http://www.advogato.org/person/mcoletti/ Advogato blog for mcoletti en-us mod_virgule Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:37:28 GMT Tue, 20 Jun 2000 19:14:42 GMT http://www.advogato.org/person/mcoletti/diary.html?start=0 http://www.advogato.org/person/mcoletti/diary.html?start=0 I'm chiefly responding to raph's comment on depression. I already have <a href="http://mcoletti.livejournal.com/" >an online journal</a>, so I won't be posting much on here. (Although I'm entertaining the notion of having two different journals; one for high geek stuff, and the other for more prosaic ramblings. Certainly having available clients similar to <a href="http://livejournal.com">LiveJournal's</a> would make such a move tempting. Then again, my life is already complicated enough.) <p> I, too, suffer from depression. (225mg Effexor/day. And Trazadone to compensate for Effexor's insomnia side-effect.) Though the medication helps greatly, it's not perfect. For example, this past Sunday I spent a lot of time vegging in bed, which is the typical pathology for my depression. Fortunately my condition would be much worse if I didn't take my meds and exercise (ir)regularly. Finishing grad school would have been otherwise impossible; hell, <i>starting</i> would have been inconceivable. <p> The typical trigger is the "ohmyghodI'vegottoomuchtodo" vicious cycle. I think of what I have to do for school, work, and other stuff and get stuck just ... ruminating. This, naturally, is exacerbated by not doing any of the things I must do. <p> Breaking out involves riding out the worst and then arbitrarily picking an "ice breaking" task. One that's quick to do and yet tangibly rewarding. For example, finally organizing the chaos that's the blob of unread magazines had a palpable sense of accomplishment, as silly as it sounds. That provided enough motivation to start ticking off to do list items, and so to dispell the cloud of depression. <p> Now to return to the joy that's user interface design.