Kick Depression's Ass!

[sven]

I suffered from major depression during one period of my life. It was a very difficult time. I didn't really get what was happening to me, since I'm not the type of person who would describe himself as having such tendencies. There were a couple of major factors at work that caused this I believe, but I'm not going to talk about that now.
At first I went to a doctor who gave me only drugs. He was a very poor doctor, I have to say. The next doctor had a more holistic view. He gave me drugs, but he also sent me to a dietist, and a therapist, and wrote a prescription for excersise. (This may sound strange to some who don't know how things work in Sweden. The thing is that the state (or the tax payers, really) sponsor the purchase of drugs and treatments that have been prescribed by a doctor to a very large extent. So what you get is a gym card for an extremely low price).
So this is what helped me beat depression:

Anti-depressants. Everyone knows what that is.

A healthy diet. I still eat the way I was instructed to. It helps me maintain weight. I avoid eating carbohydrates as much as possible. I eat lots of vegetables, a large portion of which is fresh produce. I eat lots of fish -- especially fatty fish like mackerel and salmon. I never eat candy and junk food, and I almost never drink beer. (The beer is the only part that sucks a little, since I love beer) In fact I only drink when I'm on vacation and on special occasions. I eat chocolate with at least 70% cacao content (too much carbs in the other stuff). Chocolate is good, because it makes you feel content.

Exercise. I started with the program I used back then again recently. Every morning I take a brisk walk of at least 45 minutes before breakfast, or a run. In the evening I work out -- this is usually lifting weights or a barbell workout. I've been told that the kind of workout you should do is high exertion, like lifting weights for example.
My problem with this in the beginning was that I often felt too tired to work out. (I wasn't really -- it just felt that way)
My therapist told me this: when you feel tired but you push yourself to work out anyway, have you ever thought like this: 'Shit. I shouldn't have worked out. I really regret doing this.'
No. I always felt much better after. This is one of the best things anyone has said to me in my entire life.

Have a realistic, attainable goal. This can be almost anything, like 'I want to buy a motorcycle' or 'I want to afford to go to Prague next summer'. Then work toward that goal. Rinse and repeat. I can't quite explain why this is so damned good, but it is. It mustn't be something unrealistic, like 'I want to meet the perfect woman of my dreams' or something similar.

Learn to not feel entitled. Understand that the world and the people in it owe you nothing. I've noticed that people who suffer from depression often feel entitled, like they want everything to just come to them without any real effort and when it doesn't, they spiral deeper into depression.

Don't have unrealistic expectations on life. This has a lot to do with entitlement as well as laziness. This is a huge problem nowadays, I've noticed. A lot of people want to become famous musicians, actors, or have their hobby as their job while getting payed really well, or what have you. If you aren't very talented, extremely attractive in some way, and/or willing to work your ass of to the brink of mental and/or physical collapse, this just won't happen, except if there is some one in a million fluke. Even if you are all those things, it will probably still not happen. People who suffer from this problem often end up just sitting around doing nothing while waiting to be discovered or something stupid like that. This makes their depression grow exponentially over time, it seems. I have a friend who had this problem. He ended up almost killing himself through drug abuse. I had slight bouts of this when I was a young adult, from 18-25 or so.

Avoid self pity at all costs. It is impossible to never feel sorry for oneself, but if you start to, pull yourself out of it by doing something constructive or talking to someone about a completely unrelated subject. Self pity is one of the most destructive and pathetic human emotions. Nothing good ever comes out of it. This was a major problem for me when I was depressed.

Avoid histrionics (i.e. being a drama queen) and passive agressive behavior. Learn to ignore the urge to garner attention when you don't really deserve it. In the end, passive agressive and/or drama queen behavior always leads to loneliness, feelings of emptiness and the deepest pits of depression and despair. It also happens to be a complete pain in the ass to other people. I know this is very hard for some, but it is possible unless one suffers from a severe personality disorder. When I was depressed I used to act like that toward women sometimes. I feel ashamed of this nowadays.

[ShaMan]

^Great advice^

[Rahul]

Bravo, Sven. Good stuff.

[Faith No More]

The biggest obstacle I faced was forcing myself to do the things that I dreaded. Everything you do to fight depression takes energy and will, and it is very hard to summon those when you are depressed. But you just have to absolutely force yourself to get up and do the constructive things you need to do, and eventually it gets better and easier.

Keeping a routine schedule also helps. Something about ensuring you do certain things at certain times on a consistent basis helps declutter the mind.

[KUSA]

I suffered from major depression during one period of my life. It was a very difficult time. I didn't really get what was happening to me, since I'm not the type of person who would describe himself as having such tendencies. There were a couple of major factors at work that caused this I believe, but I'm not going to talk about that now.
At first I went to a doctor who gave me only drugs. He was a very poor doctor, I have to say. The next doctor had a more holistic view. He gave me drugs, but he also sent me to a dietist, and a therapist, and wrote a prescription for excersise. (This may sound strange to some who don't know how things work in Sweden. The thing is that the state (or the tax payers, really) sponsor the purchase of drugs and treatments that have been prescribed by a doctor to a very large extent. So what you get is a gym card for an extremely low price).
So this is what helped me beat depression:

Anti-depressants. Everyone knows what that is.

A healthy diet. I still eat the way I was instructed to. It helps me maintain weight. I avoid eating carbohydrates as much as possible. I eat lots of vegetables, a large portion of which is fresh produce. I eat lots of fish -- especially fatty fish like mackerel and salmon. I never eat candy and junk food, and I almost never drink beer. (The beer is the only part that sucks a little, since I love beer) In fact I only drink when I'm on vacation and on special occasions. I eat chocolate with at least 70% cacao content (too much carbs in the other stuff). Chocolate is good, because it makes you feel content.

Exercise. I started with the program I used back then again recently. Every morning I take a brisk walk of at least 45 minutes before breakfast, or a run. In the evening I work out -- this is usually lifting weights or a barbell workout. I've been told that the kind of workout you should do is high exertion, like lifting weights for example.
My problem with this in the beginning was that I often felt too tired to work out. (I wasn't really -- it just felt that way)
My therapist told me this: when you feel tired but you push yourself to work out anyway, have you ever thought like this: 'Shit. I shouldn't have worked out. I really regret doing this.'
No. I always felt much better after. This is one of the best things anyone has said to me in my entire life.

Have a realistic, attainable goal. This can be almost anything, like 'I want to buy a motorcycle' or 'I want to afford to go to Prague next summer'. Then work toward that goal. Rinse and repeat. I can't quite explain why this is so damned good, but it is. It mustn't be something unrealistic, like 'I want to meet the perfect woman of my dreams' or something similar.

Learn to not feel entitled. Understand that the world and the people in it owe you nothing. I've noticed that people who suffer from depression often feel entitled, like they want everything to just come to them without any real effort and when it doesn't, they spiral deeper into depression.

Don't have unrealistic expectations on life. This has a lot to do with entitlement as well as laziness. This is a huge problem nowadays, I've noticed. A lot of people want to become famous musicians, actors, or have their hobby as their job while getting payed really well, or what have you. If you aren't very talented, extremely attractive in some way, and/or willing to work your ass of to the brink of mental and/or physical collapse, this just won't happen, except if there is some one in a million fluke. Even if you are all those things, it will probably still not happen. People who suffer from this problem often end up just sitting around doing nothing while waiting to be discovered or something stupid like that. This makes their depression grow exponentially over time, it seems. I have a friend who had this problem. He ended up almost killing himself through drug abuse. I had slight bouts of this when I was a young adult, from 18-25 or so.

Avoid self pity at all costs. It is impossible to never feel sorry for oneself, but if you start to, pull yourself out of it by doing something constructive or talking to someone about a completely unrelated subject. Self pity is one of the most destructive and pathetic human emotions. Nothing good ever comes out of it. This was a major problem for me when I was depressed.

Avoid histrionics (i.e. being a drama queen) and passive agressive behavior. Learn to ignore the urge to garner attention when you don't really deserve it. In the end, passive agressive and/or drama queen behavior always leads to loneliness, feelings of emptiness and the deepest pits of depression and despair. It also happens to be a complete pain in the ass to other people. I know this is very hard for some, but it is possible unless one suffers from a severe personality disorder. When I was depressed I used to act like that toward women sometimes. I feel ashamed of this nowadays.

Powerful post! Wow that has some good stuff in it. You are so right about the entitled part. I see it in kids these days all the time. If they don't have the world handed to them they feel like they are being shitted on.

[sven]

Powerful post! Wow that has some good stuff in it. You are so right about the entitled part. I see it in kids these days all the time. If they don't have the world handed to them they feel like they are being shitted on.

Thanks! Wow, I've never gotten a gold medal on the internet before!

I think a feeling of entitlement is linked to feeling uniquely and specially talented. In some ways this is probably a normal healthy part of being young, but the problems begin when you are unable to produce any results of your unique and special potential. Some people just can't let go of this idea (REF: Histrionic Personality Disorder). Their lack of accomplishments, peer approval and quality of life leads them into a dead end. They have to delude themselves more and more in order to avoid seeing the glaring truth -- that they are in fact NOT uniquely and specially talented. Some just go into denial mode and jump from one job/subject/activity to another, hoping to be 'discovered' or that their 'speciality' will somehow magically manifest itself if they find the right thing to do. Some seem to swap this for being uniquely and specially fucked up -- so bad in fact that nobody on earth has the insight, nay GENIUS to understand their many psychological ailments and existential pains. They seem to want to become textbook cases that are studied with great reverence for generations to come.

In recent years more and more young interns have begun to appear in the restaurant business that seem to have entitlement issues. I was a little bit full of myself when I started out, in fact. I was sent to the back of the restaurant where I had to spend hours every day on peeling onions, tournéing potatoes, cutting wok vegetables, making mirepoix, filéing tons of fish and other seemingly menial tasks. I felt that my special talents were being wasted, and I was seething with rage on the inside. To add insult to injury, the chef was often not pleased with the results.
One day I had managed to tourné a huge pot of potatoes perfectly. The chef just said 'good' and then turned it all into a mash for the staff meal. I died on the inside. (The mash was delicious, though)
It wasn't until after I understood that my knife skills had improved considerably through all that practice, and that I had learned a few important things about being a cook. There are several basic skills you have to truly master in order to have a place in a real professional kitchen. Also, being a cook means having to do a lot of hard and tiresome work.

We had a young intern recently, he was a typical foodie hipster with chef aspirations. He was full of ideas and poses that seemed to conceal an easily bruised ego. I was tempted to tell him that he had a lot to learn about being a cook. Its not all about making foams of smoked sea-urching roe, longpepper and licorice root, placing candied cilantro leaves on top of stuff with tiny tweezers and placing sauce with rulers. That is in fact a very small part of the job. He was sent to the back and after a couple of days the chef basically said that he lacked a work ethic and that he sucked. (He was in fact pretty cruel, which I feel isn't very constructive)
The intern spazed out and flew into this pathetic defence speech which was about us not understanding what cooking is about, etcetera. He was going to find a place to intern that better suited his needs, and that could appreciate his potential (i.e. bullshit, basically).
This made me a bit sad. Beneath the facade he was basically a nice young man. But he did suck at being a cook, even though the chef could have put it a little less bluntly. In fact, I think he lacked potential as well.
I won't deny its an old-school way of breaking in interns. Some chefs take to the task with sadistic glee, and go into psycho mode. But the thing that has started happening more and more is that some kids just can't handle even the gentler forms ego busting that has to take place in some cases. They just throw in the towel straight away. I don't really understand what all this is about.

[Faith No More]

The problem that I have seen with depression is not so much a sense of entitlement to normal feelings, but that of apathy towards the problem. Depression causes you to get into this mindset that if you just bide your time and numb the pain long enough, it will all go away on its own. I think part of that is the helplessness you feel when the depression first starts manifesting itself. It just sort of sneeks up in the there, unnoticed, until one day you look back and realize that you've become a different person. Then you hope it will just exit in the same manner.

The first step to dealing with depression is recognizing that it's going to take work to fix it.

[Angrboda]

Good advice, Sven. Most people don't realize that effective treatments for depression extend beyond pills. Drugs are helpful, and in some cases, all that is needed. More often, their primary use is to get you to a point where you can take advantage of other treatments. Diet, exercise, sleep hygiene, individual and group therapy, and socio-economic interventions all help to alleviate or reduce the incidence of depression. Sadly, U.S. health care is motivated by the dollar, and drugs are probably the cheapest intervention for insurers. I would benefit a great deal from an exercise program led by an instructor, because I have motivational problems; unfortunately, health insurance, even the special waivers I get as a physically disabled person, will not cover an exercise program.

(I used to do Tai Chi on my own, and I need to get back to that, but a class would go a long way to getting me started.)

I've never had any luck with meds. Over the past 20 years, I've been in and out of therapy, to no good effect. This past year, though, I've gotten meds that help some with the sleep, and good group and individual therapy, and it's making a difference.

I can't agree more about having a goal, either. It's still uncertain whether or not I will be able to achieve mine or not, but I'm pursuing going back to school and eventually working again, and it does a lot to keep my priorities in focus so that those mornings when I "just don't feel like it," I can force myself to do those things that I know I need to do to keep it together.

Again, thank you for an excellent post, Sven.

[sven]

(I used to do Tai Chi on my own, and I need to get back to that, but a class would go a long way to getting me started.)

There are many videos on Youtube with different workouts with varying levels of difficulty. From what I've been told, Tai Chi isn't quite the way to go, though. It should be something really exerting, like lifting weights etc. Exercise yoga seems to be one way to go.
I got the barbell workout I use now from some random guy on youtube. Its really effective.
Since I am now considered to be 'cured' I no longer receive a gym card almost for free. I don't think a gym membership is worth the money, so I bought equipment. I have a barbell, some weights and a couple of dumbells. It cost about 80 euro, and it lasts practically for ever. Its all you need, really.

I can't agree more about having a goal, either. It's still uncertain whether or not I will be able to achieve mine or not, but I'm pursuing going back to school and eventually working again, and it does a lot to keep my priorities in focus so that those mornings when I "just don't feel like it," I can force myself to do those things that I know I need to do to keep it together.

Again, thank you for an excellent post, Sven.

I suggest you pick a goal that is something fun to look forward to, and that you are certain that you can attain if you work hard enough. Its best to have only one goal at a time. To me, school and work are too much 'musts' to qualify as good goals -- in this context, at least.
For example, I just booked a trip to Prague this summer.

I've been told that trying to give people direct advice like this isn't always the best thing to do, but in this case I just couldn't help myself. I hope you know I mean well!

[Angrboda]

I can't agree more about having a goal, either. It's still uncertain whether or not I will be able to achieve mine or not, but I'm pursuing going back to school and eventually working again, and it does a lot to keep my priorities in focus so that those mornings when I "just don't feel like it," I can force myself to do those things that I know I need to do to keep it together.

I suggest you pick a goal that is something fun to look forward to, and that you are certain that you can attain if you work hard enough. Its best to have only one goal at a time. To me, school and work are too much 'musts' to qualify as good goals -- in this context, at least.
For example, I just booked a trip to Prague this summer.

I'm on disability, and could remain on disability the rest of my life. School and work are optional for me, but options which inspire me.