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Comment by Tarucho | Hacker News Reader

The author was doing 45 minute HIIT routines while being depressed. Go figure.

I find this kind of articles infuriating. All this narcissistic talk about how they handled it and whatever, signaling how they are above all that (the disclaimer at the bottom does not qualify, we are not that retarded).

After 30 years of suffering treatment resistant bipolar depression I just find all this diminishing of clinical depression really disgusting and paternalizing (did some editing here, I don't have anything personal against the author)

Yes, we depressed people are so retard. We don`t understand how exercise or clean eating benefit us, we cannot organize our lives, we like to suffer...and lose jobs...yeah, of course.

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Please don't fulminate or call names like this on HN, no matter how wrong or bad some article is or you feel it is. It doesn't help—it only makes things worse—and it's deeply against both the site rules and the intended spirit of the site.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing the guidelines and taking them more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note this one as well: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I've had chronic depression my whole adult life, sometimes extremely crippling, and I do understand your view point to a degree, but at the same time I didn't really come away from this article feeling "invalidated" in any way.

The author's description of her symptoms match pretty strongly to my experience of depression (I would say they match my experience when I'm at my "neutral baseline" - definitely not in my worse moments). From what she's describing it doesn't sound like chronic depression but more circumstantial. But it's definitely depression. She doesn't need to have a badge of "I've had this for 20 years" to have a perfectly valid, and tough experience of depression.

She clearly went into it with already established patterns like exercise and a high degree of self awareness, which has served her well during this period and allowed her to move forwards through it. Some of the ideas she talked about were extremely interesting to me too. I've been trying different things for decades and yet there were still a couple of new ideas here that I haven't considered before.

For people experiencing depression over a longer timeframe, the experience may be different. But neither experience is invalid, nor invalidates the other.

Hope you continue to push through your bipolar! I've been told my depression is "mildly bipolar" whatever that means, but I definitely don't experience the extreme swings on a regular basis that are typically described in relation to bipolar.

Problem is the author, as most people that say they are depressed self-diagnose. And gives advice. How would people react if author self-diagnosed cancer and gave advice on how to cure it? Depression is disabling illness, why such lightly take?

Well for one, because if you ask 5 psychiatrists you'll get mixed diagnoses. You act as if the diagnosis for depression is some black or white thing. We know for a fact that it isn't by the way that it is diagnosed.

Parkinson is also not a black and white thing. I have bodily tremors due to my depression, can I self diagnose parkinsons and start giving advice? Would you approve?

Sure, why not? You have tremors so maybe you have some tips and tricks to help other people.

Getting a diagnosis from a psychiatrist that tells you that you have depression doesn't make your advice any more or less qualified.

When I was in my teens I answered like 5 questions on a piece of paper (on a scale of 1-10 type questions) and was instantly prescribed anti-depressants. That's the state of our medical system right now.

> When I was in my teens I answered like 5 questions on a piece of paper (on a scale of 1-10 type questions) and was instantly prescribed anti-depressants. That's the state of our medical system right now.

Amusingly(?) this was pretty much my diagnostic experience too.

I don’t think anyone would argue your experience was ideal, though context matters. That being said, it’s anecdata- the clinical definition of the various forms of depression are fairly well defined and a qualified mental health professional should be able to diagnose with general accuracy.

Put another way - it’s like diagnosing cancer. Sometimes it’s so obvious that any doctor can see it. Sometimes it might be benign or malignant, and it might be hard to tell.

Regardless, I would be pretty skeptical of someone who said, “hey I have cancer and here’s how I fixed it” who was never diagnosed in the first place.

In this case it’s entirely possible the author had adjustment disorder/situational depression, which for many/most people will clear itself up, and it helps if you exercise, sleep well, eat well, etc. That’s a very different thing than persistent clinical depression, and telling someone that all they have to do is work out and eat well and get outside is almost cruel.

> and telling someone that all they have to do is work out and eat well and get outside is almost cruel.

Except the author doesn't do this. They describe a system in which they track and observe what doesn't and what does work for them. Only someone that's living with a victim mentality would suggest that this is an attack on their own situation.

I'm tired of the suffering-olympics that people put on. "This person isn't as depressed as me. I've got a medical professional to confirm this, therefore what you've shared is unhelpful to anybody"

Surely you realize how ridiculous this position is?

Let me frame it another way - if someone said, "Hey, I have ALS, and here's what I did to fix it" - would we be having the same conversation? Or, "Hey, I have pancreatic cancer, and instead of medicine, I'm going with a fruits and coffee enema approach"

We would be talking about how irresponsible it is - which in fact, we did on this very site:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21156916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14564547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080176

To be clear - I am not a victim, I have never suffered from clinical depression. I don't care about the victim olympics. But there's a whole host of conditions where we immediately disregard people who say they fixed it themselves, or tried to fix it themselves. But take something like depression and we are saying that "hey this worked for someone else so we should consider it, and criticizing it is a victim mentality"

Totally right.

The thing is, this is just a person writing about their experience. Using a common “label” of depression that we all largely understand.

I struggle to see this as a negative. I’ve been officially diagnosed, maybe she hasn’t. Who cares? Her experience is still valid, the techniques and ideas are useful and frankly more people should be encouraged to write about their personal experiences like this without being admonished for it. I see no malice or ill intent in this article. Or even trivialisation, given the brief eluding towards suicidal thoughts.

Even medical professionals can’t agree on the exact definition of depression. And if you read the DSM you’ll see that many of the diagnostic criteria are at odds with current scientific knowledge and understanding (the official diagnostic criteria understandably lags quite a bit).

It’s not a perfect science. But we seem to just be debating whether this person has the right to call their condition “depression” or not. I’m gonna call it and say that she does.

I think the main issue with the article is it has big wow-thanks-im-cured energy. Just do some of that low-activation exercise and cook for yourself, and whammo cheat code!

It comes across as patronizing for those who know what things can or should give a mood boost, but lack the activation energy, or don't get much benefit from the outcome.

> It comes across as patronizing

I think the thing I'm stuck on is how someone talking solely about their own personal lived experience during a low point in their life can possibly be patronising?

Is this not an interpretation that we as readers can choose or not choose? As opposed to something the author is doing to us?

If she was saying "depressed people should just do X, what's all the fuss about. Losers." then maybe I would feel patronised. But she's not doing that.

It's obviously a sensitive topic because a lot of people seem to share your view.

It seems like you're suggesting that if the "lifestyle"-type techniques described in the article aren't a solution to your specific situation, then it's condescending and useless to describe those techniques. I don't agree, and I don't think the author was proposing to lay out some universal program for eliminating all forms of depression. She was merely describing what was helpful for her.

Obviously people who have more serious conditions may need different interventions, and needless to say there is a whole pharmacopeia of chemical tweaks to be explored above and beyond lifestyle modifications. Those are also valid and valuable.

First thing first: did the author had clinically diagnosed depression? Or was a self-assessment?

What would people think if bloggers start giving advice on how to sort out cancer because they felt some lump in their leg, self-diagnose and decided to cure it with massage? Or giving advice on how to cure cirrhosis because their liver hurt for a couple of weeks. But with depression, for most, it's fine.

The blog post is not properly describing the person merely was having a rut. Temporary unhappiness. Not clinical depression. However saying all that up front would make the post far less interesting and make the person far less interesting.

Clinical depression isn’t that serious or a condition for some people. It still isn’t the non factor the blogger had.

I find this kind of comment frustrating. The author repeatedly, throughout the article acknowledges her privilege (e.g. financial security to quit her job) and that these techniques are specific to her. Not just a disclaimer at the bottom.

The top comment of HN discussions almost always seems to be a cynical takedown with the least-charitable interpretation of an author's words while assuming the worst intentions.

You could take it that way if you like but it resonated with me. During the pandemic I was useless. I contributed nothing at work. I plodded along through life. One day I woke up and lay in bed till the sun went down. I didn’t even pee. Just lay there. The image of the light above my bed still remains with me.

And yeah, at one point, at the urging of a friend I went to Barry’s Bootcamp. Then I started going every other day. And then every day for two months. It wasn’t instantaneous. I was still worthless at work. But eventually I quit that job, accepted my losses (which is hard to do if you’ve always won), and moved on.

The lesson I learned from this article is different. This person needed these organizing skills in that moment. They needed that mental model in that moment. And they had it not because they developed it in the moment but because it was familiar.

Placed in an unpleasant situation, we all tend to the familiar. And for this person, the familiar turned out to be a useful tool.

Maybe one could turn it into an implied insult against one’s own behavior. Maybe one could treat it as arrogance to imply it is a fix for one’s own problems.

But I think the truth is that this article is intended in the spirit of something I, personally, greatly treasure: the honest human sharing of experiences in a way we can glean some truth about parts of the world we cannot observe. It’s a statement akin to “Here are the patches I’ve applied!”

And perhaps when you see those diffs you think “Fuck you! How dare you think this software is so shit that it needs those diffs” or “Fuck you! You think I haven’t thought of that?!” but maybe they don’t think that. Maybe they think it’s just that the software runs better on their machine with those diffs. And maybe they’re just sharing in that respect.

Glad someone else had the guts to say it. That was kinda my first thought - "oh she's depressed, but ranks various kinds of exercise as 'low activation' energy? That's quaint. Oh she was able to bootstrap herself out of her funk after a few months, without therapy or antidepressants? Extra quaint."

I absolutely commiserate with your frustration. I've struggled with ADHD and bipolar my entire life. I've been on all manner of treatments and seeing therapists/coaches on a regular cadence, and while I'm doing way better than my darkest times, I balk when people manage to just "be motivated" and do adult things reliably.

I do value the data she has provided, but it definitely needs to be tuned to the person and their current condition.

The author's experience of sudden onset, of sometimes not being able to get out of bed some days, but also able to hit the weights as a "low activation cheatcode" sounds much more akin to cyclothymia than general depression.

I think I understand something of your point of view. It is a little hard to be sympathetic for someone who had many resources to sort out what was a relatively minor problem.

As others have pointed out, she does acknowledge this privilege and so on. Of course, yes everyone's experience is valid and what worked for them might work for others.

I guess part of the problem is that 'depression' is like a long road. Some people are only a little way along this road, some are all the way to clinical depression and beyond.

I can't quite imagine what my current mood or mental state would be like if I did not have the financial resources to at least mitigate or forget about things for a while.

To switch metaphors, some people are in a shallow well and say 'I just climbed out!' while others are in a much deeper well, with slippery walls, and weights attached to thier feet (or something).

Yes, well said

Excuse me? You are saying someone else's depression is not "real depression". Who's diminishing whose suffering, here?

She self diagnoses an illnesses. I have as much as an authority as her to say that her self diagnosis is not depression.

I also self diagnose myself with brain cancer and I will start posting advice on how to cure it using my strategies. Do you see the point?

Bipolar depression is a chemical illness. You have very little in common with anyone who suffers from regular depression.

(I have bipolar)

Not how I read the article at all. She is not claiming that what she did would work for anybody else or that people who doesn’t do what she did are somehow inferior. Maybe ask yourself why you read it that way? My guess is that it has more to do with how you feel about yourself than what the author is writing.

I find it rather sad and ironic that you call his article 'narcissistic talk', yet you are playing the victim, because you allegedly have it worse, half dismissing his situation.

Bipolar going manic, people understands, bipolar going depressive "such a pussy, I solved depression with zumba"

That`s whats get me. Depression is an illness. People wouldn`t accept such take with other illnesses why?

This article, as others, perpetuates the stigma.

It sucks that we use the term for so many different things, including culturally.

I will add another FCK YOU to these people from me, a person living with Schizoaffective Disorder for 45 years.

As I have said in other posts, this person was NOT suffering from clinical depression. They were at best suffering situational depression, otherwise called "sadness".

And these articles always come from these rich successful people because we all know once you make some money you know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING and you get to write an article about it and make even more money.

So as you said, they wrote about this stuff and then people look at us and think it is all out fault. These neoliberal leftists are turning into the worst kind of people.

And so who listens to me? I have been studying, on my own Genetics, Nutrigenomics, and Mitochondrial Biology and by changing my lifestyle it has enabled me to get off of the 4 med cocktail I was on.

And then she briefly acknowledges her "financial security" as playing a role. Well let's see her trying to do it on disability, homeless, living in a van in the winter. I would say she was able to cure her sadness SOLEY because of her finances.

All people with Mental Illness need to push back hard on these articles because they create both inner and outer stigma that ruins us.

I responded to the parent comment so I won't belabor it, but I think this take on the article is faulting the author for a claim she never made. The article never even mentions schizoaffective disorder and makes no attempt to propose a cure for mental illness. Discussions about useful approaches for dealing with relatively mild depression are not a criticism of people who suffer from more serious conditions.

The parent said:

> They were at best suffering situational depression, otherwise called "sadness".

The blogger didn’t say sadness or mild depression much or at all. They said depression from the get go and made the symptoms seem decently severe at first. Tho again. That is not something that can differentiated from a period of sadness.

The OPs schizoaffective disorder does not change anything they wrote.

From this and your other comments, it sounds like you are really struggling. I hope things get better for you.

This is patronizing and stigmatizing and dues not negate the truth of what I am saying.

You might ask me to explain more and understand why people like me who suffer clinical depression have a problem with articles like this.

I'd like to hear about what you've discovered. Planning to go on meds but I'd like to know more about self-care. I'm "lucky" because there's a situational aspect to my condition but I know there's genetics at play (family/personal history).

Feel free to email me at podgaj@fastmail.org

It is neither and it seems appropriate to stick up for the comment you are replying to. It's about as simple of an expression of empathy as can be expressed, to treat it as otherwise reinforces the point.

Take care.

This is the stigma. No matter what I say about how I feel it will always come back to my mental illness.

I can literally tell people how something made me felt and they gaslight me and diagnose me!

I am having a hard time with the article, that is all.

Okay. Why do you have a problem with articles like this (that is, articles where someone describes some serious problems in their life and describes what worked for them with no attempt at describing those activities as universally beneficial)?

Thanks.

A few observations first.

It is posted on a blog called "Superorganizers". What does being organzied have to do with depression?

The host stated; "It's an honest, and brave account of her struggle with depression", that is what I am disputing. And I can, because I have experience in the field and it was posted on HN.

To begin, talk to any psychiatrist and they will tell you there is a clinical distinction between sadness and depression. This is the only distinction I am making and I know any of you cannot understand that which is part of my problem both explaining why this is bad. And maybe my vulgarity towards the author was uncalled for but it signals my deeper frustration with the way Mental Health is often confused with Mental Illness and how comfortable people are with throwing around clinical tersm to describe ordinary mood changes.

We all get sad, it is human, and yes, there are skills to get through it. However, depression is DIAGNOSED when you cannot get out of sadness.

https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/is-it-depression-or-t...

"Feeling sadness, loneliness, or grief when you go through a difficult life experience is part of being human. And most of the time, you can continue to function. You know that in time you will bounce back, and you do."

Brie went to a Therapist. Brie might have been diagnosed as depressed. But based what I have read from, Brie was likely misdiagnosed. There is no blood test for depression and therapists frequently over diagnose depression. This is probably more likely to happen to pateints who have money to spend on therapists.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6818431/ "Paris argues that major depression is seriously overdiagnosed. He notes that the term dates back to the DSM, Third Edition (DSM-III), where there was an attempt to distinguish depressive episodes with clinically significant effects on functioning from minor symptoms that are passing and not disabling. He notes that the percentage of the United States population taking antidepressants had risen to 11% by 2011, expressing concern about the frequency with which treatment for depression is pharmacological and does not incorporate psychotherapy."

So on to Brie's article, she wrote;

>"Just over a year ago, I was hit with my first and nasty—and I mean nasty—wave of depression."

>"I’m on the other side of it now. And, from this admittedly fortunate position, I can say with confidence that I’m grateful I went through it. Having my back against the wall forced me to understand more about what makes me tick, shuts me down, and picks me up. And it forced me to make some big changes in my life to get acquainted with and comfortable accommodating them. I wish I had done a lot of this work sooner"

She is on the other side, she "bounced back". That by definition means she was not depressed (clinically). This is the human condition called sadness, it is not a disorder. This is just a definition and I have no idea why people feel hurt that I insist on calling it sadness instead of depression. I have a reason for insisting on this distinction and I will get into this later.

But, to go on, her sadness was situational;

>"My depression came on a few months into the pandemic when the uncertainty of it all was at its height. "

I am not bringing it up to make the sadness less real, but situational sadness/depression, are different from Clinical Depression of unknown origin. She can literally point to when it began and what triggered it. There is no way I can do that.

Why is this a problem for people who have Clinical Depression or people like me with Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder? Because none of what she offered will work for us. NONE OF IT. That is why they wanted to electrocute the sadness out of me at one point. Our condition is not simply situational. (I can make an argument that clinical depression is also situational but that is more complex and not solved without clinical testing).

But you see, SHE got through her "depression" with these "hacks" and her "Proactive Tracking System". And she has a sections called "Time To Get Happy" where she puts it all together.

Only people who are sad can tell themselves it is "time to get happy". When my depression comes I try to kill myself. It is a scale, i know, and that scale needs marks to measure it by. She is sad, I was depressed. It does not her expeience less true, it was jut not depression.

Now, here is my problem which many of you will not understand because you probably do not have depression and what you can only relate to sadness.

People will read that article, see the word depression, and suggest all these "hints and tips and hacks" to me when I tell them I take Prozac. It happens all the time, even from strangers (I am open about my disorder). And when I say they do not work they refuse to believe it and they blame ME. I am too lazy, I just have to get out more, or do 45 minutes of HIIT and throw some sticky notes on the wall. When people ask me why I am on disability they suggest maybe not working that is causing my disorder!

And that, you see, is how stigma is born. All the Mentally Ill who are homeless, why are they homeless? Because society thinks they are worthless. And that idea incubates in articles like this.

And it is not only stigma from others, it is the self-stigma which is probably the worst. There are many people with clinical depression who will read that article and try her "hacks" and they will fail (because these thing do not help people resolve clinical depression). So then they feel like even more of a failure. This happens EVRYDAY. So how does that help depression? You see, if Brie has a mental illness, and SHE can get over it, then I must be REALLY bad. No hope but the rope.

Articles with this poor choice of wording will most likely increase self-stigma and suicide.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5077239/

"People with a high level of self-stigma agree on the societal preconceptions about individuals with psychiatric disorders and thus are convinced of their inferiority or untreatability of their mental problems. Self-stigma frequently leads to dysphoria and decline in self-esteem and quality of life (QoL). Social avoidance or other forms of potentially maladaptive behavior are also common. Self-stigma might also lead to suicide. Self-stigma may also have a deleterious impact on the treatment efficacy in mental disorders."

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/February-2021/The-Many-...

What I am literally doing is fighting to keep people like me alive. It took me 20 years of therapy to see through this bullsht and I refuse to let it continue.

Her article was not a "brave account of her struggle with depression". It was a bunch of tips on how to distract yourself because COVID took all your fun away and mad you sad.

COVID caused a lot of people to suffer with actually having to look at themselves and I do not think they liked what they saw. But that is not depression, it is the sadness of seeing how empty your life is.

She uses "depression" to describe her sadness because it sounds so much more romantic and a heroic struggle that they overcame with sheer grit and ingenuity. And best yet, she actually falls in LOVE!!! What an ending!

If she substituted "sadness" for "depression" in that article I would have had no complaints. What, is sadness not bad enough?

But why is she really writing this article? She wrote it because she is a writer.

>"That learning turned into conversations with lots of people I admire, which turned into a series of consulting projects. And that turned into a capital J Job that I absolutely love and that pays the bills. I hope I do this work forever, and it looks like I might just get to."

>"I acquired many tools for dealing with low moments of any shape and size and maximizing the happiness and satisfaction in my life. "

Why he is the Henry Ford of Mental Health! Maximizing happiness and satisfaction! Just follow my tips on my new App! Read my next big thing!

And that is why I am angry with the article as well, because it seems like a ploy to try to profit off of people's sadness and depression.

I would love to know more about the topics you mentioned, would you care to share in more detail or point towards some starter material?

Feel free to email me at podgaj@fastmail.org

Way to play the victim card. What you are saying is that she hasn’t suffered as much as you so therefore she has no right to talk about her personal experience. Really? So somebody who has suffered for 46 years can tell you to FCK YOU because you haven’t suffered enough to know what you are talking about? Have you been raped and molested as a 12 year old? If not then you obviously should not talk about suffering because you are a privileged non-raped person. Really? Is that your logic?

She can talk about her personal experience all she wants, but it was a horrible article that may cause harm to people by increasing stigma in people with depression.

The truth is SHE wanted to be seen as a victim of depression. It made a good story. She was sad, and that sucks, but it was not depression. If she talked about how she over came her sadness I would have not commented about the article.

I would not make a comment about the suffering of someone who was raped as a 12 year old, that whole part was a logical fallacy.

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