Depression and Rationality
Okay, this post might be more personal than most on LessWrong. But I think it might serve a more general function for LessWrong readers. It’s commonly known that depression is often triggered (and maintained) by fundamentally irrational thoughts. Many thoughts associated with depression are simultaneously thoughts that are fundamentally irrational. Feelings of guilt, feelings of hopelessness, and feelings of worthlessness—many of those beliefs assume conceptions that do not correspond with the real world. And so a *rational* person may ostensibly be less prone to depression. But depression involves other things that can still strike a fully rational person. Loss of capacity to enjoy things. And loss of energy, focus, and ability to concentrate.
So here is my story:
I’ve finally corrected all my thinking and reconciled myself with the notion that there’s a very high chance that my ex (of 7 months) will probably never talk to me again and that i must prepare to live a life without her. She has already refused contact with me for 6 months, and I’ve pretty much been emotionally broken for that same period of time. There has been one phase of improvement (mostly since I got more information and accordingly corrected my thought patterns), but the improving has finally stagnated.
My problem is, that I think I’ve lost my capacity to enjoy things. I simply don’t enjoy anything anymore. Occasionally, I can try to find things to laugh at, but those things are usually only temporary sources of laughter (the more “severe” the norm-violation, the funnier—if we go by Robin Hanson’s definition of “humor”). They’re not even sustainable sources of laughter (or enjoyment), since almost all of them involve trolling to one extent or another. I have some problems with energy/concentration, but my Adderall for ADD helps with them. But it’s still difficult for me to maintain the attention span to do most other things.
Yes, I do have friends, and yes, I do talk to people. The problem is that talking to people doesn’t make me feel any less lonely anymore. Sometimes it makes me temporarily feel better. I know that the world is interesting, that I have friends to talk to, that there are so many things I can do. And my past 12-year old self would be SO happy if he could exchange spots with me. But in the end, I just get bored with everything so quickly. Sometimes I can briefly find things to laugh at. But those are only funny for a short time.
So that’s what I’m trying to find a solution for. Maybe it sounds like depression—I don’t know. It’s not full head-on clinical depression, but since I’m frequently sad despite correcting all my destructive thought patterns, I don’t know what it is anymore.
So maybe I’m trying to find the best meds for that. But I’m very skeptical of SSRIs because they’re no better than placebo for mild-moderate depression. I have no sources for weed or other psychedelics. therapy might not even work because i’ve corrected my thinking (and even convinced myself that i probably will eventually land someone, simply because i’m super-exceptional at advertising myself online and that the chances will improve as I get older). but it’s not helping me feel any better.
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The problem is, I probably don’t even qualify for a diagnosis of depression. Here are the symptoms of dysthymia:
“”To be diagnosed, an adult must experience 2 or more of the following symptoms for at least two years:[5]
Feelings of hopelessness
Insomnia or hypersomnia
Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions
Poor appetite or overeating
Low energy or fatigue
Low self-esteem
Low sex drive
Irritability [1]""
But I have none of those other than irritability. My main problem is simply that I’m still lonely and sad. And it’s persisted, even though I’ve changed my thinking. I know that I have things better off than most people, but it’s not going to help if I’ve lost my capacity for enjoying things.
There was a thread on a related topic a bit ago. I didn’t read it in detail, but it might be useful: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2um/strategies_for_dealing_with_emotional_nihilism/
Before going to a psychologist or taking more drugs, try running.
Note: Progress slowly, so as to avoid injury. I made the mistake of increasing speed and distance at too high a rate and ended up getting injured.
This is tentatively offered, but it seems to me that you’re suffering from either the lack of novelty or the lack of perception of novelty.
Is there anything new you could add to your life? New activities (preferably as different as possible from what you usually do) and/or new surroundings?
You could be up against something physiological, in which case self-experimentation might be your best bet.
However, I’m also wondering whether you’re doing some sort of fast mental checking to see whether experiences are good enough to enjoy, and the experiences mostly fall short. In that case, it might also help to deliberately pay more attention to current experience.
Okay, very good point there. You do bring up good questions that I should continually ask myself, and I remind myself of them once I see an opportunity to change my own experiences. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for me to change (right now) since I’m in my last year of college and I need to put in the time so that I can get the GPA boost that it could offer to me (and also that I’m still dependent on parents).
I’m assuming that you’re of typical final-year age. You already know what I’m going to say: the last 7 months might have felt like years, but when you’re a bit older you’ll be able to look back and see the whole thing from a perspective in which it doesn’t dominate your life.
Make sure that you allocate some of your free time to activities away from the computer, especially outdoors and social ones!
A big change doesn’t sound feasible, but you might see if you can pry loose a few hours a week for something new.
One of my friends told me that meds can help with situational depression (which it sounds like you’ve got), so you might want to check on that, instead of just going with “meds don’t help mild-to-moderate depression”.
Can you expand on that?
InquilineKea wrote off ssri’s because they don’t seem to do much for mild-to-moderate depression in general. If my friend is correct that the drugs can be good for mil-to-moderate depression that has a situational cause, even if the drugs don’t reliably do anything for such depression that seems to happen for no particular reason, then the drugs should at least be investigated further.
Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear. I understood what you meant, but was interested in what evidence you had and whether you had a theory as to why that would happen. If anything, I would have guessed they’d work in non-situational cases and not situational ones.
No problem. I can check with my friend for details after the weekend.
First of all—I’m not a psychiatrist. This comment is just my personal view.
“Capacity to enjoy things” and depression are quite different. If you enjoy X, and you are attached to/addicted to/obsessed with X, then when you lose X, you are likely to feel depressed.
Maybe you should not get exposed to X (e.g. drugs) or not get addicted to X (e.g. gambling).
Maybe you should start with changing your attitude and/or preferences. Believing that you’ve lost capacity to enjoy things probably lead you to make confirmation bias. Also, the past is sunk cost, man. You can learn from it, but you can’t recover it. Sometimes people hang happiness with expectations they set, so when they don’t meet their goals, they are sad. This is not gonna help them with their future plans. The trick here is you should learn to lose. Losing is ok—be it relationship, competition, wealth, reputation, etc—as long as you have a will to go on. There’s nothing to irritate about, man. With bounded rationality, we make mistakes sometimes, and this is a natural part of life.
Some saints and volunteer workers live in horrible conditions but they find happiness in helping other people. On the other hand, some investors commit suicide after a stock market crashes and they learn their portfolios are worthless. It’s amazing, yet sad, to think about how people set preferences, attitudes and relate results to happiness. sighs
Good points. I like it how you approach this with a rationality-based perspective, especially with the point about the sunk costs. I’ve tried to appreciate that I don’t really need anything in life, as long as I have the ability to live comfortably. And fact is, it is possible to live comfortably, even if I am in poverty (as long as I have food, safety, and a computer with an Internet connection).
“Believing that you’ve lost capacity to enjoy things probably lead you to make confirmation bias. ”
That is true. The only problem is that this bias has actually proved helpful with many things. I’ve coded up the term “stimuli redundancy” to explain it. Most social activities become very repetitive after a while (I use the term “stimuli redundancy” to describe them). Why is it so? Because the majority of social activities seem catered towards people who don’t like to learn (or don’t like to feel like they have to learn). And thus I get bored of them quickly. I’ve tried to assume otherwise—to assume that I may enjoy things that I end up not enjoying. But that has led to disappointment (and my consistently staring at my watch, waiting for the time when the activity could just end).
Of course, a recent article said that people are happier when their minds are occupied (rather than left to wander).
“it is possible to live comfortably, even if I am in poverty (as long as I have food, safety, and a computer with an Internet connection).”
I doubt that. (a) Are you speaking of poverty in absolute or relative terms? (b) While I don’t like modeling needs like Maslow and others, I find your list of needs not sufficient—and a computer is not necessary.
“I’ve tried to assume otherwise—to assume that I may enjoy things that I end up not enjoying” Self deception is a paradox, and a paradox doesn’t work in normal conditions. So don’t assume anything.
“Because the majority of social activities seem catered towards people who don’t like to learn” Do you think social activities are for learning what you think they should learn? Most social activities are for socialisation, not for learning, dude. Besides, there’re a lot of things to learn, man, only if you are a little perceptive. By observing their stupidity, you may learn something. I find it amusing sometimes to take note of every day fallacies and write them in fiction. :P Besides, I am kinda person who blends in with them well. Sometimes I pretend to be a little stupid to be able to conform to the group. It can be a good chance for you to learn to adapt. Adaptation is a necessary skill unless you want to live in solitude (which is very difficult, if not impossible).
And even if you don’t like an event, maybe because your calculation that you could have higher utility by spending time elsewhere, you can leave, making up some excuses if you have to.
“recent article said that people are happier when their minds are occupied” You don’t have to be distracted to be happy. And that kind of happiness isn’t sustainable unless their minds are occupied all the time with repeatable and/or endless distractions. I want to say more, but I’m afraid topics in religious studies aren’t relevant on this forum.
“I doubt that. (a) Are you speaking of poverty in absolute or relative terms? (b) While I don’t like modeling needs like Maslow and others, I find your list of needs not sufficient—and a computer is not necessary.”
In relative terms. It seems that people in America who live in poverty are still rich enough to own TVs, refrigerators, and computers.
“Most social activities are for socialisation, not for learning, dude. Besides, there’re a lot of things to learn, man, only if you are a little perceptive. By observing their stupidity, you may learn something. I find it amusing sometimes to take note of every day fallacies and write them in fiction. :P ”
Ah yes, good point. I sometimes do that. The only problem is that it doesn’t come all the time so I’m still incredibly bored most of the time. :( Of course, adaptation is important, like you say, but I’m going to have to make myself happier first (and finish college as well) before I take the new challenge of adaptation.
“And even if you don’t like an event, maybe because your calculation that you could have higher utility by spending time elsewhere, you can leave, making up some excuses if you have to.”
Ah that;s a good point.
“”recent article said that people are happier when their minds are occupied” You don’t have to be distracted to be happy. And that kind of happiness isn’t sustainable unless their minds are occupied all the time with repeatable and/or endless distractions. I want to say more, but I’m afraid topics in religious studies aren’t relevant on this forum.”
Also good points, especially about the sustainability.
What are you expecting to learn at a social event?
Socialising consists of learning about other people, and their interests, and gaining an impression of their intellect, which later allows you to gauge the accuracy of factual statements they attempt to impart upon you. You must also, at the same time, cause them to find you interesting, and give them a good impression of your relevant intellectual capabilities, in order that they will actually respond to your requests in future.
Once you have become acquainted with people, then you can gain information through them; as well as, on occasion, gaining aid in various non-information based tasks (ie. moving house). In exchange, you will be expected to help them on occasion, and will perform and recieve verbal grooming/acknowledgement.
So you see, while socialising may look repetitive, it’s actually a very complicated task which the neurotypical human brain is specialised toward solving.
You sure about this? My psych classes taught about ‘depressive realism’, or “the proposition that people with depression actually have a more accurate perception of reality, specifically that they are less affected by positive illusions of illusory superiority, the illusion of control and optimism bias.” This was of course no consolation to me at the time.
I think both can be going on—there’s both rationality about one’s skills relative to other people, and a strong emotional belief that one isn’t a worthwhile person.
Depression is caused by whatever, but once depression chemicals are in place you keep being depressed. Changing the situation can lift the depression if you can get out of the depression thoughts, i.e. the depression chemicals clear. This makes more sense if you keep in mind that there isn’t really a software/hardware divide in the brain, and thoughts are not independent of the (corrupt) hardware they’re running on.
Sure. I think some cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches also stress changing your situation alongside your thought processes.
Could you clarify? I realize what you mean by the software/hardware divide, but I find it hard to think that most depressed people have corrupt hardware in the sense there’s something actually wrong with the physical substrate rather than how it’s working or wired itself (of course there is a connection in terms of susceptibility).
I just meant “corrupt hardware” in the usual local jargon sense.
Remember that the chemicals washing through the neural network and affecting its behaviour are an evolved-in part of the usual operations of the hardware. There is no firm hardware/software divide at all in the brain, everything interferes with everything else.
It sounds like what you’re going through is temporary, and still related to the relationship that ended 7 months ago. You’ve partially recovered, but you still have a ways to go and it’ll take time. For now you aren’t able to enjoy things, but at some point that will change. Some things that might help (in no particular order):
cognitive behavioral therapy
SSRIs
meditation
reading books about happiness (like this one)
falling in love with someone else
talking regularly with a close friend about what you’re going through
getting involved with a project that you really care about
You sound a lot like me, actually.
“Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities” is a textbook depression symptom.
And that’s another textbook symptom.
So yeah, you might want professional help.
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Semi-random thought: How do you feel about pets? If people aren’t relieving your loneliness any more, maybe a dog or cat will.
I’m with these guys, I vote you go try out a therapist. I am sure the UW has some program for students who want to talk to therapists.
The two non-drug interventions I know of that have good evidence to show them making a real difference are cognitive behavioural therapy, and exercise.
It’s possible to believe that at a conscious level but still have a contradictory lower level ‘belief’ that makes you feel bad.
Does it feel like someone is trying to convince you of something that doesn’t feel true, but you accept it because you can’t poke holes in their logic? Or does it feel like something that is just obviously true? If it’s the former, there might be more room for improvement by manually correcting your thinking patterns.
If you think you’ve run out of improvements at that level, you can get tricky and dig deeper- doing stuff like forcing yourself to smile and watching bloggingheads in the morning
That’s not true. Even Walmart sells more than one kind (seriously). Psychedelics could be a pretty powerful tool, but I’m not sure that it’s all that biased towards happy places- If you go this route, you’d want to make sure you knew what you were doing.
Oh, and exercise