What Depression Is Like
28Gordon Seidoh Worley
18Shankar Sivarajan
2Gordon Seidoh Worley
8followthesilence
5Archimedes
2Jalex S
1Archimedes
1Sable
10Adele Lopez
6Fractalideation
1Sable
8Shankar Sivarajan
4Daniel Samuel
2Sable
2ricardotkcl
3Michael Cohn
3Jag Singh
2cubefox
3Sable
2cubefox
3Sable
1bvbvbvbvbvbvbvbvbvbvbv
1Sable
-2frattale
New Comment
I was depressed for most of my 20s. I can't say it felt anything like having to solve a puzzle to do things. It instead felt like I didn't care, lacked motivation, etc. Things weren't hard to do, I just didn't want to do them or think doing them would be worthwhile because I expected bad stuff to happen as a result of doing things instead of good stuff.
Your model also contradicts most models I'm aware of that describe depression, which fit more with my own experience of a lack of motivation or care or drive to do things.
To me it sounds like you're describing something that is comorbid with depression for you. I don't have ADHD, but what you're describing pattern matches to how I hear people with ADHD describe the experience of trying to make themselves do things: like most activities are like a puzzle in that they require lots of S2-type thinking to make them happen.
1
1The metaphor isn't meant for you. For a person who hasn't experienced depression, your description of "lacking motivation" or "not caring" is probably not helpful: I expect most people don't perceive their performing routine tasks as driven by any particular motivation, and so don't understand what a lack of motivation would be like. Something more concrete such a person can imagine, even if not hewing very closely to your experience, might be.
Also,
like having to solve a puzzle
I think you might be generalizing solving Sudoku in a way that wasn't intended. My understanding of the metaphor (which I agree with for the aspect of depression it seeks to describe) is that it's not meant to be tricky or particularly difficult in any way, just tedious. Perhaps you could substitute something like "multiplying two four-digit numbers" if you prefer. The idea is that if one had to do such a thing before one could get to any task, you can see how that'd lead one to cease to care about said tasks, and so one would stop "showering, going out, talking to friends" etc.
it's not meant to be tricky or particularly difficult in any way, just tedious.
Tedium still doesn't land for me as a description of what depression is like. I avoid doing all kinds of tedious things as a non-depressed person because I value my time. For example, I find cooking tedious, so I use money to buy my way out of having to spend a lot of time preparing meals, but I'm not depressed in general or about food specifically.
Perhaps depression makes things feel tedious that otherwise would not because of a lack of motivation to do them. For example, I like sweeping the floor, but sweeping the floor would feel tedious if I didn't get satisfaction from having clean floors. I probably wouldn't like sweeping the floor if I were depressed and didn't care about the floors being clean.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it seems to me worth making a clear distinction between what it feels like to be depressed and what are common symptoms of depression. The lack of care seems to me like a good approximation of what it feels like; tediousness or puzzle solving seems more like a symptom that shows up for many people, but it not in itself what is like to be depressed, even if it is a frequent type of experience one has while depressed.
The disagreement here seems to be around how literally one should interpret the metaphor.
I agree depression could be more accurately described as "lack of caring" than "must do endless puzzles". However, the purpose of the post is to describe the depressive experience to people who cannot relate.
To that end, I like the sudoku metaphor. If you tell someone "depression means I just don't care and can't muster willpower to do things I should/need to do" a lot of people may -- consciously or not -- judge this as a voluntary condition where the solution approximates to "have you tried caring?"
Sudokus help illustrate the (what feels like) involuntary roadblocks to otherwise simple life processes, the way these roadblocks ramify insidiously into more sub-components of life over time, and the level of fatigue, suffering, and defeat this inflicts.
OP's model does not resonate with my experience either. For me, it's similar to constantly having the flu (or long COVID) in the sense that you persistently feel bad, and doing anything requires extra effort proportional to the severity of symptoms. The difference is that the symptoms mostly manifest in the brain rather than the body.
The comments below do capture some of my thoughts. I also feel depression as a lack of motivation and general malaise and inability to care about things or feel pleasure.
But these are
- difficult to explain to someone who's never felt, and
- subjective feelings, which don't always translate well through language.
The metaphor is meant to invite someone to think about what their life would be like if, in order to do anything, they had to slog their way through tedious effort for little to no reward. I claim that the result looks, externally, very much like depression - it would cause a lack of motivate, a general malaise, and a hoarding of energy and caring.
Sudoku was chosen as something that doesn't take much effort but gets mind-numbingly boring after enough time doing it; I emphasize that these aren't challenging puzzles, only ones that require a bare minimum of effort. Solving a jigsaw puzzle or multiplying numbers may also qualify.
It decreases the granularity of the actions to which it applies. In other words, where before you had to solve a Sudoku puzzle to go to work, now you’ve got to solve a puzzle to get dressed, a puzzle to get in the car, a puzzle to drive, and a puzzle to actually get started working. Before all of those counted as a single action - ‘go to work’ - now they’re counted separately, as discrete steps, and each requires a puzzle.
This resonates strongly with my experience, though when I noticed this pattern I thought of it as part of my ADHD and not my depression. Maybe this is something like the mechanism via which ADHD causes depression.
Anyway, I've had mild success at improving productivity simply by trying to deliberately think of possible actions in coarser chunks. Plausibly this technique can be refined and improved–which I'd love to hear about if anyone figures this out!
This resonates strongly with my experience, though when I noticed this pattern I thought of it as part of my ADHD and not my depression. Maybe this is something like the mechanism via which ADHD causes depression.
Also resonates strongly with my own experience, in my case just replace "ADHD" with "ME/CFS".
I think OP description is good but quite generic i.e. it would probably resonate with most people who have a physical and/or mental health condition which is quite "taxing" in the sense that it significantly lowers the reward/effort ratio of every/most task.
As mentioned by Daniel Samuel comment, in the case of depression the "tax"/handicap would fall specifically on willpower (and/or enjoyment/pleasure/etc...). In the case of ADHD the tax/handicap would mostly fall on attention, in the case of ME/CFS it would mostly fall on energy, etc...
Interesting. I'm glad that this resonates, and like the idea that what I described was a generic experience, which can be caused by various issues in the brain.
I endorse this as a metaphor for what psychomotor retardation feels like, and that is a significant and fairly characteristic feature of depression.
However, it completely misses what I'd consider the worse parts of the condition. I think this short film, Nuggets, normally a metaphor for addiction, captures that extremely well. Everything is … diminished. Colors turn to gray. Music becomes monotonous. Food tastes bland. And you remember dimly that things were better once, but can't quite remember what that felt like. And unlike with addiction, there is no bright light that brings you back even temporarily.
I know they've been repurposed here to symbolize Death, but Rowling's dementors are a perfectly serviceable personification of the feeling.
As an aside, thanks to your excellent description of it, I now believe in "chronic fatigue syndrome" as a thing. I understand why noöne describes it as being like "depression without the really bad parts," but that would have helped me get it earlier.
I like this concept. If you were to introduce the element of treatment, would you say it works according to two dimensions, or is there a better explanation/metaphor?
Personally, I also like to think about depression as a taxation on willpower with varying rates (low rate for mild depression, etc.).
I haven't thought much about how treatment fits in here. I've certainly felt both dimensions mentioned get better/reduced through treatment (having to solve less puzzles, having to solve puzzles for coarser/less granular actions).
Ultimately, 'curing' depression would be the equivalent of removing the app from your brain.
I'm so sorry you're experiencing this. It will improve.
This is a really fascinating analogy. Building on the analogy with how different treatments (talking therapies, exercise, pharmacological interventions) influence or remove the app would be a lovely way to develop this.
Hang in there.
Thanks for sharing this! It sounds to me like the folks in the comments saying this doesn't track for them are thinking about the intellectual challenge aspect of sudoku. If I think of it in terms of mental energy / annoyance / tedium, it definitely matches my experience of depression. The way tasks become more and more fine-grained is especially resonant, and painful to even read about.
There is an interesting book called Brain Energy by Chris Palmer which may be relevant. It takes a stab at identifying the root physiological cause of mental health problems. His hypothesis is that many psychological and mental health issues are caused by problems in energy usage and metabolism in the brain. The increased resistance to even minor tasks you describe sounds like a brain trying to conserve energy.
I don't think I buy his ideas wholesale. I'm sure there are brains with perfectly healthy metabolic health that are nonetheless wired in ways that cause a particular mental health issue.
This is one way depression can manifest itself: it becomes harder to do anything. But another example of depression is being extremely unhappy and pessimistic all the time. This is somewhat independent of problems with motivation.
Have you considered trying psilocybin? The effects of depression are so bad that I wouldn't worry much about it not being legally available.
I would love to try psilocybin, but can't because of where I work. I have tried Ketamine and am now trying TMS, which are the two FDA-approved 'nuclear options', and have been seeing some success with them.
Very interesting of you to think of it that way. It turns out that it's very in line with recent results from computation psychiatry. Basically in depression we can study and distinguish how much the lack of activity is due to "lack of ressource to act" vs "increased cost of action". Both look clinically about the same but underlying biochemical pathways differ, so it's a (IMHO) promising approach to shorten the times it takes for a doctor to find the appropriate treatment for a given patient.
If that's something you already know I'm sorry, I'm short on time and wanted this to be out :)
if someone is given Sudoku puzzles during their childhood or teenage years, and they're naturally curious and enthusiastic about life, they're likely to become really interested in Sudokus, believing them to be fascinating and a normal hobby
1