Working out & depression

[waterjug]

I think this describes depression better than I ever could[2] . I have always wanted to describe what it is like, but end up frustrated because all I can come up with is 'it feels like nothing', so I never wrote about it. It's worth a look if you know someone that is depressed, or you yourself are. I've had it on and off for about 15 years now, and there are some reasons for it, sometimes. Other times it just comes on suddenly. I'll be eating a grape or something and then I just feel it, or rather I don't feel anything all of a sudden, and for the next week or 5 weeks or whatever I'll feel like that for a majority of the days. The last few weeks I've felt it starting to 'creep up' which sucks major balls because the weather is getting so nice and now I get pretty much no joy out of it. Weekends I feel like less of a piece of shit, but it doesn't help much. The last two days in particular have been bad. I don't feel anything, just hollow, which believe it or not, is actually worse than feeling like shit or feeling sad or mad. I miss anger, it drove me at times. From the link in the first sentence:
And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem. It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.

If my life was a video game that someone was playing they'd have hit the reset button and gone back to a save point when I was 18 or so, when I passed up a 150,000 scholarship for biochemistry to Clark. Or maybe when I was 25 and just getting settled into Boston and didn't have almost 200,000 in student loan debt and a dead-end career path. Unfortunately life doesn't have a reset button and decisions you make when you're 17 or 18 can impact the rest of your life, if not flat out ruin it. Eventually you run out of 2nd chances, or first chances and you're just painted into a corner with what you have. Maybe depression is a defense mechanism. If I looked at what I have done with my life over the last 13 years I think maybe I would have killed myself by now. Maybe not. Maybe looking at my life has left me feeling empty, hollow, and void.

I've thought about going on medicine, but honestly I can't afford it, I'm almost broke now, and will be within a couple weeks, and even before it's not like I had money laying around for copays. Even when I could I just...I don't know, I guess I never saw the point; magic pills don't make your life less of a pointless train-wreck disaster waste of potential. Do I really want to be fucking around with my brain's chemistry? It's already pretty shitty obviously, I'm not sure I want to throw a match in that pale of gasoline.

When it comes on like it has the last couple weeks, and this week especially I just sort of go on auto-pilot. I guess I'll try to explain now. I feel hunger, but it doesn't mean anything. What did I do when I was hungry and not depressed? Oh yeah, I ate. So I eat. Oh hey it's 5:00 or whatever, I go to the gym now. Auto-pilot to gym. Move weight around. Try not to make eye contact with anyone, especially the people that you are friendly with there. Because when you're depressed you don't really feel any emotion. But if you're blessed, you can fake emotion exceedingly well, like me. The only trade is it saps your energy and makes you want to curl up in a ball in the corner and die. So I work out, look at the ground, and hope no one sees me. Come home, eat again because that's what I did before. Remember that my employers are horribly unethical pieces of shit, several of whom probably need to be sent to prison. Start to write letter to state AG and monitoring agency in my field. Think of how many letters you've had to write the last few months because of the horrible unethical shit they're doing to others, and you. Remember how furious you were a few months ago and how the rage fueled those letters, and how people reacted to them. Realize there's no more rage anymore, just emptiness. Realize they've probably won because you feel nothing, like a cigarette lighter without any fuel left in it. Keep trying to write, flicking that lighter again, just a spark and no flame. Realize you don't care anymore. Because you don't have that feeling anymore; 'caring'. Stop writing. Watch a movie. I used to like these, right? Sit in chair. Go to sleep. Have awful dreams. Get up. Maybe I'm not depressed anymore. Nope. Still am.

I don't want to kill myself, I don't want anything really because desire is gone too. I don't think I'd kill myself even if I had desire still, because I just don't have the energy. I'm carried by inertia; eating, sleeping, gym, bird watching, those are things that I did. So I do them. Because I did them before. That's what I do now, things I did before. As far as the gym goes it's pretty shitty because I'm making some good progress, and I've never been this cut before this early. But just like that beautiful weather outside, it doesn't mean anything. It's just...there. Alright, I'm done writing for now.

 

[Kaido]

I hear you.

I got depression in my early 20's, out of the blue. It's not something that can easily be explained to other people. I compare it to eating an apple - you can tell someone about the taste and the texture, but until they experience it for themselves they can never really understand. The comic you linked to does a pretty good job of explaining it, but it really only makes sense if you've experienced it yourself.

And there's a difference between being bummed out, which you can bounce back from, and being depressed, which you can't bounce back from. It's sort of like being sick - usually you give it a few days and you get over your cold and get back to normal, but with depression, you can't just magically get better. The happiness train never returns to the station; you're just stuck in limbo, not wanting to quit but not wanting to go on. It stinks. Instead of having a cold, you have the equivalent of cancer - something that won't fix itself with time, and something that you are unable to fix yourself.

I know what you mean about the grape; I would eat a Snickers bar and get no enjoyment out of it. That was one of the first things I noticed, actually - there wasn't a connection between the physical experience & the emotional experience. Everything else was still fairly normal; life went on, but motivation-wise, things weren't working right. Inertia is a good description: you go on because you go on, because what else are you going to do? You know something's wrong but when you try to figure it out, you quit caring. And a big part of it is just a lack of energy.

I'm just going to type out a long, random response post here, so hang tight!

Lesson 1: Only one part of you is not working right, but it's affecting everything else.

Part of the struggle is that you are functioning normally, with the exception of, how shall I put it, "motivation juice". Imagine a tube running into your brain, the tube linking your physical experiences with your emotional experiences. That tube is pumping motivation juice into your mind. This gives you the drive to get up & go in the morning, to finish things, to try new things, to live. With depression, it's like someone has turned the valve on that tube down to trickle mode...you have just enough juice left to keep going, but not enough to make it worth it. So you get stuck in a terrible place where you want to have your life back again, but you don't care enough to do anything about it. No energy, no desire, just brief spurts of anger from the trickle of motivation juice. You chase anything with a high motivational factor that will get the juice flowing...captivating TV shows, extremely involved video games, anything that will really suck you in & help you forget about life for awhile...but when they're over, you quit caring.

Maybe not the best analogy, but you get the idea. If the "motivation juice" was completely gone, you'd be a lump, so something is still working - just not properly. So the first thing to recognize is that your main problem here is that the valve on the motivation juice tube is set to trickle. You can still function, but it's messing everything else up. Think of it like tinted glasses...when you put the glasses on, everything looks different because your entire perspective is being covered up by something else. With depression, everything you see, feel, hear, or do is being filtered before it gets to you. It's sort of an endless loop of stupidity that you can't escape from, and if you think about it too much, you quit caring because you don't have the energy to fight it.

Lesson 2: Doctors are useless, and avoid medicine like the plague.

I spent a lot of money & time seeing doctors. What a waste. Doctors are like mechanics: they are awesome at fixing specific things, that are fixable, that they already know how to fix. If you show up with a broken arm, you're in luck - they have painkillers and casts ready to go for you! If you show up with depression, well...it's either all in your head, or you need some meds. Neither fixes the root cause.

So next you see shrinks. Talk it out! Sure, and maybe if I wish really hard I'll grow wings too. Shrinks are great for certain things. If you witnessed something horrible, it helps to have someone to talk to. If you have family problems that you can't resolve at home, it helps to have someone to talk to. If your biochemistry is screwed up and you're depressed, then no amount of talking is going to magically make you better.

So what next, meds? No. Medication is a band-aid, and the trouble with medicine is that you need higher & higher doses to get the same effect over time. So while it can mask the symptoms for a period of time, eventually it will wear out and you'll still be stuck with your depression problem. And yes, medicine can screw you up, so if you don't absolutely have to take it, I would avoid it altogether.

So all of that, with a caveat: I'm not your doctor. This is just my opinion, from my own experience. Use your judgement. Maybe your root cause IS something treatable by a doctor, psychiatrist, or medicine. Maybe there's a hormone in your body that you can take a patch-pill for and you'll get balanced. The root cause is different for everybody. All I can say is, docs, shrinks, and meds were a waste of time for me. It's the path I had to go down to find my root cause (I'll talk about that in a minute), but man, I wish I could have skipped over it!

Lesson 3: Routine

So since you're stuck with it, you should learn how to manage it. Keeping a strict routine is a big key to managing depression. It's hard to stay committed to a routine, but if you set it up right, it'll help you a lot. It's basically the funnel trick - set things up in a such a way that doing what you want is the easiest thing available. Sort of like if you're on a diet...if you keep a plate of cookies on the table, it'll be way too convenient to eat one and break your diet. So you need to setup your life so that it's more convenient to follow your routine than to do anything else. Here are some important things to do:

1. Stay clean: No drugs. No alcohol. No smoking.
2. Early bedtime: I'm talking like 9pm.
3. No TV/Internet/phone 1 hour before bed: Causes your brain to think it's daytime (flickering light sources), makes it hard to fall asleep.
4. Morning workout: Get pumped up for the day, not in the afternoon or evening. Although at one point I did do an extra 15 minutes of cardio when I got home in the late afternoon to get flowing again.
5. Clean diet: Switch to the 6-small-meals diet. Clean food.
6. Wake up, shower, and get dressed: Getting ready for the day is one of the primary keys to managing depression.

It's all easy stuff, it's just hard to do when you don't care :awe:

Lesson 4: The cure.

Work on finding the root cause to your depression every day. It took me like 10 years. Turns out it was hidden food allergies. Dairy & gluten were the root cause of my severe, clinical depression. Go figure. Maybe food allergies is your root cause, maybe it's something else. I tend to latch onto things & not let them go, which is sort of what happened with finding out why I had depression - I knew that there HAD to be a reason why I was feeling the way I was feeling. It was a huge fight, too, because when you try working on it, it zaps your motivation juice and you quit caring and lose all of the energy you needed to pursue it.

That's why I say doctors were no help, or shrinks or medicine - because they didn't address the root cause of my depression. The food allergy technology that we have today is still pretty crappy and didn't identify ANY of my allergies, so the doctors weren't much help. Obviously psychiatrists weren't much help because I couldn't talk myself out of an allergic reaction that caused depression. And medicine didn't help because all it did was gloss over the real cause: I was tired all the time, and my emotions were on "mute" because my body chemistry was out of whack from eating allergen foods.

I'm sure there are a million ways to get depression. My buddy got depression and had no idea why, and months later discovered he had Multiple Sclerosis‎. He went pretty downhill from there and is in a wheelchair now, but all of his symptoms were the same - randomly not caring about stuff and not understanding why. I've also seen it in soldiers with post-traumatic stress syndrome - they see so much horrific crap that their brains can't process it and it sends them into depression.

I think everybody, at some point, experiences some form of depression. I think that most people snap out of it though, so they're not aware of what happens next - how it affects your thinking and how you view yourself, your job, your finances, your life. It's the sunglasses thing - it alters your view of the entire world. And as a society, we're still not quite to the point where it's really acceptable to talk about it or admit that we struggle with it. I think that's why so many people drink - to escape. Or get sucked into endless television & video games.

So a few things to remember:

1. You're not alone
2. This isn't forever
3. Remember that you are wearing depression sunglasses, and it's tinting everything you see
4. Recognize that your "motivation juice" is on trickle mode - you have enough to get by, but not enough to where everything isn't a struggle
5. Work on finding the root cause every day
6. Yes, it stinks.

The hard thing to keep in mind is that there is a good life for you out there - it's just not available right now. It's hard for your brain not to throw you in a dark pit of despair where you think this is how it is, forever, and there's no hope. Having a routine helps - it won't fix it or cure you, but it will help you manage and get by without further complicating your life. I think a lot of people turn to drugs or alcohol and really get screwed up and lose their family & their jobs because they just can't get a grip on it. Until you find your root cause & fix it, you're not going to be able to solve it, but in the meantime you have to keep on trucking, so having a routine really helps to keep things from falling apart further.

It gets better. There is hope. And if all else fails, there's always ATOT - these 20,000 posts didn't write themselves

 

[nickbits]

Hmm I've been depressed off and on since I was 10 (or maybe earlier) and don't think I am depressed right now but after reading through that I am not so sure. Maybe I'm just not seriously depressed right now.

This can pretty much sums me up:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F_0UMK3ObnA/UVkICGlPYFI/AAAAAAAAIXk/rdlZ1yj3EJw/s1600/depression+xalt.png

And this is when I consider myself seriously depressed:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-drS0smfRtIo/UWtKWq-cwyI/AAAAAAAAI-0/7NofDAulZ3Q/s1600/ADTWO32.png

 

[jman19]

I feel like I'm heading there. Had the pain up front. Still have it, but it is fading... along with everything else unfortunately. Most days, I'm just going through the motions now.

 

[abhishek25]

I am depressed

 

[jman19]

I am depressed

Keep your head up! Some days are worse than others. Stay close with friends and family, and find someone you can talk to.

 

[Raduque]

Lifting weights helps with my depression. One day a couple weeks ago, I was so far down in a depression, I actually locked up my gun. Put a lock through the magwell, and locked my gun case. I pulled myself up out of it by doing 20 minutes a day of dumbbell exercises.

 

[shortylickens]

That article describes me exactly. I find working out along with the citalopram seems to slowly be improving things. But its a long hard road and very few people have actually traveled it. A lot of folks think they have but not really, and they give absolutely horrible advice.

I agree with the idea of talking thru it while on the pills. Otherwise you just get a chemical change and not a life change. Unfortunately theres just not enough folks you can frankly discuss it with.

 

[Sheep221]

That article describes me exactly. I find working out along with the citalopram seems to slowly be improving things. But its a long hard road and very few people have actually traveled it. A lot of folks think they have but not really, and they give absolutely horrible advice.

I agree with the idea of talking thru it while on the pills. Otherwise you just get a chemical change and not a life change. Unfortunately theres just not enough folks you can frankly discuss it with.

Anti-depressants are quite helpful, yes they don't change your thinking or remove the root cause, but they definitely lower the symptoms which is not bad thing to have definitely, and I recommend everyone to just get some because trying to pretend I'm hero I deal with this without that stuff, is just ridiculous.
Ofc if OP was sick from food allergy there wouldn't be much the meds could do as he filled the root cause everyday by eating them, but I assume he should try some meds by now and they aren't really expensive. On other hand some illnesses are not able to be cured just by meds, such as obesity, back pain, mental illnesses and more, the meds for these problems are only lowering the symptoms to make easier to deal with the root causes, either by changing thinking, exercising and more. Only fully chemical illnesses are cured by meds.

 

[lilrayray69]

I've more or less had depression/anxiety issues since about 9 or 10. Those pictures are ok, but even in my most severe depression if I see a spider I'm not just gonna stand there - I'ma freak out. I hate spiders.

OK anyways, some may say counseling and medications don't help - for some it doesn't, but for a lot of people it does. I'm not sure of your financial situation and whether or not you have health insurance or can qualify for some sort of medicaid, but many antidepressants are cheap now. I used to pay around $10 a month for a pretty common one.

They are not cures, but as said above they help manage symptoms. Studies have shown people do significantly better when utilizing medication and therapy in combination. Personally I've found CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) to be very helpful to me. I found it was the method I was using to try talking myself out of anxiety, then when actually speaking to a counselor it helped even more just to hear it from somebody else.

But eventually you just find what works for you. For some, medications does enough. Some need medication and counseling. Some add in working out, eating differently, changing their hobbies or habits, etc.

For me it came down to trying to change the way I look at life and view myself. That's easier said than done, but I think I'm managing quite well - I'm on medication too which has helped me