Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on May 26, 2015, 12:44:43 am
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The regular readers of Popehat will already be familiar with this piece, but everyone else should read it too: http://popehat.com/2015/05/21/happy-to-be-here/
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It's a really really good post that should be read.
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It takes massive balls to be honest about your own flaws.
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It is surprisingly accurate, especially about that feeling of dread in the stomach whenever you face something demanding. You have to fight a battle just to be ready to fight a battle, as it were.
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Very interesting read, thanks for pointing it out MP-Ryan
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Depression owned me when I was at peak life achievement and I almost killed myself for no sensible reason. Get help. Don't pretend you can tough it out alone.
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That's the hardest part about living and dealing with it. It will hit you no matter what your life is like at that moment.
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Get help. Don't pretend you can tough it out alone.
It seems intuitive to tell a depressed individual to get help...but I would imagine that the consequences of seeking help could, in a person's mind, outweigh the benefits of having the help. I would be afraid of the repercussions of having "known depressed individual" come up on some background check, and give people the impression that I am not able to function in the workplace.
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You should be more worried about having "known dead individual" coming up, because that is a fairly likely outcome.
But yeah, most people worry about completely the wrong thing.
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It seems intuitive to tell a depressed individual to get help...but I would imagine that the consequences of seeking help could, in a person's mind, outweigh the benefits of having the help. I would be afraid of the repercussions of having "known depressed individual" come up on some background check, and give people the impression that I am not able to function in the workplace.
I can tell you that being open about depression is far better than trying to keep it quiet. There is nothing more valuable than having people around you who know about your condition and who can see the signs and warn you. More often than not, slipping into depression is a gradual process that you are unaware of until you're too deep in it to do anything about it; having people around you asking whether you're OK and being honest to yourself about it is absolutely critical in steering away from the worst of it.
At the end of the day, being alive and able to stay alive is more important than being employed.
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Been diagnosed with moderate anxiety and depression 3 years now and I still cant face talking about it to my parents, just one of those hangups I have though fortunately my wife and key friends know and try to be supportive about it.
Logically there is no repercussions from diagnosis and treatment, indeed because of that many if not most can can function in work with no appreciable impact on their work.
Your enemy when suffering is your own imagination creating things to fear, those fears are as numerous as there are sufferers. Personally I am one who has prided myself on self reliance, being the guy that helps others, Normally I put myself last, so my anxiety and depression hits me with that when I reach out. But reaching out to the docs has been the best thing I have done, sure I still have crap periods but they are not as long or as deep, my triggers are still there but most of the time I can recognize them and try to brace myself for them.
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A headhunter once told me to avoid mentioning depression on a job interview, unless directly asked about it, if asked about why I quit finishing a PhD program.
Take from that what you will.
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not saying you are OK means having to deal with people.
being told you need to seek help can feel like 'I don't want to deal with you'.
warning a person that they might wind up dead isn't going to phase someone who is suicidal.
treating complex emotional problems like they have simple cookie cutter solutions is likely not going to have the desired outcome.
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The thing about depression is that there is always a part of you outside, watching and knowing what is happening, but is powerless to stop it.
The problem is that there is little you can say to a depressive about treating it that they are not telling themselves over and over anyway.
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there is that too.
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oh, and the "stay positive" advice that is received as "don't tell me about your problems"
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oh, and the "stay positive" advice that is received as "don't tell me about your problems"
depends if you have talked through your problem with that person just before, I tend to find friends using that one a lot when we talk about what is on my mind
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enm
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Good article, Thanks MP. Bookmarking in case I/someone else needs it.
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I'd say its never as easy as "being open" and "getting help." A lot of people are depressed to begin with because of how isolated they are.
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I'd say its never as easy as "being open" and "getting help." A lot of people are depressed to begin with because of how isolated they are.
QFT. Depression is often a secondary disease caused by something else. You can't reliably treat it if you try to attack it in isolation, leaving the original cause in effect. In fact often, if that cause is easily identifiable (which it often is NOT, or is something that cannot be fixed) then attacking that cause is far more effective then trying to simply beat depression on it's own.
I mean
"I'm depressed, no one will hang out with me"
"you should get professional help and talk about this with someone"
"what's there to talk about? I know why I'm depressed. No one wants to hang out with me. I'm all alone every day and I don't know where to find new people to make friends with. you want to come over and hang out maybe? roast some weenies? watch some TV?"
"no, you need help from someone else"
"Yeah... I think I'd rather just stay in bed today Q~Q"
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Depression is, in fact, hard to beat. The causes are often unclear. Sometimes there's no solution — only coping techniques. That's why we're talking about it.
For many people, one of the hardest parts of fighting depression is acknowledging that you're depressed. Another very hard part is speaking up. Beating the belief that you need to tough it out and solve your own problems. Depression will spoof you with fears about nearly any choice you make, and the choice to speak up can feel like it'll cost you your respect, your career, and your relationships.
Anyone who doesn't grapple with depression knows someone who does. You don't need to do it alone. Reach out to those around you. Consider severing contact with people who're dragging you down. Help erase the cultural stigma that tells you professional help makes you crazy or weak. People may cut you off — depression can make anyone hard to cope with, because it alters behavior, and many people just don't understand depression or its causes. That's part of the tragedy of the disease. But it doesn't make you a bad person.
I see a lot of this every time the topic comes up: 'you know, this advice is naive, it's not that easy.' We know. We've been there! Ultimately, everyone needs to find their own strategies. But there are resources available to you, as long as you have a phone or internet access. You can call a hotline. You can chat with a social worker. It might not do anything for you. But it might help you understand the etiology of your depression, or accept it as a problem that you need to solve now instead of muddling through. And it could lead you to effective therapy or pharmacy that triages or beats the disease.
Like many other scary diseases, depression is — in addition to its other effects — a disease of the ability to not be depressed. It targets and destroys pathways out.
If it makes you angry to see basic advice on depression, because that advice hasn't worked for your situation, that's understandable. But remember that many people don't have any insight into the condition at all — whether it's in themselves, their friends, or their relatives.
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Relatedly:
The Internet makes a lot more sense when you realize most of the people driving most of the conversations on it are deeply unhappy.
It's very hard to explain to a healthy person that the basic maintenance acts they see as effortless, things like getting out of bed or paying the bills, are not just 'too hard' but functionally impossible: that the neural theater you use to map the world and plan your actions has been compromised, and that there are so many alarms going off in there that you need to spend all your energy just turning off the self-destruct system.
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My problem was that no-one cared when it counted and, in fact, actively went our of their way to avoid having to deal with the issues I was having.
Piece of advice for anyone who suffers discrimination at work, don't be afraid of confrontation, I know it's difficult, especially when you are suffering from a lack of self-confidence bought about by that discrimination, but don't let your manager fob you off with delays or excuses, because they will do so for as long as they think they will get away with it, and will do nothing whatsoever to deal with the actual problem.
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My problem was that no-one cared when it counted and, in fact, actively went our of their way to avoid having to deal with the issues I was having.
Piece of advice for anyone who suffers discrimination at work, don't be afraid of confrontation, I know it's difficult, especially when you are suffering from a lack of self-confidence bought about by that discrimination, but don't let your manager fob you off with delays or excuses, because they will do so for as long as they think they will get away with it, and will do nothing whatsoever to deal with the actual problem.
discrimination against because you were depressed, or was this what lead to your depression?
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It was several years of discrimination that pushed me into walking out of my job because I felt like everyone was doing everything in their power to avoid getting involved. Even other staff members knew what was going on, but because it was a female member of staff telling a male that their gender made them 'a born liar who can't be trusted', no-one wanted to get involved because the discrimination was going the 'other way', whatever that means.
At the time, I was too naive to know my other options, and my manager's boss refused to lift a finger to help, probably out of fear of how it would reflect on him if it became known that one of his staff was discriminating. He was one of those people who thought that a man should just 'put up' with insults about their gender whilst being firmly behind supporting anyone with a vagina who felt they had been treated badly. His motivations, I suspect, describe themselves.
To cut a long story short, I ended getting suicidal depression because I honestly felt work had adopted a 'rather him than me' attitude, and I stayed depressed because it was true.
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That's some bull****. Sounds like you were on the receiving end of the 'new' definition of sexism (https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/533445611543363585).
though this post is dangerously close to sending this thread way off the rails so maybe this line of discussion should go elsewhere.