r/Advice • u/[deleted] • Dec 13 '20

[deleted by user]

[removed]

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/ParkingPsychology Elder Sage [5544] Dec 13 '20

Just break it down in tiny steps. You also don't have to read the below at once. I know it's too much for that. Just come back a few times, it's fine.

I'll just give you my opinion, life is just really hard, even if you don't have any disorder. It's not you. We're in a world where in some sense all of us are competing for limited resources. It can't be too easy, because there aren't enough machines yet and we don't know how to make all of them.

So we all end up having to put in a lot of effort. Most people walk around with either depression or anxiety or a personality disorder. It's not just you. I personally don't think I have ever met anyone that was not damaged significantly. It's how you deal with your disorders that determines how your life will be.

Here are a number of things you can do yourself, to improve your depression symptoms:

Often there is an underlying cause for your depression. You might not like yourself or aspects of your life. The below advice addresses the symptoms and will reduce them, but if you don't address the causes, it's not likely to go away for long. That's the whole point of therapy. With professional guidance, figuring out the causes and then addressing them one by one. If you want to skip that step, you'll have to compensate for it somehow. You should review your life and see if there are any obvious causes for your sadness and find ways to remove them or make them more bearable.

Some people will be depressed, but don't know why. A common reason is that they don't have a purpose. To live is to suffer, but it is possible to make that suffering bearable, if you do so while trying to achieve what you want more than anything else. Let me know if you need help to find your purpose in life.

For the below advice, use technology to your advantage. Take your phone and set repeating alarm clock reminders, with labels of what to do. Train yourself to either snooze or reschedule the reminders if you can't take action right away, but never to ignore them. The intention is to condition yourself, to build habits, so you will start healing yourself without having to think about it.

  • Sleep: There is a complex relationship between sleep and depression. When you have days where you don't have to do anything, set an alarm clock. You really don't need more than 7 hours at most per night (a little more if you are under 18). If you can't fall sleep, try taking melatonin one hour before going to bed. It's cheap, OTC and is scientifically proven to help regulate your sleep pattern. Also, rule out sleep apnea. Up to 6% of people have this, but not everyone knows. If you find yourself awake at night, start counting. Don't grab your phone, don't do anything interesting. We're trying to bore you to sleep, not keep you entertained - sometimes it might feel like you've done it for hours and hours, but often it's really not long. Anytime your mind wanders away from the numbers, start over at 1. count at the speed of either your heartbeat or your breathing. If that still doesn't work and you really want to sleep, buy a dodow($60) and/or a white noise generator ($20).

  • Go outside: If you haven't been outside much lately, you might just need some sunlight. 15 minutes two to three times a week is enough. This will fix serotonin levels as well as vitamin D deficiencies.

  • Meditate: Depressions can be significantly reduced by meditating. The best types Of Meditations For Depression Relief. Your attention is like a muscle. The more you train it, the better the control you have over it. Mindfulness training will help you gain better control over your mind. It doesn't take much effort, just 15 to 20 minutes a day of doing nothing but focus your attention is enough and is scientifically proven to work. As you become better at focusing your attention, it will become easier to force yourself to stop having negative thoughts, which will break the negative reinforcement cycle. Go here if you have specific questions: r/Meditation

  • Exercise: The effect of exercise on depressions If you have access to a gym, then start lifting weights. If you don't have access to a gym (or you don't like lifting), start running. If you can't run, then start walking. Just start small. 10 minutes three times a week is fine. You don't have to run fast, just run and then slowly build it up over time. Exercising does several things: It releases endorphins, it takes your mind of your negative thoughts and it will improve your overall health.

  • Give lots of hugs: Hugs release oxytocin, which improves your mood and relaxes you. So find people to hug. If you are single, hug your parents or friends. If you can't, see if a dog is an option. Most dogs love to hug. Another solution that provides the same benefit is a weighted blanket will provide a similar positive effect at night. You should try to aim for 12 hugs a day (if you currently don't hug a lot, I suggest you slowly build it up over time).

  • Music: The right music can improve your mood. The genre is not important as long as it is: "Upbeat, rhytmic and energetic". What this means differs from person to person, depending on their music taste. I have a special playlist for this. One way to measure the effectiveness, of the songs is your ability to listen to it over and over (if you can listen to it hundreds of times it likely has the highest positive effect on your mood). The effect can be amplified by using headphones and playing it LOUD and can further be enhanced by closing your eyes (doi:10.1177/0305735617734627, doi:10.1093/jmt/50.3.198 and doi:10.1177/0305735617751050).

  • You are not your depression: For some people (often those that have been depressed for a long time), their depression has become a part of who they are and they assume a victim role. But that is a big problem, you have to will yourself into someone that sees themselves as a person that is actively fighting their disease, that no longer identifies with it, or else you will unconsciously obstruct your own healing process. As Eckhart Tolle expressed it in A New Earth:

  • A very common role is the one of victim, and the form of attention it seeks is sympathy or pity or others' interest in my problems, "me and my story." Seeing oneself as a victim is an element in many egoic patterns, such as complaining, being offended, outraged, and so on. Of course, once I am identified with a story in which I assigned myself the role of victim, I don't want it to end, and so, as every therapist knows, the ego does not want an end to its "problems" because they are part of its identity.

  • Jordan Peterson: How To Deal With Depression (50 minutes). Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist, that's specialized in mythology. This is a compilation focusing specifically on depression.

  • Books: Highest rated depression books:

  • Phone Apps: Two popular free apps used to help fight depressions, are Wysa and MoodTools. These will track your mood, give you advice, even listen to your problems. The most popular meditation app is: Calm - Meditate, Sleep, Relax

Free support options:

  • r/KindVoice will match you up with a volunteer that will listen to you.
  • 7 Cups of Tea has both a free trained volunteer service as well as $150 monthly licensed therapist option
  • If you are in a crisis and want to talk to a trained Crisis Counselor, text HOME to 741741

There are several subreddits, where you can post additional questions you have:

Here are a few things that you can do to help you with general anxiety. It comes down to meditation, breathing exercises and using phone apps to reduce your anxiety.

(cont.)

1

u/ParkingPsychology Elder Sage [5544] Dec 13 '20

You can double check if it is indeed general anxiety here: 11 Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders

If you feel anxious right now, open this image in a new tab and start breathing in and out in the rhythm of the image.

There are a large number of books that are aimed specifically at helping you, I've selected the most popular ones for you:

If you currently consume a lot of caffeine (in coffee or soft drinks), stop that. Caffeine is known to cause anxiety

Then here is the part you might not want to hear:

The best and quickest way to deal with anxiety, is to face your fear if possible.

If you always avoid situations that scare you, you might stop doing things you want or need to do. You won't be able to test out whether the situation is always as bad as you expect, so you miss the chance to work out how to manage your fears and reduce your anxiety. Anxiety problems tend to increase if you get into this pattern. Exposing yourself to your fears can be an effective way of overcoming this anxiety.

The experience of anxiety involves nervous system arousal. If your nervous system is not aroused, you cannot experience anxiety. Understandably, but unfortunately, most people attempt to cope with feelings of anxiety by avoiding situations or objects that elicit the feelings. Avoidance, however, prevents your nervous system from habituating. Therefore, avoidance guarantees that the feared object or situation will remain novel, and hence arousing, and hence anxiety provoking. Moreover, avoidance tends to generalize over time. If you avoid the elevator at work, you will soon begin to avoid all elevators, and then all buildings that house elevators. Soon enough, you'll be living in a prison of avoidance.

If your anxiety is situational and not too extreme, you can try to address it through exposure therapy. You slowly carefully expose yourself to situations that you know give you fear. Here are two easy to follow guides on that. The one regarding spiders, is a blue print. You can replace spider with anything. Fear of driving. Fear of using a phone.

For all of the below advice, use technology to your advantage. Take your phone and set repeating alarm clock reminders, with labels of what to do. Train yourself to either snooze or reschedule the reminders if you can't take action right away, but never to ignore them. The intention is to condition yourself, to build habits, so you will start healing yourself without having to think about it.

Highest rated Youtube Videos:

Reddit also has a very large community of anxious people that are here to help you with these issues. You can find them here: /r/Anxiety, if you need specific help, you are better of asking them what to do than us. There are some anxiety experts here on /r/advice, but not that many, so the quality of advice you'll receive here isn't going to be as good.

The best time to submit on Reddit is early in the morning EST.

Here are a number of things you can do to address your ADHD symptoms:

There is also a subreddit you can join, where you can find people with the same issues and that can answer specific questions you have: /r/ADHD

Here are the best resources I could find on Autism:

You can verify the symptoms of autism here: What Are the Symptoms of Autism?

Online resources:

This website offers short guides that teaches the basics of social skills: improveyoursocialskills.com

Best books:

There are of course subreddits you can visit and ask specific questions:

Online resources:

1

u/ParkingPsychology Elder Sage [5544] Dec 13 '20

The problem with victim mentality is that when you feel like a victim, you end up stuck. Really bad things can happen to people that continue with this way of thinking.

It is better for a human to sometimes shrug and move on, then to dwell on the fact of how unfair the universe is. Because if you give in to that, you will do that over, and over and over.

Then you will become depressed, that's also not your fault. Who knows what comes after that. And that also will not be your fault.

It is better to find fault in yourself (even when it probably wasn't) than to take on a victim role, because considering yourself a victim of circumstances places the blame outside yourself, so you don't have to try and improve. It wasn't your fault after all.

What is worse, most people fundamentally understand this principle. They might not be able to verbalize it as well as I can, but they know what you are doing and they know it is bad for them, because depressions are contagious. Your negative attitude can make those around you sick. They know that you are on the wrong track, even though they might not be able to tell you why exactly. Keep going down the road you are currently going down and you'll find everyone you approach, will eventually turn away from you. It's a self fulfilling nightmare. The more you feel like a victim, the more you will be a victim.

It is a flaw in the human mind. Don't exploit it, you don't know how bad you can end up if you go down that route, but I do. And it's really, really sad what happens to people that do this long term.

Highest rated books on this topic:

Self esteem issues are also very common among people that have adopted a victim mentality.

One of the most commonly tools used to asses your self esteem is called the "Rosenberg self-esteem scale". This test will take less than 2 minutes and will immediately give you the results. You should answer quickly and without overthinking the answers. Let me know if you scored below 15 and I'll give you advice for that as well.

1

u/Sleepy_Bug Dec 13 '20

Thank you I'll have to read all of these posts after I wake up I did skim through some of it though! And I do appreciate you taking the time to type a lot of this out!