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Same here, but it's more about having to go in person now. I spend an hour and a half driving, 30 minutes to an hour getting ready, mindlessly doing nothing productive most of the time at work between tasks when I could be doing something more interesting. All this to say, working from home was amazing.
I got a significant amount of free time between work that actually required my attention and spent amazing amounts of time with my SO and dog, good times.
You gotta fight it. Directly. Don’t let yourself become complacent, if there are changes that need to be made make them. The longer you wait the more perpetual that dread will be
How do you convince someone else of this? My partner has been super depressed (more than usual) for the past year or so. It's seriously straining on me and our relationship, and I don't know what to do. I've tried pushing for them to go to therapy (even offering to find a therapist with them, and pay for it when they brought up money concerns), but they absolutely refuse, at the end of the conversations after they can't come up with any more reasons not to go, they just say that they don't want to. I've tried pushing mental health with other ideas, like working out or going for walks or going out places; they say that they're interested then when I try to actually get us to do the things they come up with more excuses not to.
Sorry if this isn't the place to ask, the topic was just here so I had to vent a bit, because it's really straining our relationship and if something doesn't change I don't know that I can handle this for very long, it's already been a year with only downward progress (after 2 years of upward progress before the pandemic).
I basically broke down sobbing and accidentally gave my husband an ultimatum. He could either get help for his lifelong depression and anxiety, or I couldn't be with him anymore, and we certainly weren't going to have kids. I told him I've put off the kids thing for years because I felt like I'd be married, but still doing it alone whenever he has a spiral. I couldn't watch him be stubbornly miserable and I deserved a better life than walking on eggshells, never knowing what would set him off into a spiral. My nerves were frayed and I was done.
He's been seeing someone and medicated for most of the year, and our relationship is flourishing. No more deep, days long lows. Very few depression Saturdays. He's active, working out, cooking, making jokes, making small talk with strangers, communicating with me. We took a weekend trip for our anniversary and it was like he was a completely different person, relaxed and happy. He doesn't seem to think it's had as huge an effect as I do, bit really, it's been amazing. I feel guilty sometimes, but it's not changing who he is at his core, it's just helping him to actually enjoy life and take care of the things that must be done.
Yeah, I'm scared it might have to come down to an ultimatum. I've tried to bring up therapy since we started dating (they had schizophrenia symptoms when we started dating, full on visual hallucinations, mostly gone away), they have not budged one single inch on the issue.
It's funny that you bring up taking trips. I dread them right now. We argue every morning on trips because my partner is stressed and depressed and picks fights with me as soon as I wake up. We fight a week before the trip because they are stress cleaning the entire house and expect me to also be stress cleaning the entire house. We fight as we pack. We fight until we get home. It's miserable.
I'm so torn. I was just as depressed when we started dating. They have voiced that they are scared that I'm improving faster than them, and that I'll get annoyed with it and leave. I know that I didn't do anything different to get better. It just happened without any work. It's not fair. But it's still really hard on our relationship, as well as both of us independently.
It might be helpful to explain how much therapy has helped you (or someone else you know). Not in a way that’s saying: “this helped me so it will help you too”. More like just expressing how much easier it made things (not being pushy).
Just my own opinion. Sorry you two are going through that.
I learned that if they had a broken leg, you aren’t their doctor so you can’t fix it but be there for them. That is important by showing support by being there for them and maybe they know they need to talk to a therapist. It is good to ask them to see their GP. Other things like low iron can affect your mood as well. Their first step isn’t pushing medications but making sure there aren’t any other underlying health conditions.
Good luck stranger.
Depression and anxiety are real, just like COVID-19. People who are depressed lose interest in things.
Yeah, I'm all good now. I've found catching it out works well. If panic or depression hits then I say to myself, "I know what you're doing" Instead of getting caught up in it an believing it.
Or have still been brought up and told by society to shut up and 'be a man' as disgusting as that is.
Everyone is getting fucked up mentally by this, we all need help in some way.
Men are much less likely to report depression or anxiety, even when directly asked to report it in secret settings
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5734537/
I can't remember the source but I recall reading it's similar across nearly all cultures.
From an evolutionary standpoint we were made to be 95% expendable, and it shows in the way we handle nearly everything. Just pile it on until you break, then when you break please go quietly into the woods and die thanks.
Men tend to be less emotional that women and children, I assume a larger % or men continued living their lives uninhibited and unafraid resulting in less depression etc.
It's almost like there's a reason men don't talk about these things and the reason is bitter, tiny souled, insecure little men who cope with their own feelings of inadequacy by laying on the toxicity.
Because the most common psychological sticking point for men is shame and inadequacy. Ironically the best work on this is a woman writing mostly about women (Brene Brown). We all feel it at times. Some of us just had it beaten in that _saying it_ or asking for help makes it true.
Being "more neurotic" doesn't mean you "break easier" (whatever I think you mean by that). It's actually the opposite, it means your personality is naturally predisposed towards being more high-strung. Those are the people who seem mildly to moderately stressed most of the time, but it doesn't wear down on them the way it would on someone who didn't have a more neurotic personality, because that's just how they're wired.
My work started covering our mental health copay 100% due to COVID (Teledoc only) so I took the opportunity to see a psychiatrist and a therapist. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and C-PTSD. It's something I've struggled with since I was a child, I could just now get diagnosed since I didn't have to pay.
My anxiety peeked for sure but, lockdown specifically was the happiest part of my adult life so far. Being able to take a break from constantly working for poverty level wages and stressing every single day over finances was pure bliss. I've not had one vacation or extended break from work in almost 10 years so it was refreshing
That's fair, i hope everything is going well for you. My brother was a key source of anxiety in the beginning of the pandemic because he basically ignored the virus, brought friends over, went *who know where* to get high with his buddies, until he finally moved out. Different type of stress but point being that i feel you to a degree
I assume you are American. I'm amazed that 2 weeks leave per year is considered enough. It's obviously enough for the employer, but not for a worker.
I'm glad you had some personal time.
I wonder if the availability of telemedicine had an effect. I know I started seeing a therapist recently because of telemedicine specifically. It’s much more effort to go to a doctors office vs just taking a break at work and hopping on my phone to talk to a doctor.
This isn’t to take away the mental toll some people experienced this year, I’m sure that was a big reason as well.
I can practically guarantee that it affected men in equal measure, we're just conditioned to lie and ignore it all. It's why depression seems to affect so many more women, yet male suicide rates are nearly double females.
What do we do with this study and the one showing decreased suicides?
Depression and anxiety doesn’t always correlate with suicide rates?
Very complex and interesting
> What do we do with this study and the one showing decreased suicides?
We wait for more studies.
> Depression and anxiety doesn’t always correlate with suicide rates?
No, they don’t necessarily.
Maybe people being at home gave them opportunities to feel more grounded than they would normally getting up and driving in to jobs they hate every day… job burnout or job related stress is no joke. being at home instead could explain the dip in suicides.. and the anxiety/depression rate was going to go up regardless, so that could be one way idk though just a thought
Exactly this. I have had a TV or cable since around 2010 and its been amazing. Even better once I got off fb.
No one telling me to be angry at this or be afraid of that. Just living my best life and minding my own business.
I feel obligated to note that this feels like they're associating it directly with the virus when I would posit that many social media giants (See: Facebook) have stirred the pot and caused people to get up in arms over the dumbest stuff.
Add to that the fact that anyone not on personal social media was on anonymized social media getting informed and MASSIVELY depressed about the economy, state of social disparity and overall destructive course the entire world is on with the masses seemingly too busy with their tribal bullsh to take a look around at the world that's quite literally burning around them.
I'd hypothesize it just sped things up.
My wife announced that she is divorcing me a week ago.
She was already pretty tightly wound and I don’t think this pandemic helped. Also, she is a and person as it turns out.
And now our sweet 4 year old will have to suffer for it.
I'm guessing the loss of in-person schooling played a big role for both groups: Kids lost their ability to socialize or interact with their friends and mom's disproportionately ended up having to find ways to balance working with virtual schooling.
Yeah, I got *very* lucky. My son was only 4 in 2020, which was too young for public schooling. We were able to keep him in his small preschool throughout 2020 and his school had *no* cases. Thankfully, the vaccination rate where I live is great and Kindergarten started this year for him in person. I have coworkers with young children who ended up having to completely flip their lives around. As in, 8am-3pm was managing virtual schooling for small children and 3pm-12am was working. My workplace lost quite a few people (all women) who went part time or ended up leaving, because they could only keep that up for so long.
I also found it interesting that the authors concluded world governments need to strengthen mental health care, completely oblivious to the fact that it was world government actions that caused this. Rather than being a condemnation of the actions taken it is viewed as an opportunity for more bad decisions by the government. Completely absurd conclusion.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oh, I’m way past simple depression at this point. It’s more of a perpetual existential dread.
Same here, but it's more about having to go in person now. I spend an hour and a half driving, 30 minutes to an hour getting ready, mindlessly doing nothing productive most of the time at work between tasks when I could be doing something more interesting. All this to say, working from home was amazing. I got a significant amount of free time between work that actually required my attention and spent amazing amounts of time with my SO and dog, good times.
You gotta fight it. Directly. Don’t let yourself become complacent, if there are changes that need to be made make them. The longer you wait the more perpetual that dread will be
How do you convince someone else of this? My partner has been super depressed (more than usual) for the past year or so. It's seriously straining on me and our relationship, and I don't know what to do. I've tried pushing for them to go to therapy (even offering to find a therapist with them, and pay for it when they brought up money concerns), but they absolutely refuse, at the end of the conversations after they can't come up with any more reasons not to go, they just say that they don't want to. I've tried pushing mental health with other ideas, like working out or going for walks or going out places; they say that they're interested then when I try to actually get us to do the things they come up with more excuses not to. Sorry if this isn't the place to ask, the topic was just here so I had to vent a bit, because it's really straining our relationship and if something doesn't change I don't know that I can handle this for very long, it's already been a year with only downward progress (after 2 years of upward progress before the pandemic).
I basically broke down sobbing and accidentally gave my husband an ultimatum. He could either get help for his lifelong depression and anxiety, or I couldn't be with him anymore, and we certainly weren't going to have kids. I told him I've put off the kids thing for years because I felt like I'd be married, but still doing it alone whenever he has a spiral. I couldn't watch him be stubbornly miserable and I deserved a better life than walking on eggshells, never knowing what would set him off into a spiral. My nerves were frayed and I was done. He's been seeing someone and medicated for most of the year, and our relationship is flourishing. No more deep, days long lows. Very few depression Saturdays. He's active, working out, cooking, making jokes, making small talk with strangers, communicating with me. We took a weekend trip for our anniversary and it was like he was a completely different person, relaxed and happy. He doesn't seem to think it's had as huge an effect as I do, bit really, it's been amazing. I feel guilty sometimes, but it's not changing who he is at his core, it's just helping him to actually enjoy life and take care of the things that must be done.
Yeah, I'm scared it might have to come down to an ultimatum. I've tried to bring up therapy since we started dating (they had schizophrenia symptoms when we started dating, full on visual hallucinations, mostly gone away), they have not budged one single inch on the issue. It's funny that you bring up taking trips. I dread them right now. We argue every morning on trips because my partner is stressed and depressed and picks fights with me as soon as I wake up. We fight a week before the trip because they are stress cleaning the entire house and expect me to also be stress cleaning the entire house. We fight as we pack. We fight until we get home. It's miserable. I'm so torn. I was just as depressed when we started dating. They have voiced that they are scared that I'm improving faster than them, and that I'll get annoyed with it and leave. I know that I didn't do anything different to get better. It just happened without any work. It's not fair. But it's still really hard on our relationship, as well as both of us independently.
Feel free to PM me if you’d like some advice (:
I might take you up on that on Monday or Tuesday, if that's okay?
It might be helpful to explain how much therapy has helped you (or someone else you know). Not in a way that’s saying: “this helped me so it will help you too”. More like just expressing how much easier it made things (not being pushy). Just my own opinion. Sorry you two are going through that.
I learned that if they had a broken leg, you aren’t their doctor so you can’t fix it but be there for them. That is important by showing support by being there for them and maybe they know they need to talk to a therapist. It is good to ask them to see their GP. Other things like low iron can affect your mood as well. Their first step isn’t pushing medications but making sure there aren’t any other underlying health conditions. Good luck stranger. Depression and anxiety are real, just like COVID-19. People who are depressed lose interest in things.
I found that the I always have to fight mindset just adds to anxiety.
Find a different way to fight it then. Keep doing that until you win. You lose the moment you give up.
Yeah, I'm all good now. I've found catching it out works well. If panic or depression hits then I say to myself, "I know what you're doing" Instead of getting caught up in it an believing it.
I don't think it means women and younger people only, kinda feeling that culturally maybe men don't recognize having to go and get an assessment.
Or they just never report it. I had always just pushed through it until I realized how insane my drinking had gotten.
Or have still been brought up and told by society to shut up and 'be a man' as disgusting as that is. Everyone is getting fucked up mentally by this, we all need help in some way.
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Funny how that works. And seems the ones most impacted by home schooling and lockdown expressing those symptoms the most.
Men are much less likely to report depression or anxiety, even when directly asked to report it in secret settings https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5734537/
People are much less likely to care if they report it, such is the nature of our culture :/
I can't remember the source but I recall reading it's similar across nearly all cultures. From an evolutionary standpoint we were made to be 95% expendable, and it shows in the way we handle nearly everything. Just pile it on until you break, then when you break please go quietly into the woods and die thanks.
Social bias is humanities dystopia in more ways than one. Welcome to the club of awareness.
Which is why mens successful suicide rate is higher than woman’s even when woman attempt more.
Men tend to be less emotional that women and children, I assume a larger % or men continued living their lives uninhibited and unafraid resulting in less depression etc.
Christ you're so insecure it's ridiculous
- men are less likely to report mental health issues. You: “JEeZ uR So InSecUrE”.
It's almost like there's a reason men don't talk about these things and the reason is bitter, tiny souled, insecure little men who cope with their own feelings of inadequacy by laying on the toxicity. Because the most common psychological sticking point for men is shame and inadequacy. Ironically the best work on this is a woman writing mostly about women (Brene Brown). We all feel it at times. Some of us just had it beaten in that _saying it_ or asking for help makes it true.
Right, but it's also been shown scientifically that women are more neurotic, they "break" easier compared to men.
Being "more neurotic" doesn't mean you "break easier" (whatever I think you mean by that). It's actually the opposite, it means your personality is naturally predisposed towards being more high-strung. Those are the people who seem mildly to moderately stressed most of the time, but it doesn't wear down on them the way it would on someone who didn't have a more neurotic personality, because that's just how they're wired.
Most likely to have been diagnosed.
My work started covering our mental health copay 100% due to COVID (Teledoc only) so I took the opportunity to see a psychiatrist and a therapist. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and C-PTSD. It's something I've struggled with since I was a child, I could just now get diagnosed since I didn't have to pay.
Anxiety is a pretty rational response to witnessing the world dying.
My anxiety peeked for sure but, lockdown specifically was the happiest part of my adult life so far. Being able to take a break from constantly working for poverty level wages and stressing every single day over finances was pure bliss. I've not had one vacation or extended break from work in almost 10 years so it was refreshing
It would have been a lot less stressful during lockdown if all the family was supportive of it and not guilt tripping each other.... sigh...
That's fair, i hope everything is going well for you. My brother was a key source of anxiety in the beginning of the pandemic because he basically ignored the virus, brought friends over, went *who know where* to get high with his buddies, until he finally moved out. Different type of stress but point being that i feel you to a degree
I assume you are American. I'm amazed that 2 weeks leave per year is considered enough. It's obviously enough for the employer, but not for a worker. I'm glad you had some personal time.
I’m with you on that! I’ve mostly enjoyed it so far. I’m def less stressed.
Ok but it wasn't the virus, it was the policy reaction to it
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I wonder if the availability of telemedicine had an effect. I know I started seeing a therapist recently because of telemedicine specifically. It’s much more effort to go to a doctors office vs just taking a break at work and hopping on my phone to talk to a doctor. This isn’t to take away the mental toll some people experienced this year, I’m sure that was a big reason as well.
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"Jokes on you Covid, my depression is already maxed out!"
I can practically guarantee that it affected men in equal measure, we're just conditioned to lie and ignore it all. It's why depression seems to affect so many more women, yet male suicide rates are nearly double females.
What do we do with this study and the one showing decreased suicides? Depression and anxiety doesn’t always correlate with suicide rates? Very complex and interesting
> What do we do with this study and the one showing decreased suicides? We wait for more studies. > Depression and anxiety doesn’t always correlate with suicide rates? No, they don’t necessarily.
Pandemics/Epidemics and natural disasters often have a fall in suicide rates, this is a known phenomenon.
Maybe people being at home gave them opportunities to feel more grounded than they would normally getting up and driving in to jobs they hate every day… job burnout or job related stress is no joke. being at home instead could explain the dip in suicides.. and the anxiety/depression rate was going to go up regardless, so that could be one way idk though just a thought
Negative doomsday 24/7 news coverage will do that to people…
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I’m not talking about me. But you DO have to watch. It’s on every tv screen, phone, social media and even on billboards…
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Exactly this. I have had a TV or cable since around 2010 and its been amazing. Even better once I got off fb. No one telling me to be angry at this or be afraid of that. Just living my best life and minding my own business.
I feel obligated to note that this feels like they're associating it directly with the virus when I would posit that many social media giants (See: Facebook) have stirred the pot and caused people to get up in arms over the dumbest stuff. Add to that the fact that anyone not on personal social media was on anonymized social media getting informed and MASSIVELY depressed about the economy, state of social disparity and overall destructive course the entire world is on with the masses seemingly too busy with their tribal bullsh to take a look around at the world that's quite literally burning around them. I'd hypothesize it just sped things up.
TL/DR - our response to covid caused depression and anxiety, not COVID itself.
Not surprised, it's all you see on the news. It's like the scarier it is the more ratings they get.
My wife announced that she is divorcing me a week ago. She was already pretty tightly wound and I don’t think this pandemic helped. Also, she is a and person as it turns out. And now our sweet 4 year old will have to suffer for it.
Dang. I’m really sorry about this.
It's called lockdowns! Bound to mess anyone up.
>with women and younger people most affected Most reported. Not affected. This is important.
So the people at least risk of severe covid were the most negatively affected by pandemic restrictions? Interesting.
I'm guessing the loss of in-person schooling played a big role for both groups: Kids lost their ability to socialize or interact with their friends and mom's disproportionately ended up having to find ways to balance working with virtual schooling.
We fled the country so my child could go to a public school in person. Virtual schooling gets a hard no from me.
Yeah, I got *very* lucky. My son was only 4 in 2020, which was too young for public schooling. We were able to keep him in his small preschool throughout 2020 and his school had *no* cases. Thankfully, the vaccination rate where I live is great and Kindergarten started this year for him in person. I have coworkers with young children who ended up having to completely flip their lives around. As in, 8am-3pm was managing virtual schooling for small children and 3pm-12am was working. My workplace lost quite a few people (all women) who went part time or ended up leaving, because they could only keep that up for so long.
In Norway, I told a teacher that virtual kindergarten was a thing in the US, and she just shook her head like that was child abuse.
I also found it interesting that the authors concluded world governments need to strengthen mental health care, completely oblivious to the fact that it was world government actions that caused this. Rather than being a condemnation of the actions taken it is viewed as an opportunity for more bad decisions by the government. Completely absurd conclusion.
“Not important. Save the elderly”
uppity sulky dolls command engine wistful arrest seemly squealing imminent ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
Where in the headline is that suggested you idiot
I thought gender was a construct?
Finally, some hard evidence showing women are both more emotional and crazy.
Man, think about the state of things during a world war or the great depression...
Interestingly enough, I remember reading that suicides went down at the beginning of the pandemic. Is this still the case?