How do I deal with depression?

[hulu735]

enough said

[Tracker57]

Hulu: I suffer from depression. BAD! I'm doing three things to get through it.
1. Go to a psychiatrist. He/She is a medical doctor who can help you if you've got a chemical imbalance in your brain. Mine is great.
2. Go to a psychologist. He/She knows how a mind works and can help you rearrange your thinking. It's great when the psychiatrist and the psychologist work together.
3. Meditation. No kidding. Calming your mind and destressing yourself works wonders. Really. There's some free stuff out there. Both my psychiatrist and my psychologist recommended it.
4. Exercise. Even if you don't feel like it, get up and move around. It really helps your brain and emotions.

That's what I've done to get around stuff. Do I still feel depressed occasionally? Sure. But I know how to handle it and how to overcome it. It does not get the best of me.

There is hope. It is not a life sentence!!!

Tracker.

---------- Post added 23rd Jan 2012 at 07:56 PM ----------

PS: If you can't or won't see a doctor, you can at least do numbers 3 and 4 for free! And they will help. Tracker

[BudderMC]

I don't know how good an idea it is (if it classifies as avoidance or something like that), but distracting myself works well. The key for me is that I've identified more "healthy" means of distracting myself, rather than literally escaping my reality.

For example, I used to play video games for the vast majority of the game, just to tune out from the world. Now, I still play, but its for the sake of doing something fun.

Same goes for cooking. I also lurk EC, listen to music, go for walks, take pictures, etc. For me, it's anything that's relatively mindless, yet enjoyable. It's effectively meditative behaviours, just not traditional "meditation", if that makes any sense.

And TALK ABOUT IT. Find someone, anyone, even if it's just EC, but talk about whatever is on your mind. You accomplish nothing by keeping it to yourself. And even if the person listening has no answers for you, half the time we're able to solve our own problems just by listening to them being spoken aloud.

[sometimesbetter]

Sigh. I can relate to this. I'm just on and off with this. The best thing is to be consumed by your present task. No matter how hard it may seem to even muster up some motivation, just do it. And write about it! Even if it's a random stream of thoughts. Writing just makes things so much clearer.

And DEEP-BREATHING. You don't know how amazing this shit it is. Deep-breathing makes the world seem a 100x brighter. Trust me.

[Lexington]

The thing about depression is - there's no easy fix, and not even any obvious way to help alleviate the symptoms. IF there were, everybody would know about them, and we'd all just do them. That said, I can tell you what works for me.

1. Remain open. Don't "put on a game face" for the world. I let everybody know I was depressed during my last bout - why not? I didn't need the added pressure of trying to pretend everything was fine. Everybody was cool with it, and I even got some more "you doing OK today?"s, which was nice.

2. Mix things up. Go to work/school a different way. Try wearing a different type of (cheap) outfit. If you usually listen to pop, try rock, or jazz, or classical. If you usually watch comedies, try a documentary or old romantic flick. If you're a hardcore gamer, try giving it a rest...or if you've never played, try giving it a go. Order something different for lunch.

3. Make sure you move around a bit. If you're not a hardcore exerciser, that's fine, but get the juices flowing a bit. Jog around the block, or take part in a sport.

4. Stay social. Depression seems to do its worst work when we're alone for long periods of time.

5. If at any time you feel too close to the edge, don't be afraid to go get help.

6. Try to keep in mind that your brain is feeding you bad information. It happens. You've probably seen a coin on the floor and sort of jumped away from it, thinking it was a bug. Same thing. Your brain is telling you life sucks right now, and it doesn't. It's tough to keep that in mind, because we're so used to believing what our brain tells us. But it's like an optical illusion - life is actually not the empty void it might feel like.

Lex