An Open Letter to the Depressed Aspergians

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nice sentiment

Agreed. Thanks for sharing Stephen. I can get depressed from time to time and it's nice to know I'm not alone in this.

Thank you for letting us hear you.

Signature of the moment- if there is ever a mental health first aid class near you take it.

It's really nice to read an article with advice for the friends and family of those suffering depression; feeling that we have to tackle it all alone is so much part of the downward spiral that can happen when depression hits us. Thankyou, Stephen.

So true! Thank you for writing this.

I've been on both sides, so what you say touches me twice.

I will add when in a depressed state being listened to is so important. Sometimes it is not easy to just listen and not judge. Depression is not something to be solved quickly.

I liken it to diabetes, a disease that occurs because the body cannot produce the right chemicals. Would someone tell a diabetic to just buck up and 'be a man?' Would someone tell a woman with diabetes it is all in her mind, changing the way she thinks will raise her blood sugar?

I am going to give your letter to my son. Kudos for the thoughts.

Much love to those NTs around here who may be down on themselves as well. We need to be more direct about sharing positive energy both communally & as individuals, being one of those aspergians thusly affected as well as an optimist, this gives me great hope.

Thank you for posting this article, Stephen. I have friends - one dear young friend in particular - who has depression, and have had bouts of it myself - so I know how important it is to listen and be listened to.

I'm glad you got through it and are here today.

Last edited by Hyperborean on 25 Mar 2016, 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Beautiful, thank you for writing this

I agree that it's a nice sentiment but it means nothing. Every article about depression or suicide, etc always ends with "reach out - get help" Please. There is no help to get. Family won't be bothered, there are no friends, and professional help is for the rich who have insurance.

Having friends who walked you to the local therapist? Be grateful for the friends and be super grateful for a local therapist - who would actually let you in the door.

I have found that having a therapist myself has aided me greatly in finding therapists and doctors when my son was in crisis. Normally, as earthmom points out, it can take as long as six weeks to get an appointment if you are a new patient. (Which is a crime in itself!) With the help of my therapist, doctor and the school psychologist I was able to get my teen child seen in less than a week. It probably saved his life.

Yes, I did go to his therapy appointments with him for a while, mainly to make sure he went.....sat in the waiting room until he was finished. My son and I also schedule a single appointment for our med checks, saves time. My doctor was kind enough to see him as a new patient since I'd been with him for years. Son now does his therapy visits without any prodding.

So, if someone you know needs help, pull out all the stops, enlist your doctors and therapists to help. Professional favors can go a long way.

SZ

Thank you for sharing stephen, yes I have some depression because my loneliness In this article I fell I'm not the only one

I didn't have bestfriend since I study at junior highschool, so I make imaginary friends to share my feeling, I feel happy with them, but It's didn't enough to make me feel I'm not alone

Thank you, so much, for sharing this! Recently I got out of a bout of depression and I remember telling myself, over and over again, that I was alone. I had no one to help me, no one who cared or understood, and for the most part it was true. In those moments, I couldn't have spoken truer words. My mother battles with a multitude of mental illnesses and disorders, so it's hard for her to provide the kind of care a mother needs to provide for her children and I don't have any close friends due to my inability to reach out to others. I was truly alone and that was the hardest thing to come to terms with, but I made it through and I'm okay now. Reading this makes me feel like I'm not alone anymore, and it's the best feeling in world.

Thank you, Stephen.

Very accurate description. Matter of fact, there are a gazillion of postings, repeating the same stuff, from sufferers to the "reach out - get help" advices. Nothing new. Boring.

Truth is, depression is a choice, in this age of technology. Just like anxiety. You don't need therapists, or meds. Or friends and families for support. You need none of that. All you need is a digital voice recorder. Depression gone. Anxiety gone. The very simple fact is, when you are depressed, you don't think about your happy moments. When you are happy, you don't think about your depressed moments. That's the root problem. A digital voice recorder builds a "wormhole tunnel" between your bad moments and good moments.

This is how you use it: when you are depressed, record what makes you depressed. It does not need to be long, a few seconds is all you need. Don't play back the message right away. Wait until you are not depressed, and then play back. The best moment to play it, is when you are laughing and having fun in life. That's the moment to re-play it. It's a little bit like eating chilli pepper. The first time you re-play it, you'll feel awful. But you'll get used to it. Think about what has made you depressed. View life from a new perspective.

That is step number one: collect evidence. Step number two: link it to your good moments. Replay your recordings at moments of your maximum happiness. Remember the good moments: remember what makes your life fun, and what makes you laugh.

Step number three: next time depression attacks, remember what you have told yourself at the moment of your happiness. Tell yourself, yes, sometimes life is awful, but some other times life is good and fun.

That's about all on how to handle depression. People have figured out the source of suffering already thousands of years ago: craving/greed. Depression is a choice. Happiness is a choice. You get to choose. Period.

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Nothing beats solving actual problems. I'll give a very simple case, since talking about more serious life problems is somewhat awkward, for everyone.

I recently bought a home laptop. I thought it might be good idea to hook it up to my big screen TV, so I could work more easily, or use it to teach my little children to do computer programming (at that moment they were 5 and 7 years old. Yeap, perfect age to learn about programming languages.) I was excited to hook up my laptop to the TV through an HDMI cable. But suddenly I realized something was wrong: it flickered at unpredictable intervals. Sometimes it goes black every few seconds. Sometimes it goes black after a few minutes. Very annoying.

What would be your diagnosis? Bad laptop? Bad HDMI cable? Bad TV? I thought that the HDMI cable must be bad, since it was cheap. Laptop couldn't be bad, right? It was only recently purchased. TV? Not likely...good brand, been using it for a long time, no other problems. Bought another more expensive HDMI cable, gold plated. Plugged in, and my heart just sunk. It still flickered. Now what? Couldn't be good news. Either the TV or the laptop was bad. Could it be the HDMI port on the laptop was loose? Anyway, tried this and tried that. Nothing worked. Paused for quite a few weeks before I tried again.

Luckily I recently got a new external screen from my work, and it was HDMI based. Hooked my laptop to the new external screen. No flickers, whatsoever. That told me my laptop was fine. The HDMI port was not loose. So I thought, the TV had issues. But the TV was hooked up to several other devices without problem. How was that possible? I tried to switch the devices into all the 4 HDMI ports, and they all worked wonderfully. How do you explain that?

If cable had no problems, laptop had no problems, and apparently TV also had no problems, then what would be the explanation for the flickering?

It was a compatibility issue, then. My TV didn't like my laptop. But why? Was it the screen resolution? Was is the wide-screen mode?

I went through my TV's settings, changed this and changed that, nothing worked.

Then I went to my laptop's settings, all of a sudden I realized my laptop had several frequency modes. It was set by default at 59p Hz (59 Hertz, progressive. Meaning the display would be refreshed 59 times per second, line-by-line, horizontally from top to bottom.) I changed it to another mode, for instance 59i (59 Hertz, interlaced). Flickering was gone. I couldn't believe it. I waited for 5 minutes, not one single flicker. I changed to other frequency modes such as 60p, 60i, etc. etc. No flickers. The flickering would only happen with the 59p Hz mode!

So it was a resonance problem. Both my laptop and my TV's default modes must be 59p Hz. But because they used independent internal clocks, and because their clocks were so so precise, yet not identical, there were bound to be out-of-sync problems once in a while. That explained the flickering problem.

So nothing was wrong. It was simply a configuration issue.

The moment I solved the problem, I felt instant relief. All my pain was gone, immediately.

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What am I getting at with my laptop's flickering story, and with the digital voice recorder advice?

(a) Depression is a choice. Happiness is a choice. You connect your bad moments to your good moments and vice-versa, and depression is gone.
(b) Knowing how to be psychologically strong does NOT help you with solving real-life problems. You could be psychologically strong, but life has issues that need to be taken care of. You only get the relief you need, by tackling these problems head-on. Nice words, encouragement, sympathy, moral support, are all garbage. They are the pain killers, they are the cocaine that gives you addiction. Relief only comes when you tackle the problems, head-on.

Mother Nature is pretty smart. The more I look at her, the more I admire her. So full of wisdom. You think my words will be picked by other people? Nahh... Mother Nature does not care about of survival of individuals. She only cares about the survival of the species. There is a reason why people don't listen. And that, it's part of Mother Nature's plan. It's by design. Cold, but full of beauty.

sadning article with more sadning adapting-to-how-it-is-solutions

Thank you for writing this. The only thing I wish wasn't written was, "Masculinity and stupidity walk hand-in-hand.."

Perhaps you meant, "Machismo" or "Male chauvinism" ?

Let's not tell males that they are inherently stupid.