Cycles

In the general case it is a poor idea to refer people to their own families. This is sometimes hard for those of us with happy and supportive families to remember, but a lot of folks have problems that are caused by their families. And remember that seeing more of the people one is already seeing may not be a cure for depression. To fix depression you have to change something.

As for why pros are useful, in any field: They have likely seen thousands of people with your problem; they know a larger list of things to try; they know how to start out with the cheap and simple options but are also aware of how to escalate and have experience with escalation and know the consequences of non-escalation; they aren't involved in your life and can therefore act more freely and with fewer conflicts of interest; they have access to important tools that non-pros do not (in the case of mental health professionals this includes drugs, like the drugs that have improved the lives of so many people I know); they take the problem seriously; merely visiting one will help you confront your problem (the twelve-step programs aren't just being glib: admitting you have a problem really is the first step - once you take conscious, subconscious, and social ownership of a problem it's amazing how often you can fix it yourself).

And, most important of all, in the mental health field pros are not on the effing Internet. They are morally, professionally, and legally compelled to avoid publicly talking about you, or talking to your friends, or even being in the same room with you outside of therapy. The same cannot be said of your friends or family, let alone of random jerks like myself on Hacker News.

Now, having delivered the most epic disclaimer in HN history, I'll point out that the commenter above (unlike the person who wrote the submitted blog post) evidently knows the cause of his or her own distress; it is sitting there in the comment in black and white. Brainstorming what to do about it might be better done by a discreet, independent observer who is actually on the scene, however.

Did you read what I wrote? Let me put it in the simplest possible terms.

You haven't been depressed.

You don't know what it's actually like.

Your list of exercises would not work for a depressed person and by thinking that it will you perpetuate the impression that depressed people are just 'putting it on' to garner sympathy and attention.

Depression is a serious condition that ought to be given medical attention.

Your list would appeal to non-sufferers, who might try to foist it on sufferers. What non-sufferers should be doing is dragging sufferers to see a doctor.

Insofar as advice like yours prevents people seeking help for themselves or others, it is actively harmful.

Obsessive thoughts are associated with OCD just as much as with depression. A lot of them happen because of pathways in the brain get strengthened over time so that a trigger will cause a particular thought pattern to occur. The triggers can be many different things, or a combination, from diet related, to amount of sleep, to words you heard and your subconscious brain started thinking about, to concepts you were exposed to. For example almost all of us have obsessive sexual fantasies which get triggered by exposure to porn. We have been conditioned by our society and advertising to have various cravings, etc.

Now, if you want control over these -- it will be a LONG TERM process because your brain gets wired like "hardware", some pathways get stronger over time and you can't re-wire it instantly. (Unless of course you are Phineas Gage, which you don't want.)

There is no 100% solution that works for everyone obviously. Sometimes you can't get from here to there. But if you use the model above, you can almost always make a number of serious changes in what you think about.

Try to identify your triggers by paying attention to specific things that happen before you get the obsessive thoughts. Try to isolate the parts of your mind that are engaged by these things. What commonality do these have? Learning more about your triggers helps you avoid them while you re-condition your brain.

Look at your expectations, which are internal pressures you put on yourself. You set yourself up for disappointment when something doesn't happen, when you find yourself in a certain state where the thing you expected didn't happen. This is a massive trigger, because it is set by yourself, and you self-identify with it. The worst triggers are the ones that you identify with having caused yourself.

Work on breaking bad associations. When I you to complete this two word phrase: "peanut-" do you think "-butter"? If this is negative to you, then try to introduce a competing association that doesn't give you negative triggers, and doesn't cause obsessive thoughts. For example, "peanut-taste". It certainly is a silly example (think of whatever is in your ACTUAL situation, it may not involve just two words but entire thoughts). But the point is, rather than saying "don't think about the pink elephant" and hoping it'll work, you try to associate one or more competing pathways with your triggers, and eventually, through the competition, you may remove the pathway that leads to suicidal thoughts or other obsessive thoughts.

Also you can set up competing pathways that lead OUT of your obsessive thoughts. These may be things you feel strongly about, such as your kids, pleasant associations from your childhood, or things you really want to accomplish in your life. Once you find yourself already thinking about suicidal thoughts, find ways out that worked for you, and write them down. They may lose their power over time, so it is important to find good reasons to believe in them. Notice this matches exactly what you did with the "Get busy living, or get busy dying." You used to say, "Suicidal thoughts? Stop thinking about them or just do it already." And it used to snap you out, but in the long term it just lost its authority just like anything else that fails to deliver on its promise for a long period of time. The best way is to have this combination of

competing pathways that AVOID leading into obsessive / depressing thoughts

and

competing pathways that lead OUT of obsessive / depressing thoughts

work together. Because, if you find that your episodes of having obsessive / depressing thoughts get more and more rare, you will find that you can TRUST the competing pathways to get you out, and unlike "stopping believing" (as you described above), you and your unconscious mind will trust them and follow them, and eventually you will minimize the problem.

Also, people are motivated by contrasts. When you have too much of X, or you get tired / bored of it, you start wanting an alternative to X, or perhaps even "not X". This is what can cause, for example, people who have everything to go and try something completely wacky, that would leave others saying, "what were they thinking?" This is only somewhat related, but if you want to motivate yourself to do something, artificially hold yourself back from the thing you want to do. You will feel the absence and the space and will be glad when given the chance to start doing it.

Finally, HABITS in the real world affects how often triggers come up. The ultimate prevention is by instilling better habits. As one example, some people with chronic joint pain avoid wheat products and find that their chronic joint pain goes away. In general, I would say getting lots of sleep and physical exercise -- especially assuming you are on the computer a lot, since you are here -- will effect positive PHYSICAL changes and can once again be something you can come to trust as a method to have a better life. This trust is important, and if you break your "good habit" out of laziness, your results won't be as pronounced and your trust won't be as strong. You have to let the habit earn its trust. Over time you will be able to take liberties with it, but not in the beginning.

Again these are just my own impressions on the topic, and I fully recognize that it's hard or impossible to do when you are actually EXPERIENCING the obsessive thoughts or depression, so I would recommend to do all your thinking during your "lucid" phase and then work with your "compromised" self -- i.e. the one present during the episodes -- to replace this depression with something better.

I invite any criticism of what I say, like I said I'm just sharing a model that seems to make sense to me.

I am sure you mean well, but the reality is that unless you an actual therapist, offering up advice does more harm than good.