Start-Up Founders On Dealing With Depression

v3rgEz (125380) writes "Founders at a number of Boston startups shared their stories of building and growing a company while battling depression. One founder didn't even realize he was depressed until glucose and blood tests came back normal, while another said it was worse than her life struggles growing up in the projects. All shared different coping mechanisms. Any advice for dealing with the same?"

Comments

There's only one thing;

[DerekLyons]

There's only one piece of advice those who think they may be suffering from anxiety or depression need: Seek professional help as soon as possible, and ignore the ignorant fuckers who tell you to just man up and move on.

The level and type of professional help you'll need may be a counselor, may be full on treatment - but you'll never regret it.

Depression

[Anonymous Coward]

High performance requires high maintenance. Just the way the universe works (entropy and all).

Depression may be an evolutionary stable strait, meaning like pain receptors, it may be there to protect you.

Here are some things I know after studying it for many years, and experiencing it for many years:

1. Get your Thyroid checked (TSH, free T3). Stress among many other things can bring it down and create depression. Even if you are young: Dr.s won't begin testing until you are middle-aged, typically, so ask for it.
2. Walking every day or other healthy exercise is shown to reduce mild to moderate depressive symptoms in studies over and over again
3. Take a B complex vitamin that contains Niacin. Take choline and L-Glutamine for brain food. Look these up.
4. Make sure your blood sugar stays stable. Read up on hypoglycemia. Standard protocol is protein every meal and have 5 small meals a day.
5. Acknowledge your limits and adapt around them.
5. If your thyroid is fine and you are still suffering with depressive symptoms it's time to look at either lowering stress in your life or getting with a good Dr. to help adapt.

Depression will one day be found to have many types I think. It will fool you too by making you think you have thoughts that are your own, but they are as much influenced by mood as your deliberate effort to think. This means simply, if you are depressed, your judgement is not good. That's why support systems are important, but get to good Dr. Your life may depend on it. Oh, and most cases of depression can be remedied.

How I deal

[ddt]

I've suffered from chronic depression all my adult life, but I didn't want to medicate unless it was a medicine which could cure me, which doesn't exist (yet). I've been an entrepreneur for most of my 20+ year career. Here's how I "self-medicate":

• Moved to a place with lots of sunlight.
• Sold my car, bicycle everywhere.
• Got rid of my cell phone, use skype # for calls.
• Got rid of my TV.
• Got lots of redundant bandwidth- FIOS, cable, 3G/4G modem
• Got a roomie.
• Eat more fish and vegetables.
• Became a regular at a couple of restaurants.
• Got involved in local hacker community and broader game dev community.
• Stay productive. Getting something done every day helps.
• Work on projects with others, use skype video often if not in same space.
• Got a medical marijuana certificate. Best when used judiciously.
• Make a habit of checking in on my last dozen or so thoughts. Are they all sad?

There's no one thing that seems to have done the trick, and it's not a perfect cure. I still have "down days," but I feel a lot better off overall than I used to. I think the hardest thing for anyone to do would be to cut their TV, cell phone, and car out of the picture, but I have to say, these were some of the most helpful things I did. Not only did they dramatically reduced bills but also reduced lots of stress and distractions. Granted, I can find plenty of distractions with my copious internet bandwidth, but at least they're more self-directed.