Depression and how to cope with it

Full disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor nor do I pretend to be one on the internet. What is below is my working knowledge and experiences of myself and other family members close to me. Please consult a professional in-person for diagnosis if you suspect that you may have depression. Not even doctors can tell over the internet, so please be responsible.

Depression is a very tricky subject. It reaches far beyond happy/sad, it's a continual state. Coping with it is hard. Depression can make you feel like you have absolutely no energy to do just about anything besides the bare necessities.

Going into the long and short of it there's both long term and short term depression. If you have long term depression, please consider seeing the doctor or telling someone (so they can drag you there). Short term depression, or adjustment disorder, can be just as hard to get out of and cope with. This kind tends to happen after a traumatic event.

I've experienced both kinds at different points in my life. Growing up, my mother entered an abusive relationship that almost ended in tragedy. I was generally a happy kid, but this experience slowly warped me into someone who was angry at everything for a while. That did not go over well with my peers so that anger evolved into loneliness and apathy. I wanted nothing to do with the outside world or people. Just give me an xbox or ps2 and an isolated room and I was happy.

It wasn't until my first job that I snapped out of it. I liked earning money and this was the first step on my slow and hard journey. I didn't seek medical help, like I warned you to do in the beginning, and that could've ended very badly for me. There was time where I seriously felt useless, unwanted, unloved. Instead of being true to my nature, I devolved into this apathetic lazy turd. I gained a lot of weight and was considered obese by my late teens. I used food to cope, but it was always temporary. This was a choice that I'm paying for now.

Today I'm much better. I eat better, I exercise, explore wonderful books, and interact with great people. My mother is now stable and doing well and family is all in good health. But there's times where it comes back. Especially times of great stress. I was fired from my job last week, the first time I've ever been let go. They told me it wasn't a good fit so they fired me without warning. They called it mercy, I called it getting shot and them justifying it as I die. There was no warnings, and up until that point I thought I was doing great at my position. But the point I'm trying to make is if I didn't have those initial moments of suffering, this would be a lot harder on me. Sure it hurt at the time, but I was rebounded and applying for jobs the next day and lined up interviews the day after that.

So how do you cope with depression. You really don't. There's the drug and pharmaceutical routes, but we all heard the horror stories and fast talking commercials that show happy dancing cartoons while stating seriously fucked side effects. The natural way is to take it one step at a time. Set a small goal. Get up from bed, you did it! get clothed, way to go! Go walking or read 5 pages of a book you enjoy, that's the ticket! You have to realize that depression serriously fucks your energy and will to do anything (sometimes that will is life itself). Don't give up. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's going to really fucking suck getting out of this and there's no easy way that doesn't come without a price (I mentioned the happy dancing cartoons of death right?). It's a lot easier to improve little by little rather than cramming everything into one sitting and feeling like a failure because you couldn't do it all. You're only competition is yourself, and focus on being better than yesterday. Also read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. He was an ancient Roman Emperor who used stoicism to lead his decisions and control his emotional state.

I'd like to end this on Stoicism (not Nihilism). Stoicism is focusing on the things you can control and not worrying about the things you can't. You getting out of bed? Controllable. You controlling election outcomes? Unless you're a 3rd world dictator, no. So don't worry about it. Also don't conflate it with Nihilism. Thinking the world has no meaning at all doesn't help depression one iota. Focus on the little things you can control and let it snowball. It will be hard at first to get started, but the sooner you get into healthier habits, the better you'll feel. You don't want to stay in a rut of depression, you want to conquer it.

I'm opening up the comments below for others to safely discuss their experiences. All I ask is that you come forward with an understanding mind and know that you're not alone in this battle. Depression seduces you into staying, and it convincing you that you're the only person who feels this way is alluring at the time, but push past it. You have to prove you're worth it everyday and when you're ready, I want you to help someone, somehow solve a problem they have for free. Feed a family, volunteer, talk to a friend. This is a multistep process, and I'm willing to bet that if you're reading this and suffering from depression, that it hasn't taken you completely. That some part of you thinks it's feeding you lies and BS, because it is. You're worth it and life's worth living to it's fullest. Let's go through this together to make the world better for everyone.