When You Are Depressed, Make Something

Everyone is different, so I'm not going to knock the author for his views.

What I found over the years is that having a routine helps ward off depression, and by definition almost making something isn't a routine it's a one time event.

I would suggest something much simpler. Walking. Take as many steps as you can every day. Log the results, but really you just want to do something to get you moving so the results don't matter, I just like to compete against myself and walking is something I can do just about any day.

Eventually you will feel like doing something other than walking, but there may be weeks or months or you don't -- and that's OK too.

The point is just not to lie around letting the self-destructive thoughts spiral and lock you in that place you don't want to be. But even when you're there, you can still put one foot in front of the other...

This hits me almost every time I think of something. Recently someone suggested to me a game of "snake" (like the old QB game) that used the tilt sensor in the phone to direct the snake. Should be pretty simple.

A few searches later and I'm looking at super-realisticly rendered WebGL demos of mobile 3D pinball examples and thinking "there's no way I could ever implement something like this".

Anything I can think of already exists, and already exists better than I could do it.

When you are depressed

1. talk to people who care about you - face to face at every meal if possible but at least at every lunch if not. Be around other people and interact with them. Join communities where performance is not needed but people are thankful if you just show up.

2. do small tiny things. Eg: buy and cook eggs and eat them, clean your apartment. As you do slightly bigger things, do things for other people. Send $10 to a charity online or to a watsi patient.

Its a constant struggle and its hard as hell. But small tiny steps and support from others help a lot.

I would also add that it by necessity has to happen dynamically.

In the OP, the author recieves a nudge from his friend, but ignites his spark himself, and connects all the dots.

It's like Inception, you can read however many self-help books, blogs, studies, ideas as you'd like to try to make yourself get out of something, but it won't happen until it's "your" idea.

I have very much experienced this myself, and I can draw parallells between myself and the author, but I know that me telling anyone else won't help them (also from experience), because every transformation happens from within. All you can do is be supportive and present. Nudges and ideas can provide a seed, but they have to grow it. But there's also the risk of appearing pushy and having the opposite effect.

Exactly... the mythos of the "depressed artist" is a joke; if you're truly depressed, it's almost impossible to create. The light within you is extinguished. I suspect a lot of "depressed artists" are actually manic-depressive, which would explain their bursts of creativity.