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Comment by nugga | Hacker News Reader

Having dealt with years of clinical depression and not getting much done beyond basic 'just in time' survival I want to say the following:

Meditation may unlock or bring you closer to the bad stuff you've been avoiding dealing with that has been making you depressed or feel bad. You need to put in a lot of work and plow through it with persistence, even if in that moment you don't feel like it. It may be difficult if you feel like you're covered in mud and darkness but there is light at the end of the tunnel even if you can't see it at the moment.

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Yup, not that.

I didn't need psychotherapy, and there was nothing it brought me closer too. I need help with organic depression.

I don't want to preach and I don't know your situation but I offer my perspective regardless. I may be talking completely past you because I'm not familiar with the term organic depression, and that's ok, maybe someone else will find this helpful.

I grant there may be some mechanism that can be fixed alleviated by chemicals acting on the body but everything is connected, body-mind-soul. As far as I can tell, depression is in essence a negative feedback loop of bad thoughts that flood your brain and body incessantly creating negativity and sluggishness that further shape your thoughts and behaviour.

A depressed person may not even realize their mind may be constantly telling them they suck or they're not worthy or whatever, but that is, as all thoughts and emotions are, illusionary in the sense that you don't have to take that as your own. You don't have to associate your being or identify as that chatter or the phenomenon passing through that body. You're purer and more beautiful and more deserving of love than that.

Thoughts can have tremendous energy especially if you get provoked by or stuck to them. What prolonged persistent meditation practice (say at least 2x30 min per day) may help one achieve is a sort of mental clarity or non separateness from/non attachment to thoughts, seeing how the mind really works.

> As far as I can tell, depression is in essence a negative feedback loop of bad thoughts that flood your brain and body incessantly creating negativity and sluggishness that further shape your thoughts and behaviour.

Science have a thoroughly incomplete and yet much more detailed and nuanced understanding of depression. I suggest you look into it, if you are interested enough to have an opinion on the matter.

I meditated for over an hour a day for several years - I had long term injuries that needed me to sit motionless several times a day while I treated them, so I would get myself set up, and the meditate through the session. (It wasn't a painful or otherwise sensate process.) I'd had started meditation earlier than that, with some classes and literature in college.

I'm actually up in arms now against people who insist that mediation/yoga/SSRIs/most therapists can make a damn bit of difference in the case of actual depression. I wasted 20 years of my life listening to them, when the people those things are going to help aren't actually depressed to begin with.

> I'm actually up in arms now against people who insist that mediation/yoga/SSRIs/most therapists can make a damn bit of difference in the case of actual depression. I wasted 20 years of my life listening to them, when the people those things are going to help aren't actually depressed to begin with.

Woah, "actual depression"... hardcore!

The problem isn't other people. You are the problem. Your ego is so big that it bleeds through your posts, as if it's crying out for someone to stop it.

Talk of depression and other mental health issues always seem to bring out the crackpots on HN - "meditation and lifting weights will cure <disease>".

I'm glad you found a medication which works for you. And I hope people who are suffering ignore the crackpots and go see their doctor.

CBT has been shown to be as effective as Prozak. We can't outright discount the impact therapy may have. All depression is "organic" depression, such that it manifests itself physically. This doesn't persist as if in a bubble independent of all other life factors; things are interconnected, they can all fall into a downward spiral, and spring back up together.

Did you read what I posted? You're making my case for me. Did you even read the title of the article you are commenting on?

Neither CBT nor Prozac are effective treatments for actual depression. And CBT can be very counterproductive if the underlying depression hasn't been successfully treated. If this is the case, the depressed person is being set up for failure. Prozac, on the other hand, is snake oil.

People who respond to CBT alone aren't depressed. They are suffering situational stressors and a lack of cognitive behavioural skills. People helped by SSRIs are by and large simply regressing to the mean.

This isn't to say that CBT therapy doesn't have benefit to someone recovering from depression - but that it's not a cure, it's not a resolution, it's a hand helping you back up once you are well - but not until the depression is treated first.

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