[gonehome]

I wonder how much making being depressed part of your identity prevents you from getting better.

I'm not dismissing the reality of it, but reinforcing it to yourself and others around you on a constant basis probably isn't helpful? Constantly ruminating on your depressed state probably isn't good either.

Pretending everything is great probably isn't a good idea or likely even possible (or desirable?), but I'm not persuaded constantly talking about it is a healthy option either.

[nonbirithm]

Similarily, I found that having mental health diagnoses have reframed my already negative tendencies to merely assign concrete reasons to my failings that sound more justifiable to me.

So many decisions and feelings in my life have become framed around statements like "that was because my attention was lost," or "my attention is probably not going to hold up for another hour if I try that," or "I just wasn't paying attention." Every accomplishment and every mistake is colored though a lens of attention, or my lack of it.

The fact that I procrastinate is no longer because "I'm lazy," but "I have a debilitating lack of executive function." It sounds reasonable, and it can be useful to understand the reasons to find better ways of dealing with them. But merely changing the reason from a less specific to more specific one doesn't ultimately solve the problem of procrastination.

It can be tempting to indicate the diagnosis as revealing the one major problem interfering with a normal life, but for me that isn't the case. It provides me with an easy distraction from the problems with how I carry myself and my usual thought patterns.

If I try learning to draw, and reach for learning materials focused on drawing skills, almost none of them will go out of the way to state: your attitude may prevent you from making progress on this lesson. Someone who's in pristine shape and someone who can barely find the motivation to get out of bed each day could read the same book with the intention of learning how to draw and have significantly different outcomes without any explicit indication as to why from just reading the book alone.

[mumblemumble]

There's a saying therapists use, "What we resist persists."

The research has shown that being open with others about your experience alleviates the symptoms of depression, including constant rumination. Putting on a happy face for the benefit of others, on the other hand, tends to make it much, much worse.

There are of course confounding factors like whether the person has a victimization complex or whatever, but those need to be handled on their own terms. I don't personally experience anything like that, so I don't know much about it, but my guess is that they would also generally be exacerbated by encouraging people not to talk about it.

[gonehome]

Yeah I agree with you - I think what I'm trying to say is more nuanced and super easy to misinterpret (even in good-faith).

It's not about putting a happy face on, but about seeing yourself as a 'depressed person' or as having depression being a core part of your identity. I think that can be harmful - and lead to weird psychologies where being depressed is more comfortable in a way, more familiar.

Being open/honest is good, but making being depressed part of the way you see 'who you are' is likely bad (imo).

Hypervigilance [0] is also a thing - and it can make things worse.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance

[mumblemumble]

Frankly, it is a core part of one's identity. It's not just feeling sad sometimes. It's a chronic condition that colors everything about how you see and experience the world. If you forget that or ignore it, it starts to take over, and your grip on reality is liable to start to erode.

[gonehome]

I think whether or not you make something part of your identity is a choice. This sounds like our core disagreement.

I think choosing to have something bad be part of the core of how you view yourself is harmful. There’s some evidence to back this up iirc (things like people involved in shootings being interviewed immediately after and then again months later - those that had issues recovering made it part of their identity, those that didn’t - didn’t).

If there are strategies to avoid harm I want to know what those are. If there are bad strategies I want to throw them away.

People can do what they want, but I wonder if defending and reinforcing someone’s identity as a victim does more harm than good.

In general I think people are way overconfident about what the “right” thing is here and what’s actually happening or what the best way to get out of it is.

[vergessenmir]

If I read it right she didn't say it was chronic, unless I missed that.

It may have been episodal which happens to most people at some point in their.

I can understand the approach ( and not necessarily agree) if it were a chronic life long condition.

[mumblemumble]

Perhaps I misused the word chronic. It certainly doesn't always have to be lifelong.

But, even if it's not lifelong, it still is. One's identity is constantly changing. Suggesting that a part of a person's identity doesn't really count as much because that part of them might change a few years down the line is an act of erasure. It's a microaggresion directed at the person they are right here and right now. People who experience mood disorders are already swimming in a sea of social stigma; we could really use a little bit less rejection, well-intentioned or otherwise.

[shkkmo]

The post strongly implies she has been dealing with depression for 5 and a half years at this point.

[shkkmo]

Yet I see multiple comments warning about making depression part of your identity in response to a blog post that is pretty focused on why it is important to talk about experiencing depression.

I feel like the nuance is being lost in the opposite direction here.

[threwway]

>The research has shown that being open with others about your experience alleviates the symptoms of depression, including constant rumination.

Hello! Could you direct me to said research if you know where it is? I'm not aware of it, and haven't seen it recommended anywhere. I'd be genuinely interested to know if it checks out.

[threwway]

I know some people who can talk about their psychological struggles and remain likeable (it's some kind of charisma superpower), but other people where it's just a massive bummer (myself included). Step number one of getting along with people has been masking my internal state where possible. That lets me get by. The endless pit of despair and hopelessness that long-term depression can present, as with many chronic illnesses, it can just be a massive downer (especially when there's literally nothing the other person can do - why burden them with knowledge of my pain more than necessary?). And I can be likeable and fun to be around, and I appreciate it when I know other people who are struggling internally manage to play along also in their own way [ I know it takes them a lot of effort and I appreciate it deeply ]. This is how making it work works for me.

Though I guess I can appreciate the principled approach of the person writing the article, that would be a disaster for me given how I am (and I don't think it reflects badly on my social circles). I have to struggle to not be a happiness vampire, and this would tip the scales.

>I’ve been in therapy on and off and I’m taking meds (and no, yoga, essential oils and exercise are not sufficient to treat mental illness)

Often neither is medication.

[gonehome]

> I know some people who can talk about their psychological struggles and remain likeable

I'd argue this is the basis for all good standup comedy.

[jstarfish]

What's the one question you never want to ask a Munchhausen candidate?

"How are you doing?"

[shkkmo]

What if you are Munchausening about having Munchhausen syndrome?

[shkkmo]

I am in the difficult position where discusing my internal states too deeply is a significant trigger for downwards spirals. It doesn't mean I don't need have those conversations, but I do need to be careful about when and with whom I have those conversations.

[Mediterraneo10]

> I wonder how much making being depressed part of your identity prevents you from getting better.

I had the same thought recently when Bikepacking.com posted a short video documentary about two obese women doing long-distance cycling. The women claimed that their goal was to end fat-shaming. Yet maintaining such a heavy weight while engaging in such physically demanding activity is difficult indeed. I therefore got the impression that they had so made being overweight a part of their identities that it was no longer a condition they just happened to be stuck with, rather they were deliberately maintaining it at some half-conscious level.

[silicon2401]

I think that's probably the case in many scenarios. IMO people are often more resistant to change than they are drawn to improvement. That's why I think it's important to be careful what you base your identity on.

[andreyk]

From my personal experience, depression is something that's there whether you think about it or not. Of course if you just think about it that'll just make things worse. But I don't think that's what this post is saying.

The conclusion is - "The majority of people are still uncomfortable when I casually mention my depression, but that doesn’t silence me. I do this not to elicit pity, or to be inspiration porn about overcoming obstacles, but to normalise this – people like me are here, everywhere, you could be me at any point in your life." and that sounds fine to me. If someone asks how you are, it is a positive thing to say you are dealing with depression to normalize it. I would probably not so it for everyone, but to friends and Co workers I think it is ultimately a good thing.

[silicon2401]

I agree. I wonder why it's so different for depression vs. other illness/challenges. When we see someone without legs, we accommodate them however possible and try to treat them equally, but we also celebrate those who manage to be competitive wheelchair racers or accomplished at calisthenics. Yet for depression, we almost try to convince people that it's simply not possible to be functional and you shouldn't even try. I sympathize with people who have depression but I feel like the current way people try to deal with it is similar to trying to encourage cathartic releases of anger, not knowing that it only makes anger worse.

[dkarl]

> we almost try to convince people that it's simply not possible to be functional and you shouldn't even try

That's not really the way it is, though I can see how you would get that impression. Coping strategies, trying to get the highest level of function out of myself on every given day, and learning how to set myself up for the highest level of function in the future are a big part of my approach to depression, complementary to the reflective, root cause-oriented approach that people associate with talk therapy. My depression varies in a range that includes "not depressed" (I mean, assuming I know what that is) and that is the state I "strive" to achieve as much as possible, using all the means at my disposal.

The thing is, everybody understands the concept of "just try not to be depressed," and they already overestimate its effectiveness, so we don't spend a lot of time talking about it. What people don't get is why it doesn't fix everything, so that's the part we try to explain. To begin with, the reason I put "strive" in quotes: it's not really the right word for trying not to be depressed, because "striving" is sometimes counterproductive and sometimes not even available as a tactic, so you have to try by not-trying, and if that sounds like a catch-22, well, it 90% is.

If you compared chronic depression to a chronic knee injury, you could compare "just try not to be depressed" to using the knee as normally as possible. It helps you get stuff done despite the injury, it's important for maintaining good movement patterns, it helps keep all the muscles around the knee strong so you don't injure yourself further, it's generally a positive thing for promoting whatever degree of long-term improvement is possible (which is near total for some people and not much for others, and you don't know how it will be for you,) but it doesn't cure the injury, and you learn from hard experience that arbitrarily pushing yourself can inflame the injury and set you back.

[gonehome]

If I had to guess - it's a mixture of the underlying mechanism still being very poorly understood which makes it very hard to treat. Likely a lot of people experiencing what we classify as depression are actually experiencing similar symptoms of highly variable underlying causes.

Also, for a long time mental health was handled atrociously by society so people are (reasonably) sensitive to that and there's maybe a little bit of an overcorrection on this culturally where people are now afraid to suggest that there's any agency here at all.

Hopefully as we get some real empirical understanding of how our minds work we'll be able to relieve a lot of suffering. As it stands, psychology feels like medicine prior to germ theory (at least to me) - we have some treatments that seem to help, but barely know why.

[silicon2401]

I basically agree with your whole comment. I wish people on all sides were less forceful, whether critical or supportive of mental health issues, to account for the shortcomings we have with the field.

[Tarucho]

The problem is you don´t get to choose the content of your ruminations. When you are experiencing severe depression judgment is misguided and you don´t get to choose the contents of your mind the same way you don´t get to choose the contents of your mind in the middle of a maniac episode.

[barbazoo]

You gotta find a balance but talking about it regularly, whenever you realize it affects your behavior is a good way to deal with depression. It also helps others to deal with it better.