Let's Talk About Entrepreneurial Depression

[sparechange]

Have you figured out how many no answers you must get in order to get a yes? When I was selling, I knew my odds. I was always afraid I would quit one or two more no answers before I got that yes. What if it takes 99 no answers to get your one yes? What if you stopped asking at #97 or #99????? I also used a deck of cards. You shuffle them. Sometimes the face cards are scattered throughout the deck. Sometimes they are all together -- or a couple of them are together. I know that there are yes answers out there IF I ask the right way and don't quit.

Interesting way to look at it, haven't figured that number out as I'm only getting no's now, but lets see...

 

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[cm-devpreneur]

Thank you for starting this conversation.

When it comes to starting up my own business sometimes I feel I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. I say I wouldn't have it any other way. The truth is I live in constant fear that I am not good enough to run a business but what's the alternative?

I've had a few jobs and it's always the same story. I am very excited at the start, the reality sinks in, the longing to be on my path, doing things my way, and before I know it I'm sinking into a depression. Feeling trapped.

Emotionally I have always been a mess, being self-employed helps. Because at least I don't have to drag myself to work even when I feel like curling up in a ball and crying. I can take a couple of hours to get my head straight and I can structure my day in a way that works better for me.

I am learning to overcome all the things that scare me and make me depressed because I am on this journey. I am becoming a person of value and that makes me feel like my life has purpose.

I am no longer seduced by the safety net of a job even though I could use it to be fair. But the slowlane promises you some security but there is more to life. When I die I don't want to say I played it safe, I never used my credit card. I never went hungry, I saved 10% of my pay cheque every month, I paid my mortgage off before I turned 50.

Those things are all great but if you are called to do something else I think life is simply not worth it if you don't answer that call. So here I am, having one of those days when I feel like a total fraud. But if I go back I will always feel like this and never become the best version of me. Instead I will slowly die inside, haunted by regrets of what could have been.

Play it safe, or take the insane choice that feels way out of my league and beyond my emotional strengh. f*ck it! You only live once. Truth I'll be depressed either way but I bet it'll feel a bit better knowing at least I did things my way.

I realised perhaps this was too negative so I will add something a bit more positive:

I used to be a lot more unstable when I was younger and have really bad depression. At my lowest point I was crying for no reason, barely able to keep my head up.

What worked for me personally:
- Therapy and support from my family. They were just there and didn't judge me.
- Exercise everyday. Even if it was just for one minute.
- Listen to inspirational podcasts - personally I listened to Knowledge for Men, Tony Robbins and some Mel Robbins YouTube videos
- Patience. It's a process and it takes time
- Have a reason for your life. Most pressure comes from other people's expectations. When you let go of all that and decide for yourself what's most important to you. You can pursue it at your own pace. It takes time to shake off people's expectations, it's something I'm still working on personally
- Remember you will die one day. Never forget that moment. You don't want to have any regrets on that day. And the small stuff is not going to matter. Did your businesses never make a penny? Did you build an empire? Is that what's going to matter to you in that moment or is there something else that will be more important in that moment? That's the thing you neeed to find out for yourself and make that your life mission
- I've come a long way with my depression, for me, depression has always been something I can spot a mile away. I can tell when I'm starting to head in that direction. If you ignore the signs, you get closer and closer until you fall in. But if you don't take action you'll need help. Having your life's mission helps you spot the signs early on IMO
- What could be more important than enjoying your life. If you need help, just go for it. Find a therapist who gets you and speak with them as often or as little as you want

Also here is a free course on happiness and well-being you might find helpful - The Science of Well-Being

 

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[VentureVoyager]

Guys, have any of you tried antidepressants? Did they help?

I have been prescribed Dulsevia (Cymbalta/Duloxetine - it's a SNRI type) twice, but I'm still super hestitant to take it.
Looks like the side effects can be truly horryfying.

I would love to hear your personal stories. After 3 months of a pretty nasty depressive episode I'm feeling really confused as to what to resort to.

 

[Jon L]

Guys, have any of you tried antidepressants? Did they help?

I have been prescribed Dulsevia (Cymbalta/Duloxetine - it's a SNRI type) twice, but I'm still super hestitant to take it.
Looks like the side effects can be truly horryfying.

I would love to hear your personal stories. After 3 months of a pretty nasty depressive episode I'm feeling really confused as to what to resort to.

For some people, antidepressants can be really good. For me, I've tried almost all the various types of antidepressants. One of them made me suicidal. It was horrible. Several made me really tired. One of them worked amazingly well for a week and then quit working. One worked quite well, but gave me side effects that I still experience, 15 years later.

Even with my negative experience, I don't regret trying them. I'd advise you to try them, BUT ... keep in close contact with your doctor. If you experience a bad reaction to the drug, it won't be obvious to you that the drug is the cause. I'd even ask a friend to check in with you every couple days to ask if you're having a bad reaction to the drug (suicidal thoughts, greater depression, etc)

I would not recommend that you just take drugs without also going to a therapist trained to help people with depression. You need to develop better habits of thinking. Drugs won't help with that. You have to have professional guidance.

 

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[VentureVoyager]

Exercise and change your life... You're getting a message that you need change...

Well, I do exercise.
I know that I need to change my life in many aspects (business mostly), but that's the problem with depression - you either don't know what to change or how to change it, or you just don't have any power or motivation to do so.

It's like an internal voice saying "Imma F*ck up my life and you can't do shit about it, I don't even like you" or doing anything with a 30 kg weight tied up to your neck.

One of them worked amazingly well for a week and then quit working. One worked quite well, but gave me side effects that I still experience, 15 years later.

Whaaat?
May I ask what's the side effects exactly? And what was the drug? Or maybe you can write me a PM.

I mean, if the worst outcome was feeling like crap for a month or drugs simply not working, I would try them, because why not. But that's exactly what I'm afraid of. I've heard so many horror stories, eg. about Cymbalta, as in people experiencing totally horrible side effects for years or forever...
but then:

Even with my negative experience, I don't regret trying them. I'd advise you to try them,

How does the above relate to this? I mean, you write that you still have side effects after 15 freaking years, and then that even the ones that used to work suddenly lost their effect.

Why bother and risk your physical (and ironically, also mental) health?

I would not recommend that you just take drugs without also going to a therapist trained to help people with depression.

I would never ever think to even try drugs without trying therapy first. I have very bad experiences with the medical world, by the way, and unfortunately it's a rich experience.

I've been on therapy for more than a year now and it is indeed a tremendous help. The fact alone that you can show your darkest side to a professional and just talk to someone without feeling guilty about it is a big thing. But it goes way beyond that.

Even the sole discovery of how my parents and my family f*cked up my mind when I was a kid and teenager, how they mutilated my emotional world and my self esteem (now my self esteem is overly high and super low at the very same time, go figure). That was a hell of a trip and it made me learn A LOT about myself, my reactions, etc.
But I still haven't learned how to deal with my oceans of anxiety, especially in periods of life transition.

E.g now it feels like my business is sinking and in this state I'm in, when it's difficult to even get out of bed before 11 AM sometimes, fix myself a simple meal or stick to any kind of schedule - it's ten times harder to think about new business and what I could do ...and even less so to believe in myself or take important life decisions.

This is my ...6th? depressive episode and so I'm kind of used to the darkness and learned how to navigate in it, and as today I started feeling slightly better, I'm hoping to avoid drugs another time (have never used them so far).

The question is if it's worth it.
Maybe I would have been 10x happier and effective person on drugs?

But I don't know if the risk is worth it. Obviously, any psychiatrist will tell you not to worry and "take this chance that science gives us". Nobody will tell you about side effects 15 years after quitting a drug.

If a drug messes you up beyond repair, they won't really care. It's not like they will feed you or house you.

 

[Kevin88660]

It is difficult not to have any negative emotion when things don’t go well.

I just think that depression is the natural progression for a lot of people if things are not moving well. A lot of people do have depression.

When I was younger the negative emotion I feel is not depression. That probably makes me hard to understand people who are depressed. Quite the opposite when things don’t go well I feel angry and vengeful. It is like feeling someone is trying to F with me while in reality there is none.

But the good thing is that such negative feeling usually don’t last long and the logical side of me wins over.

Everyone needs to drive their internal emotional energy into good use.

 

[mikecarlooch]

Have short-term non-business projects to keep you busy when you're most likely to feel depressed (for example, when you're waiting for something to happen in your business and your hands are tied). Small projects, whether it's DIY stuff, some non-profit work, perhaps a few weeks helping out a family member build a barn or stuff like that help keep your mind busy and ward off negative thoughts. The key word here is "short-term" so that it doesn't feel like a job you can't escape from but just a temporary project with a visible outcome that rewards the struggles.

You do a LOT of waiting. Waiting for product, waiting for payment, waiting for sales, waiting for bills, waiting all the time. The anxiety is serious.

I think this is a really underrated point.

Being in a period of waiting, but feeling super anxious about non-productivity in that waiting period.

For me, it's when I'm getting a product built and it's not saleable yet.

I'm not the one building the product, someone else is.. After I provide the vision, I'm just there to answer questions along the way to make sure it gets built correctly.

And then I start getting super anxious with thoughts of "you should be pre-selling your product.. what are you doing?!"

But I find this notion of "pre-selling" to be a difficult thing to be confident about.

So I don't do it.

And it causes me to absolutely mentally drain myself in a beat down fashion.

What should I do??

I should be doing XYZ..

A real entrepreneur wouldn't be doing nothing right now..

Your friend invited you out? You can't go! you need to sit in your room isolated and find out what it is that you should be doing while your product is being built out!

This is one of the hardest things.

It's just so hard to let go sometimes in these times of waiting.

Should you be doing something.. Or is it ACTUALLY okay to not be doing something super productive while you're waiting? (mainly because the only thing there WOULD be to do is sales..)

If I'm being honest, this tiny thing has caused me days, maybe weeks of mental drainage at points in my journey thus far.

Then, when the product is ready, I feel a sense of purpose and feel confident selling it (because it actually exists)

 

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[Frances Kelleher]

It's a tough topic, but one that should not be taboo to talk about.

If you choose the life of an entrepreneur, there's one thing you need to accept that's not in almost any business book: Your probability of being depressed, stressed, and anxious skyrockets.



You're 4x more likely to be depressed at some point if you choose the "fastlane" path. To get through the dark times, you have to be mentally strong and prepared. You also have to acknowledge that this is something that can happen, and be ready to get help when you need it.

The life of an entrepreneur is not easy. Socially, you're considered an outcast by family members and friends that all have slowlane jobs. Financially, you're continuously on the brink of ruin until you get something going. Ego-wise, you're bouncing between feeling like a god and felling like a bum. I've been there, I know. I'm still there every once in awhile.

It's hard, and something you need to prepare for.

In my life, I'm currently struggling with a best friend that's become an alcoholic - and on the inside it's tearing me apart. He couldn't handle the stress and turned to drinking. As his numbers didn't meet with his time expectations, that led to more drinking and more depression, and more drinking again. He's on a downward spiral and we're doing our best to make help him, making sure he doesn't do anything stupid, but bit by bit he's losing a part of himself each day.

It's incredibly hard to see, but I get it.

I've personally had suicidal thoughts, and know a good number of entrepreneurs that were in a similar boat. Start of 2017 I had a paper net worth over a million at 25. End of 2017, I had my money stolen by a factory, and went broke. When I found out I lost it all, I spent the night drinking a fifth by myself in a Malaysian nightclub wondering if I should end it. The next day I woke up, realized I loved myself, and started questioning why I'd ever think that. So I bought a ticket to a village in Thailand and did Muay Thai every day until I got my mind right. I caught my depression before it could catch me.

This is something that you need to prepare for. For a lot of you ambitious folks, it's something that comes with the territory. Don't believe me?

Here are quotes from a few top entrepreneurs:











This is something that a lot of ambitious people go through.

And it's not something you should be ashamed of, if it hits you too. However, it is something that you need to acknowledge exists as a risk, and determine if you have the mental fortitude to jump into entrepreneurship and the fastlane.

You also need a plan to deal with the stress, sadness, and darkness if it comes.

For me, things that really help are:

• Working out. It's a great stress relief that releases endorphins and helps you feel better little by little.
• Having friends that are going through or have gone through the same struggle. This forum is amazing with the wealth of entrepreneurial experiences. It's nice to know that you're not alone and not feel as isolated. Meet these people in real life to make it more real.
• Staying away from substances when I'm sad or stressed. If I'm feeling down, I stay away from anything that can be a crutch. There's very little in life that three nights of sleep can't fix. Stay away from alcohol, drugs, and other substances when you're feeling down. They won't help you, just make matters worse.
• Things that I'm proud of and can point at. Some of my proudest accomplishments are people that I've helped. When you're feeling good, consider going out and helping others. Consider this your mental insurance policy when you're feeling down. When you're down, just think of the people you've helped, and use that as motivation to go forward.

For yourself, make sure you have your own plan if things go bad. And remember: your mental health is more important than any dollar you make. Your identity isn't money, or how your business is doing. Those are just things that you happen to do.

Any thoughts?

Yes it's a lonely road for sure.Its the burn out I find hard and having the energy to keep on keeping on.