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Comment by wisty | Hacker News Reader

Quoting some guy off reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1e08me/hyperbole...):

>Depression is two beasts, gray anhedonia and black dysphoria.

> The gray beast smothers, drains, deadens and numbs; the black beast brings misery, anguish, self hatred and despair. They often work together, the gray sucking away every positive feeling and the black feeding everything negative. But sometimes one is dominant, and if the gray beast gets its teeth all the way into you, it takes away not just positive feelings but everything until you're just a walking shell so empty you can't even fully comprehend what you've lost.

> The converse, when the black beast has you, can be much like you describe - you can still feel a kind of dreadful, frenzied joy in short moments as you cling desperately to the edge of the sucking dark hole in yourself, trying to ignore the beast's whispers that any pleasure is a lie that will just make the coming pain more stark and inescapable and utterly deserved.

> They're liars, but they're good at it. Because they know you, because they are you. Pieces of you mind that should serve you and keep you stable and safe, but somehow grown and empowered out of all proportion. To live with them and not let them win shows a kind of strength that most people are sadly unable to recognize.

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This is so accurate it's astonishing. Both the quote about Gray and Black and the original post about the inability to feel. They're 100% on the spot.

I used to get a mix of both grey and black depression for years, I eventually learned to just deal with it as it always goes away with time. I normalized to it. Then I relized that I actually liked the grey anhedonia. It made me feel free from forced emotions. I talked about it a few times on HN. I love being depressed for a week or so ever other month. It always goes away but during that time my thoughts & views feel so, authentic. I feel like I'm experiencing the deep nothingness that is life, no hormones, no feelings, no hope. Just a meaningless purposeless universe. It has a sort of depressive beauty to it. A dark enlightenment. Pure logic. No emotion.

Some of the best song writers and poets wrote their best work when they were depressed. It really allows you to reflect and think about things. As long as the depression doesn't turn into misery or suicide, it can be a valuable tool for creative people.

btw For me sunlight and exercise gets rid of depression within 2 days.

You might appreciate this book: A first rate madness. It's about how some of the best crisis leaders are manic-depressives. Depressive periods give them the ability to see the world as it is, and the mania gives them the energy to do something about it.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Rate-Madness-Uncovering-Between-...

Oh wow. Thanks for that recommendation. That looks like it belongs with Kay Redfield Jamison's book and Arnold Ludwig's.

Everything's well and good until they walk in to a lake.

It's generally the habit of blocking feeling, unpleasant feelings you don't want to feel - you repress them - which then leads to the habit of all feelings starting to get blocked, as it's the action of reenforcing blocking of feeling, which you don't have the ability to control which would get blocked or not; The healthy thing in certain situations that are too tough or don't allow you to deal with them in the immediate or all at once is through suppression - though suppression turns into repression if you ignore it for long enough, or don't have the tools to work it out / talk it out with yourself or someone else.

I think the term you are looking for is depressive realism.

I forget the study (its been a while - please correct me if I am wrong), but depressed people were checked for accuracy in their self assessment/ understanding their world/environment.

The thesis was that their thinking skewed them towards overly negative assessments of their ability, chances, and position in life.

Turns out that several people had a more accurate understanding of their state than the base line.

This fact actually bugged me for a while. If being depressed is more accurate then isn't my mind being the most honest with me.

It was useful for me to think about it in these terms:

The issue with depressive realism is that it tells you a very prosaic truth - that the world doesn't care. As you said: we already know that the universe has no inherent meaning or purpose.

So why does it matter that base line people are more optimistic about their chances? Or their aims? Why does it make a difference?

What matters fundamentally isn't the way the world is - Its a crummy place.

What matters to me is the world I can imagine and want to be in.

[begin rant]

Your post sparked a thought. We've been hearing about 'cure' for depression. From the point of depression, isn't the baseline a 'high'? Yet, we're told right from childhood that drugs that put you on a high are not acceptable. Is our brain not on a high naturally then, and could you classify depression as the wearing out of the hormonal high? Just as one is able to make better judgement at the base line if compared to being high, (as you say ->) people are able to make better judgement at 'depressed' than normal. I don't even know what I'm talking anymore, but I think we should stop seeing the depression as a problem and start accepting it as a state of not high/not baseline, just as the baseline is accepted as a state of not high.

[end rant]

> I think we should stop seeing the depression as a problem

This Grey depression rarely comes without the Black depression described above, which really is a bad disease.

I've only recently been diagnosed with depression, and one of the reasons I went in to see a doctor about it is because of the self-doubt. Right now at work, I've been told to convert an existing synchronous system into an asynchronous workflow engine, and I don't know two shits about workflow engines. So, even with a "normalized" view of what I know and what I can do, I get anxious about the responsibilities I've been assigned, which leads to physical manifestations of anxiety, which leads to physical ailments, which leads to sick days. I know I can sit down and within a week, learn exactly what I need to do, but my mind keeps telling me I'm stupid and I should just quit my job.

Your rant reminds me of the people that claim autism spectrum disorders are just a rung on the evolutionary ladder. It might have one little part that sounds good on paper when you completely ignore the disease as a whole, but it's still a fucking disease.

edit: if you want to try and pretend to know what it's like to have a "baseline" like mine, take a week and instead of saying yes or no, just say "I don't care". Coworker asks you where you want to go to lunch, you don't care because it's all food at the end. Significant other asks if you want to go out to a movie, you don't care because it's all the same action packed or slapstick comedy crap. You no longer care about anything, because it's all stupid crap. You go through the motions of waking up, showering and go to work every morning, not because you like your job (even if you do), but it's because that's what you've been told to do. This is the brink of suicide, and it's a very real thing for people with depression. Nothing excites you, so there's no point in living. </endrant>

edit2: If anyone else is thinking they might have depression, please go see someone. It really does help. Greg Baugues, a developer out of Chicago, recently gave a talk about developers and depression at Mountain West RubyConf, and I would suggest watching it (http://www.confreaks.com/videos/2341-mwrc2013-devs-and-depre...). It gave me the courage to go seek help, hopefully it can do the same for others.

"please go see someone. It really does help"

Sorry for your circumstances. I wonder though if it could actually be more helpful to have a close friend that can provide unconditional support and guidance if possible of course. Reason being is I've always found (from relationship counseling) the therapist caring but then "ok our appointment is over that will be $x" to contradict somewhat the caring part even recognizing that it's a job. Wondering about your thoughts on this?

For example when someone calls me for help (which is actually pretty often and I separately dated for some time a very depressed woman and oddly find it interesting) I gave all the time that they needed anytime anyplace and the conversation didn't end "just like that". I would imagine things like that provoke feelings that aren't exactly positive.

That's a lot of responsibility to put on somebody, for one - and for the other, that somebody may not have either the distance from you or the skills to assess your situation correctly. (Of course, a therapist might not, either, but you can't easily fire a significant other for failure to meet your therapy needs, and what you're describing is much more intensive than mere friendship.)

You're basically asking a friend to be an untrained therapist for free. Even the most caring and generous of people know in their hearts that they can't take on that kind of responsibility and still be able to manage their own life. It's not fair to ask - most people will feel guilty about saying no to someone asking for their help, even knowing it's help they cannot feasibly give.

It's truly a full-time job. I don't mind paying my therapist, because while it could be interpreted as paying someone to care, I see it as paying for their expertise in helping me get better. The right therapist will care about you regardless of payment; it's both a professional and a profoundly personal relationship. It's why many therapists, particularly ones treating personality disorders, have to go into therapy themselves to stay grounded.

I struggle with depression and anxiety pretty severely at times, and while my boyfriend is tremendously supportive to an almost saintly degree, he absolutely insists on me having professional help. There is only so much he can do and asking more of him would be counterproductive for both of us. I wouldn't get better and he'd be taking on a problem that is ultimately not his.

>"You're basically asking a friend to be an untrained therapist for free."

On the flip side, going to a therapist is just paying someone to pretend to be your friend for a while. My insurance (Kaiser; about $600 per month) covers something like 80% of 6 therapist visits, and after that it's all on me. This is probably the worst part of trying to seek help; the sickness basically prevents you from taking all the steps necessary to start getting better. I've thought long and hard about how to solve this (maybe have a service that just handles all the idiotic HMO stuff for you to make it as low-effort as possible), but I still don't have a good solution, and "hacking the medical industry" has traditionally been a non-starter.

No. That's not what modern evidence based therapy is.

If you're talking about 'counselling' then yes, a friend can do it about as well as a trained counsellor. But remember that the evidence base for counselling is weak; that people often feel worse with counselling; and that counselling is sometimes actively harmful.

> covers something like 80% of 6 therapist visits, and after that it's all on me.

That's a shame. If they covered 100% of 8 visits they'd cover most people who need CBT.

> I've thought long and hard about how to solve this (maybe have a service that just handles all the idiotic HMO stuff for you to make it as low-effort as possible),

Maybe just "buddying" - someone visits or calls you and talks to you and watches you while you do all the stuff you need to do. This builds self-reliance.

But yes, anything medical is really tricky.

Therapist is not pretending to be your friend. Because the uninformed opinions like yours are getting spread, people who need help do not seek it, making the problem worse.

If this bothers you, you might want to consider a religiously affiliated counselor. Many religious institutions offer different forms of counseling as part of their ministry. Sometimes it is just for members, but other times it is open to all.

For instance, it is quite common for pastors to have some psychological training so that they can assist their parishioners. Of course, the quality of counseling can vary quite widely depending on their natural talents and how well they were trained.

If you're non-religious, I've heard that Jesuit and Benedictine counselors tend to be quite good about taking you on your own terms.

Replying to your first edit. Trust me I don't care. I'm relatively sure I'm not going to apply to YC so I can tell here. I know what it feels like. The hyperbole and half post resonated with me. Things are happening, I know they are happening, but I don't know that these are symptoms for something. If you've been through depression, I think you know what I'm talking about. You can just see, nothing matters. Why am I getting up? Why am I poking a fork on a grape and eating it? I'm washing a plate... what's going on. The water is running from the tap and hitting the sink and making a sound. What's the point of that? What's life anyway? Just a bunch of random chemical reactions. Basically I'm ending up think (paraphrased) "What the fuck is actually going on in this world?"

I didn't know that was called depression until I read that post...

Note that there is an important part of the definition being left out: "... significant impairment in social, work, or other important areas of functioning".

The problem with what we call depression is not the depressive mode of thought, per se. The problem is that this mode of thought gets out of control.

The depressive mode of thought is a tool, and an important one. The brutal honesty of this way of thinking allows you to analyze situations more clearly, and in so doing, it allows you to make better decisions. Being able to enter this mode of thought was likely an important step in human evolution, and we all do it from time to time, even those of us who are not "depressed".

But like most tools, the depressive mode of thought can be dangerous. That same brutal honesty, applied to one's self, does not end well: our human imperfections basically guarantee that such analysis will tear at the psyche in ways that little else can.

It is said that we should not judge others because "you weren't there; you don't know." But that doesn't work when you apply it to yourself, because you were there; you do know. And so you analyze yourself, and your judgment inevitably comes out wanting. The next question is obvious: what should you do about that? Only there's usually not enough data to answer that question, so an obvious intermediate step emerges: more analysis. And so the spiral continues.

This makes the ability to leave the depressive mode of thought just as important, from an evolutionary and health standpoint, as the ability to enter it. Pick up the tool, use it as needed, and put it down again. What we call "depression" is essentially what happens when you can't put it down.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. I think we're going about treating depression the wrong way. We try to take the edge off the mode of thought, when we should really be targeting the mechanisms that let people go into and out of it. Those mechanisms, unfortunately, are poorly-understood today.

There's also very likely to be an extremely delicate balance: you have to let people out while also allowing them back in, lest some kind of "antidepression" take hold where they can no longer pick up the tool. I don't know what such a thing would be like; it's possible that we already know it, but under another name that might or might not be linked to what we currently call depression.

It took a bit of courage to write this down so please bear with me.

Your post, I don't know why, has me in figurative tears. This feels like someone 'gets' what's happening... and to think that I had no idea what I was feeling for all this time was categorized as depression. I hate to say this because it sounds fake and silly, but you know when people say it 'clicks' and they feel like there's a sudden "light"? That's exactly how I felt after reading your post. Don't ask me why, because I don't know.

Totally agree. This was one of the most insightful things I've read on this site in years.

EDIT: Hey, what if it's a natural cycle, like tons of other stuff? Normally, it comes and goes, and the sickness is when it doesn't go. Not really a big leap from your point, but something to think about.

The anti-depression is called mania.

By currently prevailing definitions, yes, but the dysregulated-adaptation hypothesis is relatively new. If we assume this new definition instead, then would an impaired ability to enter the depressive mode still produce something we would call mania nowadays? Or might the effect be different?

I think mania sounds right.

While going through a down cycle one time, I decided to watch some of the psychotherapy presentations on youtube. Not the ones designed to be uplifting and helpful, but the ones with actual research or for psychotherapy students.

> I think we're going about treating depression the wrong way.

The main thing I took away from the presentations was that psychotherapists know they aren't getting it all right. I was surprised when they talked about the client dropout rates, client satisfaction rates and measurement techniques, and the treatment success, and reoccurrence, rates. It reminded me of discussions about the realities of software project management.

> targeting the mechanisms that let people go into and out of it

Mindfulness is the term used currently to describe the ability to regulate your own "mode", and the automatic thoughts that go along with them. Usually the term gets lumped into the act of meditation, but the result, being able to manage your mode yourself, is the same. MBCT, DBT, ACT, CBT and other modern forms of psychotherapy, seem to be designed around this idea of teaching people how to recognize the mode they are in and manage the cycle between them in different ways.

You wouldn't tend to look at anything from the point of depression though.

This is tantamount to saying "from the point of view of a disease, healthy people just live too long"

we're told right from childhood that drugs that put you on a high are not acceptable

Drug education has progressed decades since I've had it, but it was never in terms of a "high." The distinction was that drugs given to you by someone other than a doctor are bad.

I've come to the same conclusion. Hackers (and smart people in general) have an inclination to use drugs like marijuana and ecstasy that actually do something, as opposed to pharmaceuticals which, well, do something else. I've never understood why feeling good is deemphasized over not feeling bad. I can't help but wonder if there is some ulterior motive. If there is, then somebody profits from depression. That's pretty messed up..

There's actually a pretty wide evidence against depressive realism if you look into it.

The things which they exert logical control tend to be trivial, and this 'benefit' disappears when faced with more important or consequential problems.

> What matters to me is the world I can imagine and want to be in.

I wonder if our brains cannot really handle the start reality. Kind of like being in the matrix and then waking up. Some people will not handle it well, some will adopt.

Over the millennial we've invented stories to give us meaning on why thing happens. What happens after death, why the sun appears in the sky, all those things. If one grows up with those views then realizes they are rather divorced from reality that could be a serious shock.

Realism is dangerous and truth quite often hurts and cuts deeps. Sometimes a sweet lie maybe safe, or maybe not, ... I don't know. Thinking about it too much can start new cycle of depression...

> This fact actually bugged me for a while. If being depressed is more accurate then isn't my mind being the most honest with me.

Accuracy is overrated when it comes to self-perception in almost all endeavors. You ain't Ray Dalio.

Sunlight and exercise definitely help when I get the "blahs" (what I call the week-long negatively introspective period you describe). That feeling that depression is beautiful or somehow correct is very dangerous, however.

During my senior year of high school and the first two years of college I was definitely suffering from the gray/black depression mentioned above. Life was feeling pretty meaningless, and I was in a constant state of demotivation. Anything which registered positively on the emotional scale was severely blunted.

If nothing matters, does anything even exist? I'd often just sit around and wonder about if I was real, if the space between my fingers was real, or if the person sitting next to me was real. Somehow the lucidity of that thought process was exhilarating but paradoxically it also served to deepen my depression. Now when I meet people who seem preoccupied with existential thoughts I wonder how depressed they are.

During this time I was in the best shape of my life, and I frequented the beach so I got plenty of sunlight. I wouldn't describe myself as having been suicidal, but I didn't see much point to living either. That is, I had no desire to cease living, and if faced with the choice I would have definitely chosen life over not life, but I often thought deeply about what the point of living really was.

I lost close to three years to this. It's a permanent scar in the form of my undergrad GPA. I understand the feelings very, very well. However the one thing I don't understand is what brought me out of it. I didn't have anything like the experience Allie (author of the OP) had with the weird giggling fit. I just slowly became distracted from anhedonism by the meaning that life gradually seemed to have.

Around that time I sought treatment for ADHD, as I was flunking out of school. Maybe treating my ADHD caused me to find meaning in my newfound ability to direct all of my intellect toward a common goal? Maybe it was just the drugs? Maybe anhedonism was my childhood toy that slowly became less enthralling?

Conversations about depression and what depression is like are absolutely beneficial. It's powerful to be able to empathize with a person in this situation. I just wish we understood the mechanisms behind this super "stable" form of deep depression well enough to reliably pull people out of it.

"preoccupied with existential thoughts"

This is important and really struck a chord with me. Totally agree.

"meaningless" "purposeless" implies something that should be there, but isn't. What is your argument to yourself that this thing that you "lack" should be there? Some framework you don't even believe in?

there is no "lack of a meaning". We are all from Nature, we follow our nature and thus follow Nature. Nature is sometimes ugly, but it is more beautiful than ugly.

You described exactly how I feel a hell of a lot of the time.

Depression is a drug. It causes a change in mental state, resulting in thought processes not consciously thought of during normalcy.

Whenever I'm in this state, falling deeper down into a deep abyss of existential thought and blank, bleak unawareness, I feel... enlightened. Vehemently, I obsess over the meaning of things, waiting for an answer but never getting it.

In a perverse way, I enjoy it. I think about death. I think about what regrets I would have if I ceased to exist. I explore my subconscious and bring it to the forefront of my thoughts. While this depressive state is a state of emotion, I feel like emotion fades away and allows me to focus on logic and the purity of feeling itself. I improvise a chord voicing or an accompaniment in a way I wouldn't have thought of before. I find my right hand playing a melody I never knew I had the capability of doing so.

Pragmatic code flows from my fingertips without thought. I feel disconnected. Disengaged.

I feel individual, which is perhaps why I enjoy it so much.

As if being fourteen years old wasn't tough enough.

They're liars, but they're good at it. Because they know you, because they are you.

This, I found, is one of the worst aspects of depression. You begin (if you're lucky) to realize you cannot trust what your own brain is telling you.

It's insidious.

http://www.viruscomix.com/page540.html

Makes me think of these lines in Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage":

    You lock the door and throw away the key
    There's someone in my head, but it's not me

That song was my "piece of corn" many years ago.

This is more poetic, but I think the submission does a better job of describing depression.

Thanks for reposting this. I have been living with the "gray beast" on and off for more than a decade. First signs go back to early teens and it's getting more intense and persistent over the years. Or maybe it has always been the same but I've been slowly shifting away from the denial and bargaining stage and closer to acceptance.

Although depression has been one of the several hypotheses I've come across, the popular image of it typically focuses on the "black beast", which hasn't really been a problem for me, not more than a random "normal" person at any rate. That's why I haven't sought professional help so far. Perhaps this article will be the proverbial kick in the butt to do so.

This is an absolutely great description. My biggest problem has always been that people are much more familiar with the black part of depression. My depression is almost 100% of the gray variety. So people are always confused because I don't seem especially sad, self-hatey, or unhappy. It's incredibly frustrating. I can't count the number of times I've said the words "I'm not sad, I'm depressed" with no one really understanding what I meant, and me not having the better words to express myself.

This is what it is for me too. For the last several years I've used Zoloft on and off and it helped me a lot. However, after the most recent episode hit back in February/March, I decided to try a nutritional approach. I've been seeing a therapist who specializes in this am about three weeks into a pretty extensive supplement regimen. It seems to be working.

Part of my problem relates to alcoholism. The therapist says alcohol and other depressants have a depleting effect on nutrition.

>"The therapist says alcohol and other depressants have a depleting effect on nutrition."

Protip: if you drink quite a bit, chase it down with a pint of Pedialyte and a double-dose of multivitamin. It's the best hangover preventative measure I've found. Also, stay hydrated when you're drinking.

Anhedonia's a bitch.

This comment and the OP have made me realize I am depressed and have been since the better part of a year. I never thought I would be one of those people who gets depressed, for a long-term, at least. And I never thought of it defined in the way this comment and the OP have. Now I'm not sure what to do from here...

Find someone who cares about you, and ask them to walk you out of it.

Couple of things they can do to you: 1. Drag you out to gym or yoga twice a week, like a clockwork 2. Read "Feeling good" book - studies show it to be nearly as effective as therapy 3. Drag you to the doctor if the above does not work within the space of six weeks.

See a doctor. As long as you still care enough to actually see one. And by doctor, I mean a therapist. Get a prescription, too, if it makes sense - but often, behavioral therapy is a better way out.

Let somebody close to you know - so they drag you to the therapist when your really don't care any more. And, more importantly, so they can watch you when you take antidepressants.

Far from being the magic happy pills they're described as, there's a good chance they just turn you into a zombie who's feeling OK about not caring at all.

You can go to your medical doctor to rule out possible biological causes (such as thyroid problems) and also look into seeing a therapist. The doctor should be able to give you a list, or maybe you can call your insurance company to see which offices in your area are covered.

A simple and effective fix for many people is a daily dose of B-complex vitamins and 200mg of 5-htp twice daily, coupled along with regular exercise. (This doesn't work for everyone.)

The other posts replying to you have good suggestions, too, but the vitamins + 5htp + exercise works for double-digit percentages within a week, in my experience - over the counter.

Good luck. Feel free to contact me if you need someone impartial to talk to.

I took B vitamins and 5-htp for a week (to see if they would help my migraines) and felt horrible. My head felt like it was full of pressurized cotton wool. It might have been the B-vitamins rather than the 5-htp, but I'd be careful with supplements like that. The best thing is to see a doctor and find a good therapist to see. I will say however that I think the 5-htp might have made me quite happy - I just wanted to dance all the time (when my head wasn't hurting).

Another brilliant piece on depression; David Foster Wallace's The Depressed Person:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27698800/The-Depressed-Person-Davi...

It remembers me the movie "revolver".

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