AKA please, don’t tell me “get professional help”. Poor people can’t afford it anyways.
1- Exercise - I generally think that walking or running on trails in nature is one of those generally free beneficial thinks you can do for depression. Worse case scenario, you improve your fitness and feel better about the shape of your body.
2- Sleep - Yeah, this is a massive one, aim for at least 7-8 hrs. Regular exercise will help, but try to keep a relatively even sleep schedule (schedule yourself to be in bed without your phone by 10pm is a lazy but easy way to help).
3- Limit doomscrolling - Looking at the latest news about what craziness is happening in world probably isn’t that amazing to do that often, so limit it a bit.
4- Diet - I’m vegetarian, and when I started years ago I noticed it really seemed to make my bouts of depression easier to handle. That being said, at the very least make sure you aren’t eating too much junk food and try not to drink. If you aren’t getting enough of a particular nutrient, take a multivitamin (magnesium is a pretty common deficit for most, and can affect your sleep).
5- Meditation - The act of breathing can occasionally give a bit of a break from the spiral of depressed thoughts, so it’s no wonder that a lot of therapists tend to recommend it. Just start with 10 min a day and see if that helps any.
6 - Atmosphere - I know his can’t always be helped, but just adjusting your living environment can make a tremendous difference. Try taking a day or so just to thoroughly clean your room/apt/house. Personally, my advice is to clean like you are trying to truly help someone you love/respect so that at the end you feel like no stone was left unturned.
7- Music - Kinda try to find some music you like that is soothing and try to like, and limit depressive or harsh music. Sounds stupid, but it helps some.
8- Psychedelics - A bit controversial, but I personally use shrooms long term to handle depression. They honestly have been the best long term depression maintenance I’ve found for the price. But truthfully, most of what they do is give you a few hours to step out of your emotions, and force you to actually look at yourself. They are basically just making you acknowledge the above for the most part, and after a trip if you don’t make changes, they won’t really help that much. Pro tip, a notebook to capture your stream of thought can be very helpful for post trip integrations.
Shrooms are definitely dangerous, especially for people who are prone to schizophrenia I’ve read.
Personally, they made me realize my mind is capable of being content. No longer full blast, spinning plates all of the time.
That experience made me realise change is possible, and I got professional help a year later. Turns out I’ve been living in C-PTSD since I was 5.
I’d argue that shrooms themselves aren’t a huge deal, but pre-existing conditions for sure have accounted for (if you are schizophrenic or have bipolar disorder, please be careful/don’t take them), correct dosages for different strains should be taken, and you should do them in a safe environment. Shrooms themselves can’t directly kill you, unlike some stronger psychedelics (lsd, research chems, etc) which is why I generally recommend them (and not mushroom chocolate bars, which are usually research chems even if they say otherwise).
Either way, glad to hear that you seemed to get the benefit of change!
Most of your info is solid, just a couple quibbles from a longtime psychedelic user. LSD also cannot kill you. I prefer psilocybin of course but don’t spread disinformation.
Second one is it’s psychedelics, not psychodelics.
Thanks for the catch on psychedelics, my autocorrect messed that one up and I didn’t notice. Also, while I know actual lsd can’t kill you, I have heard that there can be contamination one some with elements that can (admittedly secondhand knowledge, but still). Testing kits seem to pretty much catch it, but I think if someone is inexperienced they might not know better. More just trying push them towards shrooms first, as it can be a safe first step.
Right on. What’s being sold as acid right now is often the RCs like the shroom bars. I don’t think any of it is life threatening though.
It’s generally 4acodmt, which is similar to pure psilocybin. It’s most assuredly stronger than shrooms, and as you said I think you could probably confuse it with acid. That being said, you could theoretically take too much of it due to the concentration and be harmed, as while shrooms take a bit of time to digest, 4aco doesn’t. Also, much the same issue as acid, it’s harder to produce so there’s a slight chance of contamination that could be deadly (again, word of mouth but I remember a lot of long time shrooms users being wary of the chocolate bars as they didn’t want newbies to start with them and be potentially harmed).
Schizophrenia is the only reason not to take psychedelics. Your first sentence could easily be misinterpreted as a lie that tries to falsely apply that danger to other areas.
All the usual “be safe, feel safe” advice applies no matter what!
Everything (except 8, obviously) is pretty standard practice for CBT as well. In terms of self-help, I’d also definitely add
9: Find nice people/a nice group to spend time with. Doesn’t really matter what it is: sports club, theater, study group, board game club, garden builders. Just follow your interests.
I think many people dismiss the incredible value friends bring to our life and the stabilizing effect it has on out mental health. Loneliness is one of the deadliest causes out there (some studies say it’s as harmful as smoking daily), so make sure to have people around you whom you like spending time with! And no, digital groups are not the same as real-life ones. Body language is incredibly important in communication, and with it missing orr brain processes information differently.
Tl;Dr: Get out there and find nice people.
Don’t do it on your own, do it with other people.
I found that the more time I spent with other people, the less time I was spending beating myself up.
Highly agree with this.
I struggled with depression for years and the most beneficial change I made was to put effort into developing close friendships. Having friends and family that you can talk to and share things with is immeasurably valuable.
Also, listening to other’s problems helps develop your own empathetic response and it’s a short step to extending that empathy to yourself. Be kind to yourself and avoid negative self-talk. You deserve better. Life is hard enough as it is.
That’s not a possibility
You’re literally interacting with people right now.
There are people online who need help with all sorts of problems.
If nothing else, you can just listen to what they have to say.
Online interaction does nothing for me.
It seems like if what you’re doing now was working you wouldn’t have posted.
Why can’t you interact irl?
Professional help can be cheap! You just might have to look little harder. For a while, I saw a psychologist who had a deal with a church where they subsidized most of his fee. So it was super cheap for me.
One of the most helpful things for me was Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT. I used a workbook that helped me see how skewed and untrue some of my thinking was.
Finally, walking in nature or, even better, exercise! Find what works for you. I like jump rope. Good luck!
There’s literally nothing where I live. I’m not American, so many of your structures and help don’t apply to my world.
Walking outside is free! There are free support groups online. Those require time, but just 20 minutes can make a bigger difference.
The CBT workbook I used was maybe $20, I think. It’s worth the investment.
Finally, getting over depression is all about retraining how you think. It’s going to take time, practice, and effort. Depression wants to show you how you don’t have the resources to beat it. That’s not true. You can beat it, even if you don’t have the resources other people might.
Depression has forever changed me. It’s easy to think that it was for the worst, but I’m more empathetic to people than I was before. Something that helped me was realizing and believing that depression is temporary. You won’t always be like this, even though you might feel that way.
You can do this.
Limit time spent online. Stop viewing the news. Improve the foods you’re eating, if you can. Exercise. Go to a nice spot in nature, if your location allows, and appreciate natural beauty. Every day, think of one thing for which you are grateful.
When hurricane Milton hit I lost power, internet and my cell signal was like using dial up so all online access was gone for about a week. Sent the family to go stay with friends and I stayed behind. With no electricity and no internet all I had was myself. The first 2 or 3 days were tough. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I cleaned and sat outside in the shade to escape the heat. By the end of the week I was in a good place, not perfect, but better than when I started. I was relaxed, my thoughts were clearer, I could comfortably focus on one thing at a time. I think knowing that after I was done focusing on something I could return to a comfortable quiet helped.
When power and internet came back within 2 days everything was back to ‘normal’. No more peace. No more comfortable focusing. Back to my usual habits. I recommend disconnecting from phones and computers for a few weeks. Give your mind time to get into the habit of not using them, it’s so easy to fall back into old habits, you have to set the stage for new ones to slowly grow, like trending a garden it takes time and effort.
One of best descriptions of self mental health care was from Rick and Morty. It’s like wiping your ass, or washing the dishes. It’s not fun but it’s something you have to do everyday. You can suffer the pain of doing it, or suffer the pain of having not done it. Front load the pain don’t offload it to your future self. Give future self a break, do some work for him/her and I know they’ll be incredibly appreciative.
I’m my past when I was at my worst I noticed that I was in a better place when I was around people than when I wasn’t. Be around people/friends if you can. Ask someone to spend party of a day with you doing absolutely anything.
Exercise until you know you will be sore the next day. I didn’t exercise regularly, but I did notice that whenever I did some physical activity that left me sore the next day, within about 2 or 3 days I was a much better version of myself for a day or two.
So in conclusion. Do nice things for future self, even talk out loud to yourself about future you like they’re someone else. Disconnect from Internet and tv so your mind can have some time to itself. Be around people, we are social animals, we need to feel like we are part of a group, a tribe, maybe go take some night classes that will force you to work on a project with others. Exercise or do something strenuous.
Oh and a couple more things, try to establish a regular sleep schedule! Someone mentioned this already and they’re right, change your environment. Your mind and body will default to the feelings it’s used to having in the place it most often has them. As an example, if you’re a home pooper then when you get home your body will go into pooping mode. If you only use your bed to sleep and not look at your phone or watch tv then you will feel sleepy when you get in bed. New environments will put your mind into learning mode not default mode, keep finding ways to keep it from sitting back down into the depression it’s left in the chair. Like that song, you can get used to a certain kind of sadness.
Okay one more thing, video games. I like playing them but I have a habit of using them like a drug. It feels good to use a drug, and when you hardly feel good why wouldn’t you use it. You will play them again, and you’ll enjoy them more after your mind has had some quite time to itself. You’ll get to play again someday, you just have some mental chores that need tending to first.
Last thing I promise. Quite time is even better when done in nature. Any nature. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution designed us to be in nature, part of nature. Quite time means no podcasts or music as well.
Now get out there and do the dishes, wipe your ass, and do something nice for future self, they fucking deserve it.
This might be a weird one, but it is helping me a lot.
My deepest spirals into depression and alcohol abuse happen in the evening and at night.
I switched to waking up early (5am), focused on experiencing and enjoying sunrise as a kind of meditation, then going about my day. I’m off to bed by 8pm.
There’s still days where I can’t catch sleep for hours, mind racing. But hours past 8pm is still only 2am.
I found that a five minute session on a Muse 2 device (essentially over the counter neurofeedback training via a small consumer headband) kills my insomnia for at least a week.
Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll look into that
Once a day, think of one simple thing that a depressed person would not do. Do that. For some examples:
- Take even the shortest walk around the neighborhood.
- Read just ten pages of any book.
Also, think of something that you do especially when depressed, and avoid doing it. For some examples:
- Don’t watch TV
- Don’t scroll on social media
Sometimes habits become compulsive, you can do a lot for yourself by adding even a small amount of friction to doing those things. For some examples:
- When I notice that I go through periods of poor sleep due to habitually reaching for my phone, I might remove the charger from my phone and put it in a living area and charge it there at night. I might prepare 8 hours of podcasts and connect my Bluetooth before bed so I can have something to take my mind off things in case wake up or cannot sleep.
- Simply logout of social media sites, so that I’m forced to take a deliberate action to log back in to start doom scrolling again.
For more proactive maintenance things I try to do, which are important to establish when I’m mentally in a good place, I might make a weekly list of happy chores, like make sure I talk to a family member, make sure I talk to a friend, make sure I actually see someone in person, or play a video game in a way that I’m making progress at it, or spend 10 minutes practicing an instrument.
You need to exploit your good times to establish patterns of good habits for your hard times.
Exercise.
Cardiovascular and resistance exercise both release a chemical called BDNF, which causes hippocampal neurogenesis, which causes a decrease in depression.
After being on medication and in therapy for years, I basically lost my medical care and has to figure out a fallback strategy. Learned about this exercise connection, and changed my running habits from:
- About a mile
- About once or twice a month
To:
- About five miles
- Three times per week
The effect on my depression was profound. It was far more powerful than the medication and therapy
This’ll probably get drowned but I managed to beat depression before flying off the deep end and developing psychotic symptoms.
Had depression for 12 years before I decided to put work in it. 6 years ago, I didn’t know how to, or what to expect. Figured if I spent 10 years depressed, it would take 10 years to recover. It ended up taking about 3.5 to 4 years of remission. I didn’t take any medication or drugs. Only addiction I got is videogaming. Still haven’t beaten that.
I’ll try to keep it chronological, but it’s hazy. What I did was:
- The opposite of what I had been doing my life up till that point.
I was digging my own grave, but didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. So I did everything ass backwards to find out what did and didn’t contribute to my own misery. For me, that meant saying what’s on my mind, embarassing myself and learning from it. Trial and error is the way to go for paupers. That and radical acceptance that it’s gonna suck. Gotta welcome shit with open arms when cleaning your psychic septic tank.
- Change of enviroment.
In my case. It meant a change of goals. The first was getting better. The second was learnibg something new. Got lucky I had a 2nd chance at studying towards a new work field. But it can be anything else. Just something on the horizon. Mind you, don’t focus on it. The thing to look out for, is useful as a distraction, and only as a distraction. It’s a bad source of motivation as the future isn’t real. It can become the now, but the future itself never is real. Focus on the now, with just something to look out for. At this stage, you’ll still won’t understand the point of it all, so just accept you don’t. Take it 1 day at a time. Only look back or at the future on occasion. You won’t see a change every week, but over time, you might.
First change in depression I noticed was the ability to feel negative emotions. For me, it was anger. Pure rage. Never had I understood what seeing red, white hot fury or hothead meant. Felt like a hot rock was lodged between my skull and top of my brain. I realised I had never been angry. Anger is a double edged sword. The positive side is that it’s there to fight injustice. Your injustice. The bad side is seeking dominance or control over something. The only thing you should seek control over, is yourself and how you handle life. Not others, or things that can’t be controlled.
Then the hormonal changes occurred. I became restless, and my ADHD symptoms got worse real quick. Had tons of energy. Had no libido before, and suddenly did. Depression affects everything. So expect weird shit during remission. Nothing to be afraid of.
About a year in or so doing step 1 and living inside step 2, I beat anhedonia. It was like background radiation. Except instead of cancer, it gives you energy. Just a tiny hum of joy in the background. Doing new things becomes rewarding. Doing something for the sake of doing it becomes rewarding. Fun is an understatement. And it isn’t some intense dopamine hit either. It just is background joys. And man, it is damn worth it.
- Exercise. I had tried on and off to hit the gym. I kept trying for years before, and still failed now. Even got sick for a year due to shitty night shifts messing with my circadian rythmn. In hind sight, I wonder how much it contributed to my psychotic symptoms, considering it was cortisol related. Lockdown from the 'rona saved my ass who couldn’t set healthy boundaries.
2 years in, I did something I never done before. Applying for a job just for the hell of it. You start doing stuff because of an intrinsic drive, and not because “it’s the sensible thing to do.”
When you’re depressed and passively suicidal, you don’t understand the point of living. Anhedonia and motivational anhedonia are the reason you can’t understand it. And man, was it a radical discovery. Suddenly, it just “makes sense” why people want to live. Because hell, I wanted to live!
- Exercise again.
Attempt #godknows. 3 months of weekly exercise it took to learb to enjoy sports. I didn’t lose any weight, but my obese ass was able to keep running 9km/h for 15min straight. Ate healthy for the most part too. Felt good despite being fat as fuck. Did wonders for my confidence.
Got lucky and built up some friends. Never really had any before.
- Figure out your maturity, and deal with family. Generational trauma galore.
Like anyone else, I have family issues. My parents aren’t mature people, and expecting them to change is… stupid. But I still saw my mom hurting, and hurting others as a result. Mostly my sister and I. I wanted understand her. She was born from a mess, into a mess, and made a mess of her family because she doesn’t know any better. She scores high in narc traits and ADHD. Allround, a difficuly person to be around with.
Perfect for learning how to navigate diffocult relationships. Learning what’s okay, and what isn’t. Learning how to set boundaries, and discovering they mean nothing to someone who doesn’t respect you. Boundaries are only respected by those who respect you. In all other cases, boundaried are only respected if you can enforce them. Seems like a yah-duh moment. But it’s not something I understood. Learned it through trial and error, with the luck of a narc for a mom to practice on.
And by some miracle, we made progress. I know how to get her guard down. The source of her bad behaviour is survival mode. Who could have thought there was a human being behind a manipulative monster? One who beat her 6yo daughter for wandering off. One who aborted a 3 month pregnancy because she felt it was going to be a boy, and she didn’t want a son. I’m sorry bro, but you dodged a bullet. She would have treated you worse than my sister and I.
Point is, you don’t know shit. And your family history shapes you. You take over their bad traits, and it’s your choice on whether you want to become like them, or learn to deal with it and grow as a person.
- Don’t move the bar.
Shit stranger. You get this far in recovery? It’s a fucking miracle you did. Keep doing what you’re doing and don’t move the bar.
Because if you keep doing that, you’ll end up like me.
Every time you raise the bar on yourself, you’ll lose that background joy. Your motivation will vaporize. Take health for example. Move the bar too often and going to the gym isn’t enough anymore. You’ll start looking too much at the horizon, other people and it’ll all start seeming pointless. You’ll feel less and less in control. Not saying you should take baby steps, but you ought to stick to your own shit. To what you are doing, not what you desire. That’s how you make progress.
Raising the bar, is the fastest way to redevelop anhedonia and relapse into depression.
My fall:
Shit fam. Wish I could offer better experience. But life didn’t turn out well due to some stuff I hadn’t forseen snowballing into an avalanche.
In case you want to know. Had some issues that required mental health care. Jury is still out on it. Most likely untreated PTSD, untreated ADHD and just neglectid autism (diagnosed). DID, bipolar disorder, early psychosis, brain tumor, dementia, etc. Are all good guesses too. Or just the result of things going poorly. Print the DSM-5, strap it onto a board and throw some darts at it. Whatever it lands on, is as good a guess I suppose.
Past 2 years I’ve been fighting chaos, rather than my mental problems. From my GP not taking me seriously and turning 7 months of waiting into 15 (and I still consider myself lucky). Along with downplaying my issues. “You don’t have ADHD, autism makes things difficult too.” Lo and behold. I scored high on a DIVA test, the neuroscientists I got the privilage to work for saw my traits, the professionals who I got lucky to meet saw my traits. But the one person whom I depended on, didn’t think I had ADHD. Must all be in my little woman’s head. Imagining things. Well lady, that’s kind of the problem now. “The hallucinations are stress related.” Geez thanks, tell me something I didn’t know. How do I make sure they don’t get worse? “Just keep me posted.” I did, and it got bad real fast. Personality changes my family saw. “I don’t think I can make you happy with a 1 year waiting list. Luckily this one instance happens to be open for referrals and only 2 months wait.” Those 2 months are almost over and I’m crawling.
Another instance that was supposed to help me, went bankrupt. At the time I was at step 3-4 and thought “I can do it without!” That failure was picked up by a new instance. One that railed me the past 2 years. I was again dealing with trying to get a ball rolling, rather than my issues.
Look. Any place that has a high turnover rate is bad. A mental health facility that has a high turnover rate, is a laboratory waste dumpster fire.
People quit, only psychiatrist available was spiritual. Something I can’t work with. Internally waiting, and waiting. Appointments canceled last minute due to planners fucking up. Next week, 3 strangers and the 1 guy who saved me, are going to make a descision. The 3 strangers are the new folks taking in a spot for those who quit. Never met them. What a circus.
Now I have to face the fact I can’t function at work anymore. Having episodes where I remember shit, feel stress, and forget about it. Can’t sense my own exhaustion proper, while rest and sleep are the only things that stave off the 'chosis. Except cortisol derps make sleep difficult. I’m aggressive and have attacked family members twice in 1 year. I feel bloodlust. Can’t have that happen at work. The only reason I’m allowed to drive, was because I had a grip on my early stages, and work was too important to me. Monday is gonna suck.
Hyperfocus is what got me through the last 3 months. Thank fuck for having a “safe” addiction to videogames.
I want death, but fuck me. Promised myself 6 years ago that I would give it my all. I’ll make sure to off myself before I kill someone else.
I’m 41 and I’ve had anhedonia my whole life. I was a massive alcoholic for about 18 years. Bounced around on a bunch of different meds. I felt best when prescribed antipsychotics but then I developed a severe facial twitch and I had to stop taking them or it would be permanent.
I’ve known I have ADHD for years since I learned what it really is. I went through hell and a lot of money to get a diagnosis. I was literally told by a doctor that I couldn’t have ADHD because my job sounded hard. 15 minute conversation and she billed me for $400 of overtime. I told all this to my main psych doctor and she encouraged me to get tested again. Six months later I got a diagnosis. I started a very low dose of Vyvanse yesterday.
You got to get your ADHD diagnosed. I can PM you the telehealth service I used because I don’t want this to look like an ad. But day two of medication and I feel in control. I laughed my ass off at a video of a silly cat this morning. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I laughed and wasn’t faking it.
Get medicated please. PM me if you want.
I have tried a couple different things, but they haven’t really helped me.
I started running back in March. I used a free android app called Just Run and I bought myself a cheap smartwatch to track my distance. Like the app suggested, I take 1-2 rest days in between each run day…which seems to help me stay relatively consistent in doing exercises because it allows for breaks. It was more satisfying in the beginning being able to check off days in the app, but even then it only does so much. It provides a brief distraction I guess. I have tried to continue it because it’s supposed to be good for you regardless. Although running really does suck ass haha.
Recently I have been trying to take an OTC supplement called St. John’s Wort. It is one of the few supplements that has showed statistically significant results similar to SSRIs in clinical trials. However, do note that if you take literally any other medicine, please do not take it. It interferes with basically every other drug out there. But if you aren’t on any meds it might be worth trying. I haven’t found a noticeable difference with it either after trying it for several weeks. But I just bought a “better” brand and am planning to increase the dosage a bit (I was taking one less dose than recommended on the bottle), so we’ll see if it does anything.
So yeah neither of these worked for me. But I’ve read that they have worked for others. It doesn’t necessarily hurt to try them. Except like I said, please do NOT take St. John’s Wort if you are taking any other medication.
Should try meditation. Specifically mindfulness meditation. If you want a book, I Recommend “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” by Shunryū Suzuki.
Distract yourself into some offline activity which you love especially with someone you are comfortable with.
Once mind in place, deal with the problem which lead to depression in the first place. But if nothing can be done about the issue, then stop worrying about it. Work around it.
I make it look easy but I know its not.
It definitely isn’t
Save your energy, reduce sugar and glutene, sleep well, reduce distractions, exercise.
Also what you said to not tell you.
Recognize that it’s not your fault, you don’t deserve it, and sometimes accepting it for what it is makes it easier.
If you have depression with a medical cause, the only solution is going to be medicine.
I had depression for about 20 years and ignored it because I thought it would be too expensive and complicated.
One time I mentioned it to my GP at my free annual checkup. He wrote me a script for Lexapro. Even when I didn’t have insurance, it has never cost over $20 for a month supply.
It has been worth countless times that to me, and one of my biggest regrets was not just asking sooner and assuming and taking other people’s word it was complicated and expensive to get help.
As mentioned in another reply, try the teledoc and see if they can give you something. There are a few cheap types these days so you can hopefully get one that works for you.
Best of luck, it is truly life changing!
Lots of good advice here, so I’ll add a few easy things that helped me that don’t take much energy. 1: get at least five minutes of direct sunlight a day, not through a window. 2: take an iron and vitamin D supplement, having more energy makes me less depressed. Try a multi vitamen if you don’t know where to start. 3: making sure you have healthier snack foods, I swapped out candy for gummy fruit snacks, yogurt for ice cream. I know how hard it can be to eat real meals when you are struggling so make your snacks count positively.
So much good advice, I find being grateful for things really helps, and I would also recommend CBT. Good luck, and remember, one step at a time, one day at a time.
