I sense this is coming about because of an cultural emphasis on empathy and validation rather than resilience and mindfulness.

Personally, I group empathy, resilience and mindfulness under the umbrella of compassion, as I do recognition and acknowledgment. You can take all of those things and use them in an unhealthy way, but I don't think you can call them the same thing anymore if you do that.

I really do appreciate people being more authentic with their feelings and their vulnerability. It might not resonate with me when they do, but I'm not supposed to be a vessel for their shit, I can just recognise they have it and it's there. Same as I've got my own. And we're all dealing with something. I can also set a boundary and say I'm not in a place to go deep, but I hear ya; I don't have to open up to this all the time.

This has little to do with a privileged elite, I'm sure the privileged elite would rather you continue to suppress these things because it stops you talking about what makes you unhappy, and if you stop talking about that then maybe you don't start organising to change things. Meanwhile, there are plenty of societies outside of our Western bubble that happily engage at this deeper level instead of balking at it, or bottling up.

This may be harmful to that individual in the long run, so we should be careful about how often and how much we validate such feelings.

All too often do we conflate validation with the latter.

This reaction is generally unhelpful for the listener, as it basically asserts that (a) the listeners feelings don't exist / are not important or (b) that the listener is feeling the wrong emotions.

Validating emotion is "Yes, I understand why you feel that, having <thing> happen to <you/me> would certainly make someone feel <emotion> " e.g. "Yeah, when your friend criticized your cooking I bet that made you feel bad."

After validating the emotion (to create empathy, to create a safe space for conversation, and emphasize that you care about the person), you can then (optionally) suggest a different (more positive) thought e.g. "Perhaps your friend only meant to say that they love using melted butter on their own pasta, and was not trying to say that the pasta was dry." or supply context e.g. "Alice has been having a rough time at work the last few weeks, that might have been why she was short with you."

So validation of emotion is used to create acceptance ("we accept that emotion currently exists and is a reasonable feeling to have in that context") and to create a safe space for talking about emotions in general and the situation in which they arose. (It is especially useful when teaching children about emotions and teaching them to look at a situation objectively.)

Invalid emotions could exist, but usually an over-the-top emotion (and the actions that you take because of that) normally seem to occur because either (a) some sort of miscommunication occurred ("I thought we were talking about X") or that some sort of important context was missing ("You know, Bob lost his job last week, there's a reason he didn't come to the party, and it wasn't to slight you.")

While I can see where analogy of "make invalid states unrepresentable" is coming from, but I feel that how we talk about them can get in the way of changing them. "Emotional invalidation" is a good search term to find phrases that shut down opportunities for change.

or "correct" meaning "you are behaving as society expects you to behave in this situation" ?

I feel like you can swap 'validation' with 'confirmation' and these responses will make more sense. "I see you're struggling with something," vs. "I agree, this is the problem."

edit: In fact, aaron-santos in a sibling post has a more succinct explanation, in terms of correctness.

    it's not the large things that
    send a man to a
    madhouse...
    no, it's the continuing series of _small_ tragedies
    that send a man to the madhouse...
    not the death of his love
    but a shoelace that snaps
    with no time left...
    the dread of life
    is that huge swarm of trivial shit
    that can kill quicker than cancer
    and which is always there--
    [list of trivial shit]
    
    with each broken shoelace
    one of one hundred broken shoelaces,
    one man, one woman, one
    thing
    enters a
    madhouse. 

Why would or should social interactions change? I temporarily changed my behavior to help limit the spread of covid. But now that vaccines are doing there thing, I'm going back to my old activities.

Some people did some introspection and realized they were caught up in societies bull shit. They should be able to discuss that, instead we have internet tough guys talking about how they think we're babying mental illness or think people who are just expressing them selves are mentally weak and we need to just get back to work, that's how the world is. Except we just has a year and a half where that wasn't the case. In some ways the world was actually easier to deal with.

I read the article, but I will admit it doesn't really "make sense" to me. If I don't like something I don't do it or I try and change it, so it becomes something that doesn't bother me. If you don't want to be involved in certain social settings then don't go. I don't get why "Society" needs to change because some people prefer not to be around people. Its perfectly fine that you prefer less social interaction but many people are the complete opposite and that's also okay.

Society wasn't created in a vacuum to create a way of life you feel most accustomed to, that then becomes immutable. It changes all the time. and you don't notice it until it's too late because it happens so gradually.

So it will now. Society could shift to accommodating these other people and you wouldn't notice it, because you already do the thing it is shifting towards, which is maintaining better boundaries for yourself.

But yesterday, for example, I was at the gas station buying a pop and two kids were right up next to me while their mom waited behind me in line. If I had lifted my elbow, I would have caught one of them in the face. I don't hate kids, but I have a personal bubble and that was respected over the last year. I'm really not excited to go back to having strangers brushing up against my hips and sides again. It's not the end of the world, but it unsettles me and I don't feel like a foot or two of space in a store is really that much to ask.

I think it's largely a subjective concept and we all take different meaning from it, but I developed some of this thinking after reading The Compassionate Mind.[1]

[1] https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-compassionate-mind

If you think this year was simply "adult responsibilities" getting to people, you may be the one with empathy issues (if not a bucketload more).

But this behavior was never rational risk-reduction; it was always a result of the incredible fear-programming. Granted if you're making a point that trauma isn't always rational and can be induced unnecessarily by external sources I'm with you there.

I would really like to see less navelgazing about the emotional trauma of the Zoom class (not talking about you but the whole "elite" socioeconomic class in general - software engineers, management consultants, etc etc), and more recognition of the harms of suspension of elective surgeries (here in CA all elective surgeries were suspended statewide for a month despite a surplus of ICU beds and despite the fact that even if ICU beds were at capacity not every elective surgery warranted being cancelled), of having a parent or grandparent dying alone because the hospital wouldn't let you in the same room as them, of even the "little" things like cancelled dental checkups, missed allergy shots, missed pediatric appointments etc

By the way, I do feel the need to mention this because it's not recognized enough: the closer someone is to death (as are most of the people at genuine risk of COVID-19), the higher the relative cost of spending a year of avoiding physical contact with loved ones. If your parent has only an expected value of 2 years left then they could easily spend 75% of that being deprived of social interaction and physical contact from loved ones. That's no small thing.

Let's say there's a 1/1000 chance in infection of the parent if the [adult] child is actively infected during a brief outdoor hug. The chance of the child being currently infected depends on the current base rate but for the napkin's sake let's put it at 1/10. (As an aside, in actuality while there is evidence of pre-symptomatic transmission for SARS-CoV-2 the overwhelming evidence shows that asymptomatic transmission doesn't occur so just a heuristic of "am I actively sick or not" gets you good risk management anyway but let's avoid that for now)

Now let's say that the chance of the parent dying or having a seriously bad outcome given SARS-CoV-2 infection is 1/10.

That brings us to (1/1000) * (1/10) * (1/10) = 1 death per 100,000 of these hug-events. If we stick with my earlier example of someone with 2 years of life expectancy, that would factor out to (365*2*24*60)/(10^5) = 10.512 minutes "lost" per hug, if we assume that hugging someone doesn't have any positive effects on their physical wellbeing whatsoever.

We've based our whole society around everyone just being expected to be fundamentally financially insecure. The difference between upper-middle class and poor is how much junk I can buy, it doesn't make me any less insecure about all the big expenses that are required for me to live and work -- my pantry, my rent, my car, my health. I grew up poor and I thought having money would make it better. That when people say they don't have to worry about money they meant it. But what it really meant for me was you stop having to worry about small day-to-day expenses but I stil have the sword of damocles over my head for the big stuff.

Empathy is a good thing and understanding that outside of the really really rich we're all in a similar situation is a good thing.

I’m just working on emigrating to a country with a better social safety net. I’d rather pay more in taxes (though tbh it’s about the same) and not have to worry anymore.

I am glad to hear it!

> have realized how precarious it still is. I can weather small car emergencies but when it comes to medical bills, that’s a different story.

Would you mind elaborating a bit about your situation especially regarding health insurance? It seems like healthcare varies so much based on what health insurance one has.

Could you expand on that? It sounds like you and your partner work full-time. Do you and/or your partner get medical insurance through work? Do you get disability insurance? Do you have an emergency fund?

Maybe I am reading too much into 'remarkably better off financially'. I would like to see where you are coming from but I am having trouble.

"This" meaning reading articles about mental health, or "this" meaning people experiencing mental health?

People have had mental health issues forever. People have openly talked about them only in the past few years, when social media gave the whole world an outlet to talk about whatever they want with (usually) no real-world consequences(exceptions exist, obviously).

I mean, when I was in college it wasn't quite as open so I didn't go around telling people that I sometimes daydream of walking in front of traffic. When I was working my first office job I didn't let many people know that I had panic attacks sitting at my desk for essentially no good reason.

I'm glad I personally found out how to improve my mental state, but it's crazy to me to suggest that having a cultural emphasis on empathy and acceptance is causing people to experience mental health issues. That seems backwards to me.

I guess it could also be viewed as implicitly bragging about getting the vaccine (if that's the reason they're "reentering society"), but that follows less directly imo

That’s a surprising (to me) way to characterize those who were extremely cautious around COVID.

Another honest question if you don’t mind: I assume you stop at red lights (a system designed, installed and run by the government). Do you self-identify as someone who stops at red lights because you’re “pro government control”? I mean stopping no doubt interferes with your rights to travel, slows down your forward progress and lastly seems to be sold as “yes it’s an inconvenience but it protects both you and your community”.

It’s worth observing that gang members, murderers and the like most likely stop at red lights. Do they do it because they’re “pro-government control?” I posit not. It’s more likely they accept the inconvenience and they accept the temporary delay in their rights to travel because they’ve done the calculus of risk vs reward. Risk to both themselves and others. We all choose to stop because it’s the safest thing for everyone.

This paints me in a somewhat negative light--in the spirit of honesty--prior to flashing left turn signals, I often didn't. Well, I probably stopped and looked both ways, but I didn't necessarily obey. I think this is completely tangential to your point though.

I do try to be a good citizen to my neighbors and friends. I pick up garbage and keep my house clean. I live on a private road (not fancy, just not publicly maintained.), and I help maintain that.

I try to walk faster when a car is waiting for me to cross. I do things I believe help my community, but I also break rules if I disagree with them. I would argue with my parents if I believed their reasoning was lacking, and generally if I obeyed a command of theirs even though I disagreed it was from fear of retribution.

To steel man your argument, I think what you're saying is that being pro COVID vaccine isn't necessarily being pro-government control, and people are taking the vaccine purely to help others in society.

I agree, there are definitely people that fall in this category. I still believe that the overwhelming majority of people that have taken the vaccine also are happy that views like mine are censored, think the government is doing a great job promoting this vaccine and do support lockdowns. It's hard for me to separate the two opinions because such a seemingly overwhelming majority of people with one of these opinions have all of them.

I think taking the vaccine if you believe it is healthy and helps others is a good thing for you to do. That said I think blocking me from speaking against vaccine requirements, and or being able to discuss how the vaccine might be unhealthy

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/spike-proteins-covid-19-and...

Is atrocious and has no place in a free society. Yet, this is happening. Not only that, but I'm worried I'll be forced to be vaccinated to live a normal life, even though I have COVID antibodies.

From my vantage, it's difficult to remain optimistic because of what I perceive as a governmental overreach being supported by the majority of people. I legitimately feel threatened, and that makes it hard for me to be un-biased.

Edit: Just realized my link may not make sense without a bit of context. Essentially it's saying a lot of the damage done by COVID is caused by the spike protein itself. The mRNA vaccines cause your body to produce the spike protein. I'm not saying _you_ should be convinced because of this link, I'm just giving an example of why I'm skeptical.

Having said all that, did you fully read your own link? It does mention that the spike protein can cause damage to lung tissue and other things as well. But there's also these two paragraphs which seem extremely relevant, in that they directly contradict the implicit claim you're making that the spike proteins produced in reaction to the mRNA vaccine are dangerous just like the ones on the virus itself:

> The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines produce the full-length spike protein. Pfizer studied several formulations initially, but found that the full length protein vaccine had fewer side effects and was better tolerated than other vaccine candidates, so that is the one they went with. It is also likely that the full protein contains more epitopes (sites for immune activity) and therefore produces more thorough and longer lasting immunity. The proteins, however, are in a fixed state, they are unable to change their confirmation, which is necessary to bind to cells. So they function differently than spike proteins on infecting virus.

> After the Pfizer vaccine full spike proteins are expressed on the vaccinated cells for presentation to the immune system. But the vaccine-induced proteins do not appear to cause any harmful effects. This may be because the vaccine is administered in the muscle, and so muscle cells are the ones taking up the mRNA and making spike proteins. There is a vigorous immune response which neutralizes the spike proteins before they can cause any harm. This is very different from a virus replicating throughout the body.

I firmly believe getting vaccinated is a personal choice so I'm not trying to pressure you. But your concerns seem to be directly called out as unsubstantiated and not backed by evidence according to your own source.

> This may be because the vaccine is administered in the muscle, and so muscle cells are the ones taking up the mRNA and making spike proteins.

Dr. Bridle discusses how the spike proteins can leave the shoulder muscle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sis1Sddzbqk

Which was found after filing a freedom of information request with the Japanese government. Study translated into english. https://files.catbox.moe/0vwcmj.pdf

Either way, there's still no possibility for long term evidence of safety, and I have COVID antibodies from the disease itself, so why would I take the vaccine?

Try to be more compassionate of others and assume better intent.

Sure, fair as well. It's under emergency use authorization--not technically experimental.

Experimental may be strong, but it at least somewhat aptly describes a vaccine that uses a novel technology that still does not yet have FDA approval.

> pure, unadulterated conspiracy nonsense

My use of experimental seems a bit logical to me, but I understand if you disagree. That said, your dismissal is quite shallow and leads me to believe you're unwilling to have a real discussion on the topic as my opinion is just `unadulterated conspiracy nonsense`.

I believe more speech is the solution to bad speech. If you disagree with me please engage in an honest non-dismissive manner and we'll both become more informed even if you're right, you'll at least understand why I'm misinformed.

The reason I didn't assume good faith, and still don't, is that you described people who stayed indoors for a year as "obedient shut-ins" and attributed their behavior to them being on the "government control side of things." And now you're complaining about how you cannot post anything without getting downvoted and are trying to turn the tables by pretending to be someone who just wants to have an honest conversation.

(1) I believe both Moderna and Pfizer are in the process of seeking full FDA approval for their mRNA vaccines. Assuming they succeed, is it safe to say your opinion of the vaccines will change accordingly to a less-contrarian view?

(2) My understanding (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) is that your view is one looking to protect against tail risk, which can be summarized with the following statement: 'Absence of evidence of risk is not sufficient'. In other words, you want sufficient evidence that mRNA vaccines are safe, rather than accepting an EUA based on demonstrated effectiveness and lack of known risk[0].

My question is whether you're willing to reconsider the above statement as the absence of evidence of risk continues in the face of overwhelming distribution of the vaccine? For example, J&J was paused after just 8 million doses. Pfizer and Moderna are an order of magnitude higher on doses (on the order of about 100 million doses). Even if we're modelling against the risk of a side-effect that takes many months, or even somehow years, on average to materialize, on a bell curve many many vaccine recipients would already have materialized the side effects. (IE if materializing under 3 months is a 5 sigma event, we would have had enough adverse effects materializing to halt the use of the vaccines, similar to how J&J was halted after something like 6 or 8 observed blood clottings)

Furthermore, my understanding is that FDA approval is based on having 6 months of phase 3 clinical trial safety data (and EUA based on 2 months of the same). The number of people enrolled in phase 3 clinical trials of mRNA vaccines is so few compared to the total number of vaccines (I think 40,000 in pfizer phase 3 trials), it is absurd to consider that new issues could show up in phase 3 trials that had not already demonstrated en masse in the hundreds of MILLIONS of doses given out in the public. It's statistically impossible.

With that in mind, I would suggest that waiting until FDA full approval is basically pointless; if you're worried about side effects that take decades on average, the FDA won't be able to save you from that, and if you're worried about side effects that take months on average, we would already know about it from the hundreds of millions of willing volunteers.

[0] Lack of known risk: the J&J vaccine was halted and investigated immediately when there was a potential blood clotting issue. No such potential risks have yet been uncovered with Pfizer and Moderna, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

I believe my views will be contrarian as long as I live under a large government. The biggest issue for me though is being told to obey without being convinced. The more persecuted I feel, the more I have a desire to backlash. When Alex Jones was de-platformed I was like, huh, guy's crazy, so why would they want to remove him. He's a joke, not a real threat right? Then suddenly Youtube included a CDC banner on its home page and started removing content that was at all critical of the CDC's authority. I then started finding more and more evidence of control that frankly scares me.

So, yeah I would maybe be a bit more measured if it was FDA approved, but at this point the degree of cooperation between tech/media/government on this messaging has me actually terrified.

Regarding (2), yes I would like proof of absence of harm--which is what I believe you're asking. Unfortunately, I do want that over the long term. I see the point you're making, but for my age group, I'm just as safe to get COVID itself and self isolate while I have it (which I did inadvertently). From all evidence, having had COVID is better than the vaccines themselves, but that's not at all considered when people are requiring a card to eat at a restaurant or go to a gym.

@helen___keller IDK if there's a thread depth limit or something, but it's been 15mins and I still can't reply, so I'm writing here.

In my area, there are limitations at gyms such that you cannot workout without a mask unless you've got a vaccine card. Restaurants just require a mask unless you've been vaccinated--thought I've not seen them check. I personally don't try to skate around the requirement (lie). I just wear the mask. I admit, that's not the same as not allowing admission, but I've only seen these sort of restrictions pick up, but not back down. As such, I am afraid further restrictions for un-vaccinated are coming.

I'm jealous that you don't have the restrictions in your area, and we are looking at moving.

I understand how you feel, although I don't personally relate. I'd urge you to consider that whatever truth exists in the world is independent of your government. There are countries with more free and less free governments, places with vaccine passport systems and places where vaccines are basically nonexistent. The truth of whether mRNA vaccines are safe and effective is the same in all of these places.

> the degree of cooperation between tech/media/government on this messaging has me actually terrified

Again, this is understandable, but at the end of the day this is just, for lack of a better phrase, how the world works. It's capitalism, basically. Tech/media control the vast vast majority of marketing. Government wanted to do marketing to make people more confident in the vaccine or encourage people to wear masks or whatever. Obviously the marketing was not effective on you.

But at the end of the day the truth of whether these things were effective, useful, or needed is completely orthogonal to the fact that government got buddy with tech/media to promote them.

> that's not at all considered when people are requiring a card to eat at a restaurant or go to a gym

Is this happening for you? Just wondering. Where I am, pandemic rules are gone entirely except for requiring masks on public transit and in medical settings.

Again, that's a fair point and I will do so, but that's completely missing how people on my side of things are being driven to this.

I can't say something like "I had covid so I'm not getting the vaccine." on Facebook without having an algorithm shadow ban my post.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/29/facebook-wh...

I can't post my opinions here without being madly downvoted. I post legitimate evidence of the censure of my opinions and am downvoted.

Youtube removes any videos critical of the Government's handling of COVID, and state governments gives beer and ice cream to people willing to take an experimental vaccine.

This post will be downvoted into oblivion. When people on my side can't have a conversation with people on the other side, how are we supposed to maintain positive outlooks?

What tribe am I in? Am I republican? Christian? Anti-science? Anti-vax?

I'm actually neither of those. What tribalism are you assuming of me?

Could it be that I just have some contrarian viewpoints and have noticed those systemically squashed over the last year and a half.

> ... your inability to see good in others ... is what is leading to your feelings of social censure?

This idea completely washes over the very real fact that tech Cos and the Government are censoring alternative opinion.

When someone posts a picture of a salad I don't suggest they're signalling their dietary virtue. When someone posts a picture of them hanging out with their friends I don't suggest they're signalling their virtue of being popular. Sometimes people post about things and it's fine to just ignore them and move on if it doesn't appeal to you.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/29/facebook-whis...

It's easy to fall into a trap of thinking negatively of everyone on the other side. Particularly when it's hard to even have a conversation like this one.

The original statement while likely not humble bragging or what not, does at least immediately announce what side you're on. If a conservative or libertarian did the same, they'd probably be chastised.

It takes a lot of thinking to get from a simple statement of fact (or relief) to what you're suggesting, which is loaded with assumptions to an incredible degree.

In terms of whether these kinds of posts are virtue signalling or not, what wouldn't be virtue signalling in your mind? Just not saying anything? I'm not a huge social media user myself, but more extroverted people seem to enjoy posting what's happening in their lives. COVID and its various consequences certainly falls into that category.

Absolutely, but on a Venn diagram, it's a very large crossover.

> what wouldn't be virtue signaling in your mind? Just not saying anything?

These criticisms are completely valid. What I'm saying is it's easy to start seeing people as enemies when your views are actively stifled by tech Cos, downvoted into oblivion for being at all contrarian to general consensus on COVID, and the Government not only pays for vaccines, but runs lotteries for vaccinated people.

I agree that reading into comments too much is a bad thing, but this is what people on the other side of things are doing--particularly since they are basically disallowed from voicing theirs.

It appears at least that your perception of others as being for increased government control, a property you infer about them rather than how they describe themselves, has meant you haven't had to think carefully about the merits of lockdowns, emergency FDA approval for novel vaccines, or other measures seen in the past year. They're suspicious machinations of the government therefore we can reject them out of hand, evidently.

It is a virtue for advertisers.

This type of judgement about mental health is what drove Naomi Osaka to withdraw from Roland Garros yesterday.

It’s about time that as society we open up about mental health and how to deal with our issues, instead of blaming the people with the issues and calling them weak or snowflakes. People with issues need help, not bullying.

Absolutely. True mental health issues need clinical diagnosis and treatment. Things like CBT and antipsychotics have saved the lives of many people with psychological disorders, and modern mental health treatment is as valid as any other area of medical science.

But the type of "therapy culture" the parent describes is absolutely obnoxious, self serving, and all pervading among the upper and middle class. People have been so convinced, jeered on by social media, of this pseudo-Freudian nonsense about deep seated emotional traumas requiring therapy, that the real issue of mental health has been conflated with feeling annoyed about having to respond to work emails or being bummed about a breakup.

What I'm seeing is a sort of "pop-therapy" where people self diagnose and then wallow in it looking for sympathy while not making sincere efforts to overcome what they have to deal with.

The thing about depression is that it makes making an effort hard.

You can feel hopless, have no energy (even to get out of bed, shower, brush your teeth, or feed yourself), and be full of slef-recrimination and self-loathing on top of that. The more they don't do the worse they feel, leading to a worsening spiral.

It's easy to say that the sufferer should just make the effort to get out of this state, but it is the nature of depression to prevent that. The lucky ones can do it, but many others can't.

Saying to a depressed person that they should make the effort is like telling a gambling addict not to gamble, an alcoholic not to drink, or a person with an eating disorder to just eat less.

It's a lot easier said than done, and what keeps them from doing so often runs a lot deeper than people who make offhand dismissals realize.

Therapy and medication can help, but every solution comes down to individual effort, and nobody can do it for you.

It is important to recognize that falling into depression, addition, and neurotic behavior IS a personal failure, as only then can someone forgive themselves and seek change. Acceptance, accountability, and agency are key

Have you considered that people with issues might not even be capable of doing this? That they could have a very low sense of agency and maybe no idea about the real root causes of their issues, and they might have tried a thousand times to “fix” them without success?

>Have you considered that people with issues might not even be capable of doing this?

Nobody can do it for them. Friends, medication, and therapy can help, but progress is impossible without individual intention and agency.

Mental health isn't like a broken leg that someone can fix for you.

Do you have any numbers/stats or links to backup this claim? What does “all pervading” mean here according to you?

Also, please don’t be so quick to dismiss or trivialize other people’s issues. Even if to you, from the outside, those issues seem petty or superficial, they could be incredibly bad and debilitating for the people suffering from them.

Look at how hard your parents work for you, and here you are not doing this and that, or doing something that don’t match our values.

And this is a constant lifelong guilt-burden that they utilize. It’s almost as if they feel entitled to something just because they had to do stuff in life ... like work a blue collar job.

The stuff that the new American generation is doing is a remix of that age old form of abuse.

I've heard this over and over throughout my life, usually presented as a self-evident just-so truism.

My workplace threw a mental health awareness event with a conspicuous absent of any specific persons mental health issues being discussed. I've noticed various authority figures offering to be a figure to cry on who were stoic about their own personal problems. Even this specific post is not an admission of any mental health problems, it's shaming others for blaming and bullying, and calling for society to open up. The linked post does contain a lot of opening up, but it doesn't really advocate for it and has a ton of fatalism wrapped into it .

"People with issues need help" is thrown out there, yet help is a scarce resource. I see that according to every statistic, we're about as anxious and depressed and as open about mental health as we ever have been, and suicide rates have been on the rise for awhile. All I hear in response is the answer is more openness, openness will fix these problems that we're simply more aware of than in the past. I'm more inclined to believe that people who are highly open are more likely to talk about mental health issues in the first place, and their personal biases eventually start to pass as common wisdom.

I can't help but reject the concept that opening up is the answer and am more drawn towards stoic views and the idea that discretion about your own difficulties can have virtues for yourself and others. I'm drawn more towards private discussions of such issues, with consideration for how such discussions may impact others and yourself as being the most socially and emotionally intelligent option.

The focus on openness for mental health, to the exclusion of all other solutions, is about productivity and hierarchies.

Employers and managers aren't ready for their employees to take care of their mental health. That would often involve paying for them to have better access mental health care. That would often involve them having relatively sudden and/or extended absences (followed by greatly improved health and much better productivity!) and they're not going to pay people for extended breaks. It would often involve adjustments to the way people perform work and interact with management. It would likely involve removing a lot of abusive people from management roles, since they are likely causing a lot of these mental health issues.

People with authority are not prepared for a system that accommodates mental health issues in a serious way.

Because, under what circumstances would that ever be a good idea?

> I can't help but reject the concept that opening up is the answer and am more drawn towards stoic views and the idea that discretion about your own difficulties can have virtues for yourself and others.

Well put.

I imagine the parent poster you're responding to would agree with me that the problem here is centering your identity on weaknesses instead of focusing on what you can improve.

I've had my share of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts, but as with anything else in life it really doesn't matter much what other people say about you and those things but how you alone deal with them. Obviously other people can play a part in this but at its core, success is exclusively individually based.

Luck plays a huge role in success though. Literally every breakthrough experienced in my life wasn't because I worked very hard but because I was at the right time at the right place. Yes I wasn't lazy but I still won't lie to myself the same way I lie to HR & recruiter types who want to hear how X led me to Y. (X and Y were so far apart that only a miracle could explain what motivated me to "pivot").

Humans are all blinded by hindsight when we are asked to tell the story that made us (or broke us). People parrot Ayn Rand about "being the master of our success" because it makes us sound so much more virtuous than admitting we were at the right place at the right time, instead e.g.: Some poor maggots born in a 3rd world slum getting their limbs chopped as a child and sent to beg. Or that old homeless guy who has been set on fire twice who they call "the beggar king" who is always at the Frankfurt railway station, and who has a story about his father injecting him smack when he was 9 to get him hooked (and under better control). The majority that we tend to forget about simply never gets a chance. We don't count them because the only thing they are good for is so we feel better about our own great life which is perfectly visible when put into the contrast of such people.

Longitudinal effort is what allows luck to work for you. If you keep trying things every single day, some of that luck will "compound" and pay off.

The problems were already there.

That includes the problems with personal boundaries, with the general brokenness of requiring people to come into the office every day (very extrovert-centric and environmentally disastrous), with income/wealth disparities, with crappy health care, with "truth decay" and preferring Twitter/YouTube conspiracy theorists to actual experts, etc. People have had ample opportunity to look at how we've built our society and consider whether previous decisions had been the right ones, and an increasing number are saying NO.

This story fits right into that, particularly wrt boundaries and mental health issues. All of the comments trying to reestablish extrovert/neurotypical hegemony by flinging names and insults at anybody who doesn't "fit the mold" are just incredibly privileged and offensive. FFS let's allow people to be how they want to be, be open about their needs, cope how they can, and work the way they're most effective.

I hear this general refrain a lot, and something about it has always sounded wrong to me. What do people mean when they say "deal with our issues?" The way this sentiment is conveyed makes it sound like there is some promised land of mental health around the bend, if only enough people have the "right" attitude about it.

I'm not particularly convinced that there's much of any stigma against mild mental health issues these days. And by mild, I mean normal problems that most people will encounter in their lives (ie, OCD, anxiety, depression, etc.) In fact, a lot of people are actively encouraged to talk about their mental health problems, to a degree which would have been unthinkable in the 1950s. Generally, I think this has been a net positive for society. I know a lot of people who had they been born in an earlier time might have been marginalized, or felt that they were truly broken, rather than simply being neurotic. But, I also believe there are eventually diminishing returns to this approach. Constantly focusing on your problems and your negative emotions can have very perverse incentives. It's possible to become addicted to your own misery, and it's also possible to become addicted to the relief and the closeness that comes from people trying to sooth your psychological trauma. Generally speaking, any extreme emotions can be addicting, and moderation is not the same as repression.

Given that we keep talking about mental health issues more and more, but suicide rates for teens are generally increasing, I'm very skeptical that having more "conversations" about mental health is going to do much good at all. In the least, most of the "conversations" I see about mental health mostly have to do with putting on a big show of empathizing with the victim, who themselves are putting on a big show of displaying their emotions.

Now of course, if "conversations" about mental health means something different, such as an analytical approach to causes of trauma and positive mental health outcomes, then I'm all for it.

As someone with ADHD, anxiety/depression, and chronic migraines; the bullshit conversations and 'management' meetings I've had to sit through because people very much still don't have any understanding of these issues is staggering. While I am not getting fired for calling out twice or thrice in a week once in a while, that's mostly due to me being in a "knowledge worker" job, if I was in a customer facing job or other position that requires "butt in seat hours" I am certain that I would have already gotten canned 100 times over due to these mild mental health issues; because quantity attendance is more important that quality attendance in a lot of jobs.

OCD isn't a "normal thing that most people will encounter" problem, neither is depression, neither is anxiety; OCD isn't some "lol I need to fill my gas tank to a round dollar amount," depression isn't "boy howdy did I feel sad for a few weeks after that break-up," anxiety isn't "that was a bit stressful firing that employee." You can feel depressed without having depression, you can feel anxious without having anxiety, you can be exacting without having OCD; but none of the prior are mental illnesses while all of the latter are. So, while the __feeling__ has been normalized, the actual illness absolutely hasn't been; and from experience it's been made more difficult by the generalizing of the words, where now people equate the action/feeling with the much more serious illness - so now I have to spend time explaining how debilitating the actual illness is, just to have people go "well I feel depressed sometimes, and I'm here."

Quite frankly, one of the many reasons folks have to put how bad things are or can get out there is due to this conflation of the feeling with the illness; so you seeing these expressions of "things are actually this bad for me," and conflating it with "emotional porn" because "everybody experiences things like OCD, depression, anxiety, etc" is actually a perfect example of why I can very confidently say that the stigma about mental health hasn't changed that much; it's just been repackaged with a nicer bow.

Refusing to encourage a narcissist is not the same as bullying them. I hope he gets the help he needs, but he's going to have to want it first.

But we don't get that, and we'll never get that. Understanding that our society is incapable of doing this in public is fundamental to navigating one's own mental health.

And part of that is recognizing that if being open about mental health is considered virtuous, then people will work really hard at providing (counterproductive) cosmetic attempts of "openness" to mental health.

Then it's their responsibility to seek it out. If you're privileged enough to lead the life described in the article, you can also afford to visit a therapist on a weekly basis. Otherwise, you can't suddenly expect the general public to treat you with sympathy, particularly if you're among the hyper-rich or otherwise elite.

Why shouldn’t everyone treat everyone else with sympathy? Why should people be “deserving” of some basic human respect? I’ve only lived my own life, not anyone else’s, so I’m in no position to judge others.

A lot of people that maybe should seek help might not be capable of doing so, probably because of taboos, trauma or other issues.

So you can’t offer your assistance, but you still spend your time offering criticism in the form of judgmental comments to their stories. That doesn’t seem very respectful.

Sure.. but what if despite knowing that they still don't?

A lot of people suffering from depression don't seek help despite knowing they should. They watch themselves sinking deeper and deeper, and their lives gradually falling apart and don't ask for help, or even when they do they might not follow through with what they need to do to improve their lives.. from missing therapy appointments, to not taking medication, to not taking the little steps to improve their lives.

There are various reasons for that, but the bottom line is that many of them don't, and no amount of finger wagging at them is going to change that.

Mental health is something that should be taken seriously, not spammed on the internet or commoditized.

Nobody's forcing you to read this.

There's exhaustive discussion of mental health issues in every corner of society. In some corners of society, people announce their mental health issues before even telling you their name.

> People with issues need help, not bullying.

Yes, but some discernment is necessary to distinguish between the ones that need help and the ones that need the HTFU. There isn't enough help to go around for everyone that claims to have issues.

When people are rewarded with fawning attention and privilege because of their issues, you've incentivized people to have issues.

The “brain chemistry imbalance” story is very outdated. That’s not what researchers and scientists think depression is.

We are highly trained workers. We're closer to the workers in construction or the other trades more than anything else. We just happen to get paid more, due to market circumstances.

The actual elite are trying to drive our salaries down every day.

Edit:

And even if after reading my comment you still think we're the elite, check out any "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27355390

Their world got rocked by a race to the bottom, and a push towards lower-quality, rushed journalism, and yes, fake news and clickbait. Something that some of the people on this very board have absolutely helped enable.

The same thing will happen to us too. Computer programming won't be looked on seen as a highly-trained or lucrative skill, and we'll be pushed out and left to wither by some new profession who have been tricked into believing they're smarter than all the others.

This cycle has played out before, and it will play out again. Try and have some compassion for those under you, the same way you'd appreciate it when it's your turn.

I think we should all acknowledged there's well to do peasants (us), and then there's true elites. There are more levels of wealth than are typically acknowledged in conversations like this, and it leads to very muddy arguments.

Denying problems exist if they don't affect you doesn't solve them.

Just not the wrong kind of rebellion where you might be exposed to an opinion that doesn't give you good vibes, right?

This website is in the shadow of tech in general and the valley in particular. HN doesn't mirror that culture, but does reacts to it. The culture here is visibly molded by the ongoing cultural rot in the Bay Area and Tech. If you're good at sniffing out the trends IRL, you can watch in real time how attitudes shift here in the following few months.

Why should anyone put on a show that lets you feel "playful, exuberant, rebellious" if soaking in ""tech" culture" has caused the attitude of regular people to come out of alignment with the safe-for-tv entertainment you seek?

Absolutely this. Middle/upper class America has been doing this for the last decade, and it's left a horrible impression on our youth. I'm not going to teach the next generation of kids to give up so easily.

This is kind of like the trade offs with being social or being extremely focused with little time and energy allocated to socialization. Committing to spending the time and energy to be social might generate great value from weak connections but it might also generate or expose conflicts and reveal that hardly anyone in your community sees or values things the way you do. Neither way of living is whining, they are just different ways of living.

Comparing ways of living is always full of opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding, but being ready or even anxious to judge others negatively limits the ability to evaluate alternatives in a cool and realistic manner.

Oh, you have the gall to mention how depression or anxiety manifests in your life? You better stop flaunting your psychological frailty!

It is profoundly psychologically damaging to be forced to cooperate (work, live, socialize) with such people who tacitly dehumanize those they do not understand with casual and capricious ease, such as the way the top level commenter dismisses the OP with a superficial and borderline bad faith analysis of the link at hand.

No one should ever have to justify their feelings. That’s it’s. That’s my point. Hard stop.

As a society, culture, community we need to get to the point where we respect the feelings of others implicitly. Feelings are not equations, there are no right or wrong answers. By implicitly acknowledging all the feelings of others we are respecting each other and nurturing common ground where we can discuss the differences that underlie perception and create an environment ripe for interpersonal growth. Failure to do so breeds resentment and festers in the homes, workplaces, and communities where the feelings of some are neglected.

"I don't need to see continual Facebook posts about it."

Framing someone's struggle purely in terms of how it annoys you makes you come across as something other than empathetic.

I did. I also read this post.

Saying you are empathetic while also uniformly dismissing those you claim to empathize with doesn't ring too clear. No evidence of empathy, lots of evidence of dismissal.

Just my 2c as someone looking at how the issue has been framed.

>When people asked how you were doing, no one expected you to say “Fine.” Instead, they asked, “How are you holding up?” and you’d answer, “Well, you know.”

So what? Maybe it's because I've spent my life in careers where performance can be measured (even badly), but I haven't since high school felt pressure to exaggerate beyond "alright" or the classic "it's going".

I mean, sometimes I am actually in a good mood. I must be crazy. I'm sitting here waiting for a bleomycin infusion and I just told the nurse I had a good weekend. How inconceivable! Just two days ago I could barely eat dinner! What right do I have to be happy?

Good news: typing this made me laugh, a little. It was worth it.

Fast communication about every topic including religion.

Riches like modern houses, a high standard of lifing for a lot (no war in Germany or food shortage for 50? Years).

When Im done with my high paying job Im done and due to me being so small I do question why do I work? For what? What is my goal in my life?

It is our zeitgeist. I have seen much more philosophical life questions asked in tv shows and movies as well.

There was also a very disturbing and hitting closer than expected south park episode were Kyle? Saw everything as shit.

When you could do everything but everything stops mattering what do you do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b3Ob4CK4Xs

There's also a book by the same title

Poor mental health isn't "whining"; it's the number one cause of death for ages 15-24 in the US. It's rampant, and many people reading your comment will themselves be struggling.

If anyone reading this is in a bad way, please know that most of us don't look down on you. Many downright heroic people who have changed the world have had their (very) bad patches. Newton, Tesla, Lincoln.

Programmers aren't known for their empathy, so don't pay attention to any tone deaf drum beating you hear here. Outside of Hacker News, you're surrounded by people who do indeed care about and respect you, as well as professionals who will put the best of their minds into helping you through the storm.

There is poor mental health. Theres also fishing for attention and making outlandish claims for sympathy. This article isnt a testament of poor mental health. It's a whining child who refuses to grow, at best. If you suffer from depression or other issues, you can spot out a phony in a heartbeat. Thats why some people in the comments get pissed off over these articles. The author is faking it and doing more harm than good. Most people with actual mental health issues WANT it to end, unlike the author, because guess what, the word suffering isnt an accident. The culture of "it's okay to suffer" is pretty fucked up.

In truth, no one really looks down on poor mental health anymore. Get with the times. The most backwoods redneck these days understands that life or severe events gets hard on people, it can happen to anyone, and it takes a toll on them, being hard on that person doesn't help. It's really the woke crowd that keeps bringing up that theres a stigma. No one else does or thinks that.

Honestly, the veteran community is probably the best right now when it comes to helping with poor mental health. Most of you are going to look down on that, but that's your prejudice problem. If anyone wants to try picking themselves back up, take some lessons from that crowd to see how they help vets with PTSD.

I agree that we all need to be pushing our oars as hard as we can, even if we're bruised and bloodied and can't push very hard. Freeloaders aren't acceptable; we all need to be trying our best.

Is the article writer trying his best? I don't know, but I found his piece beautiful. His battle right now is with meaning and metamorphosis, and I think those are respectable things to wrestle with.

I'm fond of the mental health innovation for veterans that I'm familiar with: VR exposure therapy for PTSD. I'm genuinely curious -- what else does the veteran community do for people who are struggling?

Most vets that I personally know which adapted to a stable life well do a few things. A hobby they personally devote to. They exercise outside fairly regularly. Some type of difficult long term task they give themselves. More importantly I think, they have friends that were combat vets as well and they all talk regularly. Like 90s teenage girls everyday or every other day on the phone and in person. Not texting, actually talking. Not everyone can take their awesome crass, dark humor well, which is a good vent for when things get rough for them. I think everyone I know had therapy to some level and for some amount of time. I cant speak much to that because that's something I dont poke into. I just know that two new vets into the group went from not doing a lot of what I mentioned and... yea, not adapting well to society... to then doing pretty good in like 6-12 months. That VR stuff is really designed for hyper specific PTSD triggers to my knowledge. Not general societal stuff. I ended up doing gov contracting which ended up leading me to making too many vet friends overtime. If it wasn't for them, I'd still be in a mental pit at best.

I think that you think that "It's okay to be depressed" is a platitude celebrating complacency. It's actually about shame. Many people, especially men, would sooner suffer than admit to needing help. Behind the platitude is the desire to say, "You don't need to be ashamed about being depressed. It's a thing that strikes the best of us, and you can hold your head high as we help you back to your feet."

But yeah, a lot of therapists are terrible. It's indeed important to find one that wants to get you back on your feet as soon as possible; sympathy isn't a substitute for recovery.

I like your veterans' tips for climbing out of depression:

* Develop a hobby

* Regularly exercise outside

* Take on a big project, and put something into it every day

* Spend in-person time with people who get it

I sometimes do mental health volunteer work, and I'll incorporate your tips. Nothing beats a strategy that has met empirical success.

as someone suffering who is not a veteran, nor in the US at all, is there something I can read about that outlines their approach or what they are doing to help them that is new?

1. Health. 30 minutes minimum, 1 hour preferably a day of moving around outside. Obviously general exercise like lifting weights is good, but you need sun vitamin d daily. Go for a long walk daily at the minimum. Find what you like to do and what you can sustainbly do. I have rotator cuff issues, so gymnastics is a no go for me, for example. Even though I'd love to do it. Oh well. I jog, walk and do some weight lifting. Also, eat right. Get your blood checked. I happen to be a bit iron deficient. So I eat beef liver once a week and pate throughout the week to keep it up. Has worked well for me without the need for artificial vitamins. When my iron is low, that's when the head fog and general "woe" really starts to kick in.

2. Social. You got to be social daily. This one I noticed one day where I was invited to a party after a really bad downhill on depression. I accidentally clicked with a few people about movies and we talked for like 6 hours straight. My voice was gone for like 2 days, but holy shit did I feel great for like a week. You need to have dumb, long conversations with people. Laughing and having fun. Try finding social groups over a hobby or activity locally. You said outside of US, we have Meetup.com, maybe you have something similar? I've done it here in Florida a few times. 50% of the ones I went to were good. Dont get down trodden if you show up to a few stinkers. Try different groups until you find one. Just look for groups where you can talk and have fun. If you happen to have a circle of friends already, just not tight knit (yet), take it upon yourself to do a weekly thing. Board game night, book club, movie night or just everyone buys a random 6 pack of beer and you all hang out for the night talking shit. Do not underestimate the value of this. I'm serious. It seems silly, but we've evolved as social-pack animals for a reason.

3. Personal mental health: Lots of variability here. Try it out or try to learn from it and do your own thing.

Free write journaling: Sit at the computer, word processor open, and type exactly what's on your mind. Did someone piss you off yesterday? What do you want for lunch? Was that chick/dude yesterday cute and you should have introduced yourself? What should have you done? Does your ass itch? You are dumping your thoughts. It seems super silly, I know. But it's literally exactly what's in your head as it passes by. I do this almost every morning. It clears my head and makes me feel refreshed, kind of like a mental shower. I also think out what I want to do during the day, what went right or wrong yesterday and so forth. But it's not structured at all. Simply stream of thought, no matter how stupid the thought. 15 or 20 min of this. Typically I just feel like stopping when I figure I have nothing else "new" to think. No one ever reads these journals by the way. Nor should they.

Task/purpose: I dont know how to explain this one easily. Actually, Jordan Peterson talkd about this the best. Anyways, pick something difficult to do, because YOU want to. Not because of a trend or whatever. This can range from a crazy in depth research topic, read all of agatha Christie novels in order, do a non-profit, do a 10,000 piece puzzle, start a community garden, whatever. It just does have to be out of your norm, longish term (I say minimum 2 weeks to accomplish, but whatever) and something you just want to do, for you, to make you happy, fuck what anyone else thinks (as long as it's legal). If they're somewhat short term, you do another one and so forth. I think the more important of a task, the better, but I say dont focus on that at first. Do for you to practice focusing, for you, on your own happiness. But do make a definable end point goal. So you can say, "I finished this". Start small, work upwards overtime.

Hobby: similar to the last but this is just fun, for you. I really dont recommend video games. A "constructive" hobby is best. I like woodworking and fiction writing. If I could get past the sound of cats fucking, I'd play the violin more. I imagine somewhat soon I'll get into model making or painting.

Creative/analytical balance: probably specific to me, but I'll mention it. If I do too much dev or research, I burnout. If I do too much writing or the occasional graphic design/marketing, I burn out. I've learned I have to do a little bit of the opposite everyday or at least try to alternate days. Easily if I go 3 days doing only one, I get into a funk.

Meditation: Eh... i did it as focus training for a month and haven't for a few years. Mehta, maybe for you? Free writing or reading always feels better for me.

Regrets, mistakes: this is a rough one and good as a journaling exercise. Talk to yourself about your regrets, on paper or word processor, whichever is the most comfortable. See about what you can fix if you can. Forgive yourself for what you cant. Everyone has regrets and it's alright. Talk to yourself about it, be honest and work through it all. This was a big one for me. It ends up being painful and cathartic. Can take a few weeks, but it's well worth it.

Cant think of much else except I read somewhere relating depression to an angry dog. Right now it's biting you. Work through it. Got out of its clutches. That dog will eventually just occasionally bark. If you ignore it, it'll bite again. Eventually you learn to appreciate the bark as a warning that something is wrong and you need to fix it now before it gets worse. You will have ups and downs and trip sometimes. Take the good times as a sign you were on the right path. You slip a bit, that's okay, you'll get out of it again since you got out before. Somewhere else talked about how anxiety and depression, once you are mentally healthy, are good tools to feel. Small, slight depression is subconsciously telling you you're on the wrong path with nothing to gain. Anxiety is subconsciously warning you that you are not fully prepared for a situation, be alert and careful as you step forward. It's just when we never address them over long stretches of time, stacked on top of poor health and poor social interactions, is when we come to our depression states that eat away at us.

Hope it helps, feel free to ask me more.

I don't know how someone could write an article about the near-pandemic rise of mental illness over the last year but still come to the conclusion that, actually, this is better.

It’s something else for The Atlantic to publish that view as if it is non-pathological. It seems to me the Atlantic thinks this is a view a large percentage of its well heeled readership is going to sympathize with.

In reality though, I suspect most of them are fine. This is just the result of a subculture that celebrates being a victim. Anything that can signal as suffering and weakness is somehow warped into a desirable trait because it triggers the wildly overstimulated empathy response, and leads to attention.

Lack of recent exposure also makes people weak. They need to get back in practice or it's like they're skipping the gym to veg-out on the couch with Netflix, weed, and a case of Doritos.

If you want to up your social-pain threshold, say "hello" strangely to 200 random people.