[certeoun]

> But even as we wait for the fly to help us combat the complex effects of social isolation, Li and colleagues’ study reminds us that there are benefits to everyday interactions with others.

> And like humans, flies develop "drinking problems."

Am I like a fly now? :/ (I observed similar behavior on me with similar circumstances.)

Yeah, I know community is good[1], but I am estranged from family and have 1 friend who is busy with his own life. Possibly it is because of me being weird around people? Or me being socially awkward? I will screen myself for ADHD, but every attempt to connect with people failed. :( I seem to connect with people on platforms like HN, but I cannot connect outside of platforms like HN for some odd reason. Furthermore, I really tried to connect with real people, but I got rejected many times. I am afraid that I am an annoyance to people and that's why they don't want to connect with me.It is stressful to be alone.

Anyhow, I was chronically lonely and still am, and I can confirm the stress reactions that flies experience when they are chronically lonely.

It is stressful to be alone. At least HN gives eases a bit of the stress for me. HN is essentially providing me a venue to connect with people. I am happy about that.

[1] > Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...

[sillysaurusx]

You sound like you're in your 20s. Even if you're early 30s, life is long.

Listen. I felt similarly to you. Then I was put on Prozac. I stopped having those feelings.

There's a data point. Any time I recommend that data point, people lose their minds. So I'll just state it and leave it up to interpretation. What worked for me won't work for you. (Are you sure?)

My point is, get your ass into the doctor's office. I'm sorry to phrase it bluntly, but if no one told me that bluntly, I never would have. I wrote about it here. https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1392213804684038150

The doctor's appointment was the pivotal change in my life. Before doctor, unhappy life. After doctor, happy life.

The problem is, most doctors don't seem to really care deeply about you. Or at least me. I lucked out big time by finding a small sleep clinic with an elderly doc. As I say in the post, she took to me like a mother hen, and she seemed genuinely pained when I expressed the sorts of feelings you're saying here.

Let me put it a different way. You're unhappy with your current trajectory, and you don't see it changing any time soon. I was unhappy with my trajectory, and the only thing that changed it was getting my ass into a doctor's office repeatedly until one of them cared about solving the underlying problem.

In hindsight, there was one other important mental shift. You're not broken. There's nothing "wrong" with you. That would be like saying you're a broken person because you have a broken leg. That makes no sense. And it makes no sense to go through life without taking care of it, or feeling like a crutch makes you less of a person. My crutch was Prozac. Yours will be what works for you.

Good luck. DM me any time, 24/7. Happy to listen about whatever you want to vent about.

[R0b0t1]

How do you know that ignoring your previous feelings is good? Prozac likely did not solve your problem, it just made you ignore it.

[gsinclair]

Interestingly, solving symptoms can be important. My wife went to the physio with a sore back. He treated it with massage, of course, but equally importantly, he told her to take (over the counter) painkillers in substantial doses for 2-3 days. He said it was important to “solve” the pain. My interpretation is that this is a superficial fix but it’s important so that the body/brain doesn’t get accustomed to feeling that pain. Break the habit, so to speak. I see an analogy with what GP wrote.

[sillysaurusx]

Mm, perhaps it's tempting to think that. I understand where those feelings might be coming from. Before being on it, I probably felt some variation of that.

The best analogy I can think of is, imagine heating an iron rod over a fire and then pressing it against your skin. Would you want to ignore those feelings if you could?

Whatever part of me changed, I'm glad it did. My suicidal ideation dropped to zero, which I never thought was possible. In fact, I thought it was normal for everyone to go through life feeling somewhat suicidal.

All I can do is point to what few accomplishments I've made, and say "you have things to look forward to. Fix yourself, and your life can turn around. I never bothered to try. Once I did, everything changed."

[R0b0t1]

I've been on psychiatric medication. Lexapro "worked" but I quit taking it because I realized it merely made me complacent. I'd occasionally look around at my surroundings and see how they were not changing for the better.

I went to a psychiatrist and it set into motion a series of events that gave me the worst experiences of my life. I would be better off having never gone, and attempting to go again has not restored any faith in psychiatric practice. I think your advice is reckless and ill founded. Doctors have plenty of stories of people they helped, but they can't have (or at least make no effort to track) the stories about people they have not helped or scared away.

[sillysaurusx]

Thank you for sharing. How are you doing nowadays? I hope things are better.

What do you feel is the best alternative to my advice? My problem is, although everything you say is true, there doesn’t seem to be a good “do X instead” option.

[ekianjo]

you dont need to treat the root cause to solve symptoms.

[Revenant-15]

In fact, it can be helpful to treat the symptoms first, because the symptoms might make it impossible to productively approach the core issues one might have. They might be feeding back into each other in a never-ending loop of negative interpretation/emotion.

[fy20]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Can I ask why you went to a doctor and not a therapist? Wouldn't they have been able to lead you down that path too?

[sillysaurusx]

I think so. And the reason I phrased my original comment so sharply is because it took me almost getting fired for sleep issues to get me to focus on anything resembling “that path”.

People often need some event to snap them out of whatever rut they’re in. At the time, I was too far gone and too strong headed to think “A therapist? Help me? Yes, I think that’s reasonable.”

In hindsight, it was obviously reasonable. But there’s a certain stigma with even talking about any of this, let alone acting on it. I did eventually get fired solely for the sleep issues, since narcolepsy is incurable. Attempting to hide it and not going to any doctor would have been in my financial interest. And the exact opposite of my long-term interest, as I am quite happy in every way now.

So when you say “go see a therapist,” I completely agree. And I also think that 20-something young professionals are unlikely to actually go do that. Males in particular. Testosterone has a funny way of making you feel that you know better than domain experts.

In hindsight, what happened was, the sleep issue was becoming more and more of a problem. I volunteered to go get a CPAP machine from a sleep clinic, since I remembered hearing a coworker from my first job in 2008 go on and on about how miraculous it was. So I showed up expecting my quick fix miracle, was informed “actually, you have incurable narcolepsy,” was kicked to the curb by Employer, and my sleep clinic sessions ended up becoming de facto therapy.

Lucky for me. Also idiot me for not just going to <domain expert> years ago.

Part of it was also that my mom snuck me antidepressants when I was 17 or so. I was really upset when I found out. I’m not sure what she was thinking. Maybe it was the only way she could get me to try it. But I rebelled as soon as I found out, and ended up filing it all in the “mumbo jumbo ignore this crap” bucket in my head until forced to partake in 2016.

Glad I got course corrected. Hoping that lots of people here learn to take care of themselves sooner. I don’t dwell on it, but it’s probably true to say that I would have had more friends and more happier years if I did it when I was 21 instead of 28. Good luck convincing a 21yo male to go talk honestly about his feelings with a therapist though.

I just hope that in a few decades, someone comes across this comment and thinks “gosh, how anachronistic,” the same way we feel about comments from the 70s about women. The era of men feeling they should hide their pain and “man up” needs to end.

[mr-oh-noes]

I had a little DMT smoke session the other day and this woman couldn't feel much of anything from the DMT despite smoking a large amount. Others got desired effects. I think it was because she was on SSRI antidepressants, which are known to desensitize to serotonergic psychedelics. To be honest, I found it utterly disturbing to watch someone unable to connect to their unconscious. She said the antidepressants removed the lows, but also the highs in life.

I might rather be depressed.

[sillysaurusx]

In my experience, the only side effect I've noticed is mildly decreased libido. But the decrease wasn't too significant.

I would say there's probably some truth to your observation. I don't partake in DMT, so I can't speak to that part. But it's true that prozac will probably make you less... prone to intensity.

I prefer it. It's nice to have control over my mental state and behaviors. Previously, it was uncontrollable suicidal ideation, which was neither fun nor productive.

At this point it's been so many years since I've had those thoughts that I honestly can't remember what it was like. All I remember is that I was miserable in the worst way. I thought I was a total wuss, too, and that there was something wrong with me for thinking those thoughts.

Turns out, I was going through life with the equivalent of a broken leg, and not bothering to treat it. So when you say that you'd rather be depressed, just know that for those broken few who Prozac helps, it's a bit like saying you'd rather have a broken leg as long as you can have a good DMT experience.

Perhaps some would make that trade, but personally I felt happy with my outcome. But it's true that for others, Prozac may not be the best way forward. It's why it's important to proceed under the care and supervision of a doctor that actually cares about your long-term well-being. (Ideally a therapist. I've thought about that other parallel comment, and they were right; if you're not having luck with doctors, go the therapist route. It's what ended up saving me.)

[mypalmike]

Yeah I totally agree with you, despite the fact that Prozac was a terrible 6 month fog for me some 20 years ago. It really works wonders for some people. And the cognitive behavioral therapy I received at the time, in addition to short term anxiety medication which I still take occasionally, were huge in terms of my long term mental health.

[Revenant-15]

> I might rather be depressed.

After experiencing both, I vastly prefer being on SSRIs, no contest. Probably wouldn't be here right now without them.

[sillysaurusx]

Heh. You said in a dozen words what I said in hundreds. Yes, ditto. And thank you very much for being willing to share this. (Hopefully one day it won't be rare to share, but currently it is.)

[bserge]

One of them, huh. Yeah... But I'm so sick of going through the systems. Maybe another good doc will show up in this shithole part of the world.

[sillysaurusx]

I feel that. Trust me and keep trying.

If you give up, there's no hope. It may feel draining to try for the 7th time, especially when you can barely muster the energy to face each day due to depression. But something will work for you. There exists a magical doctor that can solve your problems. I am certain that even in that shithole part of the world, there is someone who cares about fixing your issues.

You just need to find them. And the good news is, that's easier than it seems. There's no limit on how many appointments you can make. (Don't get me started on health insurance... For now, I'll take it as an axiom that you can make doctors appointments. If you can't, then try to scrape together the $200 to gamble that the first one can help you, and do whatever it takes to get your money's worth.)

The reason I phrased it like "get your ass into a doctor's office" is because that is really, truly, the key thing: 1. You, 2. in as many doctor's offices as possible, until 3. problem goes away. GOTO 1.

Write it on a sticky note, pin it to the wall, and repeat each day. Heck, even if you do one appointment a week, that's still 52 attempts at fixing the problem over the course of a year. The odds are in your favor.

Be thorough about looking for doctors, too. It's tempting to just pull up Zocdoc, click that "in network" button, and call it quits after the first two doctors (since all the others are out of network). But my salvation came from a sleep clinic. A sleep clinic is a rather unlikely source for a "miracle doctor," wouldn't you say? It certainly surprised me, and it was almost accidental -- I went in for sleep issues, and they ended up fixing the underlying problems.

The point is, keep your spirits up. Not the alcohol kind. (If someone here feels like drinking their problems away, please do DM me instead. https://twitter.com/theshawwn always open.) And keep trying.

[OnACoffeeBreak]

Yes! I like the phrase (stolen from Sam Harris) "begin again". To me that means that your life is not in the past. All you have is the capacity to do something right now in this moment. Don't burden yourself with expectations or fantasies about the future either, just do something in this moment.

[ilrwbwrkhv]

Did you try some psyclosibin mushrooms?

[sillysaurusx]

Actually, yes. In fact, I was one of the first to submit a thread to HN about "Dropping LSD tonight. What should I do?" when I was 19 or so.

When it was removed and I emailed asking why, he said it was because he didn't want to encourage HN users to do "crazy things." (I'm nearly 100% confident I can dig up the emails if absolutely necessary.)

However, over time, I came to agree with pg's point of view. Prozac is a proven medical solution to a chemical imbalance. I'm happy to hear that shrooms help some, but for me, it was crazy to buy into that old quote of:

> Steve Jobs once said Gates lacked imagination and could have benefited if "he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger," according to Jobs' biography.

Yeah, I swallowed that nonsense hook, line, and sinker. "At least I won't be like stuffy old Gates," I felt.

It was interesting to do both LSD and shrooms. I recommend people try them recreationally once, in safe environments (with preparation), if only to have the experience of seeing just how different your perceptions can become.

But.. a long term medical solution?

Only with a doctor's guidance. If a therapist recommends it, I'm not going to say it's crazy. But if you're hoping it will help you... um... I'll just say that it didn't for me. I hope it helps others, but as you can probably tell, I came away from the experience feeling like it was a load of baloney. Would've been better to just accept it for what it is: an interesting diversion, like going kayaking.

On the flipside, is is highly interesting, and tangentially I think this is one area that would be better served by open discussion in substantive ways. In other words, while it may be true that "just try shrooms and see if it helps you" could be considered "crazy," it's also true that shrooms have apparently helped some subset of people, and that perhaps it's worth considering whether you're part of that subset.

But the key is to go find a domain expert, and do what they say. Don't do what you think. I would (and did) get lost in a sea of confusing, ineffective attempts at solving a serious underlying problem.

Hence my insistence on "find a doctor" (or therapist, as was pointed out in a parallel comment).

[elzbardico]

Hey man. It gets better as you get older, both because you learn more social stuff, but also because you deal with older and more experienced people that become more tolerant of our differences.

Also some of the skills you get in the online world dealing with people are transferrable to the physical world, well, at least it worked like that for me ;-)

[fouc]

Interesting, I assumed the poster was in their 30s or even 40s, but you seem to be assuming they're young instead.

[elzbardico]

Yes. It is fascinating how our brains try to fill up the blanks in ways that are probably related to our experience and knowledge.

[hughrr]

Please ignore all the other weird advice here about medication and therapy. HN has an unhealthy obsession with fixing symptoms not problems.

All things in life come with practice and experience. That includes socialising with people and making social connections. You’re going to screw up and all sorts on and off. What is important is to introspect and understand why after the fact and use that to improve your future social encounters. I’ve done it enough times and will continue to do it until I’m dead. No one is perfect and that’s what makes everyone so interesting.

The biggest barrier to actually doing it is your confidence and a list of what if’s a mile long from previous messes you think you caused. All of those things are surmountable problems if you face them. And also the memory of these problems for other people is quite short so don’t sweat what people think of you too much.

I can suggest a good place to actually get out there and make some connections is Meetup.com. I am always going out with random groups of people who I’ve never met, are all just as socially awkward and these mostly end up with quality social time at the end of the day. Sometimes we go our separate ways immediately but I’ve made a few long term connections out of that as well. All in all a massive improvement in my life.

[nick__m]

When I read your post I was about to post something similar to the reply you got from sillysaurusx but I will do it anyway!

I to suffered from loneliness and the terrible depression that come with it. A visit to the campus doctor was life changing. Depression, anxiety and ADD were making socially awkward and they needed to be treated before I could work on forming meaningful relationships.

The depression began to go away on the first drug I tried : Paxil. However it made me feel mentally challenged so we had to try a few drugs before finding something that work while having acceptable side effects, for me it was Cipralex and Vyvanse.

I initially had troubles to accept that I needed antidepressant but like sillysaurusx said. You don't judge someone with diabetes because he needs insulin, why would blame someone depressed for needing escitalopram.

Please consider seeing a doctor, depression and loneliness have killed too many sensible insightful persons like you !

[anigbrowl]

If this is an ongoing struggle for you (and it sounds like it is), consider getting a dog. They'll give you affection, loyalty, structure (because you have to feed and walk them and they'll remind you of the fact), but they'll also open you up to a whole lot of other people who like dogs and give you an easy starter conversation with people you meet: you can just share a story about how you got your dog and what s/he is like, and then listen to strangers' stories.

[summm]

Careful with such advice. Dogs might as well make your problems even worse. They smell bad, might make you smell bad, need a lot of attention, soil your home, cannot be left alone for an extended amount of time. And might even hurt you. In any case they will cost you lots of time and money better spent for your actual recovery.

[anigbrowl]

I too thought all that until rescued a dog. They do need a lot of attention though.

[mypalmike]

I guarantee nobody thinks you are an annoyance if you aren't specifically trying to annoy them. Self confidence takes a long time to develop, but it's worth investing that time. Exercise, diet, mental health therapy, taking small and increasing steps in terms of social risks, dating if that interests you, finding hobbies that require you interact with other people... It's years of work but it may be what life is all about.

[themacguffinman]

> I guarantee nobody thinks you are an annoyance if you aren't specifically trying to annoy them.

I appreciate that you're trying to help but is this guarantee actually based on any real evidence or experience?

Because I've definitely seen people be regarded as annoyances even though they were clearly not trying to be annoying. Heck, even knowing this, I've still felt that some people were annoying to me and it was obvious that they weren't trying to be.

There are countless innocuous reasons why someone may not get along with you, but I've noticed that missing those social cues or trying to befriend them anyway will very quickly make them think you're really annoying. You certainly don't have to try.

[mypalmike]

I may have overstated it. Some people are indeed going to be annoyed by a socially awkward person, sure. But by and large, the vast majority of people really are kind hearted and sympathetic. More importantly, humans are generally too self-focused to even care much at all about someone else's social awkwardness. One of the keys to confidence is to stop worrying about what people think about you. It helps knowing that most people don't really think much at all about you. But it's hard. It's not even 100% possible for most of us. But there's a positive feedback loop in letting yourself off the hook for being how you are.

[brailsafe]

I'll attempt to provide something that sibling commenters haven't.

Pre-amble: It sounds like your results with socializing match my results with job finding ;)

Something I've noticed among my other friends in their 20s and early thirties, not that it necessarily matters, is that they have social anxiety and not any common ground with anyone. They live relatively isolated lives, either behind a screen or largely in their apartments. Socializing stopped shortly after high-school, when it wasn't easy anymore. I think part of this is a symptom of people not having anything to do in public that involves "hanging out". Every hobby I do except for maybe two involves just ambiently being present in public space. The gym, outdoor workout facilities, being in nature, being at the skatepark, going to concerts maybe, sitting outside at a coffee shop and generally being unassuming. People live in the damn suburbs or in skyscrapers, where there's fucking no reason to be around anyone else. My friends also almost entirely rely on work for their social life. I live at ground level near cafes and in a neighborhood where people are walking around for enjoyment (only for the latest few years of my life), and I wouldn't trade it for anything. These are the conditions that prevent you from meeting other people in neutral space, where you can talk and drink and play. Most cities out there are designed to crush your soul.

Other people mention that it gets better later in life, and it's possible, but I'd wager that it's only because you stop caring rather than actually having a substantial social life. Starting to position yourself better now is a much better idea. It takes time, but it's doable.

The other thing is that much like jobs, sometimes rejection happens for reasons beyond your control, sometimes in your control. You just need to let yourself naturally meet a lot of people, some subset of which you can develop further. Meet those friends of your "work friends", so when that job goes away, you're social life won't because you developed the secondary or tertiary connections.

Loneliness sucks, but it'll turn around. Just start hanging out more, and don't expect anything to happen. Before you know it, you'll meet someone interesting.

p.s I have ADHD and it lets me really get into conversations and try new things that expose me to fun circumstances. Maybe that's you too.

[nate_meurer]

> Other people mention that it gets better later in life, and it's possible, but I'd wager that it's only because you stop caring rather than actually having a substantial social life.

I'll confirm that.

[the_only_law]

I decided to stop going out alone the other weekend thanks to Alcohol. I don’t have any sort of chronic issue, but notice if I end up at the bar by myself, I tend to overdo things by a lot.

[thoughtstheseus]

Welcome to HN! :) thanks for contributing to the community.

[fouc]

I assume they're using a throwaway account to make this particular post, since they alluded to making connections on HN before

[nick__m]

I would not be so fast to classify him/her/them as a throwaway account, they don't usually post insightful comments like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28239106

[pstuart]

> I am afraid that I am an annoyance to people and that's why they don't want to connect with me.

The fact that you have awareness and motivation to change should give you some hope. If you'd like to discuss further directly I'd be more than happy to engage with you. My email is in my profile.

[coldtea]

>Yeah, I know community is good[1], but I am estranged from family and have 1 friend who is busy with his own life. Possibly it is because of me being weird around people? Or me being socially awkward? I will screen myself for ADHD, but every attempt to connect with people failed. :( I seem to connect with people on platforms like HN, but I cannot connect outside of platforms like HN for some odd reason. Furthermore, I really tried to connect with real people, but I got rejected many times. I am afraid that I am an annoyance to people and that's why they don't want to connect with me.It is stressful to be alone.

Do a check for spectrum disorders.

Even having those (or just a certain character, it's not like it's something you can't fight or somewhat fix.

Try to make the first step with people, including strangers. Even if it's an Uber driver, if they want to chat, don't shut them down. It's practice, and can lead to actual connections.

If it's friends, call, don't wait to be called (else it's an endless loop with each side waiting). If it's you always doing the calling after some time, of course, fuck them.

Embrace smalltalk and casual conversation. What seems like meaningless to the "Vulcan" Aspie-like brain it's just indirect bonding. In other words, it's more about the bonding than the informational content (we're not computers).

Generally, it's not about the informational content and getting knowledge. It's about sharing emotional states.

Fuck your niche interests. Anime or Games or 15th century Spanish poetry is not the be all end all. Embrace more interests. Learn other people's interests.

The best way is doing stuff together - from doing some project (not work), to starting a revolution, or whatever. If that also has some stakes, even better. Getting

Fuck politics and pop tastes and such. Connect to people above that level, for their character and soul, not for what they say their politics or cultural tastes are. Don't think that someone that laughs at Rob Schneider and Adam Sandler movies is "beneath you", because e.g. you watch Wes Anderson, or that a Trump or Hillary person is unfit as a human. That's superficial ideological BS.

If possible, travel and make acquaintences with people of other "hotter" cultures, where chatting up a stranger, or even offering them a place, is nothing to write home about.