Startup depression | Hacker News Reader

Startup depression

startupdepression.com

90 pointsjcap4923 comments

I have multiple issues with this. First of all, depression through stresses and clinical depressions are very different and the introductory paragraph is extremely shallow, brushing all over this. Many mental issues can lead to a comorbide depression.

Secondly, being depressed and being suicidal are related, the first often comes before the second, but not the same. By putting suicide hotlines front and center, the impression is there, though.

I know multiple cases where "but I'm not trying to do me any harm" was an internal barrier not to seek help, although they were depressed. If you are seeking help because you are suicidal, that's already way too late.

Finally, it assumes that this is just an unfortunate side effect of startup life, without critically engaging with that statement.

If you are down for irrational reasons of in emotional flakey states, try to find contacts, post on devpressed, visit a professional. Even if you don't have a strong or lasting depression, this will probably help get more secure in your feelings again.

The problem is that people who create startups tend to be highly analytical, logical, rational, intelligent in many facets with the perspective that their startup is their whole world and the whole world falls apart if their startup falls apart.

They are not the kind that can be helped by mental health care professionals in a traditional sense. Given the objective outcome, a mental health care professional can either reshape your world view (which I don't desire, because it's a ridiculous vocabulary I don't care to study again) or we can argue back and forth on theories about the human psyche, philosophize about various shared characteristics, and hope that somehow, abstractly, beneath this communication, lays something useful for the startup, code, math, logic, and so on.

The startup, the knowledge, the extending beyond the boundary of humanity TODAY is the goal. If you are completely alone in your life, then a health care professional can tell you objectively whether you are showering daily enough or not. They can not help you do research or build something new. Otherwise, I like the idea of having other people who have been through similar things to talk to.

It may even be possible that the person who created this is probably looking for a way to deal with their depression. People here are looking for perfectly unique solutions to perfectly unique problems. That's a difficult kind of depression to treat, if not impossible, theoretically, and I would say it runs a high risk of increasing the depression, unless the therapist happens to be one of these types themselves.

Do you have an understanding about the options mental health care has available?

It does not matter that people that create startups are logical, etc. This doesn't mean science-based medical health won't help. From what I have observed, mental health care includes things like medicines to help with inbalances as well as offering things like groups, help with stress management and coping skills for a person's situation. It isn't about changing your world view, it is about helping you not be miserable.

All of which are individualized to the person's needs as possible. 'Do what works and discard the rest'.

As far as 'extending beyond the boundary of humanity today' ... that's a bit diffficult to even think about if I'm having trouble convincing myself that I do, indeed, need to shower and cook food and go to work today. Research? Have to have concentration for that. The therapist isn't there to research everything, just to get you to the point that you can research yourself and help you if needed.

I was talking about people who have 'stress induced depression because they have huge goals and occasionally need to be strong enough to be their own motivation because it seems like begging for other people to tell them what they want to hear' mental thing. I didn't call it an illness, I only know that I've experienced it.

I can't ask people to tell me I'm going to be the greatest computer scientist just to get myself to code or learn something new every day. I just have to dedicate my life to it until I am proud of what I am and what I strive to be.

That said, the right medication helps. So can having people to talk to. I don't like paying to have people to talk to about my people theories, or explain category theory to, because that's what I wind up doing in therapy.

I'd have to agree, this strikes me as confusing situational depression with clinical depression.

When I was at my worst with my depression, by all objective measures my life was going just great - good girlfriend, lots of money, stable and interesting work. When I started receiving treatment, my life was by the same measures in much worse shape - had just gotten fired from a job for non-performance (due to a total inability to concentrate, as well as the lack of motivation that usually goes with depression), was broke as broke can be, was having a lot of relationship problems and so on. With my neurotransmitters tweaked, I felt better while dealing with very difficult circumstances than I ever did with untreated clinical depression and an otherwise-easy life situation.

I am not trying to dismiss the emotional turmoil that people no doubt experience in stressful and uncertain circumstances like starting a business, but I think it's important to understand the difference between that emotional state and the sort of irrational utter despair that people suffering from mental illness feel. I think the tools needed to address each problem are likely to differ significantly - no amount of therapy or reading r/GetMotivated (bizarrely linked in the article above) would change the fact that I was experiencing the effects of what was most likely a physical ailment.

Thanks for writing this. I agree, bad feelings and anxiety are not necessarily "bad" if they are coming from an external source, meaningful source. Finding the line is hard, especially as those suffering from an illness quickly find sources if they are asked for.

As someone who is dealing with a similar issue right now, I actually felt inclined to create a throwaway account just to comment on this. It's easy to find all kinds of talk about depression online, but that talk is less helpful when (in my case) the cause of the depression is at least in part due to difficulties in terms of sustaining normal friendships with other people in real life. And, I might also add, having nobody to talk to in real life about these kinds of issues. The last thing I need to be doing to fight depression is to continue sitting indoors at my computer reading more articles on the internet.

As a nerd, I also had problems finding "normal" friends. Not anymore. How I solved this:

- Enroll in a soccer team

- Take tango dancing classes

From there, it just went naturally. Of course, your situation might be different, but indeed staying alone at home doesn't help much.

This is an excellent start with excellent intentions. My first thought: it would help tremendously to have a dedicated, anonymous discussion forum to really have a chance at making an impact.

http://www.devpressed.com/

I would also suggest http://founderswiki.com/wiki/Avoiding_burnout via. lfittl

This is a very useful compilation of resources. At 7 Cups of Tea, we are in the initial stages of figuring out how to better support the startup community. Being a YC startup, we very well understand the challenges founders face in a high pressure environment. If you are interested in working with us on this, then please send an email to info@7cupsoftea.com and we'll be in touch!

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw

Here is a hack I've found to steer focus away from depression. Whatever your goal is, you have to begin with an understanding you are going to fail. So you won't be depressed since you already know that you are failing or have failed to begin with. Hence, you can focus on the right things to not fail as much. This would help you keep your feet on the ground so you can act small to do things that matter. It may sound silly but, at least, it may help you stay focused.

There's also a ##depression IRC channel on Freenode.

I'm curious - why are there constantly posts about depression on HN? Is there something about the programmer/startup lifestyle thats more accepting of depressed people?

I searched and I found no hard evidence for that. There are professions more susceptible to that, but that's usually emergency workers or people in low-wage jobs.

I think it's more a backlash because it was often a topic not spoken about _and_ it has a lot of fear potential for people working with their brains mostly. Some high-profile suicides (aaronsw and others) have probably raised the interest as well.

Also, in my experience, the IT crowd is far more mobile than many other professions. I run multiple meetups and do get the feeling that they are important personal contact points for many. The tech scene as your first personal safety net. So advertising such things into this space directly makes a lot of sense.

Here's a great talk by Greg Baugues in which he discusses his own mental illness (bipolar type II and ADHD) and notes that often there is a fine line between a symptom of depression/mental illness and a trait of a successful developer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk

Mental health problems are very common. There is some stigma around mental ill-health. These tie into cognitive bias to make us think that mental ill-health is more common in developers than it is in the general population.

Learning about mental health is important for people running a business. They need to look after their mental wellbeing. They also need to avoid discriminating against employees who have a mental illness.

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/mental-health-statistics-fa...

Stigma around mental ill-health makes it harder for people to get work; to stay in work; to seek help for their mental health problems (both informal help from friends, colleagues, and family; and formal help from talking-therapists or doctors) and also from seeking help for other illness. For example: a person who self harms on their arm may avoid doctor appointments where blood is taken or blood pressure is taken because that person does not want to reveal their self harm. (This also applies to women who self harm on their thighs avoiding gyno appointments.)

Ignoring all the human stuff this has costs to business and to society: about 70 million days are lost to UK industry because of mental ill-health. Billions of pounds (£) are lost to mental ill health.

Some simple measures could reduce that a lot. Building a culture where people can talk about their mental health is important. Allowing people to access therapies while staying working is important.

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/your-organisation/support-w...

I don't know. Some people even pick nick names related to mental issues, go figure.

I guess often the feeling of despair comes from working super hard but still looking at the jarring amount of work ahead. It's not required that you know an answer to everything and finish it all by tomorrow but it's a general sense of running in the desert searching for spots of water here and there, you are worried when you come across long stretches where theres not even a puddle of water and you begin to panic and start asking all sorts of questions like, maybe you've been walking in circles or you start seeing skeletons where those who have walked before you lie. You are getting thirsty but instead of resting you just keep pressing on because the anxiety is slowly setting in. Keep this up and suddenly you aren't able to move very far without considerable amount of effort. No water in sight.

Depressed? No problem, this app will solve all your problems! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6754953

I know you mean well, but this isn't necessarily an appropriate place or method for advertisement. It's a serious thing, and insinuating that your app will/can 'solve' other's depression can be seen as belittling others' emotions.

As a side note, preventing suicide is very different than supporting someone with depression. Suicidal thoughts are cause for major alarm, and call for emergency intervention. Depression is typically a longer, slower ordeal. It still certainly warrants seeking help, but the kind of help needed isn't something that an app can provide (at least from my personal perspective). But what an app _can_ provide is a way to find help and connect to those sources easily, whether it be in case of a crisis or just simplifying a process which can be overwhelming, particularly for someone dealing with depression for the first time.

Just some thoughts for you, and hopefully an explanation for the downvotes. You have an opportunity to help people with this project, and I hope you do well with it. Best of luck.

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