Depression is a liar.

I recently read something that said "Depression is a big, fat liar."  It got me thinking on the subject.  This advice is not meant to take the place of professional help, but rather to supplement it and for short term fixes:



Depression lies to you.  It tells you that you are worthless.  It tells you things are hopeless.  It tells you no one can help you, so it advises you to withdraw from others and even yourself.  All of these are untrue, and the advice is the worst possible approach you could take.

So, what can you do?

Some of the simplest strategies involve connecting and exercising.  Better yet, combine the two.  Go for a vigorous walk with a friend or loved one.  It breaks down the walls of isolation that squeeze you into an even tighter depression while producing endorphins to improve your outlook on the moment.

Call up a friend and talk.

Compliment someone you don't know.  Smiles are infectious.  Seeing a smile come across their face will nourish that feeling of worthwhile that's been dying of malnutrition deep inside your core.

Stop focusing on the negatives.  Try to find a positive in every situation for an entire day.  If someone says something to you that you'd normally take as a negative, examine it to see if you might have just pre-disposed yourself for it to be a negative and perhaps they meant it as a positive.  If they clearly did not, think of how much worse off their life must be that they feel like they need to try to drag everyone down to their level of misery.  Do this for a whole day, and you'll find a decrease in your stress levels.  Then do it again the next day.

Don't listen to "downer" or "angry" music unless it usually puts you into a happy mood.  Find happier music to listen to when you are in your most down moods.

Change your routine for a short period of time.  Don't let the same thing every day get you into a rut.  Try something different.  If you can't think of anything, try some basic stuff.  Try learning to use your non-dominant hand to do a basic task you do every day like brush your teeth.  Try pulling out a board game you haven't played in forever and playing it with a friend.  Sign up for a class to learn something you've always wanted to learn.  It doesn't really matter about getting a good grade as long as you achieve the objectives of a) changing your routine and b) learning something new.

Host a get-together for friends and ask them to invite someone they think you might like.  During the gathering, don't let yourself be a wallflower.

If you have any other ideas of quick, short-term fixes, PLEASE post your ideas in the comments, and thanks for reading.

Preface

For more than half my life, I’ve wanted to be a writer.  But I was only effective at it when I was super depressed and/or experiencing a turmoil of different emotions, especially unfamiliar ones.  By nature, I’ve never been a very emotional person.  And writing was my only method of dealing with them when they came in large quantities.  I also was drinking heavily when I wrote effectively.

Fortunately, I’ve not had to deal with much depression of unfamiliar waves of emotions since I met my wife.

Unfortunately, that has meant I haven’t written pretty much anything.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of brilliant ideas all the time.  I just am not effective at putting the ideas into the appropriate words to make a good story.  Now I probably could still do well with that since there’s a lot of horribly written stories that stem from good ideas.  (Read: Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyers, etc).  But I wouldn’t feel good about associating my name with a crappy story even if it gave me millions of dollars.

Many people that know me will be surprised that I included Stephanie Meyers as an example.  I think the idea behind her premise is fine (except for the sparkling vampire crap), but they are among the worst written stories ever made.  That’s for another blog though.

I ‘d love to start writing good stuff again, but I don’t want to be in the situations I have been in previously which led to be being an effective writer.  And I don’t want to “force it,” because every time I do, I just churn out crap and it deteriorates into worse crap if I continue to “force it.”

As for drinking, I drink from time to time, but never more than 2 drinks on a day.  I don’t plan to change that, as I don’t have the need to escape from life any more.

That’s it for my first blog entry.  We’ll see what develops over time.