The Depression Thing
Throwaway for reasons that will become obvious.<p>Imagine that you met a friend you hadn&#x27;t seen in years. They seemed really down, and you ask what&#x27;s up. They say, &quot;My job is to collect tolls in a tollbooth in Alaska. For 9 months a year it&#x27;s freezing, and the heater breaks every day, and I&#x27;m stuck outside wrenching on the thing with one hand while Googling &quot;how to fix a heater&quot; on my phone with the other while I slowly lose my fingertips to frostbite.&quot;<p>Now recall a few weeks ago when someone posted an interesting article about a board game full of ridiculous, fiddling little rules that would take years and years to complete [0]. The reason no one has ever played this game through is not because there is _no way_ to play it through. It&#x27;s not because a reasonably-intelligent person would be _incapable_ of coming up with a strategy for getting through the game. It&#x27;s because so far, no one has thought it worth that time. There&#x27;s no payoff.<p>When you talk to a depresssed person like me, you are talking to someone whose body is that tollbooth, and whose life feels like that game. You can say &quot;exercise.&quot; You can say &quot;talk to someone.&quot; But when you say those things, you are describing a strategy for getting through a 1500-hour board game with no payoff. You are describing to me how to fix a heater in a toll booth in Alaska where I may be stuck for maybe the rest of my life, constantly worried that the damn thing is going to break again.<p>So please, please, use that understanding when you talk to someone like me. Empathize. You can do that. You can say &quot;that sounds awful.&quot; You can say &quot;If you want someone to talk to I&#x27;m here.&quot; You can even say &quot;Hey, let&#x27;s go to the aquarium!&quot; But be really, really careful about saying &quot;go exercise&quot; or &quot;go talk to a therapist&quot; and never, ever say it&#x27;s going to be ok.<p>ok?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kotaku.com&#x2F;the-notorious-board-game-that-takes-1500-hours-to-compl-1818510912" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kotaku.com&#x2F;the-notorious-board-game-that-takes-1500-...</a>