Any former depressed/severely unmotivated people here who changed for the better?

any former depressed/severely unmotivated people here who changed for the better?

how'd you do it?

i'm 19 and i'm currently just waking up and waiting for the day to end

I went to a psychiatrist who prescribed me Wellbutrin. That shit works. Then I got a job. Then I got a better job.

>Inb4 I get accused of shilling psychotropic drugs.

People are going to act like you should just either reason yourself out of depression or 'start eating right and exercising' which is all fine and good, but it takes willpower you don't have right now. That's where antidepressants come in: an antidepressant is to depression what aspirin is to headaches. Go treat the symptom first so you can treat the underlying disorder.

depression is 90% of times diet related. and in obese people almost all have it.

quit dairy products and start eating less meat that's about it. rice and noodles like japs

Doesn't Japan have a super high suicide rate though

I'm 19 as well and I stopped moping around like I truly believed there was no direction in my life until I was offered an opportunity in a network marketing business, and until then, I couldn't see myself being successful in the future, constantly tied down to corporate jobs, just barely making it to the next paycheck. I know have a team of close friends who I happen to also work with as well as my new sense of purpose in the world; to leave a legacy by helping as many people as I can. But that's just me. Maybe you just need to find the right opportunity for you.

They don't really have therapists and the work and school culture and ethics are generally soul crushing and unrewarding.

yes, those japs work 15 hours a day and if you get fired it's a shame for your whole family so better commit harakiri

Sure thing OP, 23 year old here, turned my life around.

Wait, no I didn't. I'm just slowly whittling away at a YouTube channel and business ideas and gradually learning that the world is not only unfair, it will deliberately sabotage any endeavor you may try to find success.

All I can say is "good luck" because ultimately, luck is the single deciding factor. All other efforts, connections, knowledge, skills, work ethic, salesmanship... Everything that goes into working toward success must pass through one final hurdle before you can actually experience that success. That final hurdle is luck. Without it, it doesn't matter who you are, what you created, who you know, where you live, or how much money you have. You will fail, if you are not lucky.

Just happened yesterday.
I'm 21, living in Italy, and there are no real possibility of finding a decent work without a degree.
Loafed around for 2 years until i got my shit togheter, i stopped worrying about the distant future and start to focus on the near one.

Try jiu-jitsu user.

Once you get the basics, sparring is one of the best forms of therapy there is.

When you're rolling with someone who is trying to choke you out, there is nothing else on your mind and you can live in the moment.

On top of the self-confidence in knowing you can handle yourself, you also get introduced to alot of businessman believe it or not. Great networking.

Dont listen to this inbred retard OP.

>networking without a job

You literally can't network unless you HAVE a job.

Even if you don't smell of desperation, the second you reveal you're "exploring opportunities," it's basically the same as the scam line of "are you open to an investment opportunity?"

Take some vitamin d, start working out, and fix your fucking diet.

I said yes to everything. Started little life projects, even if I seriously feared fucking up. Realized life is way easier than I feared. Got the excitement to do things back. Started doing some sports. Got my masters degree that I had been failing for years. Got a second masters degree the year after. Got a job. Got a girlfriend.

I basically got out of that negative spiral. You have to do one big, kind of terrifying push to get out of it, but it's worth it.

This fucking book helped me quite a bit. The title is awful. It's a book about cognitive behavioral therapy for treating depression.

Dont be a vagina. Fucking damn. Go get some friends
>thinking depression is real and you're blaming "disease" instead of yourself you lazy fuck

meme drug lmao

Only if you're not good at talking to people

There you go OP. Exercise, diet, and habitual self-improvement are all you need.

I stopped masturbating/watching porn completely and started doing BJJ martial art classes to get some exercise in.

Started to feel better about myself and it's only been just over a week.

You don't, and this thread is filled with con artists selling you on false hope or bootstraps theology. You're 19. If you grow out of it, you grow out of it. If you decline further, you decline further. Point is you're still growing so avoid suggestions to take dubious medicines/supplements, read credulous self-help books by credulous authors pushing credulous hypotheses, and conspiracy theories by "special" posters who in reality have tons of problems they've not figured out for themselves.

I was a depressed alcoholic there for a while. What helped me the most was faking it. I pretended to be a normal person who enjoyed life and was having fun and eventually was a mostly normal person who enjoys life and is mostly having fun.

That shit may never fully leave you. But it's worth fighting.

Dont stop bjj. World champion reporting in here. Best decision ever

>learn what neet means at age 14
>oh no im le leech
>turn 16
>got driving incense :DDD
>part time job! money! :DDDD
>edgy memes arent relatable anymore ;((
no burden!!!!!!!!!!!

Source on your bullshit please?

>19

Get the fuck out of here.

Is this ironic? ISHYGDDT

coffee sunlight and exercise

Diet and exercise help but clearly aren't the answer to the source of your depression. What will happen is that you will slowly commit, slowly improve, and slowly decline. You gotta build yourself from the ground up and that means settling whatever is the matter with you.

Talk to a therapist/preacher/someonewhoactuallygivesafuckaboutyouandnotfuckinganonymouspeopleontheinternetlikefucking4chanofallplaces

I'm 27 years old, probably went depressed around 23 and even then I was never really happy with myself. College Dropout from a For Profit Art school, slept all day and drank/smoked/fuckedbackpagehoes until I got my shit together. Lost 80lbs, got two jobs, financing my first car, living in my one bedroom apartment with no furniture and I'm still not "right". In the end I truly believe depression is a part of life, like death and shit. Learning to live with it and carrying it is actually okay, so long as you have room to carry other more positive things too.

are there any people that are actually not depressed? The ones who aren't braindead normies that is...Outside, everyone is a miserable wageslave, bordering on insanity. On the internet, everyone seems to be depressed. I spent my whole life like this, and there's nowhere to go, it's just a descent to insanity...I'm sad.

25 now. At 19 I was at my first year at college and dove headfirst into escapism through drugs and video games. This shirking of responsibility led to crippling depression.

For years I struggled alone.

I began to turn it around when I realized I had no choice but to finish my degree and get a job.

A few factors contributed to this realization. For example I discovered that if you don't have a degree, you only have access to shit tier jobs. I spent time working in some of these shit tier jobs. I saw a vision of myself doing this forever. A vision of hell.

I've seen others who took the wrong path e.g. dropped out, or graduate with shit grades in meme degrees. Their lives are hell. Working at call centers while living at their parents houses. Hanging out with loser friends who have unwanted kids.

My shit's pretty much sorted now. But for years I did nothing but waste money on weed which I smoked alone in my room. I smoked myself into oblivion daily because I felt like such a loser. Pathetic. Vicious cycle.

I've glossed over a lot of it.

It might be that you won't realize that you could have changed until it's too late.

You have no fucking idea how sad you will be, if you don't change.

One way of triggering this realization can be psychedelic drugs e.g. mushrooms, lsd. They can affect a permanent personality change. But they could also make your depression worse, or you might freak out during the trip.

it's funny how you only do stuff because you have to...that's depressing in itself. I'm kinda different since I never had anything to do with people in the first place, but yes, I agree, life eventually becomes suffering because of being a slave to instincts...it's certainly better to end up dead than living a shitty life. don't become like me and change your shitty life or die, it's the only viable choice.

i spent 1/4 of my life in school hatng life, 2/4 thinking about depression and suicide, and imagining anime and games, and 1% actually playing games and watching anime in a cramped apartment, surrounded by people I hate...what a wild ride life is, yes?

You don't actually need to finish a (good) degree to be successful in life. It's really just abut developing a set of skills which you can obtain through university or other means.

Wished I live in Italy senpai, beautiful beaches, gorgeous women, amazing food. As long as you find a decent way to make decent amount of money, you're sorted.

The only thing that should make a person feel content is being alive. Everything else is bells and whistles. It's very important to not have a life characterized by stress.

If I could live quietly, working 20 hours a week, I'll consider myself to be extremely successful. Not so if I'm working 80 hours a week but very stressed out (I don't react well to that amount of anxiety).

...

What are those skills? From?
Where I'm from you won't get a good job without a degree. You need a degree for almost all jobs (Europe)

Well, you don't have to tell me. From a very young age I realized how hellish working would be, so I dropped out and went the other way completely. Still, to live without compromises you have to be a very strong person, very unlike me.

Personally I was working 25hrs a week at kmart, browsing /r9k/ and wanted to actually kill myself.

First step was realizing I am a bitch and not going to actually kill myself and about two months after that I realized that I was wasting my time and that is really really short in reality.

I went out and got a better full-time job, took some design classes, started a freelance business, started renting a studio art space, got another gig working a well known painter while keeping the other two gigs. Saved 10k, got a GF, moved in with her, fucked off to Europe for a little over a month and now that I am back I saved 10k again in a couple of months and keep taking better and better gigs.

It's really a snowball effect. I remember telling people that I was faking it when I first started "going for it" but really quickly it becomes reality and you become it. The quickest way out of the depression was to fill all of my time doing things.

how do i get a 40+ hour factory job im 18 and near city and never get out but would get out for 450+ a week

Start applying to positions at companies in your area.

You cant get a license until you're 18 here user, and i was 21 by the way.
>>part time job!
yes! :DDD
>>money! :DDDD
no! :DDD
>>edgy memes arent relatable anymore ;((
oh nooo! ;((
>no burden!!!!!!!!!!!
now why would you imply such a thing user?

If you are inclined to depression you will always have your ups and downs. The trick is learning what brings you back up, and what pulls you down. That's going to be different for every single person, there isn't a magic pill.

What I can say is to just try new things and see if they help. I can give you a list a tell you how much they have helped me, but it's going to be different than your experience.

Here's some ideas and my personal ratings for how they helped me, I suggest you try as many as you want and see how they help out. Ratings are how much they helped me, 1 being it helped a little, 5 being it helped an average amount, 10 being it helped an amazing amount.

>Nofap (Noporn included)

One of the first things I have tried. I'm assuming you are male. After 7 days your testosterone spikes which is very helped for motivated and self confidence. Dopamine levels can reset (not sure on the science here, but personal experience is strong).

7/10

>No internet, no media

I would change this up a lot. Limiting it to no media of a certain type, or everything at once. It's very useful if you want to get into reading books but your brain is retarded from surfing the internet all day (this is an actual thing, the brain rewires itself to process information fast and skim and skip, making it hard to read). Helps dopamine levels.

6/10

>Meds

Tried these while I was younger, helped me not get anxious but did not like the control it took away. Others have great success.

5/10

>Attachment focused counseling

The guy was very nice, but it was a little heady for my taste ;) But sincerely it is too much theory and navel gazing. Still, very helpful.

7/10

>Existential counseling

The old dude who helped me here is a fucking badass, a living embodiment of existentialism. 80 something years old, climbs mountains, flies ultralights.

a vegan diet does wonders for your mental health

A short story about this guy to color him in: while my dad and grandpa tried to figure out how to cut down a tree, the 80 year old climbed it and started hacking off the top parts.

Talked down a bear face to face, fell off a mountain and staggered back bleeding. There's tons of this.

Anyway, boy does this style of counseling help. It pumps the life back into you.

But honestly, it's difficult to take on the responsibility of your own life, especially if you are having a hard time at the moment. It's hard to have satori when you just need a hug.

8/10

>Hanging out with friends, going outside, eating healthy, sleeping 8-9 hours every night, getting enough sunshine and vitamin d, cardio and weightlifting regularly

This is pretty much your bread and butter. This almost always breaks you from depression and keeps you away from it.

The hard part is that when you are depressed, it's hard to make yourself do them. Just remember that you are not depression, you are experiencing depression. Don't create an identity with depression.

8/10

Last thought, there's been a shift in society from letting people experience sorrow to clinicalizing it into depression. Sorrow and sadness is healthy, let your body go through it.

Post-industrialization we are working more than we ever have. There was a study that came out recently that we worked like 4-6 hours, something nuts like that, while working pre-industry.

Part of our misery is that we have to spend the vast majority of our lives working, even if we are healthy do to advances in medicine, and even if we are entertained with advances in technology.

One thing that I think about is that there are tons of rich people that don't have to work for the rest of their life but choose to. It's hilarious and maddening. It's like they approach the worker's life as some sort of silly game.

However, right now, there is shit that you can do to escape it at least somewhat. It takes a radical approach to life and I don't know if it is even worth it in the end.

osu

Guess I'm just a lucky guy then :)

I joined a marketing community that costs money despite not having a job because I have literally nothing else to lose. I'm just building a website and hope it eventually ranks.

>it's funny how you only do stuff because you have to...that's depressing in itself.
>Post-industrialization we are working more than we ever have.

This is the harsh reality. Only a crazy person would be content with this. 50+ hour work weeks, worked to death by either too much or too little physical activity depending on your (((status))).
I've accepted that I'll never be happy like this. My only solace is knowing there's a way out and dank memes to pass the time, really laughter is the best medicine, it is not dissimilar to crying though.

As far as motivation, everything I do is driven by hate and fear. And I would guess this is true of everyone. Quit doing drugs and that hate and fear will materialize into somewhat positive accomplishments.

Easiest cleanest way is to read the right self help books op. Most people I know who are successful read from time to time.

Not every reader is a leader but every leader was a reader.

I really like your comparison of laughter and crying. It makes sense because we can laugh till we start crying, and cry until we start laughing. Honestly never thought about it like that before.

I really don't think these unhappy lives are the best humanity can do.

Anyway some simple tips that don't take much work:

Find people who are better than you, you will learn from simply being around them and you will improve without even noticing.

Find your passion. This one is tough because you have to search but you will find it if you look long enough. Everyone has something don't think you are a special snowflake you just haven't looked enough. Sadly most people actually never find their passion because they are afraid to. Don't be like them op you gotta get out and look.

Take it slow, step by step is the way to go. Don't think you need to change your entire life over night, I have no idea why people do this. Just change one small easy thing bit by bit.

>I really don't think these unhappy lives are the best humanity can do.

And we do it all for arbitrary currency...

i agree with the other user, it's mostly dietary / chemical. start with making sure you're eating nutritious food and your body is actually digesting it properly. From there just continuously google your symptoms and try different supplements, dietary changes, nootropics etc until you find things that work. The most helpful things i found were dirt-cheap supplements of shit i was probably deficient in.

Self-help also works. Try several until you find one that speaks to you. The key is something that teaches how to forcibly intercept and challenge negative thoughts, learning to see things objectively, force yourself to believe in the possibility of good outcomes etc. You have to will yourself out of it but you may not be able to do that if your chemistry is off.

I'm 20, trying to pull myself out of the pit of despair.

One of my setbacks is not being able to decide what I want to pursue skill/career-wise. I feel there are so many different jobs that interest me but they all have different paths to get there. What worries me is going down the wrong path to something I don't enjoy or I'm not good at, then I lose motivation but I'm committed.
I've thought of careers like merchant marine because I enjoy the water and could travel, or go to college and try to go for a job that'll get me into the city and I could cycle commute, or a trade like machining or something.

I guess my question is, how did you guys decide what kind of life/career you wanted to work towards?

I have no real skills right now, I just do retail and odd-jobs for family and really need to get away from them for a while, it's not doing me good.

Lots of good advice in this thread.

Wow. not OP but this is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks so much dude. I'm like a couple chapters in and I'm so pumped and I wanted to come back here and thank you.

Yes, I was afraid I was gonna be a permavirgin, then I went back to college, did really well.
But I'm a NEET again, and you want to know why?

20 minutes in: youtube.com/watch?v=_0Hhnh4XyzU
I LOST... MY... MOMENTUM.

>What helped me the most was faking it. I pretended to be a normal person who enjoyed life and was having fun and eventually was a mostly normal person who enjoys life and is mostly having fun.
This is actually pretty good advice, remember: you're allowed to be happy, even for just a moment.

I call bullshit, dangerously underweight here, not even anorexic. In fact I love to cook, but I usually only have two meals a day because of laziness. Which itself might be a depression symptom

Always been this build, depressed and not. In fact I was probably happiest when I was on the most junkfood.

>gradually learning that the world is not only unfair, it will deliberately sabotage any endeavor you may try to find success.
OW! that truth cuts deep!

>>Hanging out with friends, going outside
Doesn't work for me. i go out, (usually drink too) sometimes I stay over at friends houses. so like 30 hours of intense socialization, go home, feel depressed as fuck.
>Live out in the middle of suburbia, no friends within 40 minutes
I'm addicted to people!
>What worries me is going down the wrong path to something I don't enjoy or I'm not good at, then I lose motivation but I'm committed.
Aww dude, this use to be me!!!
I now realize that I would have almost rather have gone down the wrong path as long as I felt I was progressing down it, making my own money etc.

Having a good circle of friends that know about my depression really helps. I find if you hide/bottle it up, you would just spiral out of control.

Depression for me comes in phases, and I know when I'm there. Once I'm there, I try to do something productive everyday, to say that I'm a better person today than yesterday. It's small, but it's enough for me to say I'm self improving and digging myself out of this depression hole.

Regardless, if I'm gonna die, I want to die with money

5 years ago I was neet and like you, I'd just get up, waste all my time on meaningless shit and wait for the next day to come.

The biggest game changer for me was getting into lifting, following a routine and sticking to it. It gave structure to my days, made me feel better and less down about myself and gave me something to look forward to getting out of bed for.

Used the momentum to get out of neetdum and helped me to become a much more productive person.

Drink a bottle of water when you go to sleep
Then you'll have a reason to wake up

are any of you afraid of going mad? since my life is a downward spiral i'm afraid i'll have a nervous breakdown or become schizophrenic, and i felt close many times.

I had some weird things so I thought I was pychotic or developing schizophrenia so I went to a psychologist and she said I didn't have it which made me more relaxed. you should talk with a therapist before thinking you're becoming schizophrenic because it can be you worrying about things but ofc could also be so srsly talk with a professional

I got outside alot more. Dont get me wrong, i still shitposted on Veeky Forums, but I bought a simple laptop and sit outside in the sun while doing so. Quite a few folks suffer from vitamin D deficiency in this age of service-based desk jobs, one symptom of which is depression.

After I did this, I wound up opening a business on the side. Now I run a pretty solid enterprise

ofc im afraid of going mad, but i think if u dont do drugs and some illegal shit , u cant get shizophrenia past certain age

I can confirm
Was diagnosed with schizophrenia a long time ago and I did not realize it myself, at all, until it got really bad. Real schizophrenia comes with real hallucinations.
The mockery was far worse than the illness itself though. It did the most long-term damage.

Ive been dealing with this, and been actively trying to improve it last week or so I've really made improvements. The biggest thing is changing your outlook on things. When you entertain depressive thoughts all day , thats what your brain gives back to you. If you stay positive mentally , thats what your brain will give back to you. Its all about controlling your brain and not let your brain control you. Yea you can't really help what thoughts enter your brain, but you CAN control how long you entertain them. For instance - depressive thought comes in - my life sucks, ill always be shit, nothing will ever change, where did i go wrong, what is wrong with me and on and on and on. The longer you keep entertaining it, the more thats naturally what your brains new thoughts will keep on being. if you try and stay interested in things, they dont even have to be productive. but just be genuinely interested in something, for example the stock market, or making money online. whats up today, why is it going up, what should i be doing to make money , how can i go about it. and keep entertaining productive thoughts like that, then thats what kind of thoughts you will be your majority, with time and practise.

its all about using your brain as a tool and muscle. you get out what you put in.

its very helpful to start becoming more aware of your own thoughts and why you are thinking that, and if they are helping you or not. at least this has helped me. still got a long way to go.

another thing that helped me is reading books. but not just reading books, its how you read them. focus on keeping your mind focus'd on the book and trying to understand everything with as much detail as possible. also focus on any time you find your mind wandering, immediately bring your focus back to the book. do this for an hour straight and you will find you are able to keep focus'd and have less intrusive depressive thoughts throughout whatever you are doing.

I've been depressed for years now. I stated college when I was 18. I went to community college and was there for 3 years. I went from a business Admin major to a marketing major to finally an accounting major. I was at the community college for 3 years and then I finally transferred to a 4 year school. I've been at this school for 2 years now and I still have no idea on what I want to do in life. I hate my major and I really can't see myself doing this major in the future.

I dropped/failed a whole lot of classes, which is why I'm so behind. I work at a restaurant where I make decent tips, but its not enough for me to make a good living. I/m 23 now I still have no idea on what I want to do in life. I feel so fucking lost.

A lot of my friends I went to high school with are now finishing their degrees, getting married, having kids, buying homes and new cars. And it just make me feel so fucking behind in life. My depression has gotten worse because of it.

I went to therapy, took drugs and booze and non of that shit worked.

>stopped looking at naked women
>started grappling sweaty men
>happiness goes up

I think I know why you were depressed, user.

I got on anti-depressants which got rid of my depression but didn't actually give me motivation to achieve anything in life.

So now instead of being a depressed neet with no future I'm just a moderately dissatisfied neet with no future.

>the world is not only unfair, it will deliberately sabotage any endeavor you may try to find success

That's patently untrue. The world doesn't give a flying fuck whether you live, die, sleep in the gutter or sleep on a mattress full of banknotes with two 10/10 prostitutes each side of you.

If failure equals disaster for you then this simply means you didn't include sufficient contingencies in your plan, or you were shooting for something unrealistic. You have to break down your plans into hundreds of baby steps, each one so mind-numbingly easy that you're almost guaranteed success. Taking a wild punt at something and then impotently shaking your fists at the cosmos when you fuck up is no way to do it. Strategize, plan, idiot-proof your plans, have a plan B, C, fuck, have a plan Z, because the cosmos works on random chance to an alarming degree, but concentrated, intelligent persistence WILL beat the odds.

Thank you, user

I met a girl named Lucy and she showed me the sky. I don't think I'll ever see her again, nor do I want to, but she made me take responsibility for being a complete fuck.

Getting a sliding genio in 2 weeks will help me with my confidence. Also thing about some orbital inplants desu. I will be a 6 / 10 psl and finally stop being a neet who rota 24/7 apart from surgeon consultations.

>sliding genio
how much did you pay?

>be me
>19
>tried 2 different uni courses
>didn't like both
>spend half a year wageslaving
>realise that I cant go on for this forever
>go back to TAFE (aka trades school)
>study IT
Now I have the hope for finding a job and such once I did this semester

>little to no friends
>start hanging out a lot with chinese wisdom friend
>talk a lot realise I am likeable
>ask girl from work
>says yes
>confidenceboost.jpeg
>continue talking to co workers and such and have a decently sized friend group for advise support

I don't know that you just had to stop giving a shit of what comes out of your mouth to gain friends.

Now I am 20 and motivated so you are just going through a dry spill in your life.

I'm on a daily dose of 150mg or some shit of wellbutfin and i still feel like shit

What's better, to have a decent-paying job, but therefore slave or to be self-employed with the potential of reaching adequate wealth?