Ask HN: Is this depression? What should I do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is this depression? What should I do?

3 points_not_me_5 comments

Hi HN!

Long story short: I'm a 27 years old guy who graduated from the top schools of my country and who likes development and marketing. I quit my job 2 years ago to work on my own projects, and I succeeded. After 6 months of work I released an information product that made me on average $3k per month until recently.

After the release of my product I decided to take a 2-3 months break from working. However this has transformed into a 1.5 year break now where I've done almost nothing.

And now that sales of my infoproduct are almost non-existent, I really need to get back to work. I see basically 3 main options, but I somehow don't like any of them: a) Go back to work on my project that has 10,000 email subscribers that have not contacted in a while b) Start applying to regular jobs like Product Manager but I don't know how they are going to react to my recent experience c) Start a brand new project.

I feel lost, bored, and unmotivated. Is that what depression is? On the other hand I go out with friends, have great time with my girlfriend, I read a lot of books, I keep learning new skills, and spend way to much time on HN/reddit/youtube.

I've been in this really weird state of mind for more than a year now where I do nothing work-wise. This is obviously not sustainable, and don't know what to do to change that... Any advice?

Thanks for your help!

TL;DR: I stopped working 1.5 year ago after a successful side project, and now can't get back to work.

'Lost' is a reasonable diagnosis on its own. Depression takes many forms, but in such a situation is when you cannot bring yourself to face working again (been there).

Sounds like you've fallen out of the rhythm of work. In ways, you should count yourself lucky - very few people could afford to take 18 months off work without becoming homeless, so well done with this product you created!

Have you learned anything on your time off? Something you could use towards developing a v2.0? You could contact those 10,000 people for feedback on your initial product, see if there are any issues. If you can find a problem you can solve, getting back into work will be a snap.

This is not depression, at least not as clinically defined. It just seems as though you are lacking motivation.

My best advice to you would be to continue working on your own info product or start a new one or some other software project, something you can be excited about. Your investment in it should be enough to keep you motivated whereas working for another company (at this point, based on things you've said) would mean that your only motivation is in collecting a paycheck--which will lead you to true depression.

I would recommend going to see the doc for an official diagnosis. Sounds like there could be some depression or boredom in there since you lost motivation for doing something you really enjoyed doing and seem down about getting back into the game.

Help others?

I'm looking for help on my side project, dev/marketing, probably someone like you. Check my about and ping me if interested. Maybe a fresh project that you find interesting would make it easier to get back to work. Good luck.

Why did revenue drop so suddenly? Can't you re-acquire those customers and set the ball rolling again?

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