<p>I ate pizza and received a lot of candy (most of which I consumed within 24 hours).</p>
<p>Aside from that though, it was just like any ordinary day.</p>
<p>^^ Haha, fair enough that statement was fairly nerdy but still amusing (or so I thought that is why I kept it instead of trying to rephrase)</p>
<p>having been depressed before, i’ll say this:</p>
<p>i think it’s more “stable” to have people laugh at you than to experience the alternatives, which are NOT pretty at all. some people develop an intense hatred towards you, while others grow immensely frustrated with you (ESPECIALLY those who care about you the most). i once got depressed and I managed to get an <em>entire</em> community to hate me that way. if they simply laughed at me instead, they might have not hated me as much. they might have said “post more” instead.</p>
<p>besides, it’s actually somewhat reassuring that you’re making someone else briefly happier for a period of time. it’s not like you’re losing anything when people laugh at you (really). </p>
<p>so this is why i actually welcome it when people laugh at my sadness (seriously, I’ve turned it into a series of self-parody threads before - and i felt less useless when people laughed at them). anyways i’m not depressed anymore but it’s a different perspective that i think depressed people need to look at.</p>
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<p>I think the action stands regardless (for the most part). To provide explanations, etc., etc., that just clouds the picture. We cannot always qualify everything, and so on. Sometimes to just examine what was done - the action alone - is elucidating. </p>
<p>And even the action of making light of sadness is revealing in itself. I am not saying that you are amused by genuine sadness (i do not think that; and it is obviously not true); what I am saying is that by carelessly saying something that reflects that - that right there is what i disliked. </p>
<p>by my perception of your quality of existence I meant how I perceived you to be living.</p>
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<p>I do not think depressed people gain much from looking at different perspectives…depression is a biological disease (as real as diabetes) with a genetic component, triggered by environmental stressors, and so on. Perspectives do not cure other diseases.</p>
<p>There are certain types of making fun of that are clearly distinct from hating. But where does ridicule fit in, etc. Optimism it always good when it works (which in your case it seems it did - realizing that there were worse alternatives, and that the attention of those laughing at you was at least that - attention). But I am sort of skeptical that perspective shifts are actually viable solutions to problems. Maybe someone didn’t get happy because they changed their perspective - maybe getting happier allowed them to feel more optimistic.</p>
<p>^^ So what you are saying is that I should not use sarcasm, irony, tongue-in-cheek or any of the tones that I would use in real life because someone may misinterpret them O_O I’m not going to do that.</p>
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<p>Considering you don’t know me IRL, you have no hard evidence on which you can base your conclusion…</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life (9781594202100): Winifred Gallagher: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Rapt-Attention-Focused-Winifred-Gallagher/dp/1594202109]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Rapt-Attention-Focused-Winifred-Gallagher/dp/1594202109)</p>
<p>""The realization that your life—indeed, yourself–largely consists of the physical objects and mental subjects that you’ve focused on, from e-bay bargains to world peace, becomes even more sobering when you consider that, as the expression “pay attention” suggests, like your money, your concentration is a finite resource. How can you get the highest experiential return for this cognitive capital? By focusing on some screen or on playing your guitar? On IM-ing your old friend or joining her for a walk? “”</p>
<p>"“couples personal ruminations and interviews with experts to explore the role of attention in defining consciousness, identity and the human experience: “who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love-is the sum of what you focus on””</p>
<p>==</p>
<p>Well, everyone is prone to depression depending on environment. Some people are just more genetically vulnerable than others. But very few people would be depressed in <em>all</em> possible environments. A lot of them would improve if they simply switched environments (of course, this is nearly impossible for most people, and you can’t forget your past). </p>
<p>Yes, severe depression is an entirely different matter, and is a “path of no return” for some people. But mild/moderate depression is a lot more environmentally-dependent.</p>
<p>PS: as someone with fairly severe ADD, I frankly hate it when people say “use willpower”, because frankly it doesn’t help that way. So I’m not one of those people who would advocate “willpower” for depression either. But that doesn’t prevent the possibility that creative alternative strategies may work. People just have an inertia (exacerbated by depression) that prevents them from trying crazy new strategies (that could possibly work).</p>
<p>^ As a fellow ADD sufferer, I completely understand where you are coming from. Good post</p>
<p>Yank has ADHD? o_0 Wow.</p>
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<p>I am not saying that. I am not saying what you should or should not do. I am telling you what your actions (what you write) tells me.</p>
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<p>Right. I do think that environment is crucial (especially changes in social environment, etc). I am not convinced about creative individual alternative solutions. How is that different from will-power?</p>
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<p>Willpower usually means following the traditional route, listening to the standard advice, and “trying harder”. That usually fails (especially for non-neurotypicals), especially since it’s not sustainable and requires sustained effort.It’s an argument that belies neurodiversity.</p>
<p>Creative alternative solutions are different, and oftentimes they don’t require any willpower beyond the initial jump. They’re harder to think of, but they do exist. Sometimes, they mean things like dropping out of school to homeschool yourself. Or taking a gap year. Or creating a new personality on the Internet (for a while), seeing what it’s like to be someone else (and how people treat you differently when you are that someone else).</p>
<p>That being said, parents sometimes make this completely impossible, and the problem is that people often sympathize with the parents even when they deserve none at all. If that’s the case, just post an IAmA on reddit or LessWrong. Some people may give you really nice ideas (especially since some were raised in hyperreligious households)</p>
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No H… I’m a total space cadet, not hyperactive</p>
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My turn, the fact that you came off as incredibly agressive and sardonic for misinterpreting tongue-in-cheek makes you seem like a bellend.</p>
<p>Ok, so like the depressed person taking his own initiative to change his environment (and break free from inertia), that is a creative alternative solution. Of course it takes initial effort (like you said), but once its done its a mostly sustainable change. I wonder where this comes from. Maybe an external source, but instead of being channeled into unsustainable modes of relief it is used in this manner. And creative solutions are probably harder to pick not just because they are more creative, but because the relief isn’t as immediate. So then why are they picked. I think probably its good to look at people’s options as probabilities (and not as one option being preferable and so always chosen).</p>
<p>yes, they are probabilities and it’s impossible to predict them for each person</p>
<p>creative solutions often have more immediate relief. but it’s hard to predict relief.</p>
<p>still, if you’re depressed, you <em>have</em> to do something. don’t just do nothing and let it wreck your life for several years. and if the creative routes are the only choice, then so be it?</p>
<p>yeah, I guess so. I think my conceptions of how people cope with depression are limited.</p>
<p>What I read recently was that suicide is generally not the bottom of severe depression - that those people don’t have the effort to do what is arguably a creative alternative solution. Instead, it is usually when people are coming of depression (when some of their energy is revived, but the underlying problems are still extant) that they commit suicide. And that’s part of what makes starting on antidepressants risky.</p>
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<p>yeah, and a huge part of that is society’s fault. first of all, lots of people demonize depression or have overly simplistic models of how to “treat” it. and then you have the drug companies that literally bribe doctors into prescribing SSRIs (and into creating theories of depression [like the flawed serotonin theory]even though there are still MANY unknowns) even when they might not work.</p>
<p>and then people argue for <em>one</em> of the two theories if they don’t like the other theory. it’s just like democrats vs republicans. dichotomies like these kill people’s imaginations. people feel like they have to support ONE of the two, so they do support ONE of the two, even though both suck. </p>
<p>unfortuantely, it pushes all the alternative possibilities into a void. but there really are many of them - there just isn’t any scientiifc research in them. but lack of research doesn’t imply that it won’t help. </p>
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<p>ah yes, that is quite interesting.</p>
<p>^ You guys must have had a terrible Valentine day.</p>
<p>Mine: Received hand-made chocolates from friends. I didn’t know they could cook.</p>
<p>Why can’t there by more replies like:
AND
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<p>I had the best chocolate cake + strawberry icing cake of my life, which was made by a few friends from scratch. I also found a new love in cake balls :]</p>
<p>I had lunch with one group of friends and got boba. I had a taro smoothie. It was delicious. </p>
<p>Then I went home and napped and did homework (ha, just kidding. I thought about doing homework but danced around my room instead). </p>
<p>Then I went to my friends house to play taboo and eat pizza with a different group of friends (single ladies night!). My team won by over 15 points and I learned that my friend can make a really awesome pasta salad.</p>
<p>Then I went home and my mom gave me a cute turtle plushie and assorted chocolates. I did some calc homework and ate chocolates. I also wrote an english essay that night. </p>
<p>And last, but not least, I caught the bubonic plague and have been bedridden ever since.</p>