Drug info - Getting over depression without drugs

[BobTheGreat]

This might not work for everyone but probably will keep a few people off those mind numbing PoS drugs.

1. Find an outlet for yourself and whenever you start feeling like crap try to keep your mind off it by doing this. My personal outlet is creative writing and reading. I write what I experience in my own ganzo-journalist way.

2. Get a pet. Personally I feel dogs work best because of their loyalty. My best friend had a personal friend from when he served in Iraq just commit suicide. His wife called and blamed it all on my friend. He started having flash backs and couldnt get rid of the images so he drank like a fish which of course only made things worse. He just got a puppy like a week ago. He had a shotgun to his throat ready to pull the trigger but the puppy was at his feet whimpering and he couldnt pull the trigger.

3. Just start writing when you feel fine or depressed and keep writing whatever comes to your head. I use a tape recorders and just keep talking as long as I can. Eventually you hit the root of your problems. This will probably depress you. Hell I have even been crying my eyes out after I get hit that point but that is where you want to be. You can feel the weight lift off your chest.

4. When you are feeling to bad to even get out of bed, just stay there. Nobody says you have to do anything. Also put on some depressing music helps. If you find something that relates to the way you feel, it will help.

5. Find a few good friends you can talk to anything about with or go see a therapist. It is a good thing to bounce ideas off someone and be able to have a conversation. A 3rd party that is totally unbiased can be a great thing to help open yourself up, especially knowing you have full confidentiality.

Swim is off drugs completely for his bipolar disorder and having no real problems now that his insomnia is gone. All it takes is the occasional 5-HTP and he is fine. Also he stays away from heaving drinking except for the occasional party with his friends but he will have a few beers when reading especially now that the weather is getting nice. He can sit on his deck, feel the nice crisp air, sun and just relax.

Reputation Comments on this post:

nice approach, might help some ppl

[kaczynski]

These are great tips. I've had problems with mild depression, but always refused anti-depressants because the happiness wouldn't have been real. I'm terrified of a future where the entire population is legally sedated and regulated to complacency; the Fahrenheit 451 future, y'know? I know alot of people have horrible depression, and obviously I'm thankful that people have a medical option for what can be a horrific condition, but there are others who skip to medication too quickly and possibly miss out on genuine happiness.

[RaverHippie]

Originally Posted by BobTheGreat

3. Just start writing when you feel fine or depressed and keep writing whatever comes to your head. I use a tape recorders and just keep talking as long as I can. Eventually you hit the root of your problems. This will probably depress you. Hell I have even been crying my eyes out after I get hit that point but that is where you want to be. You can feel the weight lift off your chest.

I can attest to this one. If you're depressed about something,OBSESS about it. Think about every possible connection or stimulus that could have an impact on why you feel so down over something. Figuring out the CAUSE of the depression and fixing it yourself is indescribably gratifying instead of seeking treatment for the SYMPTOMS of the problem while never understanding the problem to begin with.

[Lethargy]

We would argue with the "just stay in bed" one...

Perhaps we had mostly reached the insight necessary to get over the largest "chunk" of depressive feelings but for us getting to bed at a consistent time and waking up and getting going at a consistent time whether we wanted to or not helped us fight off depression.

Get out of bed, get into a shower, finish with a cold water rinse to "shock" you awake and help fight the temptation to lay back down and sleep more. If you have time do some stretches, jumping jacks, go for a jog or bike ride or something that improves blood flow.

Keep a journal. Write down everything you do to fight depression every day and how you feel when you wake up and go to bed. Even if you don't look back at it journaling will put you into the habit of considering your mood every day and subconsciously noting what helps and doesn't help. Look back after a month and see if certain events or activities bring you up or down and try to adjust your life accordingly.

Having someone to talk to does wonders. Therapist or friend, doesn't matter so much, just someone who will listen and not try and judge or "fix" you since ultimately you have to help yourself. We had a few dedicated online buddies and they did much more by simply listening than our psych ever could do by trying to help. YMMV but we feel having someone makes those dark days just a little bit more tolerable.

Mostly... getting proactive helps the most, because of how much effort it takes. The simple act of doing something about depression gets the ball rolling. Doing something, anything at all directly fights the depressive attitude, and while the road to recovery or even a "functional" level of depression may look endless, you will move towards it faster by walking than by laying down.

[Jatelka]

At a bad point in her life, when everything was bleak and empty and the feelings of numbness just wouldn't go away, and she was experiencing increasing feelings of depersonalization and derealization the Flamingo had some Interpersonal Psychotherapy.

Essentially this involved her keeping a daily journal (see the recurring theme here?) and discussing the contents once a week, for an hour, with a kind, bearded gent, who looked an awful lot like her father (of course, eventually there were all sorts of transferance issues, but that's not the point)

The actual act of writing things down (for the flamingo at least) was a way of affirming reality and sense of self, and taking back some control.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Very good points, glad to see it worked. :)

[stoneinfocus]

The thing is, that treatind depression is, or largely seems to swim, like treating the symptoms, but actually, this goes, as said before by Lethargy, a long way, as this might directly address the cause.

In example too much corticosteroids cause depression, but if one moves, these streoids are actually used up for what they were thought to be secretetd and actully make you fell the most beautiful ways. There xould as well be too little corticosteroids, and swim found as little as 0.5 dexamethasone eod a superior anti-depressant and he got this verified by a pub-med search. )

So sports and moving, combined with intellectual tasks(learning is thought to be highly dopamine-relasing and rewarding) might be the solution, instead of sadly mulling over one´s pseudo-mindprobleme and going to old, bearded men.

What swim helped-this is ridiculous, but after being mobbed and treated unfair, he went on getting a PS1 and tried to get as fascinating a player in a game, as a friend of swim is, wipe-out, and the scenario was: silicon doesn´t lie. If you achieve there and be one of the best gamers, there´s no human bias in it and a true proof in it(reaction time, situation dependant tactics and hand skills).

Same with mathematics, some days ago, he was watching tv and out of his head, he wrote down/calculated the proof for a differntial operator and actually succeded, or he wrote down the greek alphabet, out of his head, too and realized learning really helps cutting the crap, releives from useless thoughts and makes you achieve something that is 100% true in these matters and can be looked up any time and still is true and as an extra, somehow provides this logic to all subjects one´s thinking of, like is this true or not -what´s right down the line, is there any truth in it?

stoneinfocus