To both you and parent poster thanks for taking the time to write down your experiences. I used to completely dismiss people who had depression and anxiety, until I started having anxiety attacks myself. Now that I know how real they are, I instead feel like I want to study and understand the experiences of others and even ask questions (I will manage to restrain myself).

The fact is, technically minded people think about these conditions differently than others. We have the ability to be more detached, even from our own circumstances, and report our experiences without the mysticism and sentimentality. We also understand the placebo effect and evidence-based science, so we tend not to share endless anecdotes based on pseudoscientific potions and cures which are supposed to somehow magically solve the problem.

Therefore, I personally find your post hundreds of times more helpful than what I might find elsewhere. I also find blog posts (such as the linked article) from technically minded individuals on these issues, recounting their experiences, extremely insightful.

Although I've only seriously suffered from anxiety disorder, not depression, I can relate to a few things you write.

There were periods in my life (actually before the onset of my anxiety) where I couldn't see the point to life itself (I mean from a logical perspective; I didn't have suicidal thoughts). Actually, I had this from a very young age. I started off at age 4 with a passion for lego. But I quickly realised that I couldn't build a machine for doing real, useful work with this lego (it would break). And even if I did, what point would there be for me in building an excavator or a digger or motorcar that used the levers and pneumatics/hydraulics I was learning about with my lego? What purpose would I use the machine for? And even if I could answer that, what would I want to do that for, etc. So what was the real purpose in playing with lego?

I'm 38 and have never had a girlfriend! I live in hope. (The only thing I can recommend there is a dating website. I sure wish I'd discovered these when I was 29!!)

But when I was about 29/30 something strange happened that rewired my brain, seemingly all at once. All in the same year I suddenly became intensely interested in chess, scene (assembly) programming and a sport called martial arts tricking, after decades of not really taking all that much pleasure from anything. None of these things have any ultimate usefulness! And yet my entire mindset just suddenly flipped.

So what (scientifically speaking) happened to me? I've no idea, and I'd love to know!

Tricking stayed with me for 9 years. And even now I look back at it longingly. It has no ultimate purpose, but I miss it like crazy (there's no gym nearby where I can do it in my current location, and I'm getting a little old for it now). It's as useless as my childhood lego.

I don't want to suggest my experience has any immediate practical benefit for someone with depression. But I can definitely relate that what makes life enjoyable and livable, paradoxically, isn't necessarily something that gives it ultimate purpose.

I'm not suggesting I did something myself to change things. I just want to relate that even though I'm technically minded and fully understand what you mean by "life is ultimately absurd", this ultimately isn't an obstacle.

A king called Solomon apparently once wrote, "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind." When I was 29, I definitely thought I was suffering from the "insanity of Solomon" (a little early I thought). But apparently, it turns out, life is meaningless. That just isn't the problem.

Obviously standard advice applies. Most people here (especially me) are not psychologists and if the depression and associated thoughts keep up, seek qualified help, if you haven't already. Psychologists should be able to help you root out contributing factors, help you isolate and shut down unproductive thought patterns/habits that exacerbate the problem, and psychiatrists can dispense medication which might give you time to reset and recover. At least these days they too are starting to pay attention to evidence based science!