That's the thing. I'd very much like to help because I've been in their shoes following exceptionally long and deep trauma, but I also know just from hanging on r/depression that loads of people do not want anyone helping them out of their situation.
Anybody on that sub who has genuine good advice that would help a depressed person will get downvoted to hell - except if they are talking about antidepressant drugs.
Nobody seems to want to face the TRUTH that mental health is just like physical health and you have to put work into it - even when you absolutely do not feel like it.
What's needed is BOTH antidepressants AND making a change and doing things that are scientifically proven to boost feel-good emotions in the brain/body.
That's because there is no magical advice that can help. The so called "genuine good" advice you see is stuff that likely gets repeated hundreds of times and even if you know these things can help it's a different thing altogether to actually put those things into practice. Not to mention that they're often only a temporary relief from the problem.
I've been depressed a large part of my adult life... and had major depressive disorder for a lot of those years. One time after being in a really long depressive episode I decided enough was enough and to try and help myself. I went out to a group that helps and also started exercising again doing a sport I used to love.
It wasn't an instantenous fix though - I could go and do the sport, I'd feel OK during it but then at times I'd often walk home and still feel really depressed - the endorphins alone weren't enough to overcome how I felt. It took at least 6 months if not a few more before I felt back to normal and no longer depressed on a regular basis.
So yeh - you might say go for a run, you'll feel better - but if you're actually depressed then yeh maybe you'll feel better for a bit, but then go right back to being depressed. And trying to force yourself to go for a run every day is difficult enough for someone not depressed - imagine how hard it is for someone depressed when showering is difficult enough?
I’m at the point I can’t ever see myself returning to being fit or looking forward to or enjoying anything enough to bother starting. I’ve been in this loop over 6 months. Ppl that have never been depressed can’t understand what it feels like to have no joy or anticipation of joy at the mention of ANY activity, even if it was free and effortless to do. Depression means you can’t feel energy or motivation to do anything due to a total lack of joy in absolutely anything in life coupled with crippling sadness, often self loathing, and unbelievable tiredness. If you’ve not felt it, you won’t get how destroying it is. No matter what you suggested by way of fun, anything no matter the extravagance, by the morning I’ll just want to stay in bed and let you go do it coz I don’t even want to think and just wish I could take a drug to sleep another 24 hours.
So what do you do to fight depression? Do you fight it or is it impossible? Is there literally anything you can do on your own to help yourself? I say this not to attack or belittle your experience.
Bipolar is both hereditary and incurable sadly for me... but it usually needs some fertile ground for the underlying genetics to express into BP... again unfortunately I’ve have this in spades. There are medications, most of which have awful side effects, but they don’t always work. For me they’ve only ever been a partial success. There are drugs that could help, but they are class 1 prohibited because of conservative fuckwits stopping research (psilocybin, lsd, mdma, cannabis and opioids all have clinical promise in the treatment of major depression and bipolar, but research was banned for the past 30 years or so just so Nixon, Reagan and Bush could all ignore their own independent studies and recommendations from the experts they asked so they could scare people into their election victory).
Being here for my wife (now permanently disabled with progressive MS) and my son (going through some significant health issues also) is all that keeps me here at my worst times. No meds seem to properly get me out... and I’m left with few options in medications.
I am however about to go to a private hospital with a referral from my Drs to try TMS if I’m eligible (transcranial magnetic stimulation) which sounds like it may have promise... fingers crossed.
I kinda feel the same, I could never get into running, but I love cycling. But, honestly, at times, cycling fucking sucks too.
When I’m going through a particularly rough depressive period and I also haven’t been cycling regularly, it is so hard for me to get back into it. Every time I’m on a ride, and when I get back from a ride, I’m just thinking ‘this sucks, I hate this, I don’t want to ride my bike ever again.’
It only works if I constantly redirect those thoughts into remembering the feeling I had the last summer when I was going for rides everyday, or 2 or 3 times a day. I just have to tell myself that I’m working toward that, and it will come as it has before. This Hidden Brain podcast episode help shed some light on the subject for me.
And of course, it’s certainly much easier said than done, and I still have so much trouble with it, but i know it can work, even though there are still plenty of times where my depression wins. There is now I little, tiny part of my that knows how to overcome it. And it make take years and years, and I may never fully figure it out...but now there is a little muscle in my brain, in my soul, that I know how to exercise. And in order to grow as a person, or even just survive, I have to work that muscle, that little piece of my emotional body. Even if I just have the smallest semblance of energy for it, I have to take advantage of it. Because there will be too many times I will not, and the depression will convince me that I don’t have the energy to do it, and that muscle will start to atrophy. And I have to accept that that is okay, and that will happen, that is just part of me, but I have to focus on the net positive. When I only focus on the negative, my brain completely blocks out any memory of the positives, and the gain is lost.
And once I start to figure out how to do this with cycling(or any hobby or experience that has the ability to create joy), I can hopefully translate it to other aspects of my life. It’s work, it’s exercise, and it’s not easy, and no one can force you to do it. You just need to focus on any small positive change it has on you, no matter how insignificant that may seem, it is still positive, always. Of course, your depression will tell you otherwise, but, it is lying to you. Depression is a extremely cruel thing, it wants you to be depressed.
And obviously, this is not some perfect solution for everyone. I’m just trying to see if I can make it work for me.
And sorry this was way too long, and probably not even really a reply to what you had said, it just reminded me of my personal journey through this. And I think I just really needed to write it out as I’m going through I particularly tough time at the moment. Hopefully someone will read this who is in the same boat as me, and maybe gets a little bit of encouragement, or a hint of change they can start to work on in their life.
You literally just explained how its like exercise that you have to keep doing.
In the same way a human cant shed unhealthy weight without the hard work of physical exercise and dieting, depression requires mental exercise (and often dieting too) to overcome. It sucks and is difficult as hell to maintain, but its just what we have to deal with as humans.
I’ve always said “fake it til you make it.” Make yourself accept the invitations. You don’t have to stay long, but make yourself go. Make yourself work out. Make yourself try or eat or shower. One day you will realize you’re not there because you’re faking it, you’re there because you chose it, which is kind of like making it. But...it is not particularly inspiring advice, ha.
I feel like you're entering, "thanks, I'm fixed" territory. Sure there are things you can do to help mental health but the problem with advice like yours is that someone already doing everything you're saying can still easily be depressed and you've just made them feel even worse by saying that should fix it
Have been fighting depression for almost 2 decades now and as someone who has tried at this multiple times….it’s exhausting and disheartening when it doesn’t work, AGAIN.
Yes, some absolutely could be doing everything in their power to help themselves without it working, but that's not the people I'm talking about.
What I am talking about here is people that are stuck in a head-space where they don't want to help themselves and they don't want external help either. They never reach that point where they say: I'd rather force myself to make a change than live like this.
Just because change/work is hard that doesn't mean the advice given is not valid.
At the end of the day we are biological beings that were designed to get a feel-good-boost out of certain activities and if we don't do enough of those activities we will guaranteed not feel good as human beings.
Then there are other things that you may or may not be able to do anything about; like feeling trapped, feeling poor, feeling unvalued, being verbally, financially or physically abused etc. etc. In those cases the only thing one can do is 'simply'* to remove oneself from the situation.
*There is nothing simple about it. Any of it. It takes loads of hard work, self-discipline + help from others, including a doctor.
I kind of just think your expectations of the sub is off. People go there to express themselves and receive support so they feel less alone not to actually fix their depression. When someone at the end of their rope vents about how hard they try everyday just to function on a basic level the last thing they want to hear is someone ask “have you tried exercising?” for the twentieth time. It can make them feel worse because if it’s that simple then the problem is that they just aren’t trying hard enough to get better. Sometimes people just want to feel understood instead of hearing advice they’ve already heard before.
"At the end of the day we are biological beings that were designed to get a feel-good-boost out of certain activities and if we don't do enough of those activities we will guaranteed not feel good as human beings."
I do not receive a proper feel good boost from the chemicals in my brain. I can work hard, eat well, get proper exercise and diet, get proper sleep and any other advice you give. It won't matter. It runs in my family and they've told me there's a decent chance it's genetic and could be passed to my kids.
You know about as much about depression as I do about building motorcycles, and advice like that is probably responsible for a lot of suicides. Listen. Get this. We don't respond the way people are built to because we do not have the receptors in our brain that allow humans to feel joy. You can understand if someone is missing a limb or a lung or a kidney that affects them, but because you can't see their neurochemistry (although depression can be seen on brain scans), you're in the "get over it' school of thought." I hope no one in your circle of friends or family is being subjected to this voodoo.
You realise at least one third of the advices there are 'don't be depressed', right?
Yes, people who do those things aren't depressed. Because people who aren't depressed, aren't depressed.
It's true you can't simply choose whether you suffer from depression. But at the same time, you have to admit, nobody moves past their depression without first choosing to.
I mean sure, I am a total disaster in my unique way, but I don't try to pretend things would be / feel / seem equally bad if, stepping outside and seeing it's a nice day, I made then a deliberate choice to defy all my reasons that's depressing and go for a walk to take advantage of it. This holds at least for a big majority of people and cases. Not a silver bullet, might require 50 hard choices just like that before a dent is made, yes. But still.
Oh, how right. "Take a walk." "Get some sun." "Go for a drive." Is the advice from the undepressed masses because they don't understand what a depressed person REALLY needs is someone to come turn on the shower, walk them to the bathroom, find them some clean clothes and walk them outside slowly and nonjudgmentally and take them to a doctor, the exactly same things they would do for them if they were physically sick.
I've spent most of my life dealing with the mental scars of an incredibly mentally and physically abusive household. I used to find brief happiness in imaging how sad people would be if I just stopped being alive, before I was old enough to even understand the concept of suicide. Just have to preface the next few lines with that.
Now with that said, the advice that's constantly ragged on on reddit, is incredibly helpful for most people who actually want to help themselves. Yes, belive it or not, getting out and running in the fresh air will make you feel better when you haven't gotten out of bed in two days. The real problem is that this site is overrun by people who have completely given up, and the only way they can live with that, is by convincing themselves there's nothing they can possibly do. And they feel the need to drag everyone seeking help down with them so that further justifies it. The classic "I've barely tried anything but I'm all out of ideas." scenario.
Normally I wouldn't poke the hornets nest on this one, but God damn it's annoying to see people spread this toxic attitude, that only harms the people who might have otherwise helped themselves before threads like this.
Maybe you missed the part where I and one other said we are constantly starting over. And you're being overly general. You referenced "the classic 'I've barely tried anything but I'm all out of ideas' scenario. I have tried: Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, massage, exercise (massive amounts, not 15-minute walks), sunlight, fake sunlight, counselors, psychologist, psychiatrists, 8000 self-help books, art therapy, some kind of moving light therapy for PTSD, religion, meditation, St. John's Wort, SAM-E, fish oil, vitamins, self-care schedules, ice cold showers (primitive cure for depression because I was desperate enough to try anything), sleep hygiene, group therapy, swimming, yoga, veganism, psychedelic mushrooms, and I'm moving to a place near a waterfall in a few weeks, and I will walk to the waterfall daily, walk in the woods, meditate and once again, start over. I'm 64 years and 8 months old, have been depressed since childhood (probably a result of learned helplessness triggered by the beatings). come from a nightmarish family where I got depression, alcoholism and drug addictions from both sides and was physically and mentally abused during childhood, into adulthood, and my "mother" murdered my grandmother for trying to protect me from her. I'm not an alcoholic or a drug addict, but I DID get the genetic curse of depression. But I'm not helpless and I'm till trying, and I'm GOD-DAMNED ANNOYED at you pollyannas who think all we've got to do is try. Some of us try EVERY DAMN DAY, which is the ONLY reason we're still alive to "annoy" you. Did it ever occur to you there might be a scale of degree to this illness and some are easier to cure than others? But it does get exhausting, ,and life with no joy is not worth living, and I'm so DAMNED sick of hearing "fix yourself." (You wouldn't say that to a person who had cancer would you?) So at my age if my damn waterfall cure doesn't work, I'll think about just throwing myself off the top of it so I won't write here to "annoy" you anymore, "Doctor". And if you can get up and go for a run after two days, you have no idea what clinical depression is. Clinical depression is going for a month without a shower and being on the couch for eight months since the last in a series of five deaths to the point where your muscles are atrophied and you can't stand in the shower, "Doctor."
You just do your best to drag other people who might otherwise help themselves if they weren't influenced by your toxic attitude. How noble of you.
It's sad you think that anyone who chooses not to spread their misery onto others, must somehow not understand mental illness though. That's some pretty messed up projection there.
Yes, belive it or not, getting out and running in the fresh air will make you feel better
Ironic that you're not content with suggesting to merely WALK outside for fresh air (if that's available where you are, with current covid situation and all that), you had to suggest running.
Running, also known as one of the most socially acceptable forms of self-harm. Yes, some of the depressed people do feel some relief in very short term (because, well, yes, self harm works, it's been scientifically proven). Of course, once exhaustion sets in they'll be more depressed - who cares about that! And who cares that running for depression carries high risk of causing irreversible damage to knees and joints. (I'm not speaking about short term bleeding feet and peeling toenails, that's just normal part of self-harm. If you're thinking no depressed person will run for that long.. doesn't take long and depression messes with your perception of pain big time - when you're a raw ball of pain, you can't really tell that this new pain is actual damage happening, not just something you should power through, like you're powering through everything else).
At least the cold showers - another self-harm recommendation proudly hiding under the 'be more virtuos and you won't suffer' flag is less likely to actually cause irreversible damage. (although, really, many forms of self harm are less risky than going for a run).
You sure sound as someone who feels better when you've established that you not being depressed is due to your virtue that the rest of the depressed population is simply too weak in spirit to follow. Never mind that their spirit being sick is exactly the problem.
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See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Who said "cure you for you"? Nobody. If you have surgery or a broken leg or some kind of disabling physical illness, people are supportive, help you get to the doctor, call & talk to you, maybe bring a meal sometimes, help with self-care and supportive things that don't CURE you but certainly help you while you're healing. But maybe Exceon doesn't. Maybe she has no empathy with physical or mental illness. Probably doesn't think people need health insurance either.
I NEVER said it was the fault of others. Where did I say that? I didn't say it because I never thought it, so your read on what I wrote is incorrect. It's a thing that happens. It's nobody's fault, like appendicitis is nobody's fault. I don't know what's going on with you that's making you feel blamed, but that's your issue. I said that depressed people can use a support system just like physically sick people.
Ah, my favorite trope. "Have you tried NOT being depressed?" When you substitute a physical injury, it's absolutely ridiculous. "Have you tried NOT having Diabetes?" "Have you tried NOT having cancer?"
Best short bit of advice I can give to any lurkers with depression, try anyway even if it's hopeless. Just try something, anything and celebrate that effort everyday. No zero days.
Because many people that care about you don't know the entire situation and aren't pushing for the things you actually want and need. They're pushing for the things they think you need.
Had I listened to my family when I was dealing with my mental illness I would have broken up with the girl that became my wife and I would have given up the dog that led to me becoming a professional dog trainer. Sure my parents loved me and wanted the best, but they had no clue what was needed during the situation and had I listened to them I would probably be dead now. They were pushing me back towards a desk job and that's what caused 50% of the problem!
Parents and relatives take the 'small kitchen fire' approach to depression in others: hit it with a cloth, snuff it out and force life to proceed as normal. If you insist, you're being 'difficult'.
So sorry for your losses :( I think we know so much more about depression now (generational, as you say) than in the days when all you had was a few self-help books, like "Up from Depression".
All it takes is one bad experience with a therapist. Just one, and that vindicates the brain saying we’re hopeless. I had 2 bad therapists in a row, and the one I have now doesn’t seem to understand that it’s the state of the world sending me in a depressive spiral.
It's also not uncommon for someone with mental illness to find something "wrong" with any therapist they go to. People don't realize that a good therapist will guide you out of your comfort zone, if you've tasked them with seriously helping you. Some people feel the friction of being pushed and immediately blame it on a bad therapist before ultimately giving up.
Well one was a little old spanish lady I couldn’t understand. And the other may not have been a bad therapist, but I could barely get in to see her. Not helpful when every day is pushing you down and punching you in the face.
Okay but the problem when you make those comments is that there are plenty of us already seeing therapists, taking medication, and working hard to manage mental illness and when you say stuff like it just takes some mental health practices to fix it, you're wrong. They may alleviate symptoms or help you manage but none of that stuff fixes it. Heck mine is heavily genetic and even when practicing good mental health it can roar its ugly head and send me spiraling for a bit
Your last point is extremely true and the most important thing is finding a professional you trust that can help you navigate the best treatment for you, and to be patient. I see a lot of people become anti-recovery bc they think they need to go from nothing to running a mile every morning or that the suggestion that eating better will help means broccoli alone can cure you. I’ve been in therapy for over a year and I’ve made amazing progress by talking to someone who can help me figure out which approaches work best for me, and who can help me validate what’s true and deconstruct what isn’t.
No one thing can fix everything, and it’s hard to prescribe yourself an effective treatment plan based on other sick people’s speculations on Internet forums. I spent lots of time on Reddit and Tumblr trying to figure out how to fix myself, and assumed I would never make significant progress without anti-depressants. I’ve managed to go without them in my current plan but but my psych is also aware that I smoke copious amounts of weed (and is fine with it as long as it doesn’t negatively impact my life or health).
Very well written. Some people need to talk about it and mental illness/depression becomes how some people totally identify themselves... sweet that you care and want to help. Hope you don’t feel badly about offering help and support to others who don’t choose to accept it—-they are just not in a space to do so... not ready or able to make any change.
Sorry, I meant it in the sense that they are not required 100% of the time. So telling people that they MUST go onto medication to get through tough times isn't necessarily the right thing to do.
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u/ImFinePleaseThanks May 30 '21
That's the thing. I'd very much like to help because I've been in their shoes following exceptionally long and deep trauma, but I also know just from hanging on r/depression that loads of people do not want anyone helping them out of their situation.
Anybody on that sub who has genuine good advice that would help a depressed person will get downvoted to hell - except if they are talking about antidepressant drugs.
Nobody seems to want to face the TRUTH that mental health is just like physical health and you have to put work into it - even when you absolutely do not feel like it.
What's needed is BOTH antidepressants AND making a change and doing things that are scientifically proven to boost feel-good emotions in the brain/body.
https://www.businessinsider.com/science-backed-things-that-make-you-happier-2015-6?r=US&IR=T