Depression

General Discussion
35

Medication if it’s really hindering your daily life.

Exercise helps, but it can be a huge struggle when you can barely muster the strength to shower more than once every four or five days.

I found having no “zero” days helpful. As in, force yourself to do one small task daily. It could be moving your clothes off the floor into the hamper or just washing a spoon after you use it instead of leaving it in the sink.

Mostly it helped to remind myself “I am not my feelings, I am the one who is feeling my feelings” or to ask myself “whose thought is this?” when a negative thought occurred.

Also for women, I would advocate coming off hormonal birth control. In so many cases you take artificial hormones from the age of like 14 or 15 and 10+ years later you don’t even know who you are without it.

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36

I am just now reading through this. I plan to read it a couple of times before I dig in on doing the work. Im gonna really try and crawl with this one to not break myself more lol.

This makes a lot of sense. I always feel a little more down when I pass up on things I need to be doing. It just pushes me deeper down.

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37

Sorry to hear about all the shit things happening to you. Thanks for all the useful information. I am going to listen to the full audio book Marcus Aurelius’s meditation. Thanks for sharing.

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38

Keep at it man. You’ll tackle this obstacle just as I will.

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39

For it its feels like my depression has different stages. It starts with those negative thoughts. I feel im pretty good at determining if its me or depression telling myself this shit. My issue is that even after I’ve determined its depression talking shit. It doesn’t stop, the bombardment continues. I keep brushing it off but still it continues untill ive cracked. I can’t find that off button.

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40

Did you try writing the thoughts down and burning the paper?
You can do that a few times and then you only have to imagine them being burned and flying away.

Or you practice visualising an orb around yourself and command the depressive thoughts to leave your head and leave the orb, and they cannot reenter, even if they try.

Basically it’s practices likes this one for example:

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41

Yeah, I have that problem, although it is more associated with my anxiety and general mental instability than just depression. Pushing it away doesn’t help me. I’ve had some luck just saying something like, “Okay, you’re here. I’m just going to have you sit with me.” and letting it just be with me. As a disclaimer, I should say that I don’t have a lot of choice, as I have a brain injury driving my insanity rather than a chemical imbalance or a problem that I can talk out. Even with that, though, my psychologist is still super helpful. I also have an incubus who I work with to help me handle some of the noise in my head and other issues.

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42

If it doesn’t stop you could try to simply install a “louder” counterpart to even it out. When Dan the Depression ™ starts to talk the “Neph is trash”-talk you could actively remind yourself why you are actually a pretty neat dude. Without any “but” or “although”. Give its voice the same volume when you’re coming up with the things you like about yourself or you’re good at. (it sounds really corny, yes.) It won’t make Dan shut up but it can transform the overall tone of this constant background noise.

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43

I havent came across either of these methods. The only thing similar ive tried for negative thoughts was whiteboarding. Ive used a white expanding orbs for clearing spaces but never tried to keep it around after. Ill try and see how that goes and the burning method.

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44

This will forever be his name moving forward. Damn the Dan!

Im pretty good about keeping up with the negative shit with positive. I can hold out for so long then I crack or maybe I just dont keep up with the positive part. I havent paid close enough attention to that part. I do like the idea of trying to keep it up untill its just an annoyingly positive voice lol.

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45

This is more about your general patterns of living, thinking, and feeling than any one thing that you do. It’s not a brain disease, it’s a pattern of emotions and thoughts. The drugs don’t really work to solve the problem, which is why 90%+ of people who get off the SSRIs relapse back into it.

I was once pretty deep in it, back before magick when I realized something about my life, and it turned around for me when I spent a couple months somewhere else around completely different people with so much stuff to do that I was pretty into that it snapped me the fuck out of it basically immediately. It was also the manifestation of a 10+ year dream for me, which didn’t hurt.

You more or less have to force yourself to do stuff and like it. Exercise is a good start. I like yoga (I have 3 videos from youtube I do every week). Something like martial arts or dancing or sports or some social physical activity is good and keeps you to a schedule where you have to go and do stuff with people.

It’s probably a good idea to shake things up in your life. Change is what you want, so even if you deep down do like what you are doing in your life, you have to make it easy for yourself to feel that and realize it. Perhaps easier said than done, which is why shaking it up can help. What you do not want to do is let yourself get sucked down into the spiraling pit of despair. That’s what the issue is. Walk past the spiraling pit of despair into the meadow of havin a good time. Allow yourself to have a good time. If the thing is not a good time, do something else, but only if you are reasonably sure that it’s not just you fucking with yourself. Being depressed is mostly just you fucking with yourself, so bear that in mind.

You have to do stuff. I do very much so enjoy watching my shows and reading, but it is relatively easy to stop paying attention or kind of be halfway into it while your mind goes back to the spiraling pit of despair. This is also kind of true for other activities, and if you are very active and engaged while watching/reading then that’s a different thing, but again here you want to make this as easy for yourself as possible. Being harsh with yourself is part of the problem. Getting your ass in gear is fine, but it’s not the end of the world, whatever it is. You do have to get moving though. You absolutely, have to have to do that. That’s just how it is, nothing to be ashamed about.

There is also magick. If you have developed your ability to sense magickal energy, this can be a very natural pick-me-up that carries over into your other activities. Actively working towards goals, checking off progress, and seeing the results of what you do is also quite inspiring and motivational once you cultivate some passion. Passion has to be stoked, like a flame, but once it gets going so long as you maintain it and keep it alive it will fill you with a sense of pleasure and satisfaction, especially as you become more skilled and knowledgeable.

I’m not a psychologist, but depression in my opinion could be said to be a lack of passion. Passion is what makes you want to do stuff in a way that feels good and deeply fulfilling. You’ll sometimes hear people say stuff like “dopamine detox,” and there is some truth in this. I enjoy my memes and such things, and meme scholaring is fun and amusing, but absent-mindedly scrolling or browsing is how you get sucked into the spiraling pit of despair because if the general pattern of mental behavior for you could be called depression, you need to introduce a positive force, ideally many of them, that overpowers the spiraling pit of despair.

Life has ups and downs. That’s just how it is. Regardless of this, though, how you react to things and how you actively intend to be is what colors your experience. The spiraling pit of despair sucks the energy out of everything and induces intense, intense lethargy that can make this difficult, which is why you have to claw yourself out inch by inch and then take a shit down the pit or something cause you’re up here and it’s down there, and I don’t plan on going back down there.

Well, someday I think I will delve back down into the pit, but it will be in search of knowledge, and it will be balanced by passion.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Too much despair? Let it fade away, burnt into ashes by the flame.

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46

100% agreed, absolutely.

I have a few things to say about the “D” word. Actually I will reframe that to “d” word in lower case because suggestion of what things are can be powerful. It’s a trigger word. Sex is another trigger word and money is another one and so is peace, satisfaction etc. etc. You decide what it means to you. If you think about it, you can probably find many words that conjure up an emotion or an actual motion within you towards the kind of self talk that directs you further into the corners, dark or otherwise and thinking too much about that “d” word can make you fall into it’s trap.

Boredom can be thought of as another trigger word, not as bad as that nasty unhelpful d word but perhaps loosely related. You can imagine sitting on a warm beach with a cold drink with nothing else to do all day and you might think you would never be bored with that but if it’s the same all day every day you might end up yearning for some excitement.

I think one of the reasons that exercise can make you feel better is that it takes your mind off of the other stuff in life because you are focusing on making something better. For some people it could be doing something creative or artistic, for some, simply taking on a better attitude towards work and seeing that what you do is making an improvement for someone somewhere.
If you can find some satisfaction, even a glimpse of it, it can give you that ability to go onwards to find more of that.

As far as what I’ve called trigger words, ‘satisfaction’ and ‘satisfied’ compels me to think in a much more interesting and pro creative way.

To be satisfied is to be pretty much the opposite of the title of this topic so just as a suggestion, if you do something that takes you towards some kind of satisfaction then that d word loses it’s grip over you.

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47

Yes, I think the lethargy is one of the toughest aspects of the whole thing. I used to battle sleep deprivation every single day, but even that is different than lethargy. Sleep deprivation is fatigue, whereas lethargy is a form of fear. If you need rest, then that’s an easy thing to fix. You do it every day, presumably. Lethargy you have to push through and stave off. This does become easier, but the earliest bits are the most difficult.

Exercise I mention because it does have physiological effects that influence your mental state. Endorphins? I don’t really know the chemicals too well but we are biologically built to feel good with physical activity, so if you can overcome the exercise lethargy this is an easy way to pump some good feels into you. Both the activity itself feels good and the subsequent results.

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48

Yes lethargy can be a real Bitch, it’s procrastination’s best buddy.

I’ve not thought of lethargy as a form of fear though, but I can see that it could be and now, thinking about it, I have known lethargy with fear.

At the end of last year I was very lethargic and hurt by life’s circumstances and through feeling sorry for myself, my fears increased and I didn’t want to do any work where I was living back then, the fear being that I would take root to a place I didn’t want to be.

When I got myself a little more sorted and relocated to where I wanted to be, the lethargy remained only this time the fear was that I didn’t know where to start, like I felt I was a different person somehow and worried what people thought of me. My personal strength was pretty low back then.

The work that I do is usually very physical like exercise and I’ve noticed that when I work I feel good and when I’m out of the rhythm of regularly working then the lethargy creeps back in if I take too much time out.

Earlier this year, still with that lethargy and fear (lethargy mostly due to extreme caffeine intake), I took the decision that I wanted to feel better and act like I could live a normal life, like everyone around me getting on with stuff where as I couldn’t see one foot in front of the other. Yes I forced myself and told myself I want to do this, I want to feel better and I can do this.

And it worked. I got moving and started to pick up some easy to do jobs, I found myself communicating with other people, got some money coming in again and started to feel much more normal and better all round. Yes it was backed by magick (Mystical Words of Power) to help kick start the process and continued on to get busier and the money flows in better than I’ve known for a very long time.

Lethargy and that d word, you do have to push yourself and push that other shit aside to allow yourself to focus on what you want.

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49

Joining your club here. The first time I was diagnosed with depression was in 2012, but it started earlier, I guess. I got some meds from the psychiatrist, had a gap year at university. It made me feel better for a while but it wasn’t a permanent solution. Almost three years ago I almost killed myself. After that I started practising meditation. The practise was helpful but again: it wasn’t a permanent solution. Suicidal thoughts came back this spring. I had been doing therapy until this September but then I had to quit because I couldn’t afford it anymore. Once I deal with my financial problems, I start again. For now I have decided to live at least until I’m 30. If nothing changes, I will end it all.

As to the reasons why I feel depresed, it’s because I don’t live the life I want to live. No matter how hard I try, I don’t get what I want. All my life I’ve had troubles with women. In fact, I have never had any really deep relationship. Now I also live in poverty and can’t see any ways to change the situation. Since childhood I had a dream to move to Germany. I still can do it, but I don’t want this any more for some reasons. It’s really terrible to feel that your dream is destroyed.

So, let’s take a look at what we have here: poverty, loneliness (I don’t even have regular sex goddamn), no family and children, feeling rejected all the time, best years of my life have already gone, no dreams, no goals to strive for. Well, I actually have a goal - a brutal revenge on some ‘friends’ from my childhood. But I won’t do that until I’m completely sure that there is no more hope and no other option for me except suicide.

My last hope is magick. I started doing that to finally get the life I want. If this doesn’t help then fuck it. I guess, it’s already getting unreadable, so that’s it.

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50

I get the feeling that you need to kind of forgive yourself for trying too hard. Life isn’t easy for anyone no matter if it looks like it is. Perhaps you could do yourself a favour and take notice of what you do enjoy.

Start with the easy stuff like what food do you like the taste of. Taste it, savour it and really enjoy that taste. Don’t think about what you do have or what you don’t have. Think about the things you can enjoy that doesn’t rely on the things that you don’t have. For instance, take a drink of water and think how it flows into you and how amazing it is that the water reaches every single part of your body. Learn to appreciate the things that you don’t usually notice.

Make it your mission to find things to appreciate and take in that wonder and allow yourself to be amazed at things you would usually pass by. In other words, find things that give pleasure to your senses at no cost, effort or expectation to or from yourself. Just for the enjoyment of things that simply “are”

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51

Thanks for responding.

Interesting. I received the very same advice from Gremory, when I evoked her. And yes, I tried that thing with food concentrating on Swadhisthana chakra at the same time. Got a subtile but relly pleasant sensation there.

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52

Hey, how nice this is to read :slightly_smiling_face: and I’m glad you tried it. That little experience is likely to stay with you now and you can recall it at other times in future.

In fact, recalling the experience is exactly where it’s at for many things.

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53

I was admitted to a psych ward after an overdose of celexa to push thoughts of hanging myself, out of my head. I was involuntarily admitted based on the thoughts. So there I was for a week, with only a few calls to less than a handful. My church was aware and smuggled a bible haha, it did help.
What I realized, were that they seemed normal for the most part, just like me. Only the comparison to general society in terms of behavior became issues for us.
In general, when the dark thoughts come rolling in like waves, I get up and move around. Exercise or movement is vital, as a signal you are not accepting the thoughts. I then force myself to think of something different. This too is vital to stop the thought train.
Showers, walks, artwork, even a pat the bunny book can be helpful with depression and anxiety. Comfort foods, Hot chocolate, treats, etc. Petting animals. Talking with others.
These are pretty advanced, and there is a vital third component - set a daily goal, even if it is getting out of bed, or making your bed.

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55

@SensualMystic

Before you write more posts please introduce yourself properly to the forum in the link below:

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