Ask HN: Why are you depressed? [follow-up to the recent depression poll] | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why are you depressed? [follow-up to the recent depression poll]

8 pointsJacobSuperslav7 comments

I've been recently thinking about that poll https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25096877, the state of HN, and the IT industry in general. Most of my friends are code monkeys, just as I am, and I've been talking to them too.

Many of them are depressed. Several mentioned something about wanting to kill themselves over the years, but luckily they got help, which keeps them afloat somehow.

I was also depressed for a long time. In my case, the reasons were mostly external. 1. I needed money - I come from a more impoverished country - I was working too much, which prevented me from doing what I wanted to do in life. 2. I was not too fond of the place I was living in for multiple reasons. I changed both, + a few months of therapy and a few years of self-development, and I can finally say that I'm not depressed...

So I'm thinking about this a lot - why are people in IT so miserable? My interactions with people in other fields over the years tell me we are more depressed than, say, graphic designers.

The topic of depression interests me a lot in general. So I want to start a discussion here and ask a few questions:

1. Why are you depressed? 2. What would alleviate your depression? 3. What are you doing to achieve 2?

All the best to all of you.

We humans are social creatures and the internet is a poor substitute for real human interaction. I imagine we are at an all-time high for number of people feeling depressed this year due to the pandemic.

Throughout history, pretty much everyone belonged to some sort of community. Your neighbors, your fellow workers, your whole town if it was small enough. Us tech workers often work remotely, and even those in offices aren't getting enough human interaction.

The biggest thing to combat this is to get out into the real world and be around other people, but we can't do this right now, so we need to bide our time. The world has changed drastically and it's likely there will be some long term changes as a result, but it's important that when it is safe to do so, we try to resume our social lives. It's important for our health and for our humanity.

I would speculate that IT folks tend to be depressed moreso than others for two reasons. These are just my opinion.

First, we are trained to think logically so that we can create functional systems. These systems are expected to perform flawlessly. I think we tend to pick up on the illogical and flawed parts of life more than others do.

Second, people with high IQs have higher correlation with depression. With salaries in IT being relatively high, I believe this attracts more people with high IQs, although I don't know of any studies on that.

Both of these reasons really boil down to being disillusioned about life. Life is hard, life is short, and nothing is as easy as it has been made out to be.

I've dealt with medically diagnosed depression and ADHD since I was in my late teens. Studying engineering in college and not being diagnosed with ADHD until I was 22 lead to my darkest point of depression. Fortunately for me, my darkest point lead me to take academic leave and move to the bay area to work for an amazing crypto tracing company at the height of pre-scam era ethereum. Fortunately, I got help, turned things around and learned some valuable things about myself.

I keep falling into old patterns that hindered my ability to focus and improve in college. When I'm not getting in my own way I can do awesome things and feel happy.

Now I'm doubting that I'll be able to improve as an engineer fast enough or have the energy to maintain motivation to start a company. Seeing younger co-workers continue to improve faster than me, even at 26 is degrading. WFH has also been slowly crushing me. Even working for 2-3 focused hours a day is grueling at this point.

Look at the past. Computers are making us sad, mad, bad, but rarely glad. The subconscious works on us when we are not thinking. It brings up feelings we don't know what to do with because we don't understand them. The world is complex and we are sometimes tormented in our dreams. Technology is touted as a thing in itself. It all started so innocent. Just beepabopaboop. We crave meaning in our lives. Computers are not delivering this to us. Do we need more entertainment and trivia? We need to remember what it is that makes us who we are.

1. Tormented in dreams. Feeling powerless about other people's behavior during the pandemic. Weekly visit from family without masks and conspiracy bullshit each time. When I wore a mask they started crying and swearing. Now they're all into the anti-vax propaganda. I have been sick twice and I don't trust their behavior at all, but they refuse to listen and trust Fakebook/Youtube garabage instead.

2. End of the pandemic. Starting a new life

3. Wait

Past discussion, 19 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25096877

Everything seems like a losing game

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