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I relate very strongly to everything you say here. I've been diagnosed, hospitalized, and medicated on 3 separate occasions for major depression. In every case, I believed then and still believe that it was avoidable, and mostly situationally caused, regardless of the fact that it does eventually manifest as a severely disrupted and debilitating brain-state that could be characterized as a medium-term illness. I am frequently exasperated by the discussions on HN. I think that the now-popular model of depression as an illness is better than the old-fashioned model of depression as The Blues, but I also think the newer model is still ignorant and harmful in new and different ways. EDIT: The view of depression as a medical condition may be a handy lens for allowing hospitals to deal with emergencies effectively, but for the suffering individual, it is woefully incomplete and even downright misguided. After dealing with it in my own life for 15 years, I've become convinced that Depression is a biopsychosocial [1][2] constellation of interacting phenomena involving bi-directional feedback between one's mind and one's life. And everyone experiences this feedback loop, even if it does not lead everyone into depression. I've found it far, far more productive in my own life to analyse and try to improve the underlying causes, as opposed to medicating and _identifying_ with what I view as a temporary disorder, more similar to the flu than to a chronic disease. (Clarification: I support the use of medication to help with the "bottom of the trough" stage - that is, the temporary, crippling, chemical brain disorder phase. I am extremely suspicious of indefinite reliance on it, but I cannot rule out the possibility that some individual cases are so severe that long-term medication is the rational choice.) I would add to your list that in this community, our ambitions are extremely high relative to most normal people. With very high ambition comes the likelihood of strong disappointment. I also find that being smarter than most people is a deep rabbit hole that makes a lot of social, professional, and authority-related interactions very weird. I think it's sad that it's so taboo here to talk about that issue in particular. I wish more people would focus more on the nitty-gritty practical causes, like you do in your third paragraph. Despite my encounters with depression, I have spent the vast majority of my life being happy, active, social, fulfilled, unmedicated, and in every meaningful sense not depressed at all. I attribute this to a mix of choices about how I life my life, along with a fair amount of good luck. After all, we cannot control everything in life. There are gatekeepers. I've gotten jobs that led to incredible opportunities, relationships, and friendships. What if me or the interviewer had had an off day? What if they'd chosen someone else to interview me that I didn't hit it off with? A doctor can't address things like that - things that have huge impact. (A therapist can, sort of. I am a fan of CBT.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model [2] http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=1... |