I made a breakthrough in my clinical depression after over 21 years of extreme mental suffering.
The meaning of life, to me, is happiness. Probably because it has always been so elusive for me. I'm determined to obtain it because without happiness, life is not worth living, for me at least. That's why I've always been asking, exploring, paying money, doing dangerous things, and even making excuses when I wasn’t doing anything at all towards achieving it. You can make up any number of perfectly reasonable excuses to not attempt to beat your depression, and you can take medication to cover up the problem, but if you're like me then you simply cannot shake the feeling that your life has the potential to be so much better.
SECTIONS in this blog ~
-WHO DA HEY AM I?-
-SO, WHAT'S UP WITH YOU?-
-DEPRESSION: "WHAT IT REEEEALLY IS"-
-ON POSITIVITY AND NEGATIVITY-
-HOW TO TACKLE THIS BEAST-
-HERE IN THE WEST, WE LIKE TO THROW MEDICATION AT OUR PROBLEMS-
-DRUGS ARE SUUUUUUPER BAD MMKAY?-
-DOUBLE RAINBOW MEANS BE HAPPY! LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAAAAAA-
-MORE STUFF TO READ THAT COULD HELP-
As kind of a disclaimer and a rule, please keep in mind before reading this that everyone is different, has had different experiences, and could have different types and levels of depression; but I'm pretty damn well positive that this blog can help defeat all types and intensities of depression. I personally had a very severe kind of depression that came with self-mutilation, suicidal thoughts, and no direct root. Being in such a horrible constant state caused me to relentlessly attempt in a diverse multitude of ways to get over it, and I've been at it for many many years. I've learned so many different things and I even MADE AN ACTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; I believe that I must offer what advice I can, and that I am in a position to do so. It's so important to try to get over depression in as many different ways as possible, even if it takes years. It hurts so much and feels so hopeless. But, you never know what words, said by whom, at what time, are going to make the difference. The words that changed my life took me several months to mold in my mind into something remarkable, and they were said to me by a girl I don't even speak to anymore.
After making a real breakthrough a couple years ago, my depression has come and gone, which is to be expected. One thing that makes depression so excruciating is that it's a wretched addiction. I'll explain more in depth a bit later as to how. One point you need to know starting out, and to keep in mind throughout the process, is that it's like what they say about crack addicts- "once a crackhead, always a crackhead;" you have to MAKE AN EFFORT to maintain your rehabilitated state, at least for the first year or so (UNFORTUNATELY, I know, everyone wants a quick-fix ::sigh::). They also tell attendees at AA meetings that when you are an alcoholic, you may find it in yourself to never drink again but you will ALWAYS be an alcoholic, and just one drink can bring you back into horrible old habits.
Five months after my breakthrough, I backslid, and became depressed again for another couple of months. It happened because I let my guard down and stopped working at it even though I was only 5 months depression-free, and an EXtremely stressful time arrived and cracked my shell. I was graduating with my Bachelor's degree and I realized I had no friends at school to say goodbye to, and too many "what ifs" in the future to look forward to, among many other stresses. However, for those first five months, (and for the past couple years of my life; I wrote this blog at age 22 and I am now 24!!!), I have been consistently genuinely content. If I can do it, you can do it, trust meeeeee.
WHY SHOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG?
Being depressed sucks, but when you try and try to overcome it and you fail and fail and fail, it actually perpetuates and reinforces your feelings of despair and hopelessness. At some point, trying hurts more than just accepting it, and you give up. Once you fall into a day in which you are depressed, that day is pretty much bullshit. And once you have many of those days in a row, that's it. You feel like you're done. Even after just ONE day, you can end up feeling like your personality, your fate, your IDENTITY, is as a depressed human being. I'm here to tell you, as a third party and as a depressed person in a moment of clarity working to perpetuate the clarity both for myself and others, IT'S ABSOLUTELY NOT.
So you've failed again and again. So you've been depressed literally for as long as you can remember. You cannot, I repeat, CANNOT, give up. Why? Because you only live once. Maybe you can't find the energy or the will to try every minute of every day, but in those dormant periods when you aren't even thinking about it and suddenly you have a moment of clarity, grab that intention-to-succeed by the balls and twist.
A little more detail to my disclaimer: I am a Caucasian middle-class female-identifying human who has never been hardcore poor, nor hardcore rich, nor self-proclaimed "normal," nor ANYTHING you might be. I feel androgynous but do not appear that way to others. There are a lot of things I want to be that I am not. A lot of things I want to do but physically cannot do right now. Or possibly ever. I over-analyze every little bullshit thing. I have a lot of other issues that may actually cause but definitely amplify the depression. Regardless, the advice in this blog is my perspective, and it's possible that it will only resonate with people whose experiences are similar to mine. Hence, you might find the things I say completely ridiculous. Or, maybe you can retrofit my suggestions to work in your situation.
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YOU CAN STOP BEING DEPRESSED.
It takes 1* TIME, it takes 2* FOCUS and 3* it takes CONFIDENCE that you CAN. You have to know that it's possible. It is. You are not stuck being depressed. I always thought I was, but managed to hold on to a tiny bit of dormant hope. And that is the only reason that I am as content as I am today.
To beat depression, I’ve found that you must:
WANT to.
UNDERSTAND what depression is.
FIND what works for you.
DO what you have to do.
You want to stop feeling sad all the time? Of course you do! Fuckin A! Now in case you don't already know, please take a few minutes or a few days or weeks to absorb the following information- you CAN stop being depressed.
(This is me, super happy!)
Nobody wants to talk about depression. It is seen by many, even those who suffer from it, as a pathetic and weak mentality. Even the fact that I am writing this blog makes me feel uncomfortable about who I am compared to who I want to be.
As for you, you probably live in the U.S. and even if you’re transient you probably have everything provided for you, more or less, maybe with a little bit of leg work. Maybe you had a horrendous event occur in you life at one point. Maybe several horrendous things. Maybe everything has been handed to you on a silver fucking platter. Doesn't matter; at all in fact. I've known people suffering from terminal illnesses, practically sitting on their deathbeds, continuing to smile and laugh and keep a positive outlook, and I've known people (such as myself) whose lives are full and vibrant who consistently feel like complete shit even in the most positive situations, like a best friend's birthday party. Your mental state, after a long period of time, falls into a pattern of thinking that is more or less separate from your immediate situation. If your brain gets into a habit of thinking negatively, then you become "clinically" (in other words deeply and persistently) depressed. Many intellectuals were deeply depressed. Abraham Lincoln, Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh, John Stuart Mills, and surely many others suffered from depression.
Does the following scenario sound familiar? You’re hangin out, kickin it, not really thinking about much of anything, maybe sitting in a chair surrounded by nice beautiful people, and when you stand up to go across the room you stub your toe. It hurts for a second, and you laugh it off, but suddenly your mind is SPIRALING DOWNWARDS, thinking of all the things that went wrong in that day, then in that year, then in the whole world, then in the whole universe and existence. Finally, to top it all off, you feel SAD BECAUSE YOU FEEL SAD FOR NO REASON.
Well, my love, not only are you not even slightly alone, but your brain is perfectly normal and entirely capable of changing your thinking patterns.
WHO DA HEY AM I?
The second part of the story, the birthday party incident, was the first time I thought to myself “I have a severe problem and I need help.” I didn't really know what depression was at this time. I just knew I was sadder and angrier than most people.
I begged my mom to let me see a psychologist. She was in mamabear-style denial, and told me I was experiencing “your average teenage angst” and wouldn't let me. In seventh grade I was talking to my only middle school friend about how much life sucked and bounced off of her if she, too, ever day-dreamed about dying, and she reported me to the school psychologist. Since then, I’ve seen around 20 therapists and tried over 10 different anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and mood-stabilizing medications.
OHI! My name is Data and I’m not an expert on depression, except by way of experiencing it my entire young life. None of the information in this blog is based on quantitative scientific studies that I performed myself; however I would call this blog a result of a lifelong qualitative study. I also formally studied psychology in high school and college, but the field is huge and highly misunderstood even by professionals and experts. Most of the science-based info comes from discussions I've had with my nearly 20 therapists, supplemented by high school collegiate psychology, college psychology classes, and internet research. This is my first attempt at a zine-blog, so it might not be stellar, but exploring this subject could make the difference between a horrible and a spectacular life for someone. Getting over depression is mega-stupid-levels of important. I’ve done more thinking and social research on this subject than I have on any other subject, so hopefully one of my insights will hit at least one nail's head in your experience.
SO, WHAT’S UP WITH YOU?
Even if you don’t consider yourself depressed, you should read this. Perhaps you consider yourself a bit bipolar. Perhaps you have anger issues. Perhaps you feel perfectly fucking fine more often than not (if you do, I’m jealous). Maybe you’re an alcoholic. Alcoholism is often the result of being depressed and unable to deal with your feelings, or unable to afford medication or whatever. You should still read this. The main thing I want to communicate in this blog is that you can (over time!!!) control the state of your brain. Your mind feels however it is used to feeling, and it's up to you to change that way. It's not going to change itself. You must use your mind to control your mind. Like that old cliche saying, "mind over matter." Cliche but truuuuue.
One of the worst things about being depressed is feeling like (and being correct about the fact that) people who have never suffered from depression do not understand what the fuck it is, how it feels, or how to treat someone who is feeling depressed. What’s more complicated- I’m willing to bet that 99% of people who are depressed could not even answer why, how, or what exactly it is. If the answers to these questions were understandable, it would be a hell of a lot easier to overcome. And there are way, way too many misconceptions about…
WHAT IT REEEEALLY IS
Have you ever been called a Negative Nancy? I have. Many times. It hurts bein called that, and it always made me feel even worse; made me feel like I was a sick child who couldn’t be cured; like “Negative Nancy” was my fucking identity. When I am feeling down, I cannot control it. In fact, I haven't figured that one out yet. No, unfortunately I cannot tell you a magical way to turn a switch and suddenly not be depressed when you are feeling down.
When you are depressed, it takes some mental shimmying to bring yourself out of it, and it is an art that takes practice, and I personally can’t do it consistently. Some people have figured out how to flip that switch through meditation, or saying a solid mantra over and over to bring them out of it (something like "This is just what is happening right now" or "I'm actually totally okay.") I personally have not mastered the art of meditation, but the majority of the most well-adjusted, content people I know meditate regularly. I can and will, however, tell you how you can possibly change your mind over time because I’ve done it.
Many people have strong opinions on what depression is and how to deal with it, while many others don’t give two flying fucks about how depressed people live their lives. To some, depressed people are simply "Negative Nancys" and will always BE Negative Nancys. They don't care because they don't have to care. Meanwhile, people who suffer from depression may have given up at this point to understand it, and given in to being the token goddamned Negative Nancy. Being that person is an excruciating burden and can arguably cause even more suffering than physical pain.
In order to tackle depression, you first need to know what it IS. You may have heard descriptions of depression that are scientifically accurate, or been given explanations that were true for one person, or whatever, but it didn’t help you. Hopefully, my depiction will help turn a light on. Understanding is all about being exposed to a perspective that you can relate to.
The following two statements in bold are the most important things you need to know about what depression is, and how to get over it.
Depression is your brain being ADDICTED/ACCUSTOMED to the CHEMICALS related to negative emotions.
Think of your brain as a muscle. Depression is like MUSCLE-MEMORY. Your brain is USED to those negativity chemicals. You can possibly even feel the addiction if you’ve ever felt a little bit as if you actually like being depressed in some sick way.
When you think over and over of things that are sad, your brain becomes accustomed to making chemicals that make you sad, and you will start to produce them at the drop of a hat after some time. The good news is, you can do the same thing with chemicals that make you happy!!!
To beat the addiction, you need to ween yourself off of negative thoughts and increase your positive thoughts.
You cannot control your emotions directly, but you can control your thoughts which feed or create your emotions. It may seem that some people can in fact control their emotions, but they're actually just really experienced at controlling their thoughts and thus quick about translating thoughts into emotions.
ON NEGATIVITY AND POSITIVITY
Depression comes in the form of many different feelings: sadness, anger, frustration, anxiety, etc. These emotions can be categorized as "negative" emotions because they make you uncomfortable.
So, the goal is to reduce negativity in your life and thus in your brain and increase positivity. Sounds cheesy but hey, you only have one life to live. If cheese works, then embrace the cheese.
Looking back at my journals from middle through high school through college even, I get sad and ask myself now, “Why would I want to remember such horrible things?” My journals are filled with very helpless and depressing images that may or may not even have had anything to do with what was going on in my life at the time. Was it cathartic? Mildly, but obviously it didn’t make the depression, nor whatever issue I was dealing with at the time, go away. I thought at the time they were helping, and it's definitely always a good release to write things down, but specifically when I drew things it actually solidified my depression. And looking back at them just reminds my brain how I felt when I drew these things. The negative emotions easily come flooding back because my brain is addicted.
When I was writing and drawing depressing pictures of blood and death and hopelessness, peoples’ faces with mouths gaping open and eyes rolled back in their heads, I thought it was making me feel better. I do not think that was actually the case. I believe that basking myself in negativity perpetuated negativity in my brain and thus in my life.
Both negativity and positivity are self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling prophecies. I call it "negative actualization" and "positive actualization." You notice this in many facets of your life. When you smile at someone, they smile back. When someone is rude to you, you tend to want to be rude right back.
In the case of mental states, actualization is a very real thing. This is because of the true nature of depression as an addiction to brain chemicals. If you have more positivity in your life, and surround yourself with things that make you happy, then your brain will increasingly create more happy chemicals in a positive feedback loop in the same way it did when you were developing your depression.
Prepare yourself, because the only way you’re going to change is if YOU WANT to, and if you understand that you CAN. You absolutely can! I promise, you don’t have a “depression” gene that necessitates that you will be depressed forever.
The biggest problem with changing your brain from mostly negative to mostly positive is that it takes time - baby steps - and dedication. If you’re the kind of person who needs instant satisfaction, or can’t get through something if you’re not instantly good at it, or hates doing things that can’t be accomplished in large strides, then you're just like me!.. and most people in America for that matter. We're bread to be lazy. Don’t get discouraged by the fact that, when it comes to changing your brain’s behavior, it takes most people a bunch of little changes to get a big result. Also, when you don't notice changes, or when you try and fail, it's tempting to surrender; to say it's just too hard. But you simply must pick yourself up and keep trying. It’s hard to know for sure, but I believe it took me about two months before I felt like my brain was actually very different, although I started noticing changes after about 3 weeks.
HOW TO TACKLE THIS BEAST
Since I first decided that I had a problem, and realized that I wanted to do whatever it took to stop being depressed, I’ve been talking to people about it. Some people hold their problems inside where they stew and boil and are never resolved. Some people are able to walk themselves through their problems in their own heads and figure them out themselves, coming up with satisfactory conclusions without ever opening their mouths. If you're like me, however, you may need to bounce ideas off of someone else to discover solutions to your issues and to understand what's going on in your life.
I would dare to say that most people need someone else to help them, seeing that we are socially dependent animals. We need either a consistent mentor who knows who we are that can ask us hard and creative questions that stimulate our minds to think of things in a different way, and/or someone who just happens to say something in the exact right way at the exact right time that rings a bell and stays with us.
Only by talking to others did I learn about one of the most effective alternatives to medication - mediTation. The art of meditation is a whole ‘nother zine/lifetime of study, however, I would highly recommend learning how to use meditation to help with depression and mental illness. I have been utilizing different techniques to "quiet my mind" and I must say, without a doubt, it's been extremely helpful.
Instead of focusing on one practice such as meditation and sitting down to research all the methods and philosophies behind it (I tried, but got bored easily) I took the route of talking to a lot of people and asking both friends and strangers very awkward questions. In this way, I incorporated a variety of methods and worldviews, coming closer and closer to a solution that would work for me. Example questions:
- Would you consider yourself a happy person? Why or why not?
- What is happiness? In general? To you?
- What makes you happy? (this was my favorite question to ask!)
I will speak to the fact that there is no quick fix to depression towards the end of the zine. For now I just need to make it clear that you have to be willing to put in work, to do things you do not want to do, and to wait a lot of TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME for it work. I would also recommend talking to as many people as possible. That’s what I did.
My exploration intensified when I quit Prozac, which was my favorite of the pills I’d ever taken. I was on it for two years. But I knew for a while that I did not want to be dependent on something external to my own body, something I’d have to spend money on, for the rest of my life, especially something that only made me feel “just okay.”
SO HERE'S THE PINNACLE! After you lay the foundation, by becoming fully committed to overcoming your depression the healthy way and by understanding the cold mechanics of how depression works and what it is, it's time to start the footwork. Specific actions you can take to get over your depression are:
1) Talk to People. If you're shy, then do a lot of reading. However, I'd suggest that you seek out people who are different than you, as different as possible. They probably have discovered many things about life that you never would on your own track. Or, look into books and media that you may never have thought to look into before. There may be a perspective therein that will strike a chord with you.
2) Surround yourself with positive people! People who only lament about this or that probably need to do the same, and surround themselves with positive people as well, and you will probably only bring each other down. Especially people who are not yet good friends, if they are not great friends I would suggest keeping your distance. Not necessarily cutting your losses, unless it’s appropriate to do so, but I would suggest not talking to them as much. Talking to them will bring your brain back into thinking negatively, if you associate them with negativity.
3) Control your thoughts to control your emotions.
This process is two-fold: decrease negative thoughts, and increase positive thoughts.
Decrease negative thoughts:
This one is kinda icky. You have to actually make your mind behave differently than it's used to. When negative thoughts come into your brain, try to write them off. It's extremely difficult to sneak positive chemicals into your brain and to switch your thoughts on a dime when you're brain is being flooded with negative chemicals, especially if you have never done it before. But you need to take baby steps and try to think something else when you're having horrendous negative thoughts, and it WILL become easier each time. The thing is, most of the time, the negative things you are thinking about are either abstract and nebulous, or completely irrelevant, or OUT OF YOUR CONTROL anyways. So tell yourself “that’s silly,” or “fuck it” when you have a random negative thought. Or, try to think through why what you are thinking is irrational, irrevocable, or whatever allows you to stop thinking about it. The point is, you should do what you can to STOP thinking about it. When you are depressed, or ADDICTED, you want to continue thinking about something over and over, even if you don’t actually want to; because it’s comforting; because you’re used to doing so.
Increase positive thoughts:
***YOU MUST DO AS MANY OF THESE AT ONCE AS POSSIBLE!!!*** It doesn't help to do only one at a time. In doing as many of the following suggestions at once as possible, you will feel increasingly good about yourself and who you are, you will be made instantly happy just by doing them, and you will be distracted from negativity.
If you practice having positive thoughts, it will become easier to have them more regularly, and they will replace the negative thoughts that you are used to having. Indeed, practice, as always, makes things easier.
1. Get a JOB.
2. Take up as many HOBBIES as you can handle.
3. LEARN, either on your own or at school.
4. Listen to happy music! - Chill music - trancey music - music with a positive beat - music with a positive message! STOP listening to super depressing music, even if it’s your faaavorite genre. When you listen to angry or sad (negative) music, with angry or sad lyrics, it may give you a semblance of enjoyment at the time, but those are the words that are stuck in your head for the rest of your day, creating negative thoughts which create negative emotions. This is has been supported by MANY scientific studies.
5. Craft your surroundings! Surround yourself with things that make you happy, like
- pictures of your family/friends
- your favorite animals
- your favorite colors
- things your friends made you, or that you made
- comfy chairs and pillows
- smells you love, like incense.
- EXERCISE. Exercise increases your self-esteem, gives you ENERGY, boosts your endorphins, and keeps you busy.
- Get enough SLEEP each night. I would recommend a minimum of 6, and at least one night a week of +8 hours.
- Eat healthy! A lot of time, a specific diet alone will boost or decrease certain chemicals in your brain enough to affect your daily emotions.
- Quit smoking meth. Seriously.
- Quit smoking cigarettes. (Read The Easy Way to Stop Smoking my Allen Carr, TRUST ME, it helped me! LOOK, there's a few chapters to give you a taste on Google Books wowowow!).
- Whatever you can to make yourself feel good- wake up early, wash your face, brush your teeth, wear clothes that make you feel super cute, paint your nails, get a piercing or tattoo, whatever.
7. Give to others! Make crafts for your friends, volunteer your time to non-profits, help out your parents, make food for your household, etc.
8. Put yourself in social situations, and conversely, make sure to get alone time. Several times in my life I was about to go to sleep or not wake up when I had plans to go out because I love sleeping, but when I forced myself to go out I ended up having the best nights of my life. Other times, I have to remember to give myself alone time to appreciate my own company. I have what I like to call “anti-social anxiety,” where I feel anxious when I’m not around people; but reality dictates that I am going to be alone some of the time, if not most of the time, whether I like it or not. By forcing myself to be alone and find ways to enjoy myself, I am happier more of the time.
9. Surround yourself with positive people! Let the negative people go, or at least give yourself space from that. Being around people who are constantly lamenting or bitching, and even talking to them, can create negative emotions in your own brain.
10. LAUGH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Even at stupid shit. Fuck it. Laughing feels fantastic!! Similarly, SMILE. Do it right now- go on, S M IIIII L E. Please? Okay, when you smile, a lot of times it triggers happy chemicals in your brain for some reason. Smiling makes me laugh because I feel silly for smiling a big awkward smile for no reason.
11. Think about your future. Plan stuff. WRITE THINGS DOWN to make them permanent and as reminders. This is where sometimes journaling or drawing can come in handy. I would recommend making an effort to be constructive with one’s illustrations, or throwing out or burning negative journal entries right after creating them, which is difficult, I know. However, destroying what you made could be a healthy exercise in letting things gooooo.
12. Cry; let it out.
Then of course there’s a whole slew of things that involve self-improvement, such as, not caring what people think about you, and becoming independent, and becoming more involved in politics, and learning to meditate, and traveling or experiencing new things, and spending more time with family, etc. The list goes on and on. Practice does make perfect. Always always always.
THE POINT IS.
If you want to stop being depressed, you need to MAKE AN EFFORT to surround yourself with things that make YOU happy and KEEP BUSY. If you’re like me, then you’ve always had the following dilemma: “Self-Improvement?”… “Self-Help?” … that sounds like the cheesiest shit ever. I’m fine just the way I am. I’d rather learn to love myself and all of my imperfections and not give a fuck about anyone who doesn't like it, than change for someone else! My answer to you, my friends, is that you are not changing for anyone else, you are changing for YOURSELF. Because as far as we know, you only have ONE life to live. So make it the best possible. Make yourself the best possible. It sounds ridiculous, I know- why should you have to make an effort to be happy? But I don't know, I think you should just because life feels better when you're happy.
HERE IN THE WEST, WE LIKE TO THROW MEDICATION AT OUR PROBLEMS
America has fucked up a lot of people, hence the over-diagnosis of mental disorders epidemic. This is because:
1... We are so highly individualistic that we always think that we are alone, even in a huge group of people.
2... We are bread to desire financial success rather than to understand ourselves and find true happiness.
3... We desire a quick fix. Everything else comes so easily, like meals in a box and entertainment on a screen, that we want a pill or a book or a lover to just make everything okay. We have so much extra time NOT fighting for survival that we feel unfulfilled, and have a bunch of time to dwell on why we feel unfulfilled and many other relatively insignificant things.
I think everyone in America needs to talk to a therapist. There is really NO harm in it. Only good can come from speaking your mind outloud and getting feedback, and a lot of times you can’t get the right kind of objectivity or depth of exploration with a friend or family member (HOWEVER, of course, if you cannot find or afford a therapist or are steadfastly opposed to the idea, then you should DEFINITELY talk to a friend or family member, or both. The more people you talk to, the better. In addition, it can help to hear from friends or other non-therapist types that other people have gone through similar experiences, and it's helpful no matter who is on the other end of your voice for you to vocalize your thoughts out-loud. Out-loud exploration is the only way I usually ever make breakthroughs). You can tell a therapist exactly what kind of feedback you want or need. If you don’t know what kind you need, they will help you figure it out. Therapists usually have talked to many other people with problems similar to yours, and have had a lot time and training to think about how to fix whatever problem you need to tackle, no matter how big or how small.
The major issue with therapy besides affording it, however, is that you need to find the therapist that works for YOU. The same goes for friends and family. Finding the right person to talk can be a long, discouraging processes, a lot like finding a good spouse. That’s one thing that turns a lot of people off of therapy. Maybe you have had a therapist or five, and you say “they did nothing for me” or worse, that you had terrible experiences. That’s because that person or those people were not what you specifically needed, not because therapy doesn’t work for you or isn’t helpful. Out of the over 20 therapists I’ve personally talked to (most of them school psychologists; I’m not a Ms. Money-Bags), I only really liked one, who was actually a social worker at my high school, and kinda liked another, who in some strange way actually helped me learn things about myself months after I decided I did not like her.
DRUGS ARE SUUUUUUPER BAD MMKAY?
“I’m sad as fuck. I don’t want to be sad anymore. What could possibly help me? It seems like sad is just, WHO I AM. But wait, I’ve heard about anti-depressant medication on television and from others. Maybe that’ll help!”
When I was 13 I practically begged for medication. I said, “I’m so fucked up, I just want to not be miserable anymore. Please, Dr. ___, figure out what’s wrong with me and prescribe me something.” From age 14 to 21 I tried around 10 different medications, from anti-depressants to anti-psychotics to anti-anxiety medications. They say that all anti-depressants and mood-stabilizers and whatnot work in different ways, often on entirely different regions of the brain, but nearly 10 different attempts at pin-pointing my “problem” was a little much. I started out on Zoloft, which was satisfactory for about five months before I decided to try something else. Then I went through, let’s see which I can remember: I’ve tried Welbutrin, Lexapro, Seroquel, Effexor, Cymbalta, and Prozac for sure. I even tried regularly taking 5Htp, a vitamin that’s supposed to balance serotonin levels, for a few months. Prozac was my favorite; I was on it for two years. If you decide to ignore what I’m about to say and go for meds anyways, don’t under any circumstances take Paxil. It’s extremely addictive. The other pills I mentioned, I was on each for one to six months... and none of them worked. Seroqel made me sleep for two days straight. Cymbalta made me have suicidal thoughts which almost resulted in my death. The morning after I attempted suicide, my mother was crying and I had absolutely no emotions except a tinge of fear about having no emotions about the matter. What the fuck.
Not only did none of the pills I tried work for me the way I needed them to, but some of them actually harmed me, as you can see. Starting with Zoloft, these pills often made me feel super numb. Not worse, but never happy either. Just, “whatever.” Feeling “whatever" often made me feel horrible in itself, so I wasn’t “depressed” per se but I sure was sad about being relatively emotionless. Fuck that, I knew I could do better.
Cymbalta is advertised on television. During the long list of “possible side-effects,” it mentions that “suicidal thoughts in teenagers” is one of them. So besides the fact that we’d tried almost all the other possibilities at that point, why did my psychiatrist prescribe me at age 17 this sketchy medication? It may have had something to do with the Cymbalta clocks on the walls, the Cymbalta pens and mouse pads, and maaaaaayy have had a bit to do with the Cymbalta cake I saw in the break room one time. But who knows, I mean really.
FUCK mood-stabilizing medications. Two reasons.
One: They don’t work. They are a crutch, keeping you from actually being happy by giving you a little taste of what not being depressed feels like. They are a layer of whipped icing covering a world of shit. They attack the symptoms, not the issues. They are the “quick-fix” that America loooooves. Anti-depressants work about as well as diet pills.
Two: They are a capitalistic ploy to take your money. It's sick because one of the main reasons you're depressed in the first place, I guarantee you, is because you’re stuck in nation that has mastered the art of capitalism in order to deliver such things to you as a cheeseburger for a dollar. The latter point is indicative of several things: part of the reason you are sad is because you have TIME to be sad. You didn’t have to toil in the fields for that burger. You used that time to sit in your pjs eating peanut butter out of the jar watching depressing thing after depressing thing on tv in the news or on Jersey Shore or whatever, thinking about everything in existence that sucks. Vicious cycles are what make you feel so utterly, irrevocably helpless when you are depressed. - You are depressed because you are depressed for no reason; - Being depressed gets your brain used to making depression-related chemicals which makes it more likely that you will be depressed again; - Anti-depressants are easy-fixes and easy-fixes are what give you time to be depressed. Social facts create situations that create our depression, and many people in the world make their living off of everyone's misery. These people want you to believe that anti-depressants are the only thing that will make you feel better. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry based on lies and vicious cycles and peoples’ pain and misery and confusion and probably causes more suicides than we will ever know. It makes me sick.
I'll give prescription medications ONE thing and one thing only - they can help in the short-term to get you to a place where you are mentally stable enough to tackle the beast on your own. If you are way down in the dumps or completely psychotic, and if you never ever see the sun, not even for a minute, and you absolutely need drugs to even begin to feel motivation to work on getting over your depression on your own, then by all means take them, yes, please. I'm just asking from the bottom of my heart that you don't settle for prescription drugs for the rest of your life, and that you try some of the things in this blog to balance your mood just a little. I just know you can do so much better!!!!!!!!
DOUBLE RAINBOW MEANS BE HAPPY! LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAAAAAA
I’m going to end this post with the END-ALL-BE-ALL of advice when it comes to mental distress:
Breathe.
Quick meditation:
Step one: Feel yourself breathing. Take a good, slow, deep breath.
Step two: Feel the light pressure of your heart beating in your chest.
Step three: Let the space behind your eyeballs melt away into emptiness. If you have a thought, brush it away like a bubble against a feather.
Step four: Realize that we are all made of the same stuff. This moment will pass like all the others.
I hope this blog can help in some way. If you ever need someone to talk to, or if you have something to say about the information presented in this zine, please contact me at datalovesyou@gmail.com and we can exchange phone numbers or whatever.
Be Happy! Smile! Life really is gorgeous and amazing and people love you!
MORE STUFF TO READ THAT COULD HELP
'What Is Wrong with Me?': Deepak Chopra on How to Overcome Negativity
^ This one has stuff that is similar to what you've read on this blog, but from a slightly different perspective and slightly different ideas.
