I think I may be Depressed

[Raven2099]

Grumpy, Listless,  Unintrested in anything, bored, want to cry, minor suicidal ideations....
I think i may be depressed...

oh well.... mine as well wait it out

[BruceVC]

Grumpy, Listless,  Unintrested in anything, bored, want to cry, minor suicidal ideations....

I think i may be depressed...

 

oh well.... mine as well wait it out

 

Well the good news there are loads of people on these forums who suffer from similar ailments to you, so I don't think you'll have to wait long before someone comments

[Woldan]

Don't wait it out, get your ass up and do something. Clinical depression is why I've been doing rigorous weight training and cardio for almost a decade now, it keeps my depression at bay, keeps me occupied and I don't need meds that not only destroy my body but my mind as well. 

Edited March 26, 2014 by Woldan

[Bartimaeus]

As Woldan said, be proactive. I say that because I've heard it's supposed to be great for at least helping to treat depression...and I personally was not and am still not and I don't think it'd be entirely incorrect to say that I'm at least partially insane as a result. To be fair to myself, though, I was a bit anorexic at the time, so it would've been hard to be physically active without magically fixing that, too. And...honestly, I still don't eat entirely right. Ah, the joys of moderate (but greatly varied) neurosis...

[Raven2099]

i spent an hour sculpting clay... verry relaxing....

it looks like i may have a serries of warped astrays to sell on ebay soon

[Meshugger]

I paint. As in acrylic paintings on canvases.

 

While i am not of the depressed kind, i can tell that the experience of creating something is quite positive.

[Woldan]

I just noticed, I don't want to sound rude but your first post on the board is a complaint about your less-than-ideal mental health situation? 

[Gfted1]

^I thought that was pretty weird too.

 

Anywho, good luck with that.

[Blarghagh]

First off, if you think you will hurt yourself or others around you, please seek help. It's hard to reach out, in fact I often use this board as place to vent those emotions myself, but if it is too bad take the leap and talk to someone. Your GP can probably refer you to someone who can help you.

 

I've been dealing with recurring depressions for a while now, and I've got some general tips that probably will not solve it but will make it more bearable. They're things that you can use when "be proactive" or "work on what you want" don't work because at the times you are certain that you've lost the ability to care or even experience emotions. I don't know what your problems are, so I'm just going to list everything that comes to mind that has been beneficial for me.

 

First up, nutrition, excercise and sleep. Get these things in order. Physical health helps your mental health. It's hard to keep to these things, but it is important that you try. I notice that when I lapse in these things, I quickly start to feel bad again.

 

- Keep to a sleep schedule. Go to bed and get out of bed at the same times every day - even on weekends.

- Try to avoid sleep deprivation. If you sleep too little every weekday, you cannot catch up be sleeping in during the weekend. Sleep doesn't work that way. A sleep debt is not so easily repaid.

- Time your sleep schedule to fit 90 minute chunks (three hours, four and a half hours, six hours, seven and a half hours). Ideally, you will get at least seven and a half hours of sleep, but if you don't have time for that, make sure it's one of those chunks. Sleep cycles are roughly 90 minutes and you generally wake up naturally at the end of one of these chunks - this is why, if you wake up and then decide to stay in bed for an extra half hour you will likely end up more tired than before. The average human takes about fifteen minutes to get to sleep, so plan accordingly!

- Practice good sleep hygiene - don't work, browse, play games etc. in your bed and try not to use any screen for at least an hour before you sleep (and if you have to, use a program like f.lux to control the light values). Have a routine before you sleep instead, a series of action that your body and mind will associate with sleep to make it easier to sleep.

- If you have problems sleeping, consult a professional. There are a load of problems that can cause this, including sleep apnea or DSPS.

 

- Try to eat healthy. Try to avoid fast food and sugary snacks because they have temporary highs with bad crashes afterwards and are bad for your health.

- Sugar replacements (i.e. diet coke instead of regular) do barely nothing to remove the problem of sugary snacks - they will not help.

- Don't do away with carbs, just choose smart ones. Whole-wheat bread and pasta or oatmeal are a good choice for carbs.

- Eat nuts, fruits, leafy greens and fatty fish. Bananas have a bunch of positive effects and citrus fruits will increase your vitamin B supply which has been linked to causing depression and anxiety before. Eggs and chicken have also been losing their bad image.

- Eat breakfast. Seriously. The quickest way for me to fall back into serious depression is to stop eating in the mornings.

 

- Excercise. At least 30 minutes per day. It doesn't have to be in one chunk, but remaining sedentary is a serious contributer to depression. Take breaks to do a quick walk around the block or around the halls if you can't find time to excercise. I know other people here will be a better help when it comes to this topic - I don't know a lot about what excercises are good and I don't have a lot of experience with it myself due to back and wrist problems, but at least 30 minutes of basic excercise is a must. Don't overdo it though, the goal is to become energized, not exhausted. Start slow.

 

More general tips would be:

 

- Meditate. Seriously. I was a skeptic up until two months ago - meditation, especially mindfulness meditation, has been an important factor in improving my moods. Even when I fail at guiding my thoughts and get frustrated at myself, it still helps my overall focus when I do it at least ten minutes per day.

- Allow yourself to do things that you enjoy or used to enjoy. I often hate myself for foregoing work and playing video games - but in fact, doing this all the time makes it sap your energy as if you are doing work. Set time aside to play a game you want to play. Productivity should not come at the cost of mental health, even if the world pretends that productivity is the most important thing in the world. Nostalgia is also powerful in improving your mood - play a game you used to love, or watch a movie that you liked as a child.

- Get at least a little sunlight each day. Sunlight, unless you have problems with it, is generally beneficial as long as you're not exposed to it for too long. If not possible due to health problems or night jobs, try light therapy.

- Don't isolate yourself. Even when you feel like you really don't want to see people, and that dealing with people will be a hassle, or if you are ashamed of yourself, still try to interact with real people, face to face. Humans are social animals and not having human contact will make your mood worse.

- Related to the previous one, forgive people who are trying to help you. When they say platitudes and nonsense about "being positive", "be happy" and "just do it" when these options may feel like they don't even exist for you anymore, keep in mind that they are trying to help. Many people confuse depression with being sad. The amount of times I've been told "oh yeah, I know exactly how you feel, I was so sad after..." is astounding, but they most likely do not have a proper frame of reference. The amount of misinformation on depression is painful. Someone who tells you "watch this movie, it's impossible not to feel happy when watching it" probably doesn't understand that depression affects how well you are able to process emotions.

- Keep a journal. Even if you don't have anything to say, write one line. You don't have to write more. Just keep one to record your thoughts about the day. It helps in understanding yourself.

- I see you're doing this, but having a creative hobby works wonders. Nothing cheers you up than creating something, even if it's just a awful rendition of a sad song on an old guitar.

- You might want to think about some form of charity. It's hard to feel bad about yourself if you're helping others, even if you're only doing it to help yourself.

- If you have too much on your mind, make lists and organize them. Get them out of your head.

- Try cognitive therapy. There are plenty of guides as to how it works, but it generally comes down to taking things (for example, words) that you think describe you or make you feel bad about yourself and trying to change their meaning. If you say "loser" 50 times really fast it sort of just becomes a noise instead of a word. Cognitive therapy is meant to change "cognitive distortions", for example when someone would feel "I failed to meet this one deadline, that makes me a complete failure" is a distortion that is detrimental. For more information you should probably google it, or get a book, or talk to an expert. I am terrible at explaning it.

- Opposite, try positive affirmations. Tell yourself that you're great, you forgive yourself for your transgressions, that you are worth loving - it will probably feel disingenuous, but say it often enough and a part of you will believe it.

- Smile. Specifically, practice what is referred to as "duchenne smiling" - the human brain is weird and having expressions of happiness will often trick your brain in actually feeling it as well.

 

These may  or may not be things that will solve the problems causing your depression. I am not a medical professional so I don't take responsibility if they don't work, but they are things that tend to help me.

 

Now if only I could practice what I preach... It's hard to actually work at being happy when sometimes feeling miserable or getting completely numb to feelings all together is so much easier. It has taken me a seriously long time to get out of just roaming around my life like a zombie and I am still not truly functional, with serious self-worth problems that I have barely scratched the surface of.

 

EDIT: Actually, I should probably thank you for posting this. This is the first time I've organized all my methods into a list that I could possibly hold myself to and read whenever I need to. I've never managed to organize is for myself because my self-worth issues make it really hard for me to put time into helping myself and I generally only keep myself to a couple at a time so this is actually helpful for myself. I hope it has some things you and other people here can use.

Edited March 26, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Guard Dog]

Nothing cures depression faster than a highball of top shelf whiskey sipped slowly after getting laid. Of course, getting yourself into that situation is the tricky part. Fortunately the whiskey is easy to get and it can even help you with the first part.

[Woldan]

Depends, some depressions sit far too deep to be cured or threated with things like alcohol and sex. If its a '' man I'm so ugly and such a loser / no self worth '' kind of depression you may be right, however, if its something like a fundamental / existential / solipsism- depression you're going to be hard pressed to change anything with such methods.

I'm having the latter and the only treatments that work for me is to work out so hard that I'm too exhausted to be pissed off and depressed or constant, intensive and extreme distractions, avoiding idleness and relaxing things like the plague. 

 

Thats my analysis, keep in mind that I'm not a professional. 

Edited March 27, 2014 by Woldan

[Nonek]

Grumpy, Listless,  Unintrested in anything, bored, want to cry, minor suicidal ideations....

I think i may be depressed...

 

 

That's not depression sir, it's marriage.

[BruceVC]

First off, if you think you will hurt yourself or others around you, please seek help. It's hard to reach out, in fact I often use this board as place to vent those emotions myself, but if it is too bad take the leap and talk to someone. Your GP can probably refer you to someone who can help you.

 

I've been dealing with recurring depressions for a while now, and I've got some general tips that probably will not solve it but will make it more bearable. They're things that you can use when "be proactive" or "work on what you want" don't work because at the times you are certain that you've lost the ability to care or even experience emotions. I don't know what your problems are, so I'm just going to list everything that comes to mind that has been beneficial for me.

 

First up, nutrition, excercise and sleep. Get these things in order. Physical health helps your mental health. It's hard to keep to these things, but it is important that you try. I notice that when I lapse in these things, I quickly start to feel bad again.

 

- Keep to a sleep schedule. Go to bed and get out of bed at the same times every day - even on weekends.

- Try to avoid sleep deprivation. If you sleep too little every weekday, you cannot catch up be sleeping in during the weekend. Sleep doesn't work that way. A sleep debt is not so easily repaid.

- Time your sleep schedule to fit 90 minute chunks (three hours, four and a half hours, six hours, seven and a half hours). Ideally, you will get at least seven and a half hours of sleep, but if you don't have time for that, make sure it's one of those chunks. Sleep cycles are roughly 90 minutes and you generally wake up naturally at the end of one of these chunks - this is why, if you wake up and then decide to stay in bed for an extra half hour you will likely end up more tired than before. The average human takes about fifteen minutes to get to sleep, so plan accordingly!

- Practice good sleep hygiene - don't work, browse, play games etc. in your bed and try not to use any screen for at least an hour before you sleep (and if you have to, use a program like f.lux to control the light values). Have a routine before you sleep instead, a series of action that your body and mind will associate with sleep to make it easier to sleep.

- If you have problems sleeping, consult a professional. There are a load of problems that can cause this, including sleep apnea or DSPS.

 

- Try to eat healthy. Try to avoid fast food and sugary snacks because they have temporary highs with bad crashes afterwards and are bad for your health.

- Sugar replacements (i.e. diet coke instead of regular) do barely nothing to remove the problem of sugary snacks - they will not help.

- Don't do away with carbs, just choose smart ones. Whole-wheat bread and pasta or oatmeal are a good choice for carbs.

- Eat nuts, fruits, leafy greens and fatty fish. Bananas have a bunch of positive effects and citrus fruits will increase your vitamin B supply which has been linked to causing depression and anxiety before. Eggs and chicken have also been losing their bad image.

- Eat breakfast. Seriously. The quickest way for me to fall back into serious depression is to stop eating in the mornings.

 

- Excercise. At least 30 minutes per day. It doesn't have to be in one chunk, but remaining sedentary is a serious contributer to depression. Take breaks to do a quick walk around the block or around the halls if you can't find time to excercise. I know other people here will be a better help when it comes to this topic - I don't know a lot about what excercises are good and I don't have a lot of experience with it myself due to back and wrist problems, but at least 30 minutes of basic excercise is a must. Don't overdo it though, the goal is to become energized, not exhausted. Start slow.

 

More general tips would be:

 

- Meditate. Seriously. I was a skeptic up until two months ago - meditation, especially mindfulness meditation, has been an important factor in improving my moods. Even when I fail at guiding my thoughts and get frustrated at myself, it still helps my overall focus when I do it at least ten minutes per day.

- Allow yourself to do things that you enjoy or used to enjoy. I often hate myself for foregoing work and playing video games - but in fact, doing this all the time makes it sap your energy as if you are doing work. Set time aside to play a game you want to play. Productivity should not come at the cost of mental health, even if the world pretends that productivity is the most important thing in the world. Nostalgia is also powerful in improving your mood - play a game you used to love, or watch a movie that you liked as a child.

- Get at least a little sunlight each day. Sunlight, unless you have problems with it, is generally beneficial as long as you're not exposed to it for too long. If not possible due to health problems or night jobs, try light therapy.

- Don't isolate yourself. Even when you feel like you really don't want to see people, and that dealing with people will be a hassle, or if you are ashamed of yourself, still try to interact with real people, face to face. Humans are social animals and not having human contact will make your mood worse.

- Related to the previous one, forgive people who are trying to help you. When they say platitudes and nonsense about "being positive", "be happy" and "just do it" when these options may feel like they don't even exist for you anymore, keep in mind that they are trying to help. Many people confuse depression with being sad. The amount of times I've been told "oh yeah, I know exactly how you feel, I was so sad after..." is astounding, but they most likely do not have a proper frame of reference. The amount of misinformation on depression is painful. Someone who tells you "watch this movie, it's impossible not to feel happy when watching it" probably doesn't understand that depression affects how well you are able to process emotions.

- Keep a journal. Even if you don't have anything to say, write one line. You don't have to write more. Just keep one to record your thoughts about the day. It helps in understanding yourself.

- I see you're doing this, but having a creative hobby works wonders. Nothing cheers you up than creating something, even if it's just a awful rendition of a sad song on an old guitar.

- You might want to think about some form of charity. It's hard to feel bad about yourself if you're helping others, even if you're only doing it to help yourself.

- If you have too much on your mind, make lists and organize them. Get them out of your head.

- Try cognitive therapy. There are plenty of guides as to how it works, but it generally comes down to taking things (for example, words) that you think describe you or make you feel bad about yourself and trying to change their meaning. If you say "loser" 50 times really fast it sort of just becomes a noise instead of a word. Cognitive therapy is meant to change "cognitive distortions", for example when someone would feel "I failed to meet this one deadline, that makes me a complete failure" is a distortion that is detrimental. For more information you should probably google it, or get a book, or talk to an expert. I am terrible at explaning it.

- Opposite, try positive affirmations. Tell yourself that you're great, you forgive yourself for your transgressions, that you are worth loving - it will probably feel disingenuous, but say it often enough and a part of you will believe it.

- Smile. Specifically, practice what is referred to as "duchenne smiling" - the human brain is weird and having expressions of happiness will often trick your brain in actually feeling it as well.

 

These may  or may not be things that will solve the problems causing your depression. I am not a medical professional so I don't take responsibility if they don't work, but they are things that tend to help me.

 

Now if only I could practice what I preach... It's hard to actually work at being happy when sometimes feeling miserable or getting completely numb to feelings all together is so much easier. It has taken me a seriously long time to get out of just roaming around my life like a zombie and I am still not truly functional, with serious self-worth problems that I have barely scratched the surface of.

 

EDIT: Actually, I should probably thank you for posting this. This is the first time I've organized all my methods into a list that I could possibly hold myself to and read whenever I need to. I've never managed to organize is for myself because my self-worth issues make it really hard for me to put time into helping myself and I generally only keep myself to a couple at a time so this is actually helpful for myself. I hope it has some things you and other people here can use.

 

Thats a very informative post, thanks for taking the time to go into such detail

[Blarghagh]

Nothing cures depression faster than a highball of top shelf whiskey sipped slowly after getting laid. Of course, getting yourself into that situation is the tricky part. Fortunately the whiskey is easy to get and it can even help you with the first part.

 

Oh gee, all my problems are solved now. I was only depressed because I didn't get drunk and laid.

 

Oh wait, I actually have a healthy sex life and I had to stop drinking because it started out as this and then turned into self-medicating with alcohol and it made everything worse.

 

Depression =/= being sad. Sadness is not always one of the symptoms. In fact, most forms of clinical depression stop you from being able to process that emotion correctly.

 

Don't get me wrong, a healthy sex life is great and it does help in dealing with it but it is not a cure. Well, unless sex is a major part of your deeper issues, anyway.

Edited March 27, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[BruceVC]

 

Nothing cures depression faster than a highball of top shelf whiskey sipped slowly after getting laid. Of course, getting yourself into that situation is the tricky part. Fortunately the whiskey is easy to get and it can even help you with the first part.

 

Oh gee, all my problems are solved now. I was only depressed because I didn't get drunk and laid.

 

Oh wait, I actually have a healthy sex life and I had to stop drinking because it started out as this and then turned into self-medicating with alcohol and it made everything worse.

 

Depression =/= being sad. Sadness is not always one of the symptoms. In fact, most forms of clinical depression stop you from being able to process that emotion correctly.

 

Don't get me wrong, a healthy sex life is great and it does help in dealing with it but it is not a cure. Well, unless sex is a major part of your deeper issues, anyway.

 

 

I think GD is just joking, anyone who knows anything about clinical  depression knows that its a chemical imbalance and you can do as many things that you think will make you happy, like sex and alcohol, but these may make absolutely no difference to the way you feel about yourself and life

 

Things like sex and alcohol are only good at treating what I consider is temporary depression

[Blarghagh]

I get that he means it in good fun but I consider advocating alchohol as a cure for depression, even as a joke, to be distinctly in the "not okay" department. It hits a personal nerve for me.

[BruceVC]

I get that he means it in good fun but I consider advocating alchohol as a cure for depression, even as a joke, to be distinctly in the "not okay" department. It hits a personal nerve for me.

 

I hear you, most people just don't understand depression. They think a depressed person " should just stop complaining and get on with it "...but we know that the treatment of clinical depression is something much more scientific and requires analysis of the root causes and at times the right  medication.

[Guard Dog]

 

Nothing cures depression faster than a highball of top shelf whiskey sipped slowly after getting laid. Of course, getting yourself into that situation is the tricky part. Fortunately the whiskey is easy to get and it can even help you with the first part.

 

Oh gee, all my problems are solved now. I was only depressed because I didn't get drunk and laid.

 

Oh wait, I actually have a healthy sex life and I had to stop drinking because it started out as this and then turned into self-medicating with alcohol and it made everything worse.

 

Depression =/= being sad. Sadness is not always one of the symptoms. In fact, most forms of clinical depression stop you from being able to process that emotion correctly.

 

Don't get me wrong, a healthy sex life is great and it does help in dealing with it but it is not a cure. Well, unless sex is a major part of your deeper issues, anyway.

 

Sorry TN, that was supposed to be humorous as Bruce pointed out. Since this was a serious discussion about a serious problem that probably was inappropriate.

[Bartimaeus]

My dad tried to treat his depression with alcohol. He became an alcoholic, and as a result of related transgressions, his entire family left him. Poor guy.

 

Alcohol seems like a pretty poor treatment plan to me, but that's just my anecdote.

[Malcador]

Grumpy, Listless,  Unintrested in anything, bored, want to cry, minor suicidal ideations....

I think i may be depressed...

 

oh well.... mine as well wait it out

 

Sounds like pretty much every work day for me.  Listen to more Joy Division.

[BruceVC]

 

Grumpy, Listless,  Unintrested in anything, bored, want to cry, minor suicidal ideations....

I think i may be depressed...

 

oh well.... mine as well wait it out

 

Sounds like pretty much every work day for me.  Listen to more Joy Division.

 

 

But Malc the difference is you know you have your friendly pet moose waiting at home who is always going to cheer you up. I doubt Raven lives in Canada so he isn't as fortunate

[Malcador]

Whatever humour was in that joke to begin with has probably long past gone.

[BruceVC]

Whatever humour was in that joke to begin with has probably long past gone.

 

But Malc some jokes are eternal

[Nonek]

In all seriousness Mr Raven have you thought of buying a Dog? They are the finest form of companionship one can wish for, non judgemental and ever loving, and as mentioned above the simple act of walking them may be an aid to ones temperament. The body thrives on the exercise while the mind has time to think over ones problems.

 

All the best sir, and I hope you soon feel better.

[rjshae]

Grumpy, Listless,  Unintrested in anything, bored, want to cry, minor suicidal ideations....

I think i may be depressed...

 

oh well.... mine as well wait it out

 

It happens to many people, myself included. Just wait a few weeks and see if it goes away...