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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1921 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 3, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Perhaps not a small question, but I'm curious if folks here have dealt with depression/anxiety and if so, how have they turned it around or alleviated symptoms?

Looking mostly for success stories.

Depression: I think a major factor was having a job where I had to put on a fake face. The mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. Smile, and it will trick the treacherous mind into being happier. Though, that job also involved organizing stacks of heavy boxes, so it was simultaneously good exercise and a constant source of satisfaction for my 'tism tendencies.

For anxiety, the only solution I know if is to brazen through. Exposure therapy. IME, it really doesn't take that much.

Yeahhhhhh I have worked in sales and marketing my whole career and I think that is a big contributor. How did you get out of that situation?

I was saying that job was the solution. It wasn't sales, but the social pressure of not acting like a moody bitch at random customers (and instead getting to solve problems and generally make them happy with me) sort of slowly rewrote the offending part of my brain. Actual sales is not something I am a great fit for. I loathe upselling, and would rather autistically drill down to a clients actual needs, even if that's only a minor sale or even recommending them a different business that better fits their needs.

Luckily, that's been working out decently well for me and my small fiefdom of Globocorp.

I don't have any specific advice for someone who is experiencing depression/anxiety from working sales, though I think I get exactly where you're coming from. Maybe seek some kind of lateral move that involves more sorting than maximizing?

I’m the kind of guy that absolutely loathes customer front facing work, but I do it quite a lot, both with staff and everyone else; and they all tell me I do pretty well even though I don’t particularly enjoy it. My personality has always been more of the inward, thoughtful, mad scientist up in the high tower of the castle, thinking up crazy ideas. But the anxiety of dealing with people on the ground is almost always worse than the reality of it, and it’s a product of overthinking. The only way I’ve found to get out of that mode of thought is simply by doing the work, and you can see how out of register your anxiety is what the work that stands before you.

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