Hacker News Reader

Comment by pizzafeelsright | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

> Depression is caused by laziness and anxiety by hopelessness.

I wish this were true, but its not even close. I wonder how your kids will react when they move away, and you're not around to police their emotional expression. If they're like me, they will promptly collapse into paralysis and self-destruction.

I strongly suggest that you frequently give your kids long stretches of time (months) to practice regulating themselves, without your interference.

And if they have anxiety or depression, please let them see a professional. If my parents had noticed the signs earlier, they would have saved me decades of pain.

At this age I am teaching emotional regulation on a daily basis.

As for when they grow up, adults who cannot manage their emotions get fired or are sent to jail. It is critical to be slow to anger, quick to forgive, and work at building strong friendships.

You imply we aren't teaching emotional regulation on a daily basis? We have always placed a great deal of emphasis on talking about feelings and developing "tools for our toolboxes" to deal with them. Unfortunately those tools are largely inadequate when there isn't a rational cause for a debilitating emotional state.

It sounds very much like you planted a seed with your "great deal of emphasis on talking about feelings."

People who have never experienced a particular challenge are quick to assume credit for its absence and assign moral failings to others who experience it. It's insufferable but common.

Imagine a millionaire who had millionaire parents lecturing his children on how they're not allowed to be poor. Lo! They're not! The lectures worked.

Anger seems to me to be one of the least understood emotions. In my opinion anger should be practised at every possible opportunity in order to cultivate as good as relationship to it as other emotions. Otherwise it will seem like it's out of your control due to not knowing its limits and how much of it you need due to it being suppressed. It is a necessary emotion for our wellbeing.

It sounds like you're actually teaching your children to hide their emotions from you

They're welcome to share their emotions but poor behavior isn't acceptable. Anger is fine. Yelling isn't. We'll talk it though. Tonight i got yelled at 3 times for not helping. I asked why I got yelled at. "Because I was angry". The anger wasn't justified but real so we discussed. I got a hug shortly after. No discipline. Just patience.

We take the same approach! While I don't agree that depression is laziness, we do teach that feeling sorry for yourself is akin to laziness. When we're disappointed about things not going the way we wanted we're allowed to grump about it for 5 minutes, but then it's time to brush ourselves off and move on.

> Depression is caused by laziness and anxiety by hopelessness. My kids know that they aren't permitted to be lazy or say they are bored. They don't have anxiety because they have hope despite circumstances.

This sounds horrible. If I weren't depressed or anxious, being told that I wasn't ever permitted to be lazy or say that I was bored would make me so; and, if I were, then being told that I was lazy and hopeless would make it worse.

> My kids know that they aren't permitted to be lazy or say they are bored.

Seems like a really great way to have your kids feel guilty about the way they feel and then not talk to you about it.

It is great that that works for you but I don't think you should assume that what works for you is applicable in every situation.

> they have hope despite circumstances.

Maybe they act like being hopeful because they are afraid of you. If you were my parent, chances are I would.

"why do you feel sad about your girlfriend broke up with you, it happens all the time and you'll probably find someone else"

Attitude

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but that is kind of the truth. A breakup is horrible, in its worst case it is similar to an untimely death and can come with grief and maybe even worse because the person is still alive and in your life so you're reminded by their absence even deeper and could experience jealousy, and the drip feed of interaction can elongate the time it takes you to move on with your life and find the person who is more right for you.

But while the sadness is real and shouldn't be ignored or suppressed, wallowing is unhelpful and you ought to move on with your life - just like if someone close to you dies, the deceased most likely would want you to be happy and continue living a good life and move on.

Objectively you're right, but I hope you think twice before saying to someone who has experienced a tragedy, "You need to move on." Similarly if you're in an argument with a friend or loved one and they are upset I hope you think twice before saying "You need to calm down" or, "You're overreacting." Objectively those may all be correct, but they are unhelpful, and are likely to have the opposite effect. They minimize the weight of the emotions. Most of us cannot just turn emotions on and off, much as we try and wish we could.

> Depression is caused by laziness and anxiety by hopelessness.

Others have responded to the depression/laziness part -- I was wondering if you could clarify what you mean by anxiety being caused by hopelessness? To my way of thinking hopelessness and depression have a lot of overlap, but anxiety not so much... It's more like a feeling of dread.

Anxiety is fear based often if the unknown.

Fear of the dentist is common but understanding that the inconvenience is required for the desired outcome, the reason for the suffering, there is a hope to look to allowing the suffering to have meaning.

> Depression is caused by laziness [...]. My kids know that they aren't permitted to be lazy.

Do you really believe this, or do you believe your children aren't depressed? Your comment is not in accordance with science. Depression is a complex topic. I'm having trouble imagining a way to be more wrong. Is this satire?

You seem to have your mind thoroughly made up, which should raise a flag that you might be suffering from a bad case of Dunning-Kruger, and need to re-ask questions you think you already know the answers to.

> Depression is caused by laziness and anxiety by hopelessness.

While pizzafeelsright gets heavily downvoted, I think their may be some (dark) truth behind it: if you weren't lazy, you would sommit suicide instead of living a depressed life. :-(

I also have a feeling that there might be another (dark) truth behind the link between anxiety and hopelessness.

> Depression is caused by laziness and anxiety by hopelessness.

No offense, but teaching your kids this kind of nonsense is borderline abusive. It's so far away from so many people's experiences, and is just plain wrong. I hope you can recognize how damaging this could be for your kids down the road.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com