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Jonathan_Graehl comments on Humans are not automatically strategic - Less Wrong
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I predict with p=0.95 that you have at least one micronutrient deficiency which is greatly contributing to your depression, and that starting to take a multivitamin regularly would be enormously to your benefit. I predict with p=0.6 that you are specifically deficient in thiamine, and that a single dose of sulbutiamine (a molecule that crosses the blood-brain barrier and then breaks into two thiamine molecules) would cause a large and sudden reduction in your depression. I am basing this on my own experience with thiamine deficiency (caused by T1 diabetes), which produced in me a specific type of apathy which I recognize in your comments.
Unless you either lied about taking a multivitamin to your current doctor, or ignored their advice to take one, fire him or her and find a new one. Also, thoroughly research every drug you're currently taking. At a minimum, search for the name of each one on PubMed, skim the first few pages of titles and read some of the abstracts. Don't adjust anything without consulting a qualified doctor, but do make sure to have that consultation.
Following up on this may be the most important thing you ever do.
EDIT: One other thing - if you're on antidepressants, you should be getting blood work, of the "large checklist of tests" variety, done on a regular basis. Make sure your TSH has been tested at least once in the past two years (result will be interesting with p=0.1, but very interesting if it is).
I have been getting blood work; everything always comes out just fine. (Yes, thyroid hormone is one of the things that's been checked.) And none of the many doctors I've been dragged to have told me to take vitamins, although my psychiatrist has occasionally asked about my diet. There are multivitamins in my house, but I stopped taking them a long time ago because they're these really annoying, very large chewable tablets the size of quarters.
In terms of vitamin deficiency, I'm actually most suspicious of vitamin B12. Both my maternal grandmother and my mother have low levels and get B12 injections regularly. (My mom is currently 60.) I once asked my psychiatrist to have my B12 checked, but I don't think it actually has been.
Also, the basic effect of my antidepressants has been "Well, I am more cheerful now, but my life still sucks every bit as much as it did when I wasn't taking them." I'll quote a doctor's anecdote:
Perhaps the difference between me on antidepressants and me off antidepressants is that, while on antidepressants, I was willing to go do my homework even though I'd rather touch a hot stove than do another problem set, while when off them, no amount of social pressure from my parents and other authority figures could make me open up my textbook and get to work, because I just couldn't make myself do it no matter what happened.
Right now, I'm not necessarily depressed because I have screwed up brain chemicals. I'm depressed because I'm a 28-year-old lazy bum who doesn't think he'll ever be able to get a job he can stand and keep it for any length of time, is supported by (and lives with) his parents, doesn't have any close friends, has never been in a romantic relationship, lives in fear of having his parents decide to stop supporting him, is endlessly frustrated by his mother's (completely justified) demands that he help her with various tasks because she has MS and can barely walk, and doesn't have any particular goals in life other than "escape it".
I think I can't cope with being my mother's caretaker any more; I need to get an income and get the hell away from my parents, but I don't think I can do that, so I just stay where I am and put up with the same shit that's been making me miserable for the past eight or so years. (Before then, I was often miserable, but for different reasons.)
But you seem to be quite smart. Sigh. I guess you know that you will be happier with a decent-paying and/or intellectually engaging job (even one you "can't stand"), because you'll then have a realistic chance for some of the things you want, so if taking antidepressants lets you tolerate finding and performing a job, then it makes sense to keep on using them. Without knowing you well enough, I'll still guess that it's unlikely that you "don't think you can" based on your actual ability and opportunity, but more because of the helplessness of depression (naturally I could be completely wrong).
Well... I've had some pretty bad experiences with employment. The last time I was employed, I sat in a cubicle and surfed the Internet all day while feeling guilty about not getting anything done. It was really awful. I once signed up with a temp agency. My first assignment lasted a week. After it was done, the customer complained about me (please don't ask why) and I was fired from the temp agency. Another time, I worked as a cashier at a supermarket, and I lasted all of three days before being fired for insubordination.
Money's never been a very big motivator for me. I've got over twenty thousand dollars sitting in the bank, so if I want to spend $50 on a video game, or $300 on a video game system, I can. And I have enough unplayed video games sitting on my shelf to last me a long, long time. What would I do with more money? Well, I did decide within the last 24 hours that I definitely can't cope with being my mom's caretaker any more, so I'd want to move out of my parents' house, and I'd want to get a cat, and I once calculated that it would cost me a few thousand dollars a year to play Magic: the Gathering competitively, but that's about it.
The usual "carrot-and-stick" approach to motivation doesn't work too well on me; I just give up on getting the carrots and resign myself to enduring the sticks. Is that what they call "learned helplessness"? I've had people trying to drum the lesson "you're going to have to do what you're told, regardless of what you want to do, and fighting will only make things worse" into me my whole life, and it seems like they were mostly right: as a child, you're pretty powerless to get what you want, if what you want is "not to go to school".
On the plus side, I think I could probably teach or tutor math without going crazy.
Most people find teaching (well) to be difficult. If you're good at it, then that's quite valuable.
What sense of valuable are you using here? I've seen very little evidence in my interactions with the education system that being good at teaching is highly valued either in terms of direct financial rewards or career prospects.
Effective tutoring would be very valuable to rich parents. Perhaps passively building your reputation wouldn't work; self-promotion would be necessary.
Public school teachers are well compensated overall over an entire career (including pension), although I doubt the job is very fun, and you're right that the rewards are in no way contingent on actually teaching well.
Are rich parents able to distinguish effective tutors? In my experience they largely hire based on elite education. Plus, most of their "tutoring" time is really guarding the child to make sure the child actually does homework. But there are also non-rich parents. I don't think that DAS should have any trouble getting hired and keeping tutoring positions for $20 or maybe $50 hourly, if he can find parents who want a tutor. This is a very different skill and I think the main determinant of people actually tutoring. (ETA: I seem to have missed JG's second sentence. Sorry.)
I poked around a little earlier today, and found a few sites that do paid online tutoring. This one was the most open about hiring new tutors of the ones I looked at. Their FAQ says that their most active Chemistry tutors earn $800-$1600/month. Even given that that's an upper bound, it may be worth looking into. (I lived pretty comfortably on $1200/month last year, with about Crono's expectation of lifestyle, and without having someone to share bills with.)
If you are really capable of playing Magic competitively if only you had the cards, etc., I would be glad to start you up, and you can pay me back whenever. But I would need to know that e.g. you are up-to-date on what decks/strategies work, tournament formalities (so you don't lose because of using the wrong "done with turn" indicator or tapping rotation angle), etc.
(I made this offer over a year ago, but was strongly criticized for having the proviso that Crono put his karma at stake to indicate seriousness and as a motivator.)
I'm not yet capable of playing professionally. I might be able to reach that level, but I'm not there yet. And by "playing professionally" I don't mean "play well enough to make a living at it." There are very few people in the world who have ever made enough money from Magic tournaments to live on, although the number of people who at least manage to make back their expenses is much larger. (The "several thousand dollars a year" figure is an upper bound and doesn't take into account potential winnings.)
I actually do have a plan to get better, though; if I can put up a good showing in a few tournaments, Zvi Moshowitz will let me join his Magic playing social circle. (I think.) The current plan is to wait for the next Pro Tour Qualifier season to start - it's Sealed Deck with the soon-to-be-released Scars of Mirrodin set - and just attend as many as I can get to while also getting in plenty of practice by playing on Magic Online.
I once knew a gamer, indeed an MtG player, who made a decent (though certainly not extravagant) living out of playing online poker. Smart guy. I never observed his poker skills first hand but he certainly kicked the shit out of me in MtG.
I don't know how difficult it is to use poker as an income source but you probably have the basic skill set (math/rationality/gaming) required for good poker playing.
Right now, I'm pretty bad at poker, and I never found it to be all that fun when I played it with my brother and his friends.
Just curious, do you name Zvi Mowshowitz because he comments here? :)
Sort of. I see him at the NYC LessWrong meetups.
Erm...
Unless Crono's disregarding his potential winnings, your question about whether he thinks he'd be able to earn money that way seems to have been answered.
Yes, but from earlier discussions he had suggested he'd be able to play professionally, so that's what I interpreted him to mean here, and the cost is gross rather than net, so he'd only need the first year's expenses to be self-sustaining.
So I was indeed sneaking in assumptions from earlier exchanges.
If that is gross, sure. I did mention that he might be disregarding potential winnings. It seems odd to me that he'd word it that way in that case, though.
Learned helplessness applies more to specific stimuli and specific rewards; what you're describing sounds more like general lack of energy. My advice is to tweak your biochemistry until you feel more energetic, and try the cubicle environment again.
Interesting. For sure you will need to save more money than that in the long run (when you are older and really not able to do much work).
It sounds good that you've decided that you need to move out, provided you actually do so.