Depressed or in a bad spot?

I’m having a rough time and there’s one thing that I would like to share. I will do this, because I can’t focus on any one thing I would do rather. So, first things first, let’s not pretend anyone here is a psychiatrist, so while we acknowledge DSM-5 exists and categorises a condition colloquially known as depression, we never actually read the DSM-5 and therefore we will use the term depression differently than a psychiatrist would. There’s a popular notion, that depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain - that could be artificially corrected. This is how we define depression for the purposes of this piece. If that doesn’t align with your world-view, then… Well, you’re gonna have to figure that one out yourself.

Have you ever heard of Andrew Lawrence? On YouTube, there’s a video where he tells a routine (~14 mins in) I’d like to paraphrase. A man (and it’s a man, not a person) feels he could improve his well-being by changing his diet. As we’re always told we should consult the medical professional, he does go to see his GP. He tells his GP that he feels really bad and he probably could feel better if he left bread out of his diet. His GP tells him he doesn’t think that would help and that he sounds like he’s suffering (sorry, living with, as we have to say nowadays)from depression. The man then says: “So me losing my job, my wife leaving me, taking the house and the kids don’t affect my low mood?” And the GP replies: “No, you see, depression is this chemical imbalance in the brain - here, I’ll prescribe you some antidepressants.” The routine then goes for a jab at big pharma - that is beyond the scope of this piece. I really like this, because the man is in a bad spot and is still trying to find a solution in an absolutely desperate situation. And that’s how many people are nowadays. In extreme situations, but many still consider “not eating bread” to alleviate their difficult situation.

Now, “not eating bread” might seem silly for an outsider not familiar with the person’s situation, so the following will happen. The person in peril will get to play “Why don’t you? Yes, but”. There’s a reason this man has low mood and while some people didn’t think of obvious solutions, I would argue that most people did consider obvious solutions to their problems. So when I am the man, I just get upset playing this game. Now, this game is a social concept describer by Eric Berne and the point is to be social, without being intimate. Real conversation would necessitate honesty and vulnerability, people don’t like that. Instead, they pretend to have real conversations. Grossly oversimplified, this is small talk. But, if you have a real problems (like wife taking away your house and kids, because you lost your job), no amount of small talk will help. Is this clear? It’s a real question, I want you to understand.

Moving on. I had a friend telling me last night this: “I am on antidepressants, which help. Are you?” This was part of a longer message (and no, this wasn’t supposed to be an insult, if you can’t tell), but I don’t want to dissect the entire thing, as that would boil down to how the economy is broken and boomers are insert-what-you-think-about-boomers. I would like to solely pinpoint the antidepressant issue. It’s the classic showcase of naïve realism. And I really struggle with it, as it assumes that I just missed only small issue. This person basically says: “You’re all good, except this one small thing.” While the reality is… very different. Specifically for antidepressants, guess what, been there, done that. It’s a dead end. And what really pushes my buttons, is that I just gave this friend of mine news of a condition I have, that I am waiting for confirmation of and subsequently treatment. All any of my friends need to do now is to say: “You’re all good, just hold on until you get the treatment.” And they don’t.

Let’s make a short detour to my programming guru. I told him I am really happy to know about this condition now, because once treated, I can really focus on programming. He said that’s good, but I should start right now, even if I’m not in the best shape and would be slower. Which sounds not too bad, but hold on a minute. For the past eight months, I have been working on boot.dev. Not only I am starting slowly right now, I already started months ago. It’s like, can I get a break? Also, this means it wasn’t possible for me to succeed for my entire adult life. Can you give me a little time to process this? I am not demanding an apology or anything like that. But here’s the thing. My programming guru told me this once and he seems to remember. Or, maybe he doesn’t, but at any occasion he’s starting anew, focussing on new problems. I’m not quite sure what exactly is going on, but once spoken, it can be processed and the relationship can move on. Not so much with the other friend.

Now, originally I wanted to juxtapose the situations of me and my friend, where I really struggle and she doesn’t, yet we’re both miserable and both consider taking antidepressants (which I don’t and she does). Now, without the broader context it might be difficult for you, the reader, to see clearly the discrepancy between my life and the life of my friend. I also don’t want to overshare about others’ lives. But maybe I can give you an idea using the old “I’d like to have your problems.” trick. Did you notice, that it doesn’t make any sense? If you had somebody else’s problems, that would be horrifying! If we attempted to explain this phrase to an alien, I would paraphrase it like this: “I see that I could solve your problems very easily, so I wish I was in your situation, so I could fix those problems and live problem free.” The problem is, if you were in that person’s situation, you would also be that person, so the problem would be just as unsurmountable as it seems to be. And even if you would still be you (some sort of Freaky Friday situation), what would happen is: You would fix the problems you find easy to fix (or give up on them, since you might not consider it a problem yourself) and then… You’d be you in a different body, with exactly the same problems you had before!

Does it make any sense? Let me come up with an example. You might look at someone struggling with their computer. You think, I wish I had your problems, as you can very easily overcome this issue. Say somebody lost access to their e-mail, because they mistakenly set up a passkey and the device that had the passkey was stolen. As a computer person, you might think, gee, everybody knows passkeys are a mess, I wish I had this person’s problems. So I could know exactly what I’m doing. And avoid passkeys. And use password manager instead. And then I could go back to what matters to me: programming. Man, that programming is hard. Definitely so much harder than managing your login details like this guys struggles with. Clearer now?

To be completely honest, in the process of writing this I decided to leave out some personal details, that were crucial for the original point and now I can’t use my original conclusion. So let’s just go back to the title: Depressed or in a bad spot? If you’re depressed, maybe that’s the small thing you missed. Maybe swallowing one tablet a day will fix all your issues. Maybe it’s as simple as that. But maybe, that’s not the case. Who can tell?

Now listen, while I am the type of guy who will tell you to do crazy stuff despite popular belief (ask me about vitamin D sometime), I do not wish to encourage anyone from not using antidepressants. I’ve been on them myself and they’ve helped me (at the time). I don’t like this guy, so I’m gonna quote him without attribution. When the humanity offers you help, you take it. That’s it. And you definitely take it, if you haven’t tried it before. But we can’t ignore the fact, that we don’t know why they work [sorry, can’t source that, you’re gonna have to trust me, bro], but even more importantly we have to answer the question of: Depressed or in a bad spot? I’m not gonna link Matthew Lieberman’s video series that introduced me to this concept, but curious minds can read this. Healthy people are not neutral in their thoughts, healthy people are optimistic. Depressed people are not negative in their thoughts, depressed people are realistic.

The very last paragraph might be useful for anyone thinking of self killing. For SEO purposes, I have to also mention suicide, so let me say that word just twice. If you’re thinking why shouldn’t you commit suicide (gee, commit, what am I saying?), think about the previous paragraph. Let me tell you, you’re right and everybody else is wrong, OK. That’s the truth that you clearly see. What you don’t see as clearly is a way out. And you won’t see it in your state. You just have to hang in there. And since I said three things I didn’t want to say, let me explain what is going on. Self killing used to be a crime, therefore you commit suicide, just like you would commit regicide (king killing), commit infanticide (killing of infants), commit homicide (human killing), commit pesticide (pest killing), etc. you get the gist. Hold on a minute, you don’t commit pesticide, it’s not a crime! Exactly. So instead of the well-establish Latin word, I will use plain English - killing of self. And I will commit into my git repo, OK?