The only reason I do keep living is that I find I can't answer the opposite question either:

Why not keep living?

At least for that variant many reasons do surface, and whilst none seem overwhelmingly strong they do allow the question to evolve into:

Why not keep living a little while longer?

A deferred decision as I've found no strong answers either way.

I suspect that living a long life is to just not have strong answers either way and to discover that time has passed and now you're old.

I don't buy the argument that suicide isn't an option, of course it is. When despair is all you have, and the future is bleak, it sometimes can appear to be the only option. Somehow though, a short time later, decision not made, I've always found myself in some place in which I'm glad I didn't. In which I've found some peace, some bliss, some joy from life... and doing so has driven the despair away.

I have no answer for "Why keep living?", but if you are willing to consider changing things in your life (to get away from the things that bring you despair) then you can find some answers of varying merit to the opposite question.

That said, there are many good reasons to stay alive: love, pleasure, personal connections, contentment, spirituality. You may not have any of these now, but you must acknowledge the possibility that they will happen for you in the future. Even people in the worst of circumstances are able to sometimes find these things. Hope for a better day must stay alive.

    """
    ... a mental health professional ...
    """

Life is what you make it to be, it's unique to each of us. I can tell you why I find it worth living but it probably wont mean much to you, or anyone else because its my path. It seems as if you have found a little bit of enjoyment from making others happy, Id recommend you pursue that further. Everyone needs a passion, something that they enjoy and drives them but its never easy to find it. All I can say it keep putting one foot infront of the other and put effort into finding your path. My comment is obtuse and I apologize for it, all I can say is everyone walks their own path and its not always easy.

    My comment is obtuse and I apologize for it, all I can say is everyone walks their own path and its not always easy.

If this is keeping you from working, you're disabled at least temporarily. If you have work credits, claim SSDI.

If you feel there is no-one or you need more people - I am willing to give you my contact info.

However, during the time that I'm still here, whenever I feel like crap, I blame myself. If my thoughts are depressing me, then it's my job to change the thought patterns. Committing suicide seems like a cop-out to me. If it's to escape pain, I have to ask: where does the pain come from? Who made up the rules that I should be happy about this and that and I should be unhappy about this and that? Is it society? Is it my family? Nature? Well, if it were up to me, I'd rewrite the rules so that I win. And ultimately, I have to remember that it is in fact up to me to feel good or not.

Easier said than done, but this is the outlook that makes me reject feeling like crap. Remember, your thoughts don't define you. Just because you're the one thinking certain thoughts doesn't mean you should accept them all: pick and choose which ones you allow and which ones you should consider alien. Negative thoughts can be ignored, they can be changed. Meditation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Travel to foreign lands.

I've had my confidence shattered as well. It happens and can take years to recover it. I for one, am going out kicking and screaming. You've made it this far, saying "f the world" isn't offing yourself. It's bitterly going down to the last round.

I told my boss at work that my gravestone will never say "he was afraid to speak up for himself" or "he was afraid to take his shot". Because I'm not going out quietly, nor am I living meekishly. Speak out when you sense injustice. Join me, make yourself and presence heard.

I'd recommend if you're feeling that down, maybe try a change of scenery. Go to Costa Rica or someplace in Mexico, sit on the beach for weeks and drink beer. Find someone to have sex with, even if you have to pay for it. Use a rubber.

There's no way it's impossible for you to snap out of this. You can, and you will. I hope my words help you.

One of the only certainties in life is that you will ultimately die. So why hasten it? You may as well just continue existing, you'll definitely die eventually.

Lets consider our lives like a video game, the score you get at the end is the sum total of all the happiness and joy you've experienced in your life.

Even if nothing good happens in all the decades of the rest of your natural life, that time would still not affect your score, neither a net loss or a net gain.

Also, this is an incredibly unlikely scenario. Moments of joy an happiness do have a tendency to happen to humans over time, so if you try to live as long as possible your almost certain to increase your score.

I know at times it may seem like you will never again experience joy, but you can refute this by finding examples of times when you felt like you would never again experience joy, and then subsequently did experience some joy. Even in your short post there is one example.. "I went through a very long period of my life where I was horrendously depressed" followed by.. "I finally got over it last year when I started doing small kind gestures for the people I care about."

Also in the meantime, you could occupy yourself by achieving and adhering to a strict daily regimen: have a normal sleeping pattern, get 20 minutes of vigorous exercise each day, eat healthily.

It would be a probabilistic miracle for you to not have some amazing moments ahead of you.

That was a little over a two years ago. Now you wouldn't recognize her because she's so happy and vibrant - very far from when she was found unconscious alongside the road as a result of an attempted suicide and taken to the hospital by a Good Samaritan.

But it hasn't been easy and she couldn't have done it herself. You need friends and family to help you through this and you need to be brutally honest with them. Mental health is the least understood health issue. You're correct that thinking happy thoughts won't make the depression go away. You're correct that thinking positive thoughts won't make the depression go away. You're sick and you need medical help. It's no different from having cancer or an abscessed tooth - you're sick and you need medical assistance, and you need a patient advocate because mental healthcare in the United States is appalling.

Good luck and remember you're not alone. Many people have beat this illness and you can too!

You would be surprised how common this is, even among "successful" valley founders.

Good luck. Get help today.

I cannot recommend finding a good cognitive-behavioural therapist enough. Cognitive behavioural therapy with a good therapist actually helps; I've seen it with other people and myself.

Outside of that, personally I've that while external validation like you're trying can be nice, it doesn't always fight off intrinsic issues. For short term things, I've found going back to things I know I enjoy or used to enjoy helpful--finding friends I haven't hung out with in a while, or a videogame I know I like to play, or a favourite TV show, or a personal project I used to care about. I usually don't want to do these things before I start, but find they're easier to get back into than I expect.

This can be really tough, and I'm sorry you're going through it. But it is something you can get through!

But please find a good therapist (who lists cognitive behavioural therapy as something they specialize in)! And if the first person you find isn't someone you like, try another. I promise there are wonderful ones out there!

Anxiety and depression respond well to cognitive behaviour therapy. Ideally this is done with an experienced qualified registered therapist but it's possible to do it yourself by book or website.

"Mind over Mood" is a good, recommended, book. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0898621283/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=...

A websearch for the English "books on prescription" scheme will return curated lists of good books.

"Mood Gym" is a recommended website. https://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome

But it is most important that you see a doctor.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that one of the underlying factors with you is neurochemical or at any rate neurological. This isn't an unwarranted assumption because we know that the hopelessness that you feel is in your mind (I don't mean imagined, I mean that these are mental states) and we know the mind is the brain. Your circumstances (money-related, time-related) notwithstanding it seems like really really good advice to go see someone who does brain-stuff, either a doctor or a counsellor.

DanBC is _not_ saying that the undisclosed circumstances of your life are bogus - he is saying that using the (undisclosed) circumstances of your life as excuses or _reasons_ for not seeking professional help is bogus. And without sounding harsh, I'd have to agree. I'm sure there are at least some kind of charitable organisations out your way that'll see you free of charge (and if these conflict with your hours of work and you can't possibly take a day off) then there are 24-hour (toll-free) helplines, websites, what have you.

If you really feel that you are in a hopeless situation and you're contemplating an irreversible act then don't you owe it to yourself to thoroughly investigate every option?

There are many times that I didn't and many years later I now wish I had; could have spared me a lot of suffering and pain.

I was suicidal because I felt like my life had no control. The way this has was treated is to have me committed, where I have to spend the little energy I have convincing people I'm normal and sane so they'll let me go, and I will regain the control of being at least capable in theory to take my life. I come out of it much worse than how I came in.

I would love a good doctor, or even an understanding person to talk to. It's easy to snap your fingers and prescribe that, but for some people it feels hopeless to realize you may never get it.

It's called a downward spiral for a reason. One of my life goals, if I can get to it, would be to dismantle the terrible mental health infrastructure of the Western world and replace it with science and compassion.

My parents were murdered just under 10 years ago. I have spent the last decade fighting depression, PTSD, and a society that doesn't know how to deal with extreme emotional effects. I feel like I'm finally getting out of that hole. It has taken a long time.

Your recent anxiety sounds like the late effects of PTSD, or some other trauma related condition. I would highly recommend speaking to a professional (actually, speak to as many as it takes to find one you like). You aren't alone, and your condition isn't unique. There will be good advice out there.

As to people being happier when you're around, That's usually a good "life" metric to check, but in times of personal crisis, you want to think about you. Who are you happiest around? Can you talk to them about your feelings? If not, can you spend more time with them?

Life is sometimes hard, and "sometimes" can last a long time, but there will be good bits, then better bits, then eventually, the majority will hopefully be good.

The universe is billions of years old. And it will exist for billions of years more. A long, long time.

And we each exist for a very brief span of time in comparison. Less than an eyeblink, relative to that.

You have a rare opportunity to live, see, and experience all kinds of things.

The universe will go on long after us. So there is plenty of time to be dead... later. Plenty of time. No need to rush that.

Live now.

In my shirt pocket, I always carry stickers from a game I'm working on. Whenever I bump into a parent wrangling kids, I offer the parent stickers with this line, "In case these are of some use."

I do not explain they're from my game, nor do they have any branding on them. It's not about that. It's about making a kid happy with a sticker, and it works.

They do all kinds of things with them, from sticking them on themselves to immediately creating stories behind them. The good parents usually remind their kids to "thank the nice man for the stickers" and then they proceed to be good kids and deliver perfectly adorable "thank you"'s.

I've seen and done a lot of things, and it'll sound trite, but not nothing can compare to making a kid smile.

Additionally, there's a dead comment from streetwiseherc you might want to read which will show up if you enable showdead in your profile

Hope you feel better soon

edit: I see you noticed just before I commented and posted asking why you've been shadowbanned - FYI, it's an automatic thing if HN detects a new account from the Tor network. Mods will normally undo the ban once they notice, if they think it isn't deserved.

BTW, I am very happy to hear that you've been helping the needy and being selfless in general :-)!

I'm also from a country without great access to health care(Ukraine) :)

My experience is about remembering the moment in my life where I was lying on the floor, then saying in rattling voice "I've decided to live" and getting on my feet. Not sure what was the reason to live before that :)

Now it's probably more about things to look forward to. Mine thing is hanging out with children(they're so energetic!). If you're on hacker news, you probably know some programming, if so maybe volunteering as a teacher for an orphanage can be an inspiring thing to do?

I would strongly suggest you lean on someone (friends, family, professional, a suport group) until you can figure out a plan to escape.

To answer your question, my reasons for living is finding happiness from inside - I try to learn how to be happy when either it's raining or sunny, rich or poor, single or married - etc.

If you (or anyone!) wants to have a chat my email is my profile.

But don't just rely on Hacker News. Seek out others, in the flesh, face-to-face. Get some help. Don't try to feel okay by yourself. There's nothing wrong with feeling like shit. But there are a lot of people out there who've been through what you're going through and who want to help. Find someone objective to talk to -- a therapist, or a support group -- and keep coming back to them until you get to the bottom of what's going on.

As for me -- my girlfriend of many years is gone. I'm alone, working a job I don't like, living in a fairly expensive town with no friends who live close by. Believe me when I say that I've felt like calling it a done deal. I keep going because there are people out there who've invested in me and who care, because I have a dog who needs me to walk him every damned day, because I do have good people in my life, because I do have work to do even if I don't always like it, and because I've been alive long enough to know that, given time, the wheel turns 'round.

I won't tell you to cheer up. That's bullshit advice. I will tell you to dig deep, find something that matters to you, and stick around.

"But you go to the moon 'cause it's next. We came out of the cave, went over the hill, crossed the ocean, pioneered a continent and took to the heavens. We were meant to be explorers. Explorers, builders and protectors."

I feel I owe it to all the people that preceded us from the cavemen to Einstein; from the strong to the intelligent, from the brave and daring to the prudent caretaker, we owe it to the people that innovated and broke with the past and those that helped preserve it. I feel we owe them to keep pushing forward and upwards! This is our nature.

Take on an ambitious goal and share it with others, or join someone else's goal and try to enjoy the journey. If you find your way whatever it may be you'll look forward to tomorrow!

The following might apply to you or not - you have to decide yourself: You might have connected your self-confidence to your goals or dreams or success and are possibly also comparing yourself to others (jealousy). You need to let go of all that, since love for life is at the very bottom of everything, and does not come by struggling for it. There are countless reasons to live, as you have surely experienced before - you just can't see them right now. This will change eventually, and it's worth to stick around to get to see it. So that's one thing. The other thing is the situation you find yourself in, which you still might want to improve. To do that without becoming depressed, try to reserve a fixed amount of time to work toward any goals, without becoming attached to them. Just put in the effort every day for a fixed amount of time. If the things you want to change can't be changed by working towards them, you need to let them go, too.

Does this ring a bell? If not, each depression is different - and I hope some of the other comments help you.

For a):

There's a method that was developed recently by a couple of very qualified people, specifically to overcome the problem of the relapse of depression. It's based on the practice of "Mindful meditation" and the book (with CD) is called "The Mindful Way Through Depression". The program lasts 8 weeks. You'll do exercises everyday and you'll learn the tool(s) to stop any relapse right when it threatens to take over your life again. And there's scientific proof that this program actually really does re-wire your brain: news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/

For b):

Here are the gems:

The audio files you'll need to do the exercises: https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/4180277/Mindful_Way_Through_...

The book (pdf) you'll need to read: http://www.torrentz.com/3935b3cbcfc33c14d45fa8eefada3210347b...

Above all else, please remember that this will always be true: No matter what "IT" is that shattered your dreams or caused your run-in with the law or brought about your recent upset, IT IS TEMPORARY AND WILL PASS. Everything passes...time, sadness, and yes, even the good times. But please know that you will only experience happiness from within when you understand that these things are temporary.

YOU AND YOU ALONE are the master of your world because only you can change your perception of what goes on around you. Once you accept that these negative experiences are temporary AND you have the ability to DECIDE whether these TEMPORARY things are going to cost you the most Precious gift you've been given (life), then you'll have no more thoughts of suicide. You'll understand how your life is worth living AND you'll begin to see how your absence would impact the lives of those you love.

Think back to when you were a child and got hurt. Did that physical pain last forever? This won't either...

Take care of you. YOU are PRECIOUS and you are LOVED.

    """
    Once you accept that these negative experiences are temporary . . . then you'll have no more thoughts of suicide.
    """

I enjoy listening to audiobooks and podcasts while I'm out doing my daily 6 miles. Is there a book you really like, or one you've been really wanting to read? Get the audiobook and commit to a walking experiment for the 10-20 hours it takes to listen through that one book.

This sounds chemical! Medication helped me, try it!

Life is a short and most likely one time thing. We might as well see what we can make of it and who we can impact in a positive way.

Please talk to your friends and family if you start having harmful thoughts.

But it's limited to US IPs. Using Tor browser, you can specify US exits. See https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/4732/google-play-sto... You put the configuration options in ./Data/Tor/torrc-defaults. See https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/1065/what-happened-t...

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

I've actually already read this before, years ago when I was at my worst.

Try meditating (specifically with the HeadSpace app if you own a smartphone). Meditating helps you concentrate on the present instead of thinking of the past. For example when I take a walk outside, it helps me appreciate it a lot more even if its cold and uncomfortable. And I don't spend time thinking of useless stuff like I should have worked more at school, or I should have done this and that.

Now you can try this app for free, but I think after 10 courses you have to pay for it. I have a 3 months trial coupon if you want, just contact me through my personal website and I'll send you a coupon: http://andrei.pervychine.com

Sorry man, that's all I got.

Fix the problem and then go ahead and do whatever you want. Atleast you would be helping one other person. One you have crossed the line, there are no rules,nothing to stop you. Problems are created by people or a group of people. Fix the problem and you will watch problems run to the hills. Yes you will have to pay a price for all this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5UBikauIQM

http://codepad.org/LMNJWE6X

They say "Life is suffering". You want to choose to the easy route or the hard way, i leave it upto you.

Read upon Irom Sharmila.If you can do that , you are beyond anything. Nothing can stop you.

I'm also from a country without great access to health care(Ukraine) :)

My experience is about remembering the moment in my life where I was lying on the floor, then saying in rattling voice "I've decided to live" and getting on my feet. Not sure what was the reason to live before that :)

Now it's probably more about things to look forward to. Mine thing is hanging out with children(they're so energetic!). If you're on hacker news, you probably know some programming, if so maybe volunteering as a teacher for an orphanage can be a nice thing to do?

Summary : Write. Long walk.

All the best, man. I can only imagine what State-persecution does to a person.

Does anyone know why this is? I've seen this sentiment quite a few times now.

In fact, I am worried that OP, seemingly an accomplished hacker, will not heed my advice and try just typing or maybe OneNote. OP, I spent $2000 on a tablet PC with OneNote + pen to realize that it simply isn't even in the same league as good old writing.

manmukh, one reason this seems to the case is that writing is a slow-bandwidth activity, and forces the mind into what I call "walking mode", i.e., it is well-known that walking fosters creativity by putting one in this special floating / limbo state of mind where new thoughts and new connections arise naturally. Writing seems to provoke the same state of mind by being slow! It is as if the mind goes to take a walk while the hand finishes it's duty of serializing the last bunch of thoughts...:-)

Read some of the great books that exist in the world. They contain amazing thoughts that might change your entire mindset.

Your depression is like an adversary, trying to kill you, and it is feeding you wrong thoughts. Some of them are obvious, depriving meaning from meaningful things, and some of them are not obvious, like the idea that you cannot get help for one reason or another. But it's just another tactic for your adversary.

I would guess that you need some friends. Having a "support network" is important. If you had one, you wouldn't be reaching out to strangers on HN. But, look at it this way—I haven't logged in to leave a comment in a year and a half, and I did for you. And you have two other people leaving comments, so clearly you are interesting enough to make some friends. So I would recommend you try and do that.

The rest of my advice is probably useless, but I'll say it anyway.

Sometimes when I get depressed I fantasize about going somewhere remote and just living in a cabin or something. I'm sure I'd be awful at it, but you know, if your alternative is killing yourself, you might as well try it. At least that way you can die of something exotic. Would you rather die because you were trying something dangerous in the hopes of enjoying it, or because you decided to call it quits early? Have you tried freighthopping? If you're going to kill yourself, you might as well get a free trip or two out of it. You might as well go down to the dangerous part of town and get into a fight. You might as well, I dunno, get an awful job like helping people move that pays rather well and blow it all on something frivolous.

I dunno. I suffer from depression myself but haven't been suicidal in a long time. The thing is that it's a disease, and treating your mood is treating the symptom. You probably need medication and counseling to treat the disease. But for me, a major turning point was regarding the negative thoughts as something adversarial, a manifestation of the disease, rather than just "truth." Another thing that helped me was that I had the faith that if I did kill myself, I would be depriving someone of their soulmate. Corny. But it's the truth, it helped me a lot. And now I know I was right to have faith in that.

I don't know. This probably isn't constructive. Try lots of things and talk to lots of people about it. Don't give up.

Oh, and get some sunlight (or vitamin D). And avoid street drugs. Ecstasy in particular can cause this.

You're not alone, though it may feel like that some time.

Every day that you continue to exist is a victory for all of us.

Anxiety sucks. Personally, I tend to feel more anxious when I haven't been taking care of the basics - eating right, getting regular exercise, working on the things I told myself I'd work on, etc.. getting plenty of sleep etc.

The heart can be a fragile thing. You have to keep reminding it that everything will be alright.

Because life is the master of all games, it's incredibly hard, but as long as you don't physically die there is always a new life waiting for you to start once you push that reset button.

There is nothing that compares to it, no other game is as rich, as deep and complex with endless opportunities for improvisation.

Have you ever played a game that you can't possibly win, but you kept trying, fighting, again and again, with a grin on your face because it was so epic? This is how life can be, once you let go of the fear of losing. No matter if everything is burning around you, if it keeps kicking you down, even adversity can become your power, your scream for meaningfulness in a mad mad world.

I had a really bad year in 2014. Anxiety attacks, dark thoughts, I know what you are going through. Meditation is what got me through. If you can't afford therapy you should really try.

Before you reject it of hand, I don't mean you should start believing crazy things about chakras and other stuff if that is not part of your culture. It doesn't matter if you are an atheist, a christian or a muslim, or whatever else, meditation itself is a scientific tool, it's how you become a researcher of your own mind. Just sit down, and for 20 minutes try to stick with your breathing. If you can, try to think about any people or things in your life that you are grateful for. That really does wonders.

I've found a lot of wisdom in Michael Carroll's books, that explain how to become fearless, using Buddhist teachings but without having to accept Buddhist dogmas. You can find them: http://www.amazon.com/Awake-Work-Practical-Principles-Discov... http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Work-Confidence-Resilience-Cr...

Lastly, I've experienced a similar relapse after I was doing quite well for some time. Maybe what you are feeling now is the last fortress of darkness before everything becomes better again. Keep helping people, you will push through for sure.

Hope this helps

1) You don't know (for absolutely certain) that being dead will be better. Since it is an irreversible step the risk/payoff is terrible.

2) Death comes for us all eventually, why the hurry? Why go to any effort to accelerate what is unavoidable. See point 1.

3) There are millions of tiny spots of wonder and brightness all around you but you have to work a bit to see them. The tiny rainbow in a dewdrop is an entire world of magic and knowledge but can still be easy to overlook.

4) I totally know where you are coming from, it would be so easy to stop swimming and just go under. But that is not the nature of life. Life is struggle & pain, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Embrace the pain.

5) It has helped me a lot to brainwash my self with a bunch of positive inputs. A Phineas and Ferb marathon really helped me a few weeks ago when I was recovering from a physical illness & had slipped into depression in the wake of a tooth infection. Set myself up a huge collection of upbeat songs with great lyrics on Spotify.

To quote Candace: "Time is what you make of it, so take a chance. Life is full of music, so you oughta dance."

You've got nothing to lose.

As someone who suffers from mental health disorders, I found it immensely helpful.

I'll be straightforward: I'd love to chat -- anonymously of course -- in the hope that we both might benefit. I cooked up a GMail account just for that reason, which you can find in my profile.

I'll monitor it for the next day or so if you'd accept the offer.

As stubborn as I am, I will find the answer to this question! Or die trying!

As you might have noticed, I did found some reasons for continuing to live.

However, I won't tell you! If I told you my reasons, you would find them trivial because I would talk about my family and friends, I would talk about beauty of nature, warm bread, long and lonely morning walks, and other blah blah like this. Also, you might not even need all these things right now to feel better. The whole point here is not the reason.

I've been locked into my house for about one year because of a major depression that degenerated into agoraphobia. I whispered my own name and found it not to be familiar anymore on some nights. No wonder I felt suicidal!

But I kept repeating to myself: "One day I'm going to be fine again. I just have to hang in there a little bit more". And it worked. That simple thought gave me something which stands between hope and curiosity. That simple thought made me feeling prepared to something good. They say you have to be always prepared to handle bad things, but sometimes we forget to be prepared for good things! With this in mind, I found the strength to continue living, which resulted into understanding what was the cause of my depression in the first place (I won't tell you that either), and then one little step at a time, whitout even noticing it, I found myself living a happy life (...again).

I'm not a doctor but these practical things helped me a lot feeling AT LEAST alive during that time:

- math exercises; there is no way 2 + 2 is going to equal 5, do some simple math and enjoy the relief of dealing with something that works as expected everytime

- keep notes of what you do everyday; depression flattens your days, and it gets harder for you to distinguish yesterday from the the day before yesterday and this gets the whole thing harder

- write down some day-by-day to do list; simple things just to get to the end of the day with the feeling of having done everything that was supposed to be done

- turn off the computer; when in an alienation-prone mood, computers don't help at all

- do not expect gratitude from other people; right now your mood cannot possibly rely on someone else! Do good things and forget about it. You have to be the only one to know how good you can do right now

And in the end, put yourself first. Yes, I said it, be egoist until you find out who are you now, what you want now, what you need now, and why you feel so crappy now. One day you're going to be fine again, you just have to hang in there a little bit more.

I've come to look at it like this: depression is like an Instagram filter. (Wait, just...bear with me.) Go take a picture of a tree outside with Instagram. Now lower the saturation, pump up the shadows, add vignette edges. You'll end up with something that looks like a goth album cover. Is it still an accurate picture of the tree? Yes...but you've chosen which aspects of it to focus on. You've given it an emotional coloring.

Being depressed is like having that Instagram filter on your entire worldview. You're not delusional, you're not just imagining that the world sucks...but your ability to see the full spectrum of things has been limited. And the worst part is, you can't control when that filter gets slammed down on you.

Sometimes it's situational. Here's a hypothetical for you: if somebody showed up at your door tomorrow with a check for a billion dollars and the deed to your own private island where you could go be alone or be surrounded only by people you wanted around you, do you think you would still be depressed? If not, then you know the answer: go find a billion dollars and a private island, obviously. (Go find Peter Thiel and hit him up, he's into big money and private islands these days, I hear.)

But in all seriousness, if your depression seems tied to circumstance, never forget that circumstance can change, either on its own or by your own effort of will. Unless you are actually in prison right now, you can almost always walk away from where you are and find somewhere else to be. Someone else to be, in some sense.

But you have to be honest with yourself and willing to admit that maybe you're not where you're supposed to be, even if you've spent your whole life headed in this direction. Maybe you'd be better served working as a bartender in some roadhouse down on the Gulf Coast, or living in a shit apartment doing sculpture and working part-time as a barista just to afford rent and ramen noodles. I know people who are perfectly content with the idea of never being rich or successful, but just doing what they want and not worrying about whether anybody else gives a shit at all. (I'm becoming one of them myself.)

And there's always the possibility that your depression is, at some point in the stack, hardware-based -- that you've got a chemical imbalance in your head meat. And listen, as a longtime freelancer and contractor who's been doing the startup dance for a real long goddamn time now, I feel you on the medical thing -- hell, I wrote a book about going to Juarez, Mexico to get my wisdom teeth fixed because it was cheaper to do it there, including travel expenses, than to get it done at the dentist down the street. And that shit can be tricky in America, especially if you're not actually indigent but can't afford to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on doctors and medicine. (I think your income level at that point is legally defined as "between a rock and a hard place".)

But there are resources. If you live in an urban area there are almost certainly free mental health resources. You can go and sit in line and find out if you qualify. It sucks and it's boring and it can make you feel like a pathetic crazy person, but never forget: that's not about you, that's about the way the system is set up in this country.

Or look at it another way: if you had diabetes, or a weak heart or your legs stopped working, wouldn't you do whatever it took to figure out why it was happening to you and how to stop it, even if it meant sitting in some overcrowded janky-ass waiting room for a day?

You've got a potentially life-threatening condition that may or may not be caused by bad wiring. If there's a way to fix it, fix it.

Because here's the thing, sir or madam, and please, please take this from someone who has spent more than one night staring at a razor blade or a handful of pills: this is a fucking glorious universe we live in. Really. The moments when depression leaves me entirely are the moments when I'm just alive in the world, looking at how ridiculous and amazing it is. I don't kill myself because I'm not done with the awesome. I'm not done with eating the food and seeing the cities and sleeping with wonderful ladies and watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe unfold and listening to all the goddamn rock and roll I possibly can and just finding nice, quiet places to stare up at the Milky Way and think about whether or not this is all just one great big algorithm, playing out over billions of years.

We live in a mystery, homes, and you'll never come to the end of it. But isn't that worth something?

I hope my advice helps, or at least puts some perspective on things. I don't know you and probably never will, but I'm rooting for you. You can handle this. Don't give up. As the writer Neil Gaiman once put it -- and this is maybe the best advice any human ever gave another -- you don't have to stay anywhere forever.

Vaya con Dios.

I have lived in countries like Angola, Uganda, Rwanda with people having 1 /20 of the things what an American has. But they are much happier overall, because they have more in what makes a life human.

First they have friends and they have family. People in Western societies live alone, specially in America most people don't have friends at all. They can live in a McMansion completely isolated from the rest of the world.

"family" for an American means:"your parents" or "your children". For an African person could mean between 20 to 40 people.

This is an advantage for some things. In the west you could do whatever you want, without having to convince people in your family that does not understand, but also is a tremendous disadvantage as you are alone in tough times.

Americans are puritans, they can't see a breast from a woman. The people that do, do it for commercial profit reaping the "scandal", like Madonna or MTV annual prices shows.They could call the cops if they see you making pictures to a kid smiling on the street(being puritan means they are obsess with sex and have a tremendous dirty mind).

In Africa sex is normal. There is no such a concept of "possessing another person" like in the West. In my opinion this alone is pathological creating hypocrisy and jealously . You see people naked from both sexes taking a bath in the river, or women breastfeeding their children in public. It is normal there, like having sex with multiple people(which makes AIDS a great problem).

In Africa you have fantastic weather. Great sun, no winter in most of the continent. In the West lots of people don't see the sun at all because they are working all day inside buildings. In places like Boston you can't simply not live out there in winter, it is too cold.

The food in the US is so preprocessed. People are overweight because the food they eat is so artificial. Food that have stayed in the fridge or is industrially processed destroys lots of useful substances(enzymes, co enzymes, vitamins, fiber and lots of substances that let you incorporate other substances).

In Africa people is young, lots of kids smiling everywhere. The West is becoming an older and older society with worries everywhere, fear for the future.

So I recommend you look at the basics in your live: Do you have friends, love, exercise, quality food, sleep well, go outside frequently?

Do you work too much or too hard?

If not, you need to change your habits first. Traveling far away is a great way of being forced to change your habits fast.

Once you have your basics, start using self help material, like books and videos and learn what works for you. There is amazing material out there, the problem is knowing what works and what does not.

You can learn meditation, which is basically training for controlling your internal thoughts. But this is advanced, you first need to have the basics solved.

Being able to breathe the air or look up at the sky is truly remarkable. Yet, many people overlook the amazing every day because we have expectations of how life should go.

In our anticipation of the future or recollections of the past we never quite nestle into the present unless we are fortunate enough to realize that true understanding and true contentment come from within.

We all have this amazing experience we are sharing. Life is, indeed, tumultuous, it is not always easy or straightforward, but we all know there is a "better" someplace. That is, generally, what keeps us all going, if we are not with the luxury to coast.

Know that no matter how much you agonize and suffer, the experiences you have are rich and valuable, because you can one day use this to help someone else. We are each like a universe unto ourselves in a way -- we each have (for the most part) a visual field, a sound sphere, a taste, smell, and tactile sense field of sensory immersion. Even if you are hurting a lot, know that things change. This is the truth.

Know also, that to be able to prevent or relieve someone else's suffering is not only valuable to them, but valuable to you, because we are all connected in deep ways, many of which are not apparent to our "thinking" minds.

Before you do anything rash, I would encourage you to try and learn as much as you can about life and its myriad expressions. Go to a nursing home and volunteer for an afternoon. Go to a hospital and hang out with some people with cancer, or even just with a simple boo-boo. Your heart might open, and the truth and beauty of a life lived for others might dawn in your mind.

Really, our greatest purpose, if I may be so bold as to lay claim to one, is to help the brilliance of creativity, joy, compassion, and openness grow and illuminate our world.

Perhaps you have noticed that your attitude and willingness to open up to other people influences how you feel, and this is no coincidence. Look at your own body -- cells pass nutrients and signals along to other cells, and in the end "you" (although where "i" or "you" truly dwell is a deep question) are able to walk around and get some coffee. Something as simple as your afternoon tea takes a chorus of millions upon millions of cells coordinating selflessly in order to happen.

Life is not about monetary success or fame or gain. These lumps come and go, they coagulate and they pass, it is not the truest our life aims can be. Certainly, these can sometimes ease our burdens, and make service easier, but true satisfaction will come when your heart aligns, even in the slightest, with the heartbeat of the universe (multiverse)...

To spend your days contemplating the greatest and deepest impulse of the cosmos in its infinite and unbound expression would not be a waste of your time. It would, in fact, be a great gain, for yourself and others.

Happiness is not a condition, it is a practice. Since we are all connected, the more you aspire to helping others lift up their end of the "net" so-to-speak, the more you yourself will rise. Your opportunity for the most sublime and wonderful unfolding is in this life. Our potential as humans is unlimited. Aspire to the greatest benefit for all, and your arrows of action shall not miss their mark. For every little bit can grow and grow.

Knowing that we all suffer, that it in inherent to life, and that we all wish to be free of suffering is only the beginning. "It is better to travel well than to arrive."

Plant your seeds and help your garden grow.

To clarify: when people feel "anxious and depressed for no discernible reason", it might be because of a neurological disorder in their brain. Even happy times feel empty and meaningless. Or, it might be because of an actual issue in their lives, but one they haven't fully discerned. It's hard to tell which group you might be in.

At the time I found doing volunteering did give me some genuine happiness. Another activity I found very meaningful was deep reading of philosophy and literature. Over time the reading became less and less rewarding though (the volunteering stopped because of logistical issues). I had a feeling that there was some process that was sucking meaning out of everything good in my life, which was pretty scary, and made me wonder if I was developing clinical depression.

In my case, I've come to the conclusion that my unhappiness was caused by unacknowledged issues with my life situation, not neurochemistry. You mention "I had all of my dreams in life shattered" - my situation was not so drastic, but still a bit similar. I'd been reading about startups all throughout university, and was accepted into a prestigious new accelerator on graduating (more of a pre-accelerator, actually, so ideas and teams were in a bit of flux). It was intense but I felt on top of the world. My problem was I "pivoted" three times while looking for the right team + idea, until the accelerator programme had ended and I had no serious traction with anything. So I found myself working in Starbucks on crappy PHP code for a freelance client. Then that dried up and I found another short-term gig basically doing monkey work with Excel. I went through a hairy few weeks after a late invoice where I almost ran out of cash. So I was trying to figure out my life direction while also struggling to survive.

Looking back, I had a combination of a) over-ambition ("I need to be working on a potentially huge startup before I turn 24") and b) lack of understanding of the effort required to create something halfway-decent (and the experience required to create something actually good).

Over time I managed to tune down the over-ambition through a combination of introspection, CBT, self-acceptance and observation of how difficult even very smart people have obtaining moderate success. The work ethic I improved by taking a couple of standard web development jobs and learning to do things the right way. Still, this existential depression has waxed and waned over the last two years, and (I now believe) it's because at least part of my psyche never stopped believing that I could and should be doing something greater.

It's like - as we grow up we get used to the fact that our younger dreams often aren't worth sticking to. Lots of people wanted to be astronauts as kids, but they probably don't despair that they never became astronauts, just because it's such an unlikely thing to become. But the minor character in Fight Club who secretly wanted to become a veterinarian - well, it was a challenge to become a veterinarian but not an impossible challenge, so why didn't he do it?

So my small suggestion to you is: take a look at your "shattered dreams" and rationally evaluate which still seem achievable and worthwhile.

Avoid the twin emotional traps of grandiosity and helplessness ("yes, this is the idea, I'm going to work on becoming the next Elon Musk for 18 hours a day and get VC money and Techcrunch coverage and everyone will love me forever" vs "why do I want to work on a new project, just summoning up the effort will add more strife to my existence in the valley of tears, I should just find a safe spot and stop moving"). A good perspective is one of balance, clarity and equanimity: "my life is OK, there are things that I can improve and I will patiently work on plans to improve them, and try and build relationships with people who I can help or who can help me".

continue to look for a purpose. if nothing else, make looking for a purpose your purpose.

idea...once you learn to overcome depressed/depressed feelings, you could share your tricks with others in a similar situation. Helping others escape from similar feelings is surely a valuable and noble purpose.

exercise! Outdoors if possible.

stay sober

volunteer at an animal shelter. or an animal preserve in a third-world country!

find a nice place to live. Something with at least of basic view of something green. Some place with a walkable neighborhood. Can't afford one in the US? Go to Urugauy and find one there.

if you have interet connection, learn new skills. then find better, higher-paying work, then move to a place you love.

go easy on yourself. we all make mistakes and go through rough patches. it's part of the human experience. make sure you cut yourself some slack for your mistakes.

volunteer at a place that actually NEEDS help. not doing your friend's errands. feed some sick people. help build a shelter for someone who's lost everything in a natural disaster.

do something of real value to a community in need: help exploited women/children. protect endangered wildlife.

go on a hike/camp in nature. BIG nature if possible.

enjoy good sex. it's one of life's greatest gifts.

if you use porn, stick to positive pornography and stick to a lower usage limit. excessive porn usage, especially of negative porn, can make one feel worse.

start small with successes: finish a word search. finish a lego set. build plastic models. learn to cook amazing deserts and then invite some people over to enjoy them with you. start small and gradually build up to more challenging achievements.

think outside the box: if you're already at the bottom professionally and working so much and you can't even afford a doctor, there's little risk in making a BIG move to another location (country?) or career.

what are you good at? which people NEED help with those skills? provide it. it will make you feel good.

practice appreciating all the little things. the flowers. the kids' laughter. the rain. music.

adopt a positive, gratitude encouraging mantra. one I use is ..."appreciate this, appreciate that, appreciate it all"

develop a marketable skill that you can do remotely. sure, work in an office if it's feasable, but also work in shared spaces, and also work from really nice locations every once in a while.

power is relative. move to a place where your current skillset is seen as powerful and desirable. being able to dig a well and install a pump might be really highly appreciated in certain parts of the world.

see this mood as something tht's temporary, like the weather. many great people in history have been very down and out before they made there mark on the world. you'll only know what you're fully capable of achieving in your life if you stick around and keep giving it your best.

be good to yourself, and then FELL GOOD ABOUT the fact that your a person that is good to yourself (see what I did there?)

be good to others, and then FELL GOOD ABOUT the fact that your a person that is good to others

be honest and try hard, and then FELL GOOD ABOUT the fact that your a person that is honest and tries hard

do those above three things and you'll be emotionally richer than most.

lastly... are there people out there that love you? Family? Friends? Those people will be emotionally devasted if you leave this planet prematuely. I guarantee it. So if nothing else, for THEIR SAKE, do everything you possibly can to live a long and content life. That means TRY EVERY LAST BIT OF ADVICE for finding meaning and contentment before you ever choose to throw in the towel.

Yeah, that is never going to happen. Not for me. I am 1. gay and 2. ugly.

I've been feeling pretty down, too. In the past there were times I felt so bad that the main thing stopping me from hurting or killing myself was that I couldn't bear to hurt my parents. They're great people, who already suffered the loss of their other child, through no fault of theirs.

But I know from experience that it can turn around very quickly. There have been times when my life has gone from hopeless to better than I ever imagined it could be, and I was really happy, and every day was an adventure.

It happened before, and I'm trying every day to make it happen again. The pain I've been going through will have been converted to subtley, and depth of character, and strength, and fuel for humor, and the problems I have now will seem small. Just don't give up! We only find the answers when we're still looking for answers.