Mental Health

user you're right. My ex was very depressive. She'd literally start crying and call me because she had a dream where I was mean to her. It was total bullshit. She kept going to therapists but it never helped. She wanted someone else to fix her.
True relief from depression comes from within. There are mental ailments and physical ailments. Physical ailments can be fixed with physical changes. And I believe mental ailments can be fixed with mental changes as well.
I'd bet a life coach would probably help you more than a therapist.

I paid $120 to see a therapist and he told me to "just b positive!"
And the sad part is that's the truth and it's the most they can do for you without meds
If you're depressed you probably just have a defeatist attitude because of what has happened to you and you can't break that cycle because there's no one around to validate you
Or you're a generally terrible person and you deserve to feel like shit, but if you're here it shows you want to learn and better yourself so you're probably not

This is the truth. As a man, you have no inherent value to society. Your problems are your own. Nobody cares about your problems, especially women, who instinctively seek out strong protectors. How's she going to see you as a real man if you're being a little bitch about "muh fee fees"?

entirely too many idiots are posting in this thread. If you see a therapist, odds are, they will be using cognitive behavioral therapy. That will without a doubt include identifying and eliminating your cognitive distortions. Look at this list. Think about it throughout your everyday. Find the areas where you are shit talking yourself, or setting yourself up to fail, and fix it. If anything on the list resonates with you. go to a therapist.

psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/

I have struggled with depression as well. You are correct in thinking that some people are just naturally more depressive. Happiness and depression have significant genetic links, and unfortunately if you are depressed now, depression will likely be something you will have to struggle with to some degree for the rest of your life. People often have the mistaken impression that depression is something you simply shrug off once, when in reality those who were depressed in the past are the most susceptible to future bouts of depression.

If you want to cure your depression, the first and most important step is to genuinely want to improve. No therapist or antidepressants or herbal nostrum will do shit if you are not first willing to make the active effort to improve. From first-hand experience, I know that even this initial step can be difficult. A life without depression can feel unimaginable. This is especially true for those who have been more or less depressed since childhood. It is key to recognize the danger of negative thinking, particularly the way in which it incestuously feeds upon itself in a vicious cycle. Those who are depressed love to wallow in their own self-pity and negativity, and doing so can almost feel intoxicating - a martyrish pleasure. You must avoid this.

The idea behind antidepressants is that when somebody is depressed, there are physically observable chemical changes to the brain. The purpose of the antidepressants is to try to restore a "normal" chemical makeup. Whether you want to take antidepressants is up to you to decide, and I am sure there is plenty of literature you can find for both sides of the argument online.

cont.

Whether talking to a therapist is beneficial depends largely on how independently introspective you are. The more self-reflective you normally are, particularly about your own personal experiences, the less useful you will likely find the therapist. Quite literally, a lot of what talking to a therapist entails is you describing the reasons you feel depressed, and the therapist just writing notes on what you say and giving a few comments here and there. The idea is that for many people this is the first time they really introspectively explore their own thoughts, and they do so by bouncing their ideas off of the therapist who serves as the general "other". Although it might sound a bit ridiculous, for most people the very process of talking to another person is therapeutic and self-revelatory. You can accomplish this to a lesser degree, and for free, by simply keeping a journal. A close friend, family member, or significant other can serve this function too if you are comfortable revealing personal information to them. It is important that all they do is listen though, and not try to give advice or help. The simple process of talking is what matters the most. A therapist also provides some sense of companionshp and intimacy, which may or may not be desirable to you (if you can get over how the relationshp is "paid for" and professional). Again though, the therapist does not do shit if you do not actually want to improve.

The general meme recommendations for curing depression really do work, assuming you genuinely want to recover: eat healthily, exercise, sleep healthy amounts, write a journal, get sunlight, etc.

As an aside, be wary of therapists who seem inclined to try to fix your problems or reinterpret your experiences in accordance to some sort of likely leftist ideology. The field of pscyhology is hardly settled, and there are lot of differing opinons on how to treat depression, but personally I think this type of active intervention approach usually does not meaningfully solve anything. The cure for depression comes from within. Therapists can help facilitate this experience, but they will not be the foundational causes of it.

I noticed something about me.
I was always a kind of a sad person on the inside. Great potential, but could never focus and I would always feel empty inside. It felt like there was something missing.
Everything went away in the moment that I met my former gf. I kid you not, all my pain went away and I became the most productive and happiest person in the world. I went flying through the semester in uni and passing everything like it was a piece of cake.
Everything crumbled when she ended the relationship and now I'm back to my old self. Struggling to regain the focus and the energy that I had for the year I was with her.

Tl;dr? I noticed my mental health is directly linked with being with someone else and that's what's holding me back. Now I just need to learn how to let go and stop caring about having someone by my side.

she wants to leave you without you killing yourself.

OP Listen.

>NEET Hikimori 2+ years
>started getting suicidal but not like ima go hang myself, more like I wont bother trying in life and in 5 years ill just kill myself.

>I been to therapists and shit because didnt leave house in years.

>never take pills for exact reason you said plus I thought since my lifes shit depression is motivation
>Get so depressed sometimes I just sleep as much as I can as in do nothing but sleep for days
>Decided I would take pills but then I decided no I will get fit for my mental health

>Im getting fit now, IDK if I should take pills but I want to try fittness because like you said man.

>DISCLAIMER: other suicidal people should probably take pills im just risking it with fitness

Not really, speaking from experience here, antidepressants wont cure anything, only delay things.

For me, antidepressants just made me numb. I felt hollow. True, it evened out some my real low points. But it also cut off the highs. I had to stop.

It's all in your brain, friend. And you are the master of your emotions.
This may seem like some bullshit but just imagine someone you care about said it to you and someday you will think: "that motherfucker on Veeky Forums was right".

That's what it does for a while, but eventually they stop working and your doctor will tell you to up the dose, which you then get used to, reach the max dose, get a prescription for new antidepressants, and then this whole thing repeats.

90% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. And yet the common advice here is ‘willpower rowrow fight the powar’.

Get your prebiotics and probiotics sorted. Stop eating sugar. Google ‘gut dysbiosis’.

>get continually told i need a life coach because i'm not outgoing or focussed on money and work
>be worthless artist living on 50 bucks a week after bills
>be ok with it
>get hassled by people to get a gf/job/debt/property
>recieve name of life coach
>nah, fuck that
>life coach actually commits suicide
Appreciate input and advice from people around you, but evaluate it.
The real miracle is when people aren't depressed or anxious.
A down mind can sicken the body, an ill body can bring down the mind.
I'm no expert on anything, but i just keep bobbing along like a cork on an ocean others drown in, getting free learn-to-swim lessons from people.

>muh fee fees
>vote for Trump
>because he's 'tough' and 'strong' and doesn't care about other's 'fee-fees'
>actually be this fucken simple
>never get help from anyone, due to myth of heroic individual
>die of heart attack in mid 50s because myth is total fiction made up by psychos
>self medicate with alcohol until then because 'muh fee-fees' are eating me up inside
lol you suck at life

thank you friend

...

>I don’t want to try to be someone I’m not

What good is an identity if it’s making you miserable? Try being someone else and see how it works out before you knock it. It might turn out you can get a better hand if you draw again.

>this is horribly incorrect and inaccurate advice.

actually, she's pretty on-point

anyone here ever try microdosing psilocybin mushrooms for mental health gains?

Do you have a job? Do you enjoy it?
How educated are you?
Do you have friends?
How is your relationship going?
Do you have any long term goals?

First round of a few questions to get to know your situation better

>some people are just naturally more depressive.
Some people are more neurotic, being the tendency to experience negative emotions.
In the past, they used to have societal frames which helped catch them, help them cope and put their life in order. They had bigger families, tight communities, and churches.
They didn't have the training for it but with enough effort and people they could have helped.
While therapy certainly feels gay as shit, it could certainly help. Remember that there are about 100 years of research into it by now. Some forms of therapy fit some types of people more than others, so I'm going to assume you're a typical male and tell you to look for CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy).
While I think antidepressants are over prescribed, there are people who could benefit for them. They could be useful in helping you getting out of a bad rut while you're putting your life in order, but everything in perspective.
When your car breaks down you take it to a mechanic, but you wouldn't do the same for yourself?
Take good care of yourself user.

So, in that same vein of self-examination. There's a book called "How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use", that looks at depression from a different angle. Basically, if you were trying to maximize your own misery, how would you do so? It's an interesting way to look at depression.
One question he asks right at the beginning of the book is that really helped me was:
>I’d like you to imagine for a moment that we go outside and grab the next twelve people who pass by this building. We’re going to give them your life. Your sleep schedule. Your level of exercise. Your diet. Your amount of social contact. We’ll give them your job, your boss, your home, your family, your financial situation—everything. Twenty-four hours a day, we’ll have them live exactly the way you’ve been living recently. After a month we’ll come back and see how they’re doing. How do you think they’d be?
It really helped me think about what active changes I could make in my life to improve my mood. Because it's a bit of a chicken and egg question: does a shitty lifestyle breed misery, or does misery breed a shitty lifestyle?

>26, kissless virgin, no friends since age 12
>a loser in every since of the word you can think of
>no motivation for anything in my fucking life, time speeds by and i dont care
>interactions with people are terrible, i can easily make people laugh but find very little funny myself
>in general act kinda rude/mean to people to joke/tease around with because i think its funny but cant stop myself because thats what a life of solitude and misery leaves me with
>fear what anyone would say about my interactions with people, theyd probably call me the most autistic person on the planet
>never have "feels" about being a permavirgin friendless loser
>probably have some kind of severe depression but dont bother ever even seeing a therapist once about it, i just dont care about anything including my own life

Who could be behind this post?

let me guess...
the jews? the democrats? the globalist liberal soros-funded illuminati? the devil-worshipping pizza-raping children? a pharmaceutical rep? hillary shillary the killary clinton herself?

OP responding.
>Do you have a job? Do you enjoy it?
I'm a sophomore in college and I wait tables part time at a restaurant. I don't like either of them but know I have to get through this part of life to get somewhere better.
>How educated are you?
In terms of how educated I am, I could be far more educated if I wanted to be. I've been slacking so hard on readings and assignments because school just feels so ridiculously pointless at this point.
>Do you have friends?
No real ones in the city I live in, though certainly not from a lack of trying. There's only so much "putting yourself out there" you can do before you just kind of give up on people and try to be content with being alone.
>How is your relationship going?
It's going really well, though it's not even official yet. She's leaving for an internship in two months and I don't know what's going to happen then, or even if we'll be together by the time she leaves.
>Do you have any long term goals?
I want to be a journalist for a good newspaper or magazine and live in a city somewhere.

I've seen a few people go through therapy and prescription medication for depression and/or anxiety, and years later, they're either the same or worse.

Just accept your condition and try to improve your life and perspective. You're a man, and a man deals with his problems alone. No one else can do that for you. Going to therapy or taking drugs is essentially just giving up and hiding the symptoms rather then dealing with the actual root issue.