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'Sticky thinking' hampers decisions in depression

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113 points domofutu | 6 comments | 23 Jun 25 21:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.617s | source | bottom
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MobileVet ◴[26 Jun 25 12:38 UTC] No.44386836[source]▶
Being an engineer, I use the analogy of SNR, signal to noise ratio. Depression and anxiety, often comorbid, raise the noise floor to the point that it is incredibly hard to feel confident that a decision can be made. This in turn results in a decision NOT being made and progress dragging on... which only raises the tension around the situation. It is a horribly vicious downward cycle.

I have seen this first hand in loved ones and also experienced it occasionally myself, though thankfully less frequently. I am extremely adept at compartmentalizing, including work and life... but a deep depression knows no limits easily bleeds over into everything. The mental noise is deafening. I was shocked how strong the effect was during a recent episode of depression, despite my typically strong executive functioning skills.

Equally amazing is the 'blue skies' and 'quiet mind' that can be achieved with proper treatment, for which I am infinitely grateful.

Please seek out help if you are struggling.

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1. cnity ◴[26 Jun 25 12:51 UTC] No.44386934[source]▶
If you wrote a book called "Mental Health for Engineers" I'd read it. You are very good at articulating the subjective experience.
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2. taneq ◴[26 Jun 25 13:43 UTC] No.44387338[source]▶
Ooh, something in the same spirit as The Hacker's Diet (How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition)[1] which I legitimately used (well, kinda did some of) to lose about 20kg over the space of ~2 years, and then keep it off semi-indefinitely (I started in ~2010 and kept pretty steady since then, I've had a couple of times where I got up about 5kg from my target but it's not too hard to fix at that point.)

[1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

3. jimkleiber ◴[26 Jun 25 13:46 UTC] No.44387367[source]▶
There was someone that framed it like "Emotional API" but I can't remember who the guy was, and searching that on the internet now brings up a lot of AI stuff.

Your post inspires me to think of how to package some of my work of emotional conflict and health for engineers. If you're curious to talk more about it, I'd love to chat here or you can send me an email to the address in my bio.

4. ants_everywhere ◴[26 Jun 25 13:56 UTC] No.44387484[source]▶
That's a good idea for a book and the parent commenter may indeed be a good person to write it, but subject experience is known to be a terrible source of information about psychology and mental health.
5. zczc ◴[26 Jun 25 17:47 UTC] No.44389618[source]▶
The text https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Demystifying_Depression is in this vein.
6. MobileVet ◴[26 Jun 25 21:00 UTC] No.44391311[source]▶
Wow, thank you, that is very kind.

Something my wife and I decided very on in our journey into the space was to be as open as possible about it; both to help with distigmatjzation as well as just general knowledge sharing. I certainly knew nothing about mental health and illness until severe mental illness arrived on our doorstep and we had to get educated fast.

With 5% of the US population suffering from severe mental illness and another 20% having experienced an acute or less significant issue, it is quite common. The more we know, the more we can be helpful to those around us or ourselves.

I gave a 'co-learning' presentation on mental health to our company... maybe I should consider expanding the scope of my shared experience. Thanks for your encouragement.