I’ve been going to therapy for depression for the past 6 months. A mix of talk therapy, CBT and DBT and meds. Ups and downs, though it felt like I was making progress.
During my last session this week, something my therapist said hit me hard, that there’s no way to cure depression; it can only be managed. Hearing that and thinking about it has me feeling messed up. I have to put up with this—with this me—for the rest of my life?
Doesn’t help I’m not in a stable place finances/career-wise. A lot of pressure from family to get myself sorted out, a lot of pressure I’m putting on myself.
Been feeling low ever since. I’ve had thoughts of self harm and suicide before though not as frequently as now. I just feel overwhelmed all the time and shut down from all the negative messages my brain’s been hard-wired to send me constantly. I’m tired and alone.
This sounds like it was a case where they were talking about depression in the abstract while the depression you’re experiencing and struggling with is more tangible. You can and will absolutely move on from the lows and the problems of today. As someone who has faced bouts of depression, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Stuff like financial problems and family pressure play a big role and that kind of pressure can make things feel amplified when it shouldn’t. I know we set goals and expectations for ourselves but sometimes stuff is out of our control, and we have to be kind and patient to ourselves. That goes double when it comes to other people’s expectations because they aren’t in your shoes, they don’t know the crap you’re going through, so you have to put their expectations to the side and focus on getting yourself in a place where you want to be.
It helps to think about what positive healthy habits get you out of your head even if it’s just for an hour or two. When I was depressed and unemployed, I found working out at the gym helped me feel more normal. It was something I could do while waiting for the delayed gratification of getting a job. Even if I had a hard day emotionally where I felt like I couldn’t bring myself to apply for another job, it helped me to feel like I worked on a healthy habit that day. It lessened the burden of job applications being the most high stakes thing that I was relying on to change my life - when in reality it was something I had no control over.
Since applying for jobs was causing me extra stress, what helped me was creating a structure to allow myself to not have to think about it all the time. I would approach it systematically and set a modest goal. After I sent 5 job applications I would give myself permission to not think about it for the rest of the night. What would end up happening is I would sometimes send more, sometimes send less, but I wouldn’t let it be held over my head when I was trying to relax, and i think that made the burden of the job search easier. Having a structure that works for you will help you block out the external pressure that you get from others, because you are getting stuff done at a pace that works for you.
You can help yourself by focusing your energy on the things you can control and building yourself up towards the life you want to live. You don’t have to feel alone with this, you could seek out support groups or meetups or try a new hobby you’re interested in. Even just focusing your energy on improving your sleep schedule or hygiene or eating habits or cutting out a vice – this is a good time to make a change you think will cause a positive change in your life.
What your therapist is saying about depression is true in the sense of neurochemical factors that can exist independently from your own wants and needs. They’re saying that even if tomorrow you got the dream job and your family got off your back about it, your depression may come back under a new different form, so it helps to prepare yourself for that by identifying the underlying patterns that are causing you stress or guilt or making you feel detached. Knowing that, and making small changes in life can help you clear the path forward and break out of negative patterns of thought. You can (and will) definitely get over the hump, but like everything in life, the work continues. You got this
@Tradegood I appreciate your comment; really needed to read that. Focusing on positive habits I’m cultivating is a good reminder; I often find myself magnifying the negative when I ought to magnify the positive.
As for what is and isn’t in my control, I struggle with that a lot. One of things to practice and be mindful about, I suppose.
this is increasingly proving to be false, at least when it comes to major depressive disorders. the serotonin theory of depression (and its supposed solution) was very well marketed in its day and so the whole ‘chemical imbalance’ idea got accepted as common sense but modern science suggests that social and environmental factors play a much more significant role. people aren’t born sad…I’m not a neuroscientist, I’ve just been a patient my whole life so I can’t say for sure, but a serotonin deficiency appears to be more of a symptom than a cause of depression to me.
this is ultimately good news to me, bc it gives me faith that there’s actually a lot of effective ways to address one’s sense of hopelessness in a world that seems increasingly hopeless. you can find and do something that works for you. SSRIs are a pretty high octane intervention, anyway
this is completely anecdotal evidence but I was depressed for many years and I can confidently say I am not any more. it feels like a mind trap in a distant memory. what helped me was making drastic changes in my living situation and my life in general, refocusing my attention more outward, and doing LSD with someone who knew a lot about it. it was a really gradual process, I barely noticed it as it was happening, but I can see now I am on the other side. I don’t feel like a different person, but I do feel differently; as in, I no longer feel like shit most of the time. maybe that’s why they mean by managing it.
what surprised me was that initially, I thought it was a battle against myself, that I had to somehow convince myself or force myself to feel better, when in fact what happened was that I started doing more and more different things, and I was too distracted/interested/stimulated/exhausted by them to focus on hating myself for long periods of time, and after a while of that those thought loops and feelings started feeling more and more foreign. I didn’t change my mind or my feelings about myself, I just did things that made those feelings comparatively smaller and less important in the context of my life. it was a subtle re-framing that meant even if I was convinced something was going to go horribly, I would do it anyway, and it would never go as wrong as I had imagined, and I felt like a learned something from it. I think it was a continued exposure to those kinds of situations that helped me take all my depressive tendencies with a grain of salt, and made me understand -at a physiological level, not just intellectually- that I didn’t have to give so much protagonism and power to those thoughts, and that there were very exciting opportunities and possibilities from acting as if they were removed from the equation.
it’s hard to find the right words to talk about this stuff without sounding frivolous or preachy. I just want to express that I did feel that way, and now I don’t, and I didn’t do anything crazy; I look pretty much the same as I did when I felt horrible about myself, I didn’t achieve a great deal or developed an optimal routine, I just changed my surroundings and I let myself be interested in things, people and places, and to act on those interests, basically ignoring my insecurities, and eventually I felt better. I hope you will too.
My 2 cents on the question on whether depression is “curable” or not is pretty simple: it’s something where you might as well act like it’s true, even if it isn’t, just so there’s always hope, always a second chance, always a way to get help, and so on
Listened to mother 3 music player after smoking 2 blunts and drinking hard kombucha and stuff
the mother 3 music player walking at night in these streets reminds me of being homeless in hs and unironically listening to my gameboy micro cause it was my only device in high school
Oh but you know I got the music quality increase patch on 1 of my 3 copies of the .gba on my flash cart
Cause you know I got to have 12 mother 3 save slots at this point
I got my save from the time I went to papaw’s funeral and I had a nice crispy DS lite to play mother 3 on the entire time
For once the “hold function of the mother 3 music player came in really handy cause I’m so lit and my pockeys are kinda tight so the loose buttons are pressing by mistake all the time
Haha. I don’t post under the influence, so I figured this was an OK place to post last night. I was not overboard, just sufficiently lit, and thinking about video games, had my micro out most of the night.
The only regret is that my buddy only rolls blunts, and I wanted to smoke the weed, but I hate the tobacco. I was hitting it a lot. Tobacco is not good for me. I never smoked cigarettes or anything, but the blunts cause me to feel it.
Anyways hope I didn’t false alarm or anything. Nothing tragic going on, just venting or something, about video games.
For anyone from a toxic family background, there’s a therapist named Patrick Teahan who does a podcast called Our Whole Childhood that I’ve been really enjoying. I’ve found listening to it to be very centring even though it touches on obviously some very heavy subject matter. Has anyone else heard of him?
Yes I am subscribed to him! I haven’t watched his videos in a while but a couple of his videos on toxic family dynamics related to narcissism and childhood trauma were crucial for understanding myself and are what ultimately led me to try out therapy. I do need to be in the right mindset to watch them though, not sure if I want to unpack childhood trauma when I just want to have something in the background while I fold laundry lol.
I think his videos gave me a good amount of language and concepts to use during my journaling and therapy sessions, such a great resource overall.
I’ll also plug Psychology with Dr. Ana, her focus is less on family dynamics and childhood trauma and more about managing anxiety and related issues. She has a lot of videos on relationships too that might be helpful to some, though she doesn’t go as in-depth as your average Patrick video.
Was starting to have a rough time, but staying afloat and kicking ass through it. Though things weren’t going so well with my partner. Decided we shouldn’t see each other, at least for now.
I’m in a mental hospital waiting room not for myself, but with a friend. It’s not the first time.There’s something about a small collection of people, around half experiencing some form of psychosis or crisis-level depression, and the other half just kind of nervously waiting, while the staff is also there calmly explaining the procedures to us. All of us, staff included, are at the mercy of these larger than life systems that are supposedly designed to help, but in the face of literal insanity are revealed as trite and flaccid, but we still have no real choice because there is help available and the kind we need is here and this is just how we get it.
Anyway, I’m not posting for support or crisis-posting. I believe my friend is going to be ok. I’m good. I’m just reflecting.
i haven’t been around lately. hi. i don’t know how much energy I have to speak in detail about the last 90 days but I find myself wishing for yet another tragedy or disaster to happen because I’m starting to feel like I can’t be a whole person without something to endure. this isn’t new to me but it is. really heavy rn. anything to keep me away from home would be welcome
