
never ends.)

What tools do you use?

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I am careful not to diagnose myself or others and using labels: OCD, ADD,
depressive, etc... The reason I am careful about labeling is I don't think the
diagnoses are accurate enough._

Any psychologist worth their salt would agree with you: Diagnoses are blunt
instruments which we use to describe what are, in reality, complex and unique
collections of individual traits and tendencies. There is indeed a risk in
"labeling" someone.

But, on the other hand, psychologists often do it anyway. Because the labels
also have advantages. The biggest one is: Labels force you to acknowledge the
existence of correlations. It is a sad but true fact that some people commit
suicide. Other people drink themselves to death. But it's very, very hard to
look at your best friend -- or at yourself -- and think _this person is about
to kill themselves_ or _this person is an alcoholic_. Your mind just slides
off the subject, like water off a waxed car. You don't want to believe that,
so you don't. That's why people always act so surprised. "Who could have
predicted that such a successful writer could kill themselves?"

The answer is that sometimes you can't predict it. But one useful way of
predicting it is to have a list of warning signs, and to apply (as clinically
and scientifically as possible) a special label to anyone who exhibits seven
out of ten warning signs. You can't always just listen to your gut, because
your gut can be a _hopeless_ optimist -- you force yourself to listen to the
label. Then we can take action based on the label -- we give people insurance
money to pay for extra therapy, give them access to special drugs, invite them
out for coffee instead of beer, encourage them to call (or not to call) their
moms, and/or make allowances for their behavior ("Oh, perhaps he's _not_
sending an obvious social signal that he hates my guts! Perhaps he's just
having an Asperger's moment!" Is that a glib diagnosis? You bet. But if only I
had a dollar for every time that explanation has come in handy...)

Another advantage of labels is that they _literally_ aren't personal. We treat
the labelled condition as if it were somehow separate from a person's regular
personality -- and that's often _not_ a bug in our labelling system, but a
feature! It enables us to distinguish "a guy who sometimes seems nice but is
in fact a complete jerk" from "a nice guy, except when he's drunk". We can
distinguish "a guy who just doesn't have it together" from "a clinically
depressed guy", each of whom requires different treatment. You can try to help
the first guy cheer up by encouraging him to change his life, or buying him a
pizza, or perhaps just mindlessly telling him to "look on the bright side".
You can't do that for the clinically depressed, as Will tells us in no
uncertain terms:

"Some people have never dealt with depression, and they can't figure out how
it's different from 'being sad.' 'I've been sad! I don't whine about it! I
just get over it.' Yes, that's nice. Also, not the same."

As someone who was once depressed, but turned out not to have _depression_ , I
tend to think that the label is very useful. Otherwise I might have tried
antidepressant treatments _before_ I tried changing my city and my job.
Conversely, if I _did_ have depression, but were unwilling to accept that
diagnosis, I might spend my time moving randomly from city to city instead of
accepting my condition, seeking long-term treatment, and explaining it to my
friends.

~~~
Retric
Thank you, that was the most clear and useful definition of labeling I have
ever seen.

------
oPerrin
As always these articles are wonderful to read. I think the hardest thing for
people without depression to conceptualize is the crushing weight of
insignificant tasks. How picking up a single sock becomes a literal
impossibility. How the implications of _acting_ , in any way, are like trying
to assume every single associated burden simultaneously.

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bprater
Great article. For folks that don't understand what depression feels like, an
article like this is great.

I think a good explanation of depression for someone that has never really
experienced it is: "Take the worse day of your life. Feel those feelings. Now
pretend that every day of your life is like that from the moment you wake up
to the moment you fall asleep." If there is hell on earth, it looks alot like
depression. Unfortunately, most of this is just biochemistry happening in your
brain. Fortunately, there are tools today that can help.

It's funny, people can relate when they see someone with a broken leg or a
huge scar. You can't see mental disorders and if you haven't felt them, they
don't seem very real.

If there is someone you love that has a mental disorder, nothing you can
quickly spat at them will help, "Oh, you'll get better" or "It'll go away,
just be patient." anymore than you want to hear the same things when you break
up with a girlfriend or lose a family member. See if they want help, help them
get help if they do, and support them.

If YOU think you have a mental disorder like depression, please go see a
professional. They are trained in a variety of techniques that they can give
you to help manage your life better in the face of whatever problems you feel
you are having. They want to help you, they want to heal you. But you have to
take that step first.

------
pavelludiq
I used to have some depressed moments, but after a big tragedy in my family, i
realized i had no time to waste, and if i ever had any depressing moments,
they were rarely longer than a day or two. Apparently work heals pain fairly
well, it distracts you from the depressing thoughts and the productivity gives
you a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction, but the side effect is that the
work is hard and frustrating. I could say that im "crazy", but not in the
medical meaning.

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wilshipley
The comments on this forum are awesome. I wish the whole intertron were like
this.

-Wil

~~~
palish
Stick around and add your own. Welcome to Hacker News.

Also, it's customary for new members to let me take their Tesla for a spin.

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swombat
_You look around you and realize that everyone and everything you love is
going to go away, sooner or later, and you don't believe anything good will
replace them._

Isn't that exactly how things are? It's not an illusion, that's just the
truth. Most people have simply developed a solid sense of denial so they
ignore that until they die - or at least until they get old and all their
friends start dying.

~~~
sethg
In some psychological tests, people with clinical depression demonstrated a
more accurate view of reality than mentally healthy people.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism>
<http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr05/realism.html>

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yters
I post this b/c articles and comments about depression seem very common here
and on programming.reddit. I'm curious if OCD and depression go together?

~~~
petercooper
They're both mental illnesses. While common independently, the issues that
cause other mental illnesses often result in depression as a side issue.

~~~
yters
I was thinking more along the lines that if someone is OCD they can probably
detect incomplete plans and lines of thought more easily than others, and so
see in general that most ideas are not well supported or understood by people.
Thus, a person's society and culture in general may not seem very well thought
out, which can be a source of anxiety and depression.

------
pxlpshr
Waylon Jennings said, "I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going
insane." And I'd have to agree with him...

