It's Ok to Be Sad, Part 4: on Actual Depression

Had I slept?

This series of posts is not about depression

Clinical depression is a real thing. If you don’t already believe that I’m honestly surprised you read my blog at all.

I know it is real because I have it. I have been treated for it off-and-on for over a decade, and consistently for over five years. I remember that it is real and that I suffer it when I forget for a few days to combat it with my prescribed medications.

So when I say “it’s ok to be sad” I mean it in two respects: a) normal sadness, melancholy, the blues, shit happens, life is hard and b) actual depression, which is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about (you wouldn’t be embarrassed about catching a cold or developing cancer, for comparison).

Both are ok

This series of posts is mostly concerned with combating a trend to minimize the former; a trend more insidious than “Always Be Closing” or “Positive Mental Attitude”. A trend that makes value judgments on people who tend to, or choose to, experience the sadness of life in real, affirming ways.

But the latter is a real medical thing, and should be addressed as such

And so this series of posts isn’t really referring to clinical depression, except for right now.

Fortunately, a lot of people are working on this already

So I don’t have to try and provide all the answers. I’ve particularly enjoyed online resources and communities for software developers and tech entrepreneurs who suffer depression. Of all my people, these are the most like me! devpressed.com is a great forum started by Greg Baugues, who also maintains a thoughtful newsletter. He gave this pretty thorough (and entertaining) talk on the subject, if you’re interested:

One need only do some cursory searches to find a lot of posts and articles on the subject. There is also OSMI, burnout.io, bluehackers and mhprompt. There have been posts by the likes of Brad Feld and Business Insider.

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