Comment by sverona | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sverona | Hacker News Reader

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I'd like to challenge your challenge, if I may.

I'm clinically depressed. I've had suicidal ideation for about twelve years (half my life.) On the rare days when sunlight peeks through and I can see the sky, yeah, working out and taking care of myself make me feel amazing. But most of the time it's just something I do. I don't feel better afterward. There may be a shadow of a thought in the back of my head like "this is making me stronger," but that's about it.

I've read an awful lot of LessWrong guides like the link about, pithily, how to extract more marginal value from your life. The problem is that before doing any of that makes sense I have to stop being so depressed, because every time I do something that's supposed to make me feel good I end up literally wanting to fucking kill myself. When I ask myself what I want out of life, the answer comes back immediately, "I want to die." Depression is this huge boulder that has been keeping me from getting on with my life for years now, and I know this but I'm not strong enough to move it myself. The best I can do is make life in the cave busy.

Before the inevitable replies pour in, I am doing every last thing I physically can about this. I run. I lift. I'm vegetarian and I eat a pretty healthy diet. I'm medicated. I'm in therapy. When I try meditation, it tends to bring me back to the feelings of wanting to die, and that's too much for me to sit with. I'm pursuing ketamine because I'm sick of living like this. I hope it helps me move the boulder.

I hear you. Just know that you are enough. You always will be. I know what you're going through. Also struggled for my whole life with these issues and been through my own dark night of the soul. I've found the ancient philosophies of buddhism, taoism, stoicism(this one most), and many others to help me move this boulder all the way up the hill and not constantly failing like Sisyphus. Part of you does die per-say, you're not the same person as you were previously. People refer to that as an awakening, a self-realization, but I see it as your ego dying in the process. Very common if you think about it from a Greek myth perspective of a hero's journey or even part of Star Wars where the Padawan becomes the Jedi Master.

I don't know if this happens to everyone in life nor will everyone realize it, but finding meaning in life for me meant reading tons of books and getting clarity of what was missing in my life after better understanding self-actualization from many angles. After-all it is the big question we all want an answer to. I think I found that, but I still do suffer through stormy weather here and there and I remind myself that I've gotten through it before, I'll get through it again. I've been through years of depression, and now they are more like weeks if not days.

Highly recommend reasons to stay alive by Matt Haig and man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl if you haven't read them already.

Wishing you the best and do know that you are enough.

Thank you for responding.

I find Stoicism interesting, although I try to separate it from the Redditors that make it their whole identity.

I've read Frankl. I'm not familiar with Haig. I'll put it on the list.

Words follow that I hope might help you or someone else; but might not. I know sometimes the last thing one wants is "yet more advice." These are just things that work for me.

I'm vegetarian and I eat a pretty healthy diet.

Consider adding grass-fed/pasture-raised beef (or even just an occasional not-bottom-tier hamburger) to your diet on occasion. In my twenties I found that eating some high quality protein (better with friends, but even alone) added a small but growing crack in the walls that barricaded my soul.

Also consider drastically different life philosophies/cultures in case the one you're in isn't for you (e.g. the ideas that meditation is a cure-all or that vegetarianism is virtuous are pretty culture-specific). For me that meant leaving conservative religion, but for others it might mean leaving progressive "religion."

Something else that helped me was going into social situations with a slight "idgaf so I'll just be my positive self no matter who might try to shut me down" attitude.

And finally, find any weak link in the vicious feedback cycle and chip away at it. Don't feel bad, but if you do, don't feel bad about feeling bad, but if you do, don't feel ...etc. Put the brakes on the meta-guilt and just be okay with feeling whatever for now, and you can feel something else later.

I don't eat meat because I once butterflied a turkey for dinner, cutting out the backbone and removing the giblets, and I became physically sick when it dawned on me what I was doing. My view is, if I can't butcher something, I probably shouldn't be eating it.

I find seitan to be a wonderful substitute.

I'm glad you mentioned ketamine because I was about to recommend you psychedelics. I can't say I'm cured from depression -- in fact I'm still extremely close to killing myself -- but mushroom trips have been my saviors. Now I just need to start taking advantage of the improved baseline of mood and openness to experience that lingers for a few days (which is unusually short-lived from what I've researched but still useful) to do these things that are "supposed to feel good" and self-sustain for longer.

Just please do some research as this stuff is not risk-free.

Just wanted to say you’re not alone. I’ve felt like you for 30 some years. Somehow, I just keep going on. I have told myself endless times “just wait one more week”. That’s the only strategy that has worked. Luckily, often enough, I’ll have a day good enough to keep the struggle worth it. But, realistically my life expectancy is still just slightly above 60. What makes it worse is that no one else (except those closest to me) knows - I look pretty “normal” and “happy” because I don’t want to bring down anyone else's mood, but inside I’m feeling pain.

Depression is something I once struggled with. Mushrooms I think actually helped, but I think drugs etc are only going to go so far.

What really helped is that at any moment in time you can take a mental snapshot of your life, in essentially an instant, and from there decide to move up instead of down. A beauty to this, even if you fail to lift yourself, you can do the same thing again at a new moment. FWIW if anything

> Before the inevitable replies pour in...

Nothing worse than helpful advice when you're not in a good state of mind, I agree. Nonetheless, keep going and I hope that one day you can put all this behind you.

That's rough. Hope things improve for you. Hope you can crack the code.

>>> On the rare days when sunlight peeks through and I can see the sky

Would moving to sunny climes be of any help?

I think that was meant metaphorically, not literally. Of course not certain though.

Yes.

It could still be a good advice from the parent. I lived my happiest, most motivated life in a very sunny and warm Mediterranean region, then I moved to a cloud cold North European region and boy oh boy depression started to hit me like a rock, especially during the winter.

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