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Tips for the depressed

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Re: Tips for the depressed

#191

Post by cairo_x »

_lqdo wrote: post #189
cairo_x wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were prescribed SSRIs with a Bipolar diagnosis!?

No, that was for depression and ptsd. I stopped seeing my doctor when he told me he thinks I have bipolar.

Ah. As someone who went through the same thing (minus the ptsd), next time you get in a bad mental spot go see a psychiatrist and tell them about the bipolar diagnosis. There are some very mild mood stabilizers out there nowadays that don't zombify you. (SSRI's can trigger manic episodes and cycling in people with bipolar, fyi).

Also just making sure you don't trying and deliberately alter your moods with caffeine, weed, or amphetamines will keep you relatively stable (even without drugs). Although if you start having a full blown episode it's worth keeping what I said above in mind.

Sorry if the advice is unwelcome. This is just what I found helpful.

People with bipolar often use caffeine, weed, or even amphetamines to deliberately trigger hypomania. Feels good, but unfortunately it also increases the frequency of depressed episodes. It's like Karma.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#192

Post by starpilot »

rdlw wrote: post #173
starpilot wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a dead comment mentioning it's addictive potential. This is no joke, there's /r/QuittingTianeptine. There used to be a subreddit for sourcing tianeptine (closed down I think) and the desperation in some of the posts was scary.

Do you, or does anyone reading this, have experience with taking it, improving, and quitting it? How does the risk compare to its effects?

Yes, I took it for a while. It really helped me get out of bed, like a light stimulant. It wasn't habit forming for me, but I could definitely tell how others might get hooked. It was more effective than the 6 or so other conventional antidepressants I took.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#193

Post by g3t1nmybelly »

sstangl wrote: post #124
chrismarlow9 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if you find it difficult to have gratitude? you want to be grateful for what you have, but you're not, and can't explain why. if you don't care about anything, meaning you have no gratitude, how do you jumpstart this process?

There are two options I'm familiar with: 1. Without wondering if you sincerely mean it, make a point to say "thank you." Typically if you are depressed you will be alone, and so it is possible to recognize situations where you took an action now to make something easier for yourself later: for example, doing the dishes now instead of waiting for them to pile up. When that happens, verbally thank yourself on behalf of…

The problem with that though is I perceive nuetral as negative. Neutral is registered same as negative because it's not positive. This is why gratitude is hard because people like me can't find the positives nearly enough to start recognizing and changing how I think.

In fact, I find it difficult to think that people are okay with neutral because how is that any better? You arguably still failed at whatever you were trying to do, just the results weren't as harsh. I dont know. I think I might just be really far gone at this point.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#194

Post by prawn »

triceratops wrote: post #149
burntoutfire wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally, I really see no point in making the bed. I wonder if I'm depressed.

Making the bed is a waste of time. Better to let the mattress and sheets breathe and air out. (at least that's how I justify my laziness). Don't sweat it friend.

Do both - fold down the quilt/sheet so it looks neat but still breathes. Then make it later on. Takes me five seconds to make the bed and then I appreciate that neatness every time I walk past during the day - easily worth it to me.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#195

Post by econcon »

logjammin wrote: post #99
econcon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to workout 2 hours everyday in gym. When I stopped supplements, I couldn't get myself to lift for even 15 minutes. I lost all my stenght and got depressed.

Really? Which supplements?

I used testosterone + Primobolone

Re: Tips for the depressed

#196

Post by nikofeyn »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #140
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve done a lot of research and I think psychiatry is pseudoscience and antidepressants are largely placebo. Please don't spread anti-psychiatry misinformation online. I'm sorry that it didn't work for you, but please don't dissuade others from seeking proper treatment. Playing devil's advocate: Even if SSRIs are just placebo (they're definitely not, and we have decades of science to explain why that's a false stat…

It's also misinformation to assume SSRI's work the same way for everyone. For my mother, antidepressants made her suicidal.

> It's also misinformation to assume SSRI's work the same way for everyone.

the person you replied to didn't say that. the point is to defer to professionals and not your own hunches.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#197

Post by warkid »

burntoutfire wrote: post #57
cgriswald wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, doing those small things did seem impossible and even when I managed to achieve it, I didn't feel the reward. There didn't seem any point in making the bed if I felt the same whether the bed was made or not. Eventually I reached a mental place where I could turn that around: If it doesn't make a difference in how I feel, why not make the bed? I had to more or less take it on faith that eventually the rewards…

Coincidentally, I really see no point in making the bed. I wonder if I'm depressed.

Not making your bad could be healthy as it helps killing dust mite: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10493-006-9003-8

Re: Tips for the depressed

#198

Post by sifar »

pmoriarty wrote: post #63
Blaiz0r wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did Nietzsche mean by that?

He never said. Nietzsche wrote very aphoristically, and it's often up to the reader to make sense of it. For me, this saying resonates because I've found that when I think of suicide I feel better because it makes me think that after my death I won't have any more of the troubles that plague me in life. It'll be a relief. In a way, it's hope. It also, I think, for a time gives me the feeling of control over my life.…

I would think it meant either that when you think about suicide - it is the lowest you can go and things would improve from there. The other way to interpret is that thinking about suicide makes you come face to face with the enormity of death and which consequently helps you get through.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#199

Post by allendoerfer »

senectus1 wrote: post #177
allendoerfer wrote: post #27

I like the tip about paying someone else to clean your house. When you are truely inside of a depressive episode, all those tips probably won't help you. By definition, you cannot think straight. Think of it more like a computer game: As long as everything is okay, you should make sure to save your progress. While you are feeling good, try to minimize the effect of an episode. This way the episode itself also becomes…

yeah, written like someone on the outside looking in but never been in. Getting a cleaning person to clean your house is often out of the question because you're ashamed of the state your house is in and dont want anyone else to see it until you've done something about it but you never do anything about it because you're in a depression. Depressions most insidious part is the fact that it re-enforces itself. You get…

I think I can empathize. That's why I wanted to stress the fact, that you do those things when you have a time window of feeling good. Always be on the lookout of how to save a little bit of progress for after things will have inevitably turned bad again.

If you have a little bit of money, you cannot use that to feel happy, but at least you can use it to make yourself not feel bad about a particular problem. Alternatively, if you do not have money to solve it, consider just throwing away the whole thing and be done with the root cause of that problem.

Re: Tips for the depressed

#200

Post by thulecitizen »

chrismarlow9 wrote: post #102
dlsso wrote: post #17

There's some good stuff here, but it completely skips gratitude. Focusing on what you're grateful for is one of the more powerful and best proven methods to combat depression. I've been through clinical depression and consider it the key to my recovery.

what if you find it difficult to have gratitude? you want to be grateful for what you have, but you're not, and can't explain why. if you don't care about anything, meaning you have no gratitude, how do you jumpstart this process?

Often I have had a similar struggle to the one you described because I have not found my own personal reason for being grateful. I know now that it's because I was often living inside the narrative of people who were close to me, that was not my own. Being captive in this 'not-self' narrative has been quite deceiving. Taking back my own narrative has been super powerful for me.

In other words, I no longer think I am weird for not feeling joyful or being grateful for things for which I have not yet been given the chance to ask myself if I actually am grateful for them, or if I actually personally value them at all. Being stuck in someone else's narrative, or a cultural narrative, is to me like being in a jail, because the narrative will not correspond to my feelings, because it's not mine.

I now use the Nonviolent Communication set of strategies to listen to my own feelings, and use them to learn which of my human needs are unmet.

I also had Compassion Focused Therapy, which brought me back from the dead.

The writing of Francis Weller has inspired me beyond belief. If you're interested, this is a taster: https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/478/the-geography-of-s...

Or if you prefer listening, I love this podcast with him: http://charleseisenstein.org/podcasts/new-and-ancient-story-...

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