Zak Storey, a very brave and honorable young man, talks about his depression

[steve2470]

Last edited Thu Feb 8, 2018, 09:08 PM - Edit history (12)

THIS IS THE MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP. Abrasive and unkind comments are not welcome here.


This is all in my print (dead tree) edition of Maximum PC magazine, March 2018.

He's a deputy editor of the magazine, probably 20's to maybe early 30's if I had to guess. Caucasian guy (if I had to guess from his small photo), as many in the tech industry are.

I am going to copy as much manually as I can from my magazine shortly, but long story short, he openly admits to the world that yes, a bright young man such as he, with a good job etc, has clinical depression and he's had it for a long time. He's going to get away from his computer for a while to enjoy nature and other great things to help his depression.

It is 2018 and yes, anyone with a great brain and a great heart knows that we all, men and women, can suffer from depression, either one episode or many or a lifetime. The stats I've seen say that women suffer more from it than men, but the problem is that it is still seen as very "unmanly" for a man to openly admit depression (man up dude, grow some balls, stop whining, etc etc etc). So, the vast majority of men would rather just shut up and suffer or drink or self-medicate with their drug of choice or.....kill themself ultimately.

Things are better now than 10, 20, 30 years ago, but this whole myth of masculine toughness needs to die. As in yesterday. We men suffer and bleed just as women do.

Much respect to you, Zak, and I hope you get zero to very little crap for your honesty.


eta:

Link to tweet

Just finished a lab note talking about depression, computing, and how I tackle it. One of the more challenging things I've ever written, takes a very delicate hand to get it right, especially when you're limited to 300 words.

Hopefully I've done it justice.

ETA2:

Page 92 of the dead tree Maximum PC magazine for March 2018

[irisblue]

1. Toxic masculinity plus the silicon valley computer world

Gotta be really hard mix for some men.

[steve2470]

2. I agree, yes! nt

[steve2470]

3. Zak responds:

Thank you very much for the kind words (: always appreciated. I absolutely agree with you, there's very few folk in society that I know anyway, who haven't dealt with some form of mental health concern or issue over their life time. Stigma on it needs to disappear.

Link to tweet

[mopinko]

4. check box dx's are, imho, rife w gender assumptions and biases.

women are supposed to suffer more depression, but those stats dont count the dead bodies of men who kill themselves.

i took a full neuropsyche exam after i started worrying about my memory.
the psyche part was rife w sexist bs-
ie. do you have enemies?
well, i think it is a fact that outspoken and powerful women attract enemies, and outspoken and powerful men attract fans and lackeys.
my farm has brought me many, many fans, and a handful of haters. i dont suffer fools. i dont care what these people think.

another- do you have health problems that doctors dont understand.
ask any woman who has fibro (more common in women) and she will tell you how many doctors thought it was all in her head before someone finally helped her. and even w my dx- doctors DONT understand fibro.
doctors routinely act like sexist pigs to women patient. and that makes me sick?

so that and a couple other, equally stupid, questions got me a dx of bpd.
that is just bull pucky.

[steve2470]

5. true, the doc has to look at ALL the facts before making a final dx nt