= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ShannonFriedman comments on How to Deal with Depression - The Meta Layers - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (73)
This is the exact opposite of my experience. Mood tracking just makes me focus on how bad I feel. Thinking "this too shall pass" of bad moods and "carpe diem" of good ones makes me go "I know I'm biased the other way, but come on, at least pretend to be consistent". I know low points go away, but I know they'll come back worse so it's even more depressing. I know high points will come back, but I know they'll be weaker each time and that soon my best mood will be my current worst mood. Actually curing the depression is the only thing that helped.
Thanks for sharing this. Its the first time I've heard this response, but not surprising that many people have it.
Its my belief that learning what reality is for you is power, even if it is depressing, because then you can see results as you change things. If you go from extreme depression to moderate depression, you might realize it while tracking, when you otherwise wouldn't. If you realize that you have changed, you are much more likely to make lasting updates and continue in the right direction with new behaviors than if you don't know whether or not the new behaviors are doing anything.
It sounds like MixedNuts has a problem like mine-- a part of the self which is frequently poised to attack on just about any pretext. Here's a very extreme version.
I've gotten some relief from working on moving my sense of self from the attacking voice to the rest of me.
I'm not sure how much habitually looking at one's self from the outside (is this really possible? maybe it's a hypothesized outside) is a problem in itself, and how much it's only a problem if the outside view is a hanging judge.