[craigzucchini]

My first thought in response to you was "ah comeon it's not that bad". But then I thought back to when I was fired from my dumb corporate stooge job that burned me out. I literally had an existential crisis during the interview gauntlet where I couldn't see a place for myself in tech anymore. So actually I think you've pegged the feeling quite well. Though I wasn't remotely suicidal, the hopelessness of the job hunt amd my diminished interest in my field of expertise took a massive financial and emotional tole.

[yingw787]

So there's a number of differences between burnout and depression (that I've noted in my personal experiences):

- Burnout has discrete reasons you can identify, whereas depression doesn't. Analysis paralysis occurs much more easily in depression because it permeates everything you do and everything you are. The fire is all around you. I've had to rebuild my sense of reality at times by trying to define what is true and what is not. Meditation is really helpful for this, because of the focus on your breathing and the here and now.

- You can still trust your mind during burnout, whereas in depression you cannot. The best analogy that comes to mind is something like Air France 447, where the plane crashes because the iced-over pitot tubes gave faulty readings to the pilot while navigating via IFR. Imagine that but planted in your brain, where your sense of self lives. Writing helps for me in this regard because you can play back what your mind is doing.

- You can become fully healed with burnout, whereas you can't ever get back to normal with depression. Depression is like alcoholism in that if/when you become sober again, one drink at any time afterwards can lead to a death spiral. You kind of have to be constantly on your guard, but not so much that life feels like a downer.

[nashashmi]

Can you point to a source for the last point? You say "you can't ever go back". I'd really like to see if that is true.

BTW, people commit suicide from burnout too. Doctors mostly.

[nashashmi]

I think the ingredient missing from your anecdote is pressure.

Idea of suicide comes when there is pressure to deliver. Like someone yelling at you to get a job. Or constantly calling you worthless because of some personality trait. Or when there is a scenario where if not something gets accomplished then disaster will follow.

[sysbin]

Not necessarily the case. I'm a visibly transgender woman because of puberty and religious abuse when young preventing access to hormone blockers. I would say what encompasses me is to blame for suicidal ideation. The behaviour of people I have no control over and how they constantly invalidate me; possibly threaten or harm me. Furthermore, the cost of actually fixing what makes me visibly transgender is like putting a downpayment on a house and people refuse to consider it medical treatment. Reality can just hate a person and that's really what's to blame. I likely wouldn't be talked away from the cliff.

[jstarfish]

> Reality can just hate a person and that's really what's to blame.

No, that's externalizing. Reality doesn't hate you.

The nature of any dysphoria leads one to deny reality as it is though, and presume a lot about it that is objectively false-- your brain lies to you about the way you understand reality and convinces you that in order to correct it you so can understand it, you need to seek solutions that are unaffordable, harmful or otherwise impossible/out-of-reach.

Because humanity is generally retarded we celebrate or demonize things we don't understand instead of actually working to understand them. What gets lost in the zeitgeist of promoting "LGBTx uber alles" and tarring the skeptics as *phobes is that expensive surgery, a lifetime of HRT and a premature cancer death--getting everything you think you need to feel whole--won't necessarily steer you away from suicide either, because the fundamental problem has more to do with what's between your ears than what's between your legs. Post-ops are still something like 20x more likely to commit suicide than the general population; hardly counts as a success story when it comes to harm reduction or enacting effective medical prognoses.

I hope you find happiness through GRS or otherwise. I also hope it comes sooner rather than later so you don't suffer any longer than you have. But if you ever do find yourself on the edge of that cliff, at least consider for a second that you're so dissatisfied because you've been trying to address the wrong problem this whole time.

[sysbin]

What a load of rubbish by someone that apparently is not able to understand what encompasses an object is the real source for where blame is fitting.

Reality can make one human suffer compared to another that doesn't suffer because of displacement rooted in nature and where the result was not equal experiences; when it came to evolution. Nobody has any control in their life at the fundamental level and because we're all just input/output by the forces exerted upon us.

I've been damaged by a reality that was shit for transgender kids when I was young and now reality has been changing for future kids that are lgbtq. You're labouring under delusions with the nonsense you wrote.

[nashashmi]

Another definition of pressure?

> behaviour of people and how they constantly invalidate me... Reality can just hate a person.

... That you can't escape.

> like putting a downpayment on a house and people refuse to consider it medical treatment.

[sysbin]

What's your definition of pressure? I'm under the assumption you attach it to anything. Also I'm offended.

[nashashmi]

So you faced social pressure to be a certain person. And were exiled because you did not fit. And then your method of escaping that by using medicine was not good enough.

So you face this endless pain and don't have an escape.

[sysbin]

I don’t agree with how you phrased it. It’s more that reality just despises some people if simplified to the root. Since none of us has any real control when it comes to anything.

[craigzucchini]

I don't think I quite understand what you mean here, but I think it might be a good point. Is there any way you could rephrase this or clarify the connection to my anecdote?

[nashashmi]

Pressure means social pressure. Or financial pressure. Or environmental pressure. Something that is forcing your hand to do something you can't. And then to judge yourself when you can't deliver against it. It's what causes fight or flight moments or, in a sad state, you quit (life).

So if you don't have a job and can't find a job, and then you feel bad about yourself, the thought of suicide comes for example when you are about to lose everything you have worked hard for and/or will cause great pain to those around you and/or are judged by your peers as a complete loser and/or exiled from their community.

Can't explain better than that.