⌘+Depression

Manon Gruaz at UXDX Community: The Mental Health Side of Creativity. Video: https://youtu.be/0c8qR53IQRM

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

The voice in my head and how it started

[00:00:12] You're lazy. You are ugly. You're fat. You're useless. You are worthless. I hate you. I've been talking to myself like this for 38 years, every day, every minute.

[00:00:36] Okay, my stuff doesn't work. It's okay. Bonjour, hi, my name is Manon. In 2021 I went through a severe depression, and I was on sick leave for 11 months. Today I want to tell you my story, but also help you understand what depression is, break the stigma of depression with you, or simply tell you that you are not alone.

[00:01:01] January 2021, everything is going well for me. On paper I'm successful. I live in Montreal, I have a great career, I work in one of the most hyped startups in AI in Canada. I just got promoted to lead designer, and I give conference talks on AI and design all around the world. I have a stable personal life. I have had a boyfriend for five years, and he moved to Canada for me. I take care of myself. I see a therapist every month, I wake up every morning at 5:30, I meditate, and at seven I start working.

[00:01:42] But in February 2021 everything changed. I started losing sleep. I didn't realize it at first, but I woke up tired, and then at some point I wasn't sleeping at all. I was staring at the ceiling all night long. And it kept going down. At work everything was difficult, everything complicated. I couldn't focus anymore. I'm a designer and I can't create anymore. And I began comparing myself to others: they do things faster, they have ideas. I started to lose all my abilities one by one, I think slowly and quickly at the same time.

[00:02:30] To compensate, I sacrifice self-care to have more time to work. All my energy must go into work. I sacrifice my friends to have more time to work. I don't reply to emails, texts, tweets, Instagram. I cancel dinners. I feel like I am a bad friend. I'm ashamed of being a bad friend, but I have to work.

[00:02:56] And it starts to show. I'm always on the brink of tears, whatever the subject: feedback, a deadline, or choosing what to eat. I'm at my breaking point, but winners never stop, and I'm not a loser. So I push, I push, I push, and I explode, in a meeting with my manager. He said to me, Manon, take a few days off, you have to go see your doctor. At first I refuse, I argue, I don't want to, because I'm strong. I just need one good night's sleep and I'll be back on track. But he insists, so I go see an on-call doctor.

From burnout to severe depression

[00:03:39] The diagnosis is burnout, and the verdict is [treatments of leaf][?]. And I'm almost happy, because having a burnout is kind of cool. It's the badge of honor of the ambitious: I worked so hard I have to be forced to take a break. And I tell myself, calm down, and then it will be fine, you will come back full force.

[00:04:03] But now, two years later: a burnout is not fun at all. Burnout is a syndrome, not a disease, and it's a response of the body to intense and chronic stress, and the effects are devastating. I experience extreme physical exhaustion. The first sign of burnout is the loss of sleep, so I'm a zombie. That gets me into an intense cognitive fatigue. My brain is in a gooey fog. I'm tired of thinking. But that's not all. I sank into a deep emotional exhaustion. I cry all the time.

[00:04:51] But I have a plan: in three months I will be back. First, I must take care of myself. I must wake up at seven instead of 5:30, because, you know, it's much more sleep. I must meditate. I'm even going to do a meditation with a monk in Tibet, an Airbnb experience, because I think it can fix me. Second, I must make these three months productive, you know, it's free time. I must read a lot of books, I must write articles on burnout.

[00:05:28] But the truth is, it's not working at all. Reality is really far from my plan. The reality is I don't meditate, I don't read anything. I am a mess. The wise Manon of today would have told the Manon from two years ago: [expletive], you are performing your burnout. Yep. And if I really think about it, it may be bigger than just a burnout.

[00:06:00] The reality is that after three months of rest, with weekly therapist sessions, things are not getting better. They are getting a thousand times worse. I don't move from my bed. I'm an empty shell. And then the insurance company calls me every two weeks asking the question, how are you doing? It stresses me even more, because am I really doing that bad? I don't know.

[00:06:28] And then the doctor has a new diagnosis for me. It's not burnout. No, it's a severe depression. Me, depressed? Seriously? No, I can't accept it. I am in complete denial. I read this word from the doctor like a hundred times. I feel ashamed. Burnout is acceptable, but not depression. I'm scared. What if I stay like this forever? At that moment I feel like I'm not normal, I'm a loser.

The cliches, and what science says about depression

[00:07:09] And yet, if we look around us, around you, one in ten people have suffered or will suffer from severe depression in their lifetime. Only in the US, 21 million people have experienced depression in the past 12 months. Only in the US, 44% of people with depression are not treated and do not talk about it. And depression affects women twice as often as men.

[00:07:44] And all that I'm feeling is based on cliches. Only lazy people can afford to be depressed; they should get their act together. Only people born gloomy get depressed, you know, the big black cloud. They make a big deal out of it, but they should pop a happy pill and be done with it. And these cliches are all around us. It's shameful to have a depression. If you have a depression, it means that you are weak, and if we have a depression, it means that we are a failure. And today I want to say: [expletive] cliches, [expletive] shame.

[00:08:27] Before we go any further, I know it was a lot, it was a little bit intense, so we're going to take a little break. Let's see what scientists say about depression. What we know is that depression is a disease, unlike burnout, and it's complex, and can be linked to biology, or triggered by events or lifestyle habits. Most people understand what depression looks like from the outside: the lack of energy, motivation. But what really happens inside a person who is experiencing depression?

[00:09:01] Today we know that there are clear differences between a healthy brain and a depressed brain, and it's called the neurobiology of depression. To understand it better, let's use a simple metaphor. The brain is like a city. Everything is connected. Information is transmitted on roads, highways and even pathways. When we have an idea, it lights up an entire neighborhood and spreads throughout the city. When we experience a happy moment, a pathway is created to a memory.

[00:09:39] However, when we experience depression, we see a deficit in a chemical messenger like serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps us feel balanced and contributes to our well-being. Of the [four mil or forty million][?] cells in the brain, most are influenced by serotonin: mood, appetite, memory, sleep, and the need for social connection. When your serotonin is disrupted, every aspect of a person's life goes sideways. Which means, for the city slash brain, the city lights dim, the traffic slows down and sometimes stops altogether. The pathways disappear, we lose our memories. The city is an empty shell where nothing is happening anymore.

[00:10:37] Depression is a serious mental illness, and its consequences can be significant, such as chronic depression and, sadly, the risk of suicide. And for me this means that in June 2021 I broke up with my boyfriend. He wants someone normal. I isolate myself even more. My mental suffering is abysmal and becomes physical. I have this huge red screw in my chest that keeps turning. I can't breathe anymore. The only way out is to not be here anymore. I wanted to stop, and I want to die.

Rock bottom, and the healing begins

[00:11:19] Until that day when I have my weekly meeting with my therapist. I burst into tears like I've never cried before. I have hit rock bottom. It's too hard. She stands up, puts her hand on my shoulder and says, I'm here. And I have an epiphany. My suffering was recognized. Someone saw this infinite and invisible suffering, and it became visible, and in some way I recognized my own suffering.

[00:12:02] I realized that life was sending me a message: [expletive], you have some serious [expletive] to handle, and it's not just about your relationship with work, it's deeper than that, and it's not a quick fix. Everything needs to be destroyed, and everything needs to be rebuilt. And finally the healing can begin. I'm going to drink a little. Okay.

[00:12:30] So I'm in depression. I accept it. My body, my brain, my mind are in distress. But why? The way my thoughts have been shaped by my own upbringing, culture and society: I must meet high expectations and I must have an extraordinary job. I must succeed in life. My job, my success, it's my identity. But why?

The layer cake of depression

[00:13:00] I have a theory. Let me introduce you to the layer cake of depression. For the first layer of the cake, take note of this recipe, because it will impress your friends at your next barbecue. You take an entire generation of children born between the 80s and the 2000s, and you're going to bring them to boil in a first pass called the cult of the passion job. Follow your passion and you will never work a day in your life. Because their job is their passion, they must always say yes, they must smile, they can't be sick, because it's so great, it's their passion.

[00:13:49] And then you stir into this mixture the cult of the hero, based on all the entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, blah blah, and the worst of all, Elon Musk, who once tweeted, no one changed the world in 40 hours. They must create impact, they must respond to all emails and calls, even on weekends. They must act like heroes.

[00:14:16] And finally, you add a few drops of capitalist culture. They must be the productive employee, because the more you do, the more value you have, and that's how we get promotions. This gave us a generation of humans who feel like they're never doing enough. Do you think I'm saying some [expletive]? But a survey conducted in 17 countries shows that one in ten employees work over 20 hours for free per week.

[00:14:55] For the second layer of the cake, you take all these employees who work in tech startups, and then you're going to drown them in three preparations. Preparation one, high performance. They must be high performing in everything, and they must go at [worker][?] speed. They can never slow down. Slowing down is for the weak, the sensitive, those who lack resilience.

[00:15:23] Preparation two, they must be rock stars, ninjas, unicorns, heroes, and they must prove it every day. They must speak up in meetings, shine. And if the CEO mentions you by name on Slack, jackpot: you take a screenshot and you post it on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Preparation three, they must conform to the company's culture. They must participate in all activities. They must stay late. They must be popular, like in the movies.

[00:15:59] Mix that together, and when it's nice and smooth, you add a few drops of a special flavor. Patriarchy, for example. For me it materializes as the boys' club on top, and it's such a contest of who has the biggest. The political games trickle down to the teams, and we fire people every three months to pivot to a new bad business plan. And then one fine morning, we are bought by the big corporate company, because the CEO prefers to sell before being replaced by the board. And all of this gives you employees who sacrifice themselves to succeed.

[00:16:43] Do you think I'm saying some [expletive]? Once more, the data proves it. Depression affects 30% of people who work in startups, 29% have attention disorders, and 27% severe anxiety.

[00:17:00] For the last layer of the cake, this is where we have to be creative. We take the cream of the crop, designers in tech. And because this cream is already anxious AF, you just have to increase the pressure. They must create all the time, be original, innovative, and you don't let it rest. You can directly compare it with other cream and criticize it, because it's how it's done in this industry. But be careful: if the taste is not perfect, the cream self-destructs.

[00:17:38] The result of this last layer is anxious humans, very critical of themselves, who are 25% more likely to carry a variant of the depression gene than professions considered less creative by scientists. They are also 18 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

[00:18:03] Isn't my cake beautiful? Are you hungry? Wait, something is missing: the cherry on top, of course. Do you remember? Depression affects women twice as much as men. And I ate that cake with fury every day for 14 years. And why did I eat it without asking myself any questions?

Learning to love yourself: the cat mom and the ACT matrix

[00:18:34] Depression is questioning absolutely everything. I realize now that I've been in survival mode since childhood, and because of it I was seeking external validation to feel reassured all the time. And it seems that the solution is: love yourself. Cool. It's easy to say love yourself, but how do you actually do it? So I will share with you some techniques I learned that helped me find a lot of self-love.

[00:19:10] The first image that helped me was the metaphor of the cat mom. Let's say you are a cat mom, and one of your kittens is anxious and scared. What do you do? Do you yell at them to stop, or do you comfort them, hug them? Of course we are going to comfort them, hug them. So I asked myself, why don't you do the same thing with me? So I started to give myself a hug, basically. I know it sounds weird, but it works. And what I learned from this simple gesture is that not only am I treating myself with kindness, but it has also changed the way I talk to myself. When I treat myself with kindness, I speak to myself with kindness.

[00:20:00] You may say, well, that's great, but I can't hug myself every two seconds. And that's true, it's an emergency tool. This easy tool allowed me to build some stability to do the work that was coming, to really change the way I deal with life on a daily basis. And my therapist introduced me to the ACT method. ACT is a simple, pragmatic matrix grounded in reality. Its goal is to create emotional agility, which means not fighting against negative emotions, but acting mindfully. In other words, choosing how I react when negative emotions arise.

[00:20:45] How does the ACT matrix work? Let's take a sheet of paper and divide it into four equal parts. I am in the center. At the bottom right, we list my values, things that are really important to me and to no one else. For example, honesty, my friend Renuka, and my friendship. In the upper right, I list my committed actions, meaning the actions I take when I'm aligned with my values. For example, cooking a tomato pie.

[00:21:24] Now let's move to the left side of the matrix, where we are going into deeper introspection. In the bottom left, I will list my suffering: all these emotions that I feel and I don't want, like envy, anger. And in the top left, I will list my reactions to suffering. What do I do when I want to avoid or erase my suffering? Such as bottling up everything and not talking about it.

[00:21:53] Now let's put this matrix to the test with a concrete example. I sometimes experience jealousy, and this challenge makes me react in the following way: eating four chocolate eclairs, two Happy Meals, and going on Amazon.com and buying all the DVDs of Twilight, even if I already bought them three times and I don't have a DVD player. All I think about is, this person is better than you. I buy all the thoughts that my brain tells me. And quickly I get stuck in what I call the cave of the trolls, where I react the opposite of the things that are important to me, like [bailing Twilight activities][?].

[00:22:42] But how can I get out of the cave? Well, it's not easy to do, but I take a break, I refocus on what matters to me, and I make a conscious decision on how I want to react. Okay, I'm experiencing jealousy, and it's not a feeling I enjoy, but it's part of the human experience, and I will welcome it. Hello, jealousy. I know it's there, but I won't let it push me into buying DVDs of my favorite vampire. No way. Instead, I will take a walk and remember that the success of others doesn't take away my own. And I will congratulate my friend on their accomplishment, because that's what matters to me, and that's what is aligned with my values.

Remission and five things I learned

[00:23:30] Every depression is different. It's not a linear illness. It's not a descent and not an ascent. It's more like a roller coaster that becomes less and less violent. Today I feel aligned, if that makes sense to you, and joy is back. It's been a long 11 months without laughter. I'm in remission. I don't forget that I have a 75% chance of going through a depression again. It scares me a lot, so I focus my energy on being kind to myself and on the most important things to me. We always come back to that.

[00:24:14] And now today I can say that I'm glad it happened to me, because I redesigned my life, and I learned five essential things that I'm going to share with you. Enough is great: I'm doing the best I can, and it's perfect that way. I am the guardian of my own energy: I see my time and my energy as limited resources. I'm not a pizza: I can't please everyone, and you know what, I'm okay with that.

[00:24:47] Emotions are like farts: it hurts when you hold them in. Some are silent, but it's always important for them to come out, and everyone farts, even people [I don't see but you online][?]. And finally, being alive is important, even when we feel like [expletive]. And if you are not feeling great, and if you are starting to lose sleep, ask for help. You are much more loved than you think.

[00:25:18] And to wrap up, I would like to take a moment to remind myself, in front of all of you, that I'm smart, I'm brave, I'm fierce, I'm beautiful, I'm enough, and I love myself. Thank you very much.

Q&A

[00:25:42] Host: Wow, that was incredibly powerful and incredibly vulnerable, so thank you for sharing that.

[00:25:50] Manon: My pleasure. If some people watching today want to go to therapy and are waiting for a sign, this is the sign. Go to therapy.

[00:25:59] Host: Brilliant. And just getting some praise: "Love, you deserve all the joy and love in the universe." So that's very kind.

[00:26:08] Manon: Thank you so much.

[00:26:10] Host: And then a funny one: "The patriarchy as eggplants, chef's kiss."

[00:26:18] Manon: Depression in a funny way. [I don't want] people to get depressed after my talk, but we can have fun with everything, I guess.

[00:26:31] Host: One question I have, because it resonates a lot with me, is that kind of high expectations: keep going, keep pushing, get to the next level, and all of that. If you are in that environment, of a startup or that kind of thing, what advice do you have for people, or anything that you can share?

[00:26:57] Manon: [It's a] choice, because I think we're all going there, thinking that this is the dream, but we don't ask ourselves the question: is it really what we want? Is it the environment that we want? Some people thrive in those environments, and good for them, nice job. But some don't, and I think I'm one of them. But it doesn't mean that I can't succeed. We are told that there is one way to succeed, and it is big companies, big startups, but there are multiple ways of succeeding. So just ask yourself what success looks like to you. For me, it's closing my computer at five and going to pottery class. So that's my success, for me.

[00:27:46] Host: Excellent. There's definitely a theme of pottery going on.

[00:27:50] Manon: I was trying to do something. I don't sell those, because they're bad, but I really resonate with what she said: take back our creativity for us, just for us.

[00:28:07] Host: Yeah, no, I agree. Doing something that steps out of everything having to be a hustle, and just doing something just for yourself. We have one minute left, so it might be tight. There's just more thanks for sharing, Manon: "that was very impressive." So obviously it's resonated with people. Thank you again for being incredibly vulnerable and sharing your story.

[00:28:39] Manon: My pleasure. Go to therapy, people. Go to therapy. Don't become what I did.

[00:28:46] Host: Well, thank you very much, and that actually brings us to the end of today's session. Comment in the section below and let's keep the conversation going. Finally, if this video resonated with you, please do us a favor and hit that like button and subscribe to our channel. This not only keeps you up to date with all of our latest content, but it also helps us with the YouTube algorithm. Lastly, if you want to keep learning, we have a couple of videos suggested here, but otherwise, until next time, take care and enjoy the rest of your day.