It saddens me to see so many of the users here in such profoundly debilitating states of depression. =(
I, myself, am only really starting to scratch the surface of recovering from my own depression. As I may have mentioned before, I've been depressed now for quite a few years (around 5 or 6). And during these past few years I've felt like I've had no energy, no motivation, no hope for the future… I've felt that all of it, all of what we do is meaningless. That... the ever looming creep of death around the corner renders all of our actions moot and that if it's such an inevitable conclusion we should just embrace it now.
It's horrendous.
And it's entrenching too. There's a negative thought that persists in every idle action. It's like your mind is a debate team with the negative side being world class debaters and the positive side being elementary school students and they just tear those little kids' asses a new one. Completely stomp on all of their childish dreams and naive ambitions and make them feel absolutely worthless using cold and unforgiving "logic". Like your positive side is just never going to win in a debate against the negative side.
And... So what...?
Fuck em.
Yeah, you read me right. Fuck em. Maybe this is all meaningless. Maybe there is no point to everything. Does there really have to be? What do world class debaters do when they get home? Practice for the next soul crushing debate? Forgo play in exchange for knowledge? What do kids do when they leave the debate? Go home and PLAY. They PLAY. Perhaps this wasn't the best analogy but there is a point here. I'm starting to realize lately that my pessimistic realism forces me into an un-winnable stalemate. There's always something wrong about what I'm doing or always something bad that could happen.
Meanwhile completely carefree optimists are living life and having a blast. And I'll admit that I was one of the first to point fingers and them and think, "Look at them. Look at how stupid they are. They don't know about the harsh truths of reality. And whenever it hits them it'll destroy them. But it won't catch me by surprise! I'm realistic!" Man... How wrong am I. These guys are STILL having a blast and what am I doing? I'm freaking unmotivated, depressed and borderline suicidal. >_>
Those guys aren't idiots. Those guys are actually freaking living…
... That said, don't take what I'm saying the wrong way. You don't place yourself into depression. It sneaks up on you and ambushes you. It's a monster that wants to keep you down and wants you to stay away from any thoughts that things could be better and that things can be positive. But the thing is, it's a monster.
Recognize that much. It feeds off of negativity. And the only way to destroy negativity is to overwhelm it with positivity. Which, ultimately, starves that monster and kills it off. It can be done. It's a long process and it requires you to completely change your perspective, but it can be done. Let go of all the negative bullshit. Replace those thoughts with positive thoughts.
Now, I imagine the immediate thought is, "But it's not logical! But it doesn't make sense! But this isn't reality!" So? Fuck it. Who cares? Reality is what you make of it. I think that's something we also get trapped in. We believe so vehemently in black in white, that things HAVE to be a certain way (or must conform to the majority opinion) that we fail to relinquish the possibility that it can be ANOTHER way. And to be honest with you, I'm at the point in my depression now that I'm thinking I'd rather to be a foolish optimist than a miserable pessimist. Even if the latter is more logical, I'd trade all the logic in the world for some genuine happiness.
If you can't acquire happiness from where you're standing right now, you need to re-define what happiness is. If there is negative baggage holding you down, you need to let it go. Personally, I'm going to stop thinking in terms of "bad and good" and start thinking in terms of only "good". What went right? Don't worry about what went wrong. What went RIGHT?
Are you lonely? Hey, you're talking to me right now. I'm directly addressing every depressed person in this thread. Want to talk to me? PM me.
You're alive another day, able to read this goofy post by someone that's still depressed and just barely getting out of it. But hey, I'm getting out of it. And I'm thinking in my head, "I really hope people aren't upset or offended by the goofiness or bluntness of this post", but I also want to take my own advice about only thinking in positives so I scratched that and now I'm thinking, "I made a post and tried".
So just try. Little by little, just try. Fail and try. Try again.~