Here is the short answer... You need to listen to yourself.
It's good to consume content and listen to what others have to say but ultimately the only person who understands you the best is you. I think it is good to hear what other people opinions are. That for help someone formulate what their baseline is but ya.. you just need to sit back and really used some focused thinking to really just try to understand yourself.
When you are feeling shitty it is very important to get
yourself back on track. If you let yourself start to gain negative momentum it
can get really bad fast.
It really comes down to your self-image and how you view
yourself. If you start doing things that you know you should not be doing it
can cause your depression to get worse. It is easy to slip into more negative
feelings because the things that make depression worse are also the things that
seem to make it better in the short term.
When I am feeling shitty I like to drink alcohol because in
the short term it makes me feel better. I like to eat shitty fast food or over eat
because in the short term it makes me feel good. Those things are very short
term fixes and lead to me feeling even worse about myself. This could be
different for others but the idea is the same. It has a lot to do with being
unaccountable to you. That chips away at your self-image and leads you to
feeling worse.
Your self-image is a very tricky thing because most people
are not even aware of it. It's subconscious. You need to make the right choices
and do what you know is the right thing to make sure your self-image stays
strong and good. I feel like all depression is is a bad self-image. I could be
totally wrong... I'm not a doctor! But it makes sense to me. You need to do
things that may be hard but you know are right.
If I feel like I'm slipping into depression I know that I
need to go workout. I just know that when I workout and feel strong I feel
better about myself and when I feel better about myself it is hard to be
depressed. Really my anti-depressant is perseverance and moving forward in my
life; Being creative. I play guitar and when I write new music it makes me feel
like I have accomplished something and I'm moving forward. I also like to read
books. I feel like when I get further in a book I have accomplished something.
I also basically only read self help and personal development books so that
can't be bad! You need to get some positive momentum. It can be as simple as
doing one pushup! If you can do one pushup then you can do another and another.
But take it one at a time if you need to. Fight the urge to take the easy way
out by doing the things that will give you short term gratification because in
the long run that shit will fuck you up way worse. All of this is easier said
than done... I know because I go through it all the time. Remember even if you
do fuck up and start doing shit you shouldn't you can always choose the make
the right choice next. This takes some practice so be patient with yourself and
take it one step at a time.
I have tried many times to describe how it feels and it really comes down to one word. Loneliness.
How do you describe the
feeling of Depression? I can basically sum it up in one word; that one word is
loneliness. You can ask a hundred people that same question and you will get a
hundred different answers but one theme that will always remain the same is
loneliness. For me when I am depressed I cannot bare to be around others. I
cannot be around others because I cannot stand being around even myself.
Depression feels like you are two people in one body. Two people who hate each
other and cannot stand being around each other. It is a very empty feeling. It
is hatred. Another feeling I experience is hopelessness. I feel like there is
no reason to be alive. No purpose.
My earliest memory was looking up at a distorted figure. I
was 2 years old and I was being held under water in a bathtub as punishment. I
do not remember what I had done to deserve the punishment but I do remember how
I felt. At first I was very scared but after a few seconds of struggling I felt
calm. I was too young to know what dying was and I was too young to know that
this was not normal. That calm feeling was acceptance. I accepted what was
being done to me and I accepted that I was not in control. Water began to go
into my lungs through my nose and mouth. I remember this feeling vividly. It
was a little painful but mostly uncomfortable. The distorted figure began to go
dark and then I was allowed to breathe again. This was my punishment. This did
not happen one time… it happened many times. I believe this event set the
foundation for my depression.
This event also set the foundation for accepting what I believed
was being done to me and believing that I was not in control. This would become
a habit for me as I grew older. I saw things in my life as “out of my control”.
I was all too willing to accept consequences because I always felt as if I did
not have a choice.
When I was in 7th grade I remember the faculty was talking about potentially having me repeat the grade because of poor academics. This possibility was more than I could handle. I felt stupid and worthless. All I could think about is what others would think and say about me. It was causing me stress to no end. I was looking for any answer I could find and then an idea sparked into my head and I felt the same calm feeling I felt when I was under water. I knew what I was going to do; Nothing. I would do nothing to improve my grades. I would not try to change anything at school. I would accept whatever happened to me and if I did get held back I decided that I would kill myself. This was my best option and this choice brought me comfort. I finally felt like I had control. This became the story of my life. I would never try at anything or attempt to improve myself in any way because I knew exactly how this all would end. Knowing this made me feel calm and I felt extremely grateful to be in control and have an answer to all my problems.
This is just my experience and I am sure depression stems from different things for different people but I can only speak from my own experiences.
