Pharma shill. Thanks for the SSRI advert in this thread, seems legit. I guess SSRI addiction is fine since it's 100x more expensive and allows people like yourself to have a job.

Looked up phenibut and that is just an unregulated pharmaceutical, not a plant that just grows naturally.

I've made a similar post about this before and pretty much still not doing that great. At the time of my post a year ago I was extremely isolated and gained a bunch of weight. Right now in best shape of my life, been working out consistently, making a huge attempt to meet people and fill out schedule. Unfortunately years of depression have put me in a huge hole. I haven't made money in years, I just get nowhere with work, feel lost, because of the fact I have no income I can't get a lease and my living situation is a mess.

I've put so much effort in the last year into putting myself into a better situation, and even though I have, I need some stability to get better. I now look at bank account and worry about having enough to cover bills, feel guilty about withdrawing from retirement, and it feels like it's a hole I won't be able to get out of and all my progress can be quickly wiped out

Pharma is cool. Everything that helps you not to kill yourself is good. Things work very individual in this area. And I want everyone who is not in a good place to try things that might be working. If something isn't working for you, it is not a big deal, try the next one. Try exercise, try meds, try therapy, try alternative things. Something will work. Don't listen to anyone being aggressively against meds, or as a matter of fact being aggressively against anything that has some chance to help you.

Same rationale has led to the opiate epidemic.

AD medication helps millions of people every day and has saved lots of lives. A similarly large number of people haven't been helped at all, or don't find the side effects tolerable. It's also over-prescribed in cases in which it is unlikely to be effective and there can be bad side effects for some people when they try to discontinue.

AD medication is not for everyone, but it's a viable treatment option for people to discuss with their doctors, and since antidepressants are not addictive, there is no need to worry about an antidepressant crisis that is similar to the opiate crisis.

Congrats on getting healthy! That is a huge accomplishment and proof that you're getting out of the hole.

I don't know what you're skills are but online work could be a good place to start getting the income flowing again.

There's also dog-walking as well as providing other services. You can post on craig's list or on fb. gl!

+1. also, atleast you have a retirement account to draw from. Keep your priorities in sight and the money will come in. eat healthily, move, look for work

It feels all for nothing since other pieces are such a mess I guess. Like you realize you're still in a burning building no matter what you do.

I've been trying online stuff for a while but just haven't gotten anything going. My goals have been too lofty though.

I don't want to cross the line of withdrawing from retirement, I already did another one and depleted it unfortunately.

Saw my therapist for the third time. I don't think he's the right guy for me. Nothing against him, very affable and smart, but he doesn't seem like he can relate well enough to issues like depression and social anxiety to understand how to help with them. This last session was a total drag, he kept steering the conversation back into really dry stuff we went over already. So I've been to a middle aged woman, she was terrible, tbh. Now, a young guy. I guess I should try a young, hot woman next. At the very least, I'll get exposure therapy out of talking to a young, hot woman. Also, I'll probably fall in love with her and toss rocks at her window.

the most important part of therapy is making a real connection with the therapist. that said, your therapist doesn't need to currently suffer from depression or anxiety to help you with yours.

how long were your sessions? three sessions can't be sufficient for anyone to get anywhere (esp if they are only 30 mins) so maybe you should give it more of a chance.

dismissing two therapists in a row is probably a manifestation of your issues rather than a real problem with them. or perhaps therapy isn't exactly what you were expecting it to be.

one really important thing to remember is that therapy is amazingly useful but is a very small component of a person changing themselves. if you want to get rid of your anxiety and depression you have to do that for yourself by changing your life.

fighting depression is like walking across a gaping hot desert with no shoes on. some people think the therapist is going to strap them on their back and carry them. no, you have to walk the desert yourself but the therapist will stand at your side and link arms with you.

Therapy is a ****ing joke. Take it from a dude who was rocking a therapist and a psychiatrist for a decade. Train your emotions or let them be completely undisciplined and subject to variance of the universe. If you do gratitude exercises it stimulates serotonin, dopamine, and nor epinephrine. If you're pimping out more mental health BS then you just don't know what you are talking about. Study more neuroscience and less bull****, cuz mental health experts will take your money and your time and leave you stuck in your in your so called "disesease." The fact is it's not a disease, it's mental programming.


Social anxiety and depression are nothing when you know how to manipulate the brain and the emotions...... GOML. Meditate and do affiramtions to train your brain, messing with mental health is like doing a crash cabbage diet to lose weight, it's only gonna make things worse....... cuz they are amatures.

I worded that poorly. I didn't mean he had to suffer from the same issues, I just don't think helping with depression and social anxiety are his specialty (he's interning at a sex therapy office). They were 45 minutes, and I just can't afford to waste time with a therapist that's not clicking. I can only afford so many sessions. If money were no object, I'd probably be seeing multiple therapists to really cast a wide net. The first therapist was like 7 years ago, not recent at all.

I didn't hate our first 2 sessions. I felt good coming out of both, but they were really more of an orientation, so it probably would've been good with anyone. The most recent was just such a rehash and drag, I came out with a strong inkling he's not the best for my issues. I might give it one more.

so when i am ugly as *** (or at least i feel so) and i fear i will be alone for the rest of my life and i can see that mum will probably pass away in the next ten years you mean i just have to go jogging 2 more days per week to live a happy life?

thanks man, really appreciate your advice! you really showed me the way into a brighter future.

possibly

it's all just chemicals and ****

Depression to me is unexplainable, nothing natural i do brings me any pleasure and i feel dead inside so flat and and it is impossible to get a good feeling, i get foggy, move slowly, can't sleep and it go's on for months.
Suicide is such a scary thing to some people, I have talked about it with close friends and find it amazing they have never contemplated it. In my dark moods nothingness would be a relief from the constant torment and mental anguish you go through. I can understand 100% why people check out.

I agree with the bolded part. But, you lose credibility with your following paragraph.

I have struggled with depression my entire life and have experimented with many non-medicinal options. For me, this is what has worked (in order of helpfulness):

1. Exercise
2. Meditation (download headspace, meditation is the most underutilized option for depression)
3. Therapy
4. Exposure to sunlight
5. Morning Journal

I really think it's important to be around people as much as you can. When you are depressed you are saying the worst things to yourself over and over on a loop. It becomes a vicious, never-ending cycle where you feel trapped in your depression. Get out of your head, sweat as much as possible, talk to people, and if that doesn't work try different medicines prescribed by a doctor.

I have the most heritable form of MDD (RE-MDD), It runs in our family so I have been battling this disease since I was about 17. I´m not a fan of SSRI-antidepressants either, the side effects were horrible and for me they just don´t work. I lived about 15 years without any medication (but of course got sick several times). But after my "nice" experiences with SSRI I refused to take any medication...until I got so sick (psychotic depression) that I left work earlier and ran to our family doctor who immediately sent me to the neurologist: emergency!! I told doc about my problems with SSRI and he prescribed me a mood stabilizer (Lam****) - something finally (!!) worked well!

Besides almost everything is said:

- healthy diet is very important!
- exercise (fortunately I have always been sporty)
- meditation
- take your time to relax: every single day

I think the most important things are diet and exercise. Don´t rely only on your meds (if you take some), healthy lifestyle is very important!

I´ve been (almost completely) symptom free for more than 4 years now..... There´s no guarantee that I will stay healthy for the rest of my life because in my case it´s familial, but I´m sure with sports, diet and the low dose of Lam**** I have to take, I can do it!!

Never give up and scr**** depression!

when im feelin down, before i had better ways to fix myself, I used to just think "i could have aids in africa and be dying".

not even a joke, just anything mentally to trick myself that my life isnt that bad.

then i start thinking more about it. how my life isnt equivalent to some randoms life in africa and even though the daily grind for both of us, eat sleep etc is the same, the thought process pertaining to the aids comment makes no sense.

I basically am sitting here with an infinite, in comparison to the african, toolbox with everything at my disposal but i lack the desire and drive to do anything about it. the factors could be. ugly physically, fat, too thin, ugly emotionally, too talkative, too quiet etc. so many stories of depression stem from hatred. basically anything under the sun that you dislike about yourself physically or mentally can lead to or trigger depression.

i won lots of money, 100's of thousands, as a poker player and lost most of it back, all before age 23, so i made lots of financial errors and hated myself for it.

thats all it took for me to begin a spiral down. also not being around people enough(not poker), not seeing the daytime/sun enough, lack of any real exercise. my problems were heavily mental and mostly and still revolved around hatred of my financial and lifestyle choices. They say time heals all, its somewhat true. but also minor physical things like food choices and 1 hour of physical activity makes such a difference.

ive tried making a daily schedule, some form of solidarity from day to day living to make things make more sense. having something to inspire you to get excited about life is so key. Even finding some joy in mediocre activities, just psyching yourself up for things you still enjoy. Starting with a clean state every day.

its still kinda rough but im figuring it out myself, without any medication or psychiatrists. some things you just know you will dislike if you try them, its not about weakness.

in my case, I can SEE the answer 100% laid out on the table, so ^^ above wouldnt help and i know this. the hard part for ME is assembling it into something useful. i don't wish additional help and im very close to finding my own solutions to my problems by doing things that I know will work for me.

obviously the solution for depression will vary for each person, but personally this is how i want to solve it. its taking years but its being done correctly, as least i feel wayyyyyyyy better now than say 2 years ago.

this is a long post but i also feel like humans are changing massively. our life spans have more than doubled. we dont need to hunt to survive. nobody relies on us to defend the camp from invaders. we grow larger and lazy, the population goes up and more and more people are getting depression. Basically my theory is that our "usefulness" as human hunter/gathers has plummeted. we become sad because we lack effective use. when someone is super depressed they literally cease to function properly, i know from experience, the very essence of what im describing.

So due to this drastic change in humanity, its leading to the UMBRELLA of depression. its due to a lot of inactivity, sitting, sedentary lifestyle that we currently have. Bad foods. Indoors constantly. The happiest people i see on facebook and rl friends are outdoorsy people. Again, you could easily live that lifestyle and be super depressed too, but thats obvious.

Living a low movement, low light, internet life can certainly CONTRIBUTE to depression, how could it not? im not saying its the ****ing cause, but it in NO way helps us as humans. People are relying more on meds and other things to deal with human lifestyle that we didnt have 100 years ago, even 50 years it was less prominent.

ive suffered so im not being a dick, but i have a feeling back then there were a lot less cases of depression. My point is we 1st world humans are evolving, possibly negatively, into a zone of lifestyle where we have everything in our toolbox and its either overwhelming or underwhelming depending on your personality. both however can lead to a depressive state!

Im not saying basic changes will work for everyone, but for a majority of depression cases i could see these changes helping them life a more normal life.

The number #1 thing though is you have to be willing to help yourself.

just attempting to get more into that old style life, it doesnt need to be dying from lack of food or no cold medication in a log cabin at age 32. but there has to be a medium in between this, some middle ground where we arnt entrenched into our sad modern lifestyle.

https://www.selfauthoring.com/

Might help some people here. The idea is that if you have memories that are more than a year old and still give you a negative emotional reaction when you think about them, then those memories are holding you back. Writing about them can help you put bad memories behind you.

I enjoyed that serious WateryBoil post, keep working at it mate!

WateryBoil, you mention a very very good point: keeping up activities. This is very important to me too! I always went to work (when I was an employee) even though I had dellusions, even though it was extremely (!) hard to get up in the morning and even though my concentration was bad. I could set myself on "autopilot", Jared Tandler would call it "unconsious competence" and could still write good texts (I was a copywriter back then). I even could take some creativity from the depression, from my dark thoughts (was working for the pharmaceutical industry, so writing about bad diseases was peanuts ). Because I had hypochondric dellusions....well, it perfectly matched to my work and somehow my work was "therapy", I could let out all my fears, all my anxiety. So I never missed a single day at work (I´m self-employer now).

Sports helped me as well, even though it was very hard to enjoy it, I only could enjoy sports as soon as the "famous runners high" set in. The endorphines which are secreted during and after sports help a lot to ease the pain and suffering.

When it got really really bad recalling my best childhood-memories helped a lot in order to "stay alive" (you know what I mean). My childhood-memories (and some other nice ones like from vacations) helped me to see that life isn´t so bad and were preventing that I wanted to **** myself. Besides, most people have next of kin, you cannot do this to your loved ones. The thought of my loved ones gave me power to fight for my life!!

I stopped asking the question "Why me?". It runs in our family and that´s the way it is. And every family member who´s got it did/does well in life.

By the way: I have recently read something very interesting. The same genes which makes you depressive can give you kind of "great brain power" like creativity or great memory. It depends on situation and lifestyle. So in an unlucky situation you get sick but in a completely different one you get very successfull! Interesting!

One more important point: Pharma or alternative medicine? There´s no black or white! I use both! There are everywhere good things and bad things. Important is that it´s working for you!

How-to get some physical activity if you are depressed and have troubles to get out of bed.


Don't have a grandiose plans like running a marathon or working out for 3 hours 5 times a week. Choose something small like 20 min yoga or going for a walk. Deconstruct the task into even smaller pieces. For example if you are laying in bed in smelly PJs, sheets not changed for weeks and thinking about going for a walk:
-get out of bed
-put on shoes and some clothing so that you won't get arrested for disturbance of public order
-get out of the door
-start to walk to the end of the block
-walk another 5 min
.
.
.
- turn around
- walk back.

If necessary deconstruct it even in smaller pieces. When I was in a bad place "getting out of bed" consisted of about 10 steps. Think in every moment only about the current step.

Another thing that is helpful in getting some exercise, is a friend who is willing to deal with you although you are so not a pleasure to be around. And don't kid yourself, if you are depressed it is just difficult for people to deal with you. A friend who is willing on a regular to basically pull you out of bed and push and pull you for a walk and walk with you although you can't say anything positive or entertaining.

That one is may be also for people who wonder "how can I help someone depressed". Loan out your drive. One of the problems in depression is a low drive to do anything. Try to be the drive for depressed friend to do something. Don't have grandiose plans, ignore if depressed friend is deflective, avoids contact, has a lot of excuses. Try to use your drive to do something with depressed person.

I had a friend who on the regular pulled me out for a run. And it was hard work to pull me out. I went into hiding, didn't respond to his calls and emails and tried to become kind of non-existent. He ignored when I declined for the fourth and fifth time and tried it again and again. I am very grateful that he did it.

I feel exercise is prolly best for depression or feeling down. Obviously a lot of depression deals with with a running in your body and based on genetics and pure luck.

Do you guys think low self esteem and depression are the same (or can be I guess)? I know prolly bad question but I'm seeing a counselor soon to see if I can get on meds work at least work on my social anxiety. I do think I'm depressed per se but suffer from low self esteem and super anxious when meeting new people.

Finally this is super obvious but I recommend people don't over drink. Sometimes when I drink too much, I get super depressed the next day and question the meaning of life (when I feel like this, I almost can cry over nothing really sad). This might happen to me a few times a year but definitely scary. Why I won't mess with mdma at edm concerts.

Certainly helped me a great deal. Listening to a lot of Peterson was also helpful. Getting a plan for your future down on paper is very motivating.