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Yup same here. Clinical depression in high school, meds, therapy, suicide watch the whole shebang. Fun times, can’t remember two years of my life. So far the o

by Swizec 9y ago

Yup same here. Clinical depression in high school, meds, therapy, suicide watch the whole shebang. Fun times, can’t remember two years of my life. So far the only thing that’s actually worked has been staying busy/productive/creative, good nutrition, exercise etc. Everyone always tells me I’m an insensitive dick when i suggest getting off their ass and doing stuff to treat their depression. But fuck it, that shit works. Yes it’s hard to get started and your depression makes it even harder, but that is literally irrelevant, you gotta do it anyway. And yes dear downvoters, I will never stop saying this: Changing your lifestyle to treat depression works. If enduring your downvotes helps me get the message to at least 1 person, worth it. And to the common criticism that "Oh you just had teenage depression that doesn't count". The scars all over my body that I get to look at for the rest of my life disagree with your "just".

DanBC 9y ago
> But fuck it, that shit works for you -- you have no idea whether it'll work for anyone else. Since depression is a potentially fatal illness, and you appear not to have any training in psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, medicine, pharmacology, you should maybe recognise your limits. > Changing your lifestyle to treat depression works Only for some people. you have no idea how many people it does work for, and you have no idea how many people it doesn't work for, so you might want to avoid judging people who don't take your advice.
- jbob2000 9y ago
  The medical community calls what you're doing "terminal uniqueness" and I've noticed that this is very prevalent with people who suffer from depression: "Those therapies won't work on me, I am different, I need a special treatment". Sleep, eat well, keep active. Nothing about that advice is dangerous. But it is hard to do if you aren't in the habit of doing it. (I know what you're going to say next, "but chemicals in the brain!" What do you think sleeping, healthy dieting, and keeping active are trying to fix?)
  - pgeorgi 9y ago
    > Sleep, eat well, keep active. Nothing about that advice is dangerous except if the response to "I tried, but it doesn't work for me" is "your depression makes it even harder, but that is literally irrelevant". Your parent post didn't leave enough room for "try something else, but don't forget these once you're fit enough".
    - Swizec 9y ago
      > except if the response to "I tried, but it doesn't work for me" is "your depression makes it even harder, but that is literally irrelevant" In my experience dealing with depressed people, me included, there’s a huge spectrum in what “tried” means. Doing it once won’t help much. Forcing yourself to consistently do it every day for 2 years? Now we’re talking. If after 2 years of doing things that are known to up your spirits in at least some segment of the population every day you still don’t see absolutely any results, then you get to say it doesn’t work. After all, you wouldn’t expect antidepressants to work unless you take them every day. If you’re on meds and some days you feel like taking them and others you don’t, and you actually follow that schedule. Do you expect those meds to work? It’s not the trying and it not working that doesn’t matter. It’s the not feeling like doing things that doesn’t matter. Gotta do it anyway. Whether it's exercise, taking meds, or going to therapy. If you don't do it, it can't help.
      - eradicatethots 9y ago
        So did you try Rust for two years before deciding it didn’t help you? Your position on these things is across the board absurd >if you’re on meds ... Have you considered that the people in this thread saying it doesn’t work aren’t just saying “it’s hard”? 67% of college kids are suffering acute anxiety, is 67% of the college populations only problem a lack of excercise? Your insistence on these things is frustrating and obnoxious. The people who called you insensitive have very good cause, I hope that doesn’t make you proud. Also, is discipline even a good thing? Do you think cave men said “well I have to hunt 5 hours a day...”? Probably not, or we wouldn’t have agriculture. Discipline seems like a substitute for ludditetism. Also! Advice like this live and die by how hard they are to follow. If your advice is so hard to follow for te depressed that they won’t do it, it’s much harder to be proven wrong. Sorry to rant but this advice is upsetting to me.
- peteretep 9y ago
  Thank you for writing that. I was sleeping, exercising, eating well, just fine. My life was in order. Starting to take an SSRI literally just switched off my mental illness.
- collyw 9y ago
  A quick search on pubmed shows plenty of positive results. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21495519/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21495519/
  - DanBC 9y ago
    And a quick search of Cochrane shows that when you look at good quality research the benefits of exercise are hard to find. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. [...] > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. [...] > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.
    - collyw 9y ago
      Authors' conclusions: Exercise is moderately more effective than a control intervention for reducing symptoms of depression, but analysis of methodologically robust trials only shows a smaller effect in favour of exercise. When compared to psychological or pharmacological therapies, exercise appears to be no more effective, though this conclusion is based on a few small trials.
ThrowawayP 9y ago
> Changing your lifestyle to treat depression works. I did (and am still doing) all of those lifestyle changes and it didn't help me in the slightest. So much for that theory. Not that people shouldn't try lifestyle changes but they are not the magic cure-all you're selling them as.
- Swizec 9y ago
  That’s awesome! Keep at it. It takes a few years. And as other have pointed out, depression isn’t super curable, it’s more like going in remission. I liken it to addiction as well. Stop doing the things that keep it at bay? Boom there it is, comes right back. Just like an addict makes an active decision every day to not do their thing, so too must I actively do things that keep the depression away. No magic, just hard work,
  - cflewis 9y ago
    Dude, screw you. Seriously. The biggest screw up we all make about mental health is the assumption that the thing that works for one person is the thing that works for another. I would have hoped that someone who has been through treatment would understand that, but here you are spouting the "get your life in order and it'll all be dandy, it worked for me!" crap that's so unhelpful in the first place to people with mental illness. Everyone is different with this stuff. Everyone needs different treatment. You are not a mental health professional. Do not say shit like this and not expect to be called on it.
    - Swizec 9y ago
      > "get your life in order and it'll all be dandy, it worked for me!" No it won’t all be dandy. But it helps. Or at least it’s what I’ve seen help the most people I know who are or have been depressed. At the end of the day, the main thing to do is to not give in to depression. That thing wants you to sit on the couch and feel sorry for yourself. That’s like one of the main symptoms. Fighting that urge helps make it go away eventually. I mean, shit, even the super-OP, Zach whose post we're commenting on, said that he had to keep taking meds and going to therapy for a few months before he saw results. Do you think doing it just once then saying "Fuck this shit, this doesn't work for me, therapy doesn't work. I tried it and it did nothing". Do you think that would've worked?
jacalata 9y ago
And if you're doing all this and still depressed, there's no solution and you should kill yourself. That's how I read advice like yours when I was a college athlete. Fortunately, instead of walking in front of a bus I went to a doctor and got antidepressants, which helped tremendously.
- psyc 9y ago
  Advice to seek professional help has exactly the same effect for people like me, for whom it makes things much worse. From my point of view it’s just the “safe” advice to give in public, because it has the argument from authority going for it. People with major depression want to kill ourselves anyway. I don’t really see any style of tempered advice as being harmful in itself. What’s really harmful is socially pressuring anybody to stick to any approach they find to be harmful for themselves.
  - zolthrowaway 9y ago
    I 100% do not mean to point this at you in particular. I do not know your situation. But, in a general sense, a lot of the reason for the pressure is because these thing take time. There is no magic cure. Going to a mental health professional requires time to see results. It also requires being with the right person. Medication won't instantly make you feel better (for longer than the short term), it requires the correct dosage, correct type, etc. The "working out, eating right, plenty of sleep" method may show results but it also takes a lot of time and persistence to see those results. I am not saying that any of these solutions will work for everyone. I am just saying that any of these solutions takes trial and error. Some people go see a therapist once, don't make a connection, and declare that it doesn't work for them. It will take time. It is a process. Again, everyone is different and need to find what works for them, but whatever it is, they need to stick with it. I know it can be overbearing, but it comes from a place of compassion and concern. No one who cares about you wants to see you depressed. How would you prefer that they approach it?
    - psyc 9y ago
      In my case, time and patience could not have been the problem, except in the unprovable Russell's Teapot sense. And that is the problem. I'd prefer that people did not place unwarranted high confidence in the medical model, such that after seeing 20 therapist, and trying 20 medications that all made you sick or did nothing, people were still saying, "But maybe the next one will work."
jansho 9y ago
Yes it’s insensitive the way you put it, but being in motion is crucial. Don’t aim to “change lifestyle”, instead focus on doing very small things. When I had chronic depression, making my bed was a big thing. If you trip over again, nevermind, do another small thing like washing the cup you’ve just drank from. Or getting out of bed. But whatever action it is, pretend that you’re a robot and focus your consciousness to the task. Nothing else, because you’re a robot. It might take a long time to build up but the hardest part really is the first part. Hope this helps someone :)
taco_emoji 9y ago
I don't think suggesting lifestyle changes to treat depression makes you an insensitive dick, but I do think implying that it works for every depressed person does.
eradicatethots 9y ago
And what do you say to people who have actually tried it and feel no better? Just try it more? And if that’s what you say, it seems you don’t hold this belief based on the fact that it works, but something unrelated entirely, and so I’d say it’s not useful to share it with me or anyone else.

by Swizec 9y ago

DanBC 9y ago

> But fuck it, that shit works for you -- you have no idea whether it'll work for anyone else. Since depression is a potentially fatal illness, and you appear not to have any training in psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, medicine, pharmacology, you should maybe recognise your limits. > Changing your lifestyle to treat depression works Only for some people. you have no idea how many people it does work for, and you have no idea how many people it doesn't work for, so you might want to avoid judging people who don't take your advice.

jbob2000 9y ago
The medical community calls what you're doing "terminal uniqueness" and I've noticed that this is very prevalent with people who suffer from depression: "Those therapies won't work on me, I am different, I need a special treatment". Sleep, eat well, keep active. Nothing about that advice is dangerous. But it is hard to do if you aren't in the habit of doing it. (I know what you're going to say next, "but chemicals in the brain!" What do you think sleeping, healthy dieting, and keeping active are trying to fix?)
- pgeorgi 9y ago
  > Sleep, eat well, keep active. Nothing about that advice is dangerous except if the response to "I tried, but it doesn't work for me" is "your depression makes it even harder, but that is literally irrelevant". Your parent post didn't leave enough room for "try something else, but don't forget these once you're fit enough".
  - Swizec 9y ago
    > except if the response to "I tried, but it doesn't work for me" is "your depression makes it even harder, but that is literally irrelevant" In my experience dealing with depressed people, me included, there’s a huge spectrum in what “tried” means. Doing it once won’t help much. Forcing yourself to consistently do it every day for 2 years? Now we’re talking. If after 2 years of doing things that are known to up your spirits in at least some segment of the population every day you still don’t see absolutely any results, then you get to say it doesn’t work. After all, you wouldn’t expect antidepressants to work unless you take them every day. If you’re on meds and some days you feel like taking them and others you don’t, and you actually follow that schedule. Do you expect those meds to work? It’s not the trying and it not working that doesn’t matter. It’s the not feeling like doing things that doesn’t matter. Gotta do it anyway. Whether it's exercise, taking meds, or going to therapy. If you don't do it, it can't help.
    - eradicatethots 9y ago
      So did you try Rust for two years before deciding it didn’t help you? Your position on these things is across the board absurd >if you’re on meds ... Have you considered that the people in this thread saying it doesn’t work aren’t just saying “it’s hard”? 67% of college kids are suffering acute anxiety, is 67% of the college populations only problem a lack of excercise? Your insistence on these things is frustrating and obnoxious. The people who called you insensitive have very good cause, I hope that doesn’t make you proud. Also, is discipline even a good thing? Do you think cave men said “well I have to hunt 5 hours a day...”? Probably not, or we wouldn’t have agriculture. Discipline seems like a substitute for ludditetism. Also! Advice like this live and die by how hard they are to follow. If your advice is so hard to follow for te depressed that they won’t do it, it’s much harder to be proven wrong. Sorry to rant but this advice is upsetting to me.
peteretep 9y ago
Thank you for writing that. I was sleeping, exercising, eating well, just fine. My life was in order. Starting to take an SSRI literally just switched off my mental illness.
collyw 9y ago
A quick search on pubmed shows plenty of positive results. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21495519/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21495519/
- DanBC 9y ago
  And a quick search of Cochrane shows that when you look at good quality research the benefits of exercise are hard to find. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. [...] > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. [...] > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.
  - collyw 9y ago
    Authors' conclusions: Exercise is moderately more effective than a control intervention for reducing symptoms of depression, but analysis of methodologically robust trials only shows a smaller effect in favour of exercise. When compared to psychological or pharmacological therapies, exercise appears to be no more effective, though this conclusion is based on a few small trials.

ThrowawayP 9y ago

> Changing your lifestyle to treat depression works. I did (and am still doing) all of those lifestyle changes and it didn't help me in the slightest. So much for that theory. Not that people shouldn't try lifestyle changes but they are not the magic cure-all you're selling them as.

Swizec 9y ago
That’s awesome! Keep at it. It takes a few years. And as other have pointed out, depression isn’t super curable, it’s more like going in remission. I liken it to addiction as well. Stop doing the things that keep it at bay? Boom there it is, comes right back. Just like an addict makes an active decision every day to not do their thing, so too must I actively do things that keep the depression away. No magic, just hard work,
- cflewis 9y ago
  Dude, screw you. Seriously. The biggest screw up we all make about mental health is the assumption that the thing that works for one person is the thing that works for another. I would have hoped that someone who has been through treatment would understand that, but here you are spouting the "get your life in order and it'll all be dandy, it worked for me!" crap that's so unhelpful in the first place to people with mental illness. Everyone is different with this stuff. Everyone needs different treatment. You are not a mental health professional. Do not say shit like this and not expect to be called on it.
  - Swizec 9y ago
    > "get your life in order and it'll all be dandy, it worked for me!" No it won’t all be dandy. But it helps. Or at least it’s what I’ve seen help the most people I know who are or have been depressed. At the end of the day, the main thing to do is to not give in to depression. That thing wants you to sit on the couch and feel sorry for yourself. That’s like one of the main symptoms. Fighting that urge helps make it go away eventually. I mean, shit, even the super-OP, Zach whose post we're commenting on, said that he had to keep taking meds and going to therapy for a few months before he saw results. Do you think doing it just once then saying "Fuck this shit, this doesn't work for me, therapy doesn't work. I tried it and it did nothing". Do you think that would've worked?

jacalata 9y ago

And if you're doing all this and still depressed, there's no solution and you should kill yourself. That's how I read advice like yours when I was a college athlete. Fortunately, instead of walking in front of a bus I went to a doctor and got antidepressants, which helped tremendously.

psyc 9y ago
Advice to seek professional help has exactly the same effect for people like me, for whom it makes things much worse. From my point of view it’s just the “safe” advice to give in public, because it has the argument from authority going for it. People with major depression want to kill ourselves anyway. I don’t really see any style of tempered advice as being harmful in itself. What’s really harmful is socially pressuring anybody to stick to any approach they find to be harmful for themselves.
- zolthrowaway 9y ago
  I 100% do not mean to point this at you in particular. I do not know your situation. But, in a general sense, a lot of the reason for the pressure is because these thing take time. There is no magic cure. Going to a mental health professional requires time to see results. It also requires being with the right person. Medication won't instantly make you feel better (for longer than the short term), it requires the correct dosage, correct type, etc. The "working out, eating right, plenty of sleep" method may show results but it also takes a lot of time and persistence to see those results. I am not saying that any of these solutions will work for everyone. I am just saying that any of these solutions takes trial and error. Some people go see a therapist once, don't make a connection, and declare that it doesn't work for them. It will take time. It is a process. Again, everyone is different and need to find what works for them, but whatever it is, they need to stick with it. I know it can be overbearing, but it comes from a place of compassion and concern. No one who cares about you wants to see you depressed. How would you prefer that they approach it?
  - psyc 9y ago
    In my case, time and patience could not have been the problem, except in the unprovable Russell's Teapot sense. And that is the problem. I'd prefer that people did not place unwarranted high confidence in the medical model, such that after seeing 20 therapist, and trying 20 medications that all made you sick or did nothing, people were still saying, "But maybe the next one will work."

jansho 9y ago

Yes it’s insensitive the way you put it, but being in motion is crucial. Don’t aim to “change lifestyle”, instead focus on doing very small things. When I had chronic depression, making my bed was a big thing. If you trip over again, nevermind, do another small thing like washing the cup you’ve just drank from. Or getting out of bed. But whatever action it is, pretend that you’re a robot and focus your consciousness to the task. Nothing else, because you’re a robot. It might take a long time to build up but the hardest part really is the first part. Hope this helps someone :)

taco_emoji 9y ago

I don't think suggesting lifestyle changes to treat depression makes you an insensitive dick, but I do think implying that it works for every depressed person does.

eradicatethots 9y ago

And what do you say to people who have actually tried it and feel no better? Just try it more? And if that’s what you say, it seems you don’t hold this belief based on the fact that it works, but something unrelated entirely, and so I’d say it’s not useful to share it with me or anyone else.