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Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 10th, 2023
  • curiosityLynx@kglitch.socialtoScience@beehaw.org•Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters
    2·
    2 years ago

    For a long time I (and people around me) just believed I must have become a lazy person and that I just needed to get over myself. The idea that I might be ill didn’t even come up. When I struggled to write my bachelor’s thesis I did visit an insurance-approved psychologist, but all that guy did was trying to find ways I could motivate myself, with no attempt to find out what was causing me to struggle in the first place rather than just reinforce my perception that I must just be lazy. After a couple of months I stopped going because all those visits did was making me feel worse. Also, because I chose to go to a psychologist directly rather than being delegated there by a doctor/psychiatrist, insurance only covered half of the cost, so it was a waste of money as well.

    Really the first idea that it might be a mental illness rather than a personality flaw and being a general failure of a person didn’t come up at all until I read a book in which I saw a lot of myself in the protagonist’s mother who was said in the book to have depression. That same week I had my second bout of suicidal ideation, which drove me to get help asap.

  • curiosityLynx@kglitch.socialtoScience@beehaw.org•Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters
    3·
    2 years ago

    You’re right on all counts. With the help of therapy and medicine I was able to reach a state where I was able to start an apprenticeship as an automation specialist in a regular firm without any concessions that would need to be noted on the certificate of proficiency (just a bit more leniency for sick days (unpaid)). Just a few weeks ago I received my federal certificate for this profession and I’m now starting to look for jobs (luckily, the market is starved for automation specialists).

    But as you guessed, it’s still an ongoing process. For the duration of the apprenticeship I had to work 100% and as a consequence was sick a lot (part my body complaining about being overworked, part not always having the willpower to power through). I’m planning to only work a maximum of 80% in future, maybe just 70%.

    Some days are still very difficult. Just last week I shut down completely for two days because of the combination of needing to prepare my work project for handover, looking for a new workplace (my current one only deals with apprenticeships, it’s kind of like a school in that regard) and being hounded at home about deep cleaning my room and parts of the house in preparation for moving out (was living with several other people for the duration of the apprenticeship and will move out next month) all at once.

    I’m very grateful to the state (canton) I’m living in for all the help I received without counting it as debt against me (unless I suddenly win the lottery jackpot, inherit a fortune from an unexpected benefactor, or start earning disgusting amounts of money). Because of that, I’m hoping I can find work in this state so that my taxes may help in continuing these policies for other people rather than benefit an unrelated state.

  • curiosityLynx@kglitch.socialtoScience@beehaw.org•Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters
    76·
    2 years ago

    I’ll add my perspective as a male recovering from depression:

    • A questionnaire asking about sadness would have missed me. My emotions didn’t take the detour over sadness on their way to not caring anymore.
    • Asking me about hopelessness would also have missed me outside of my deepest downs.
    • While, in retrospect, I did become more easily irritated by people (especially when asked to do something when trying to wind down), asking people around me about acting out would have missed me, as I generally like my fellow humans and have a desire to please and respect for people teaching me something, so expressing that irritation would have been rather rare. It also would have been short lived as I’m quick to forgive.

    The best ways to have discovered my depression earlier would have been to

    • ask me about feeling overwhelmed by all I felt I needed to do
    • note how long and often I needed downtime
    • note how I increasingly failed to do things I needed to do in time or at all
    • ask me about feeling like I’m wasting my potential and/or disappointing people around me
    • ask me if I thought I was lazy despite not wanting to be
    • maybe ask me about being more easily irritated rhan I used to be

    Because this wasn’t caught, I spent years with undiagnosed depression. Years in which unhealthy coping mechanisms had time to entrench themselves. It was only caught because suicidal thoughts scared me so much that I sought help when they appeared a second time.