Depression ​

Depression is a natural emotion that is caused by your body's response to the unpleasant environment you are in.

I found doing my best to try change my environment (change physical space I spend time in and/or try new activities) together with truly believing in my self worth helped me overcome the depressive episodes I had in life.

I remember the times I did feel depressed and down I doubted my ability and future hard. Once in university when I failed many courses as I couldn't force myself to prepare for what I thought were useless exams and once when I had to do mandatory army. Both times I thought my future was uncertain. I would not get into university I want or get any kind of job because I was not smart enough. Each day didn't seem to change this and move me closer to that goal thus I felt depressed, useless and sadly affected relationships close to me in effect.

Since then I learned I am not as useless as I thought. The first job I got, I actually didn't even want to go to it as I was sure I would not get the job and fail the interview. Why even try? I did go eventually, thanks to my girlfriend telling me to try, took the train and went to Amsterdam and actually got the job. I lost it after few months as I wasn't as good at programming as they wanted but getting that first job was monumental in making me believe in myself.

I have lost many more jobs since that time mostly for not being a great programmer. I was fired 8 times actually for underperformance. And on 2nd fire, I was told by CEO I should reconsider being a programmer and go back to studying or that I should just switch career entirely as I was just bad.

What's interesting is that all those firings have not phased me at all. I was not depressed since as I somehow found my self worth and realized no one externally can take that away from me. Nothing aside from physical pain could hurt me any more and I felt free.

I now try my best to mindfully be aware of emotions, thoughts and feelings I have and focus on improving my happiness in life by being grateful and optimistic towards the future.

Life is truly too short to dwell on the past and worry about the future that may never come. Live in the moment and try all the things. Embrace any rejections you get.

Another thing that greatly helped overcome any sadness or depressive thoughts I had was journaling. The act of writing things down and letting things go is a very cathartic process.

Notes ​

• The fact that we’ve convinced people that depression is a neuro chemical imbalance and not downstream of a weird way of setting up our lives is one of our most impressive modern inventions.
• Jealousy is natural. You are not a terrible person for feeling jealous. That feeling of jealousy is your responsibility to find ways to work with. And you can find ways to work with it.
• Burnout is a response to repeated attempts to make meaningful change while lacking the agency to do so. See problems > try to fix them > get shot down or ignored.
• You are not “burnt out”. You are exploited, overworked & underpaid. Use language that accurately describes the underlying problem. Your body isn't broken; the conditions you're enduring are what's broken. Your body is accurately & normally responding to exploitation.
• Sometimes I feel worn out by the world. Then I remember that with just a small amount of effort and curiosity, life is so unbelievably rich, abundant, fascinating, challenging, and inspiring. The rabbit holes are infinite and impossibly deep. Find a loose thread and pull it.
• Psychedelic mushrooms increase neuroplasticity, allowing restructuring of neural connections. Essentially, you can "rewrite" your brain away from depressive thoughts.
• Feelings come and go. Consequences last.
• You can process my emotions through a different lenses. It’s truly normal to grieve the loss of something or someone. While many don’t understand, I think as long as WE know what we are dealing with, that can make life a little easier.

Links ​

• Ask HN: Effective methods to fight depression?
• Sara Vieira: Your brain doesn't have a fix flag
• История одной депрессии
• Tips for the Depressed
• 25 mental health wellness tips
• Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help (HN)
• Surviving Depression (HN)
• Rachel Nabors - How to survive major change (2019)
• How not to be sad (2020)
• Talking Depression with Reckful (2019)
• Solving Laziness with Asmongold (2020)
• Let’s avoid talk of ‘chemical imbalance’: it’s people in distress (2020) (HN)
• Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders (2019) (HN)
• Ask HN: Are you depressed? (2020)
• Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper's beautiful conversation about grief (2019)
• Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now? (2020)
• Techniques for dealing with lack of motivation, malaise, depression (2017)
• Podcasts for those with Depresion? (2021)
• Psilocybin 'promising' for depression (2021) (HN)
• A few thoughts on depression (2021)
• Stanford's Sapolsky On Depression in U.S. (2009)
• How do you deal with burnout? (2021)
• Тред о младшей сестре депрессии — дистимии
• Dabrowski’s Theory and Existential Depression in Gifted Children and Adults (2020)
• Коллапс моей личности
• Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city (2021)
• Reflections on Burnout (2021)
• Avoiding Burnout (HN) (Summary)
• Depression is more than low mood – it’s a change of consciousness (2021) (HN)
• How I Got My Brain Back (2021) - Using observation, investigation, and productivity methods to understand my depression. (HN)
• Movies about depression and loneliness
• Ask HN: Nerds of HN, did you overcome loneliness? (2021)
• Depression alters the circadian pattern of online activity (2020) (HN)
• Ask HN: How to take first steps to escape burnout? (2022)
• Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now? (2022)
• On a neural level, how does a condition like depression cause worse cognition? (2022)
• Ask HN: At a peak of my dev career, I hate my life (2022)
• Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study (2022) (HN)
• How to recover from depression
• Movies to Watch When Depressed
• Koko - Online Suicide Prevention Kit. (HN)
• Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants? (2022)
• Тюрьма травмы: когнитивные искажения в чрезвычайной ситуации (2022)
• Ask HN: Have You Burned Out? (2022)
• Depressing movies that’ll choke you (2022)
• Burnout (HN)
• “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels (HN) (Paper)
• Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?
• Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine (2022) (HN)
• Getting Out of a Rut (2022)
• Depression (2022)
• The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think (2023)
• Book for a depressed person that thinks life is not worth it and everything is way to much effort etc. (2023)