One specific part of this is the difficulty of finding a therapist (in the US). I've had to go through that recently on behalf of a family member. It involves a lot of effort to find and contact providers, talking to strangers about personal things, having most of them reject your case, etc. This has been difficult enough even for me. The people who most need help - especially those with executive function or social anxiety issues - are also most likely to be defeated by the difficulty of getting it. That's a sick system. Schools and employers, who are often the sources of stress inducing or exacerbating mental health problems, could and should do a lot more to make the process easier.
This is incorrect. The passage of the ACA required insurance companies to lift the limits on visits for mental health.
As someone who has dealt with the mental health system in the U.S. for 20+ years, I remember the time before the ACA and after — a big difference.
But even with insurance, it’s not a guarantee to find someone who will treat you. I’ve had the experience of calling a long list of providers who accepted my insurance, but weren’t taking new patients.
Still not sure what caused it exactly. Lockdown made me get some control of my life, schedule it on my terms and it was liberating. I literally felt lighter and more at ease, back to balanced normality as some might put it.
I'm afaid I still have no full grasp of what is going on in my own mind and body. At least not in terms that would be scientifically acceptable.
I want to make sure you don't have any lingering feelings of ambivalence or shame from that conclusion: Long commutes take a lot out of everyone (or at least the average person). It's one of the most consistent happiness findings.
- "we find that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being." [0]
- "Couples in which one partner commutes for longer than 45 minutes are 40 percent likelier to divorce." [1]
- " a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office. " [2]
You're not weird, and it's certainly not your fault. As we all get back into normal life, I want to make sure that we're clear on that. Maybe you have to do it, and we all have to do painful things, but it's not your fault that it sucks.
[0] https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/151.html
[1] https://slate.com/business/2011/05/long-commutes-cause-obesi...
Then I dropped out to start a band, which went nowhere. It took years to get back on the horse.
Nothing but toxic positivity. I have depression and three suicide attempts. What stops me now? Not caring if I am depressed and learning from the lessons it gives me.
Depression is only a disease or a disorder because our society does not give you the time to understand it and listen to it. Nope, got to get back to work otherwise out on the street with you!
I love my depression, it lets me see a world so few others see. No less true than the common or manic world. And that depressive world still acts upon the other worlds but you all just do not see it.
But I assure you, I had no desire to stay in the state I was in which was dull grey, numb, dissociated, and isolated. I spent enough years meditating with it that I wasn’t intensely suffering without exactly, though i can’t say I ever got to acceptance and peace. But I wanted something different for my one finite life.
When you accept something you don’t need to be different. And the burden you are released of is immense. And that is when you’re suffering goes away. You’re still depressed, but you’re not suffering.
And I wanna make the clear distinction between what most people here are calling depression is not depression but is in fact sadness.
I second this. To me it makes a big difference but it has to be kept up; it's not a "done and you'll feel better for a few weeks" but a daily step to take. If it works for you and you haven't explored Peter Levine and somatic experiencing, that can be a good next step to see what your body responds to.
Unfortunately none of this helps with my seasonal depression which hit last week. Tried light boxes and vitamin D in previous years - no relief through any. Only 4-5 months to get through...
I tried a sunlight lamp at 10000lm, which was impressive while it was on, but stepping out of my room in the evening messed with me so hard that I never used it again.
The sooner you invest in restoring good habits, good spirit, even if life sucks even if you dont feel like it it really is the shortest path to normalcy. Once you're too far off the middle there seems to be no end to the bottom, thing only get worse, and your brain stays in negative rationalisation mode potentially forever. Also our minds are very relativistic and you can always find a reason why your pain is impossible to fix.
I think we share the same conclusion.
Especially about benefits of the somatic path.
It makes sense: pay attention to your body if you're injuring yourself, and stop moving forward if you keep injuring yourself blindly-unskillfully moving forward in life continuing to injure yourself (and likely others). And the reason negativity feeds pain seems to be at least two-fold: everything in the body is connected and so emotional pain uses at least some of the same pathways as physical pain, and this is perhaps how or where the mind-body connection interfaces - being able to read off eachother via biofeedback loop; think a negative thought that stresses the body, the body tightens causing discomfort that then stresses the body-mind - and the reverse: learning to visualize an infinitely fast beam of healing light encompassing you and forcing its way through whole being as part of self-directed positive reinforcement visualization practice; in part this is a practice of getting as much of your mind active and flowing at once, which can be tough from a longtime stagnant-depressed mind due to suppressed or repressed feelings or sensations or unprocessed trauma.
TL;DR - Mind-body: "Pay attention to me or I'm going to force you to [learn why you're in pain, how to heal it, and how to stop from continuing to hurt from it]!"
Unlike most things in my life, which I could think myself out of (quite successfully!), this one I could not. That had a pretty profound effect on my core epistemology thereafter.
The thing which really helped me was retreating to my friends and family (who, thankfully, could get me out of my own head).
The brain/mind by itself can’t deeply heal the brain/mind. But the heart, soul, spirit, etc. (topics rarely mentioned on HN) can. If you can’t solve a problem in the original mind space, transform the problem into another non-mind space where it is more easily solved, then return to the original mind space. See, it’s just math.
That presumes you can connect with your heart/soul/spirit/ elan vital/etc.. Probably the first place to start. If you’ve lost that ability, you really need to reclaim it. The rest often follows pretty naturally.
There are lots of paths to follow to reclaim the connection. Choose wisely. (Hint: they won’t ask for a CC number up front)
And I will now take my robe and staff and depart. :-)
Congratulations again.
Hi, I'm not a native speaker and Google-fu didn't help with this, so.. what do you mean by "get back on top of it"? What actions does it entails?
Or I just read too much into what they said and then projected my own knowledge of my personal misery onto the topic at hand.
'on top of it' indicates to 'be in control'
the 'get back' to 'regain'
as used this is then 'regain control of yourself', rather than allowing the depression to continue its course.
I will tell you when I ended my battle with depression, my suffering ended. My depression as still there but my suffering was gone.
(Please read my other posts here)
Oh, cool, didn't know it! Yeah, giving regular attention to one's mental health, and being proactive in treating things as they appear, is a good advice.
Picture two wrestlers. The one on top is in control. The one on the bottom is powerless, subjugated.
('Get back on it' and 'Get back on top of it' can be used in the same context.
'Get' is more in the context of a verb for motion/movement/to do as opposed to acquire. Not sure if this helps.)
Can give some examples of such activities?
Outdoors activities that might not quite be exercise, but that offer sounds, smells, feelings such as the wind in your face.
Exercise is extra nice because it tends to occupy the mind, keeping dark thoughts out. But things like playing music or drawing can offer similar escapes from thoughts.
Just sitting on the grass/sand/snow (if the weather isn't utter crap) is real pleasant. Even more so if it's after exercising.
It's no wonder people find themselves stressed when they never take any time to actually just chill.
It’s easier if you have people around to pull you along. I can’t imagine motivating myself to do something.
But for example, just carrying groceries counts like a win, since it got you out of the house.
In other words, please stop. To people with depression this is an insult.
We should not be pathologizing sadness.
https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/depression-vs-s...
Your source does not support your claim ("if that stuff helps them they do not have depression"). In fact, it contradicts your claim since it says "Lifestyle changes can also help you feel better if you’re experiencing depression."
But literally any bodily sensation can be helpful - one of the most usual reasons people give for self harm and cutting for example is that they can feel something. When i was at my most depressed, I used to walk around in the middle of winter with light clothes on (not in a freezing to death dangerous way, just in a wanting intense sensation to focus the mind on something immediate way)
I would say anything that encourages you to pay attention to your body in the moment (requires coordination) and also gets some exercise in can be a good doorway. But so can the breeze on your skin.
What I like especially is that you can get yourself really tired, but you don't overheat or sweat. Also it feels more complete than cycling or running. Copious showering is part of the experience.
So I went to Australia and started farming, and after a few rage moments (over 6 months), I was back to happy and 15% body fat (ie excellent). But it’s hard to isolate the root cause since travels imply many moving parts, sun, outdoor exercise, one of them being the absolute constant flow of good news, getting hired as a farmer for the same price as a French engineer, getting hired in a startup and receiving yearly bonuses after 3 months at the same time as everyone, having stock options that keep on rising. Of course I felt better, but I’m afraid it was just the ridiculous sudden wealth. Which is very different from having found happiness.
Back to France and I have been in the horrible mindset for 8 more years, intensely angry at friends family and life…
And then there are a number of plant medicines (or other chemicals/entheogens like MDMA, ketamine, Ayahuasca/psilocybin/DMT, kambo, hape, etc) that temporarily alter your sensitivities, your connection or experience with sensory systems - which in part can be healing due to providing you a strong new perspective via the contrast and memory of that contrast opening up new possibilities - leading to the opening of your mind and heart; Ayahuasca and other are also known to have compound(s) in them that perpetuate or facilitate neuronal growth, meaning new pathways more rapidly being able to form, allowing possibility that if deeply entrenched, stuck in say a state of depression, new pathways and logic gates can or will open; this is where the current spiritual-ceremonial-psychedelic community fails currently, in adequately supporting the integration work - as with temporary separation from ego (arguably eventually possible to lead to ego death or ego dissolution) you can tap into unhealed/unprocessed emotional trauma that's been being suppressed at or fully since a childhood trauma (that you likely didn't beforehand understand as being traumatic) - which you may be able to process partly to fully on your own - but you may have extreme difficulty at some point, or not have the precise guidance to allow you to quickly get passed a block; for example there's a specific sound therapy developed nearly 70 years ago in France that is perhaps the only therapy to unblock a certain type of energetic flow/processing block. And in my own brutal experience with healing to reconnect to my body, in the process of opening my mind and heart, I also reconnected to my physical body and the immense level of physical pain from injuries I had accumulated throughout my life - now 38 - the pain level being overwhelming for my nervous system only soon after getting LASIK eye surgery 7 years ago, the damage caused to everyone's corneas that get it as the corneas can't heal properly contrary to the propaganda by the industry - where it was LASIK that finally "broke the camel's back" - initially causing a strong tension and pain down the right side of my neck, along with a strong-constant general agitation, but where that evolved to central sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain, where all sensations in my body were amplified to 100% of my mind or consciousness' ability to perceive pain - severe enough that my executive function has been fucked for the majority of the last 5 years; it's been a rough 5 years, to say the least, however as I've had dozens of stem cell treatments to heal all the sources of pain, injuries, I've gradually been able to reduce the severity of dysfunction and limitations that pain has put on me - though I have more work to do - I'm able to more often to connected to hope.
It's a bit like getting further and further out of shape that way, because of the changes of thought patterns and self-image and socialization patterns etc - the further you go the more the very things you need to get out are being undercut.
(And yet, just like that example, you can always start where you are at, and sometimes even a bit of change can be more dramatic and exhilarating than you think it would be - perhaps walking up the stairs without getting winded feels like a huge victory, if you aren't focused on how long it will be until you run that marathon)
In my own experience, and in working with people with severe depression, I have found two things to be almost universal. One is that the pathway out involves better noticing of small shifts in consciousness in the present moment - depression is a flatland, yet even within it there are small tiny windows of light that can be noticed and built on.
The other is that, and this especially applies to people that live inside their head, are very smart, very analytical, etc...the body itself provides a pathway out. Without even getting into somatic psychology, the act of doing things where one is experiencing felt sensation in the body provides a ground for consciousness outside of the grey hazy thought world.