If you’re struggling with depression, you need to see a doctor. To go with the metaphor in the meme, the average person isn’t trained to save a drowning person, who can also end up drowning anyone who tries to save them. Lifeguards are trained to save drowning people.
If only I could afford the $200 co-pay per visit. Some of us are too poor to afford mental health.
yep. i had a girlfriend with depression.
she refused to do anything about it. other than weaponize it against me. and blame me for it. it was horrible.
many folks just refuse treatment and act like the world is the problem, or their friends/family are the problem.
“I’m sad”
“Here, let me try and cheer you up”
“IT DIDN’T WORK! NOW YOU’RE THE PROBLEM!”
“Okay, I’ll give you some space.”
“Oh, so you’re just going to ABANDON ME?!”
“Nevermind, I’ll shut up now.”
“Aha! The SILENT TREATMENT!”
:-/
At a bare minimum i always appreciate an attempt to help, even if their ideas aren’t actually helpful
Yoga legit really great a managing stress and getting your mind off tense subjects.
Dehydration genuinely fucks over your ability to regulate your mood and concentrate on tasks at hand.
Like, I know you want to be mad at the “Easy Answers” crowd. But also, sometimes there are things that consistently improve your life. And people know it. And you can just do them and feel better.
A bit like asking someone who is in pain “Have you tried ibuprofen?” And then they’re angry at you until they take it. Then the pain subsides. And sometimes they even say “Thank you”.
as someone who has been on that particular moon i have to agree. i need to add sleep hygiene, healthy and enough food and excercise. It might not get you out of a crisis but things like low blood sugar and vitamin d do affect a persons mood significantly. so it might not be enough to cure depression but it very much helps with stabilization
My buddy’s got a “mildish” bipolar disorder. For years they ate like shit, drank hella soda (why is it always dr pepper) and never exercised. I’m sure as shit not gonna say stopping all that fixed the disorder, but they’re so much less volatile now that they do Hot Yoga and quit the soda… Their diet’s still trash tho…
Yeah this is a “I hate to tell you this, but it does in fact work” situation.
Doing those things won’t fix everything, of course, but they do help. Like, OP should be lucky they have someone to talk to, who’s taking an active interest in their wellbeing
100% agree. The “easy answers” are pre-requisites. You don’t get to bitch about them not helping until you’ve actually done them and still feel bad. See also:
- When was the last time you ate?
- What did you eat, and why didn’t it include a green vegetable?
- Are you getting enough sleep?
- Are you getting enough good sleep? (Sleep apnea is extremely common and also quicker and more convenient than you think to diagnose and treat.)
- Are you taking a daily multivitamin?
People dismiss these out of hand without actually trying them. Your body affects your mood a lot. I’ve had to deal with so many people both at work and in my personal life who were perpetually crabby because they never learned how to properly take care of themselves.
Yoga legit really great a managing stress and getting your mind off tense subjects
unless one of those tense subjects is a pinched nerve in your spinal column.
Yoga is a general stand-in for light isometric exercise. If you have a pinched nerve, adapted exercises including specific yoga poses and low-impact exercise are still recommended to help recover. For moderate exercise to get the endorphin-powered stress relief, swimming and upright/recumbent stationary cycle with good posture can be appropriate for someone with a pinched nerve.
I hate it too, but tailored exercise is kind of a magic bullet.
In that case, you might need actual physician’s care and not just friendly advice.
Unfortunately, finding a physician willing to read medical records these days is impossible
Except yoga is aimed at something way beyond the scope of tense subjects. If I ever encounter anyone advising me yoga like this I will punch them in the face
Depression is one of the hardest things I’ve ever talked to people about. People that don’t get depressed don’t get it. People that are they themselves depressed can enable bad behavior. People that don’t believe in depression (thanks dad) think that you are over reacting. And people that want to help are usually the ones that don’t really get it either and don’t know how to help.
Of course there is a bias towards negative experiences as when you are depressed those are the ones that stick out the most. But it still seems like bringing it up to people is such a mixed bag that most people end up internalizing it which only exacerbates it and continues the cycle of hiding emotions (I’m speaking from a male perspective if it wasn’t obvious).
And as someone that has been horribly depressed at various parts of my life I honestly can’t even give any good advice since those parts of my life are such a blur. All I know is that one day I was just okay without even realizing it. Sure I still get depressed from time to time, but I think the part that has changed most about me is my perspective. These days instead of focusing on the feelings of depression I focus on what is causing the depression. Sometimes there is no cause and I just have to deal with it, but most of the time I can figure out what is currently doing it and try and mitigate the issue if I can. And if I can’t, I’ll try and distract myself when I have free time instead of sitting inside my head.
Everybody’s journey is different and I recommend taking what I say with a grain of salt. I was able to face my demons by myself but I know I’m more of am exception rather than the rule. If you think you need help, you probably do. And I recommend help from a professional or someone close to you that has had similar life experience in the past. Talking about it may not seem like it helps sometimes but it really does make small dents over time. And speaking about it out loud can really help you work through something and put it into words instead of generic thoughts floating in your head. It’s why a lot of artists and musicians poor their emotions into their work. It’s easier to work through things in the real world than it is with the abstraction of ideas that is your mind.
And believe it or not, the advice of “drink water and do yoga” is less about the actual activities and more about letting your mind and body do something else besides be depressed. Pick a different activity that you actually enjoy and just see where it goes. The worst that can happen is that you are still depressed but have a new hobby. And, let’s be real, none of us drink enough water.
Amen man. You have a great approach and this is the way we should be teaching folks.
I have a similar story. As a adult on my own, I just had so much perspective and ability to like deal with my depression. I also learned to just let it be and not fight it, an that usually just disempowered it and it was not as big of a deal.
Personally I feel too many folks don’t think of mental health issues like physical problems. They treat them as this special mysterious thing, but a lot of the same solutions and techniques you’d deal with for physical problems or chronic pain really pragmatically translate to mental health.
And like mental health, folks with physical issues who refuse to acknowledge them often make them worse and become defined by them. And a lot of folks are really stupid and stubborn about these things and too proud to seek help or act like acknowledging the issue would make it worse or something. Or they might just go join some online community where they can complain without every having to get the pushback of changing something or seeking treatment, and fall into the self-pity cycle.
I’m glad you’re getting more water now.
Way to stretch that arm, too.
Try some exercise. For a brief time, the sadness is overshadowed by physical pain and a burdensome sense of weakness, inferiority and futility.
It’s good to change things up once in a while!
For a brief time, the sadness is overshadowed by physical pain and a burdensome sense of weakness, inferiority and futility.
The best way to do something is to do it once, decide it is impossibly difficult, and then tell anyone who encourages you to try again to fuck right off.
The second best way to do something is to not do it and say you’d have failed anyway even if you’d tried.
It’s good to change things up once in a while!
It literally is, though. You see the line “Touch grass!” get thrown around a lot. But seriously. Go out and touch some fucking grass. Take your shoes and socks off. Get your piggily wiggles deep into the earth on a sunny day.
There’s also the “Oh yeah, same situation” crowd. People who feel the same way, who agree about the state of the world, and also struggle to get by.
Which in itself, isn’t a bad way to respond - it’s honest, after all. However, it makes the idea of “reaching out for help” worse than pointless - not only won’t I get any help, but I’ll get more validation that I was right to feel hopeless in the first place.
Or the ones who play Misery Olympics and try to 1-up (1-down?) you.
I have been getting this argument the past few years, in person, that growing up in a poor family with uneducated parents makes me more privileged than people who grew up with doctors for parents in elite/rich places, and that means I had it better than they did and my life is better than theirs and I should have empathy for them and their lower privilege and more difficult lot in life.
and who do you think makes that argument? yeah…
i love people who think everything is a competition. it results in those of us who lead extraordinary lives clamming up and kicking out those of you who think that by us sharing one of our smaller events, we’re trying to one-up you.
at least op has
- someone to talk to
- someone that probably actually listened
- and that someone at least tried to help
when i try to reach out, if i even find someone that listens…well. it doen’t end well or they just stay silent and leave basically, like never to contact me again unless they need something (which i don’t indulge anymore, thus i realized i was alone for a long time before i realized)
Or my parents’ go to, “You gotta stop thinking about those kinds of things, try being more positive”. What the actual fuck?
But to be fair. Regular exercise and hydration can help with mild symptoms of depression. Clinical depression makes it difficult to even attempt these things, which is why we all should have access to effective mental healthcare
My sister’s husband was one of the most active people I knew: jogging, cycling, basketball, long nature walks… It didn’t help him with his depression, though. Or at least not enough.
Weed and hiking.
It’s rather ironic that some commentators are just not listening, whilst claiming the other’s deafness to be detrimental. I’d like to raise awareness that the effectiveness of antidepressants is similar to placebo and exercise–none of them are effective for treating treating chronic depression. Claiming exercise is as effective as antidepressant-drugs isn’t the remarkable truth that it’s being framed as: they’re both terrible antidepressants. We don’t have effective treatments that are applicably uniform–people are fundamentally different–don’t be so asinine as to dispute this, nor obtuse enough as to state the normative behaviours of healthy populations as being the cure for diseased individuals. B-b-b-but it does help. Thank you; your contributions towards aetiology have been most illustrious.
Have you tried elevation ?
elevators are pretty fun but most of them only last for about 30 seconds
