Many Years: The Story of Depression

For many, many years I suffered with depression. It is like a vicious cycle, that's really hard to break out of. It can leave you feeling drained, unloved - even when you have many people who love you around. I always felt like no one in the world understood. I was lucky enough that I have been blessed with an amazing family who not only put up with me when I was scattered and lost, treating people badly, but continue to love me with the same strength they always have.

Just recently, I suddenly realised that I was happy. When I thought about it, I realised that I had actually turned things around and was loving life, and it made me wonder what I had done to make such an amazing change. Also, how was it that I didn't notice anything was different, besides how I was feeling? So, mainly because I know how dark and lonely depression is, I thought that if I could help one person by figuring things out and writing about it, then it would be my gift. Starting to think about what was happening, I wrote down the things I do now, that are different from the days when I didn't want to get out of bed (I still like to sleep in though).

I hope that even people who are not depressed may get something out of my "10 commandments". I get a bit jaded when I look at how society is at the moment. People with attitudes that someone has to pay because I got hurt (who can I sue...) without taking responsibility or realising that sometime bad things just happen. People want the best but don't want to work for it, the instant gratification without the hard yards. Others think they are allowed to look down on people who do things differently, or have different values. I wish we could all just be a little move loving, accepting and happy with our lives as they are, without always wanting more. Maybe you will read this, and be that one person it helps; I know it has helped me writing it.

Think of people worse off
I have a friend who has a young boy. He is beautiful and happy, a great kid. At 12 months old, he was given 6 months to live. Every day they need to assist him to breathe, they are up every night multiple times. More than once they have had to resuscitate him back to life. Their own child! Yet this child smiles as he tries to breathe, and his parents are great fun to spend time with. Sometimes I see them, and they look so tired, but still smile. They enjoy every day they still have with their son. They don't go on, woe is me. Every time something bad happens to me, I miss out on a job opportunity, a partner leaves or something else that upsets me, I think of them. If you have a role model to look up to, someone who is happy against the odds, and knows how to have fun, you will always be able to say to yourself "what would Freddy do, how would they react". I think about all the times I went on and on about my problems to others, and how much of a drag I must have been to be with. When really, it was nothing compared to what some people have to deal with. LIGHTEN UP, and do it by looking at someone in a grim situation with a smile.

Sort out money problems
Money is probably the most stressful thing we have to deal with in day to day life. It is the main reason couples fight, and is one of the hardest things to talk about, deal with, be honest about. Over the years I wasn't very wise with my money. I lived week to week and thought the world was coming to and end when a big bill came in I knew I didn't the money for. Some weeks I had no food in the cupboard but rice. What I had to do was figure out what my sending habits were, and work WITH them. There is no point trying to become someone you are not, and change habits of a lifetime. Just make it hard to spend bill money. For example, have a savings account that automatically gets debited. As for a budget, I find them a bit hard to keep to and difficult to work out properly. I did a lot of research about how much we should be spending on different things, and this is how I do it, 10% of my wage goes to savings automatically, an online account I don't have a card for. 30% automatically goes to my mortgage. If you don't have a mortgage, take out the rent, and have the balance go to your savings account so one day you can buy a house (if you want one - if not, put it into shares). 30% is for bills which stays in my account and 30% is spending/day to day expenses.(ie. Groceries, petrol, entertainment etc.) I get this out as cash on pay day, and don't get any more till next pay day. That way I know exactly how much I have to play with. A much simpler system than a budget hey?

Look after yourself first
Look out for number One! People hurt you, say nasty things. Your boss may not give you the raise you want, or your friends may not invite you to the movies, for whatever reason. If you want to go to the movies, invite them. If you want more money, get a new job. Don't ever feel obliged, and never give and expect something in return, because people can forget, let you down and be just plain selfish. If you want to give your time, expertise or gifts, do it with the idea that it is never going to be returned. If you can't deal with that, don't do it in the first place. Exercise and eat well so you feel well within yourself, and spoil yourself. If you want a bunch of flowers, don't wait for someone to fill that need, who may not even know what you want. Buy yourself some. Do something decadent like sleep in (get someone to mind the kids for the night), go out with your partner. Have a night in. Take a day off work and get your hair done. Ask for what you want, and don't expect people just to know. Tell your partner - "I want a night off and would like you to take the kids to your mums for dinner tonight", or "could you show me that you appreciate what I do around here with a small gesture or kind word", maybe "I think I deserve a pay rise boss, and these are the reasons why, if we can't work this out I'll need to start looking elsewhere for work". I used to whinge about how someone didn't do this, someone didn't say that. I got passed over by for that new job. Well, "sisters are doing it for themselves!!!" When we whinge, people start to ignore us "oh it's just something else they are whinging about...". They will never give you what you want if they are not even listening. If you never whinge, when you do ask for something, people will sit up and take notice. But your tongue next time you feel like whinging, and think about why you are reacting, what it is that you actually need, and if it is important in the whole scheme of things. Look for ways you are already getting what you want and appreciate them verbally. Everyone is different, you may be getting what you want, just in a different way than you expect. If you think about it, and still think you are not getting what you need, and it is important enough to be an issue (and you haven't been whinging all day about petty things), with a calm statement, clearly ask for what you want. When you start to rely on others to make you happy, you never will be. Stop making excuses why you can't do something for yourself, or don't have time, and be selfish and boot everything out of your life for a bit. People will miss you and you will feel refreshed.

Head talk
Don't sweat the small stuff, I know there is a book with this title. I haven't read it, but I am sure it has some great advice. Recognise that you feel upset and move on. Bite your tongue for a few hours if you need, till you start to feel better. It's best not to make a scene when you are feeling depressed or even angry. Feelings of the moment don't last, and keep telling yourself that, because your actions and reactions last in the minds of the people you take it out on forever. Fake it till you make it, and pretend to be happy till you start to feel that way. Listen to yourself and how you react to situations to give yourself a better knowledge of how you can handle yourself in a bad situation. A lot of what is depression is head talk. The things we are continually say to ourselves. Don't say to yourself that because of "this situation" I will be depressed. I used to think that I had good reasons to be depressed, so it was fair enough. It was a long time before I realised what a cop out that was. If a good friend was drinking themselves in to a stupor every night because their wife had left them, would you say to them, "well that's fair enough, you have reason to feel this way. Feel free to destroy your life because of it". Would you let people talk to your best friend the way you constantly talk to yourself? I remember the days when I used to have nothing but negative thoughts in my head. Doctors told me it was chemical and drugs were the only thing to fix it. So why didn't they fix it? Because I was relying on them to sort out my life, and not on myself. A cop out yes, it took all responsibility off my shoulders to do anything positive to change my life. Counselling was another thing I found never helped, and I think it was because it made me focus on my problems too much. Every week discussing how crap I felt. Catch yourself feeling bad, acknowledge it and keep going. Know you aren't going to feel like this forever, just for now, and maybe hide out for a while. It's okay to be sad about something, not to dwell and get miserable.

List things you love
I love painting, music, gardening, and heaps of other things. Make a list of the things that you love, that boost your mood, and next time you feel bad, choose one of the things and do it. Even if you don't feel like doing it, once you start you will feel better. I am not the best singer in the world, but I love it, so I do it anyway. You don't have to be good to enjoy it, and the more you do something, the better you get. Just have fun practicing, if all the practice makes you good, then you enjoyed yourself, and can be good at it too. When people tell me I can't sing, I don't get upset, I don't care what they think. Because others have told me they love my voice, it's such a personal thing likes and dislikes. And I love it, it makes me feel great. If shopping makes you feel good, but money is an issue, go shopping at a dollar store, where you can buy heaps and not spend much. Music is also great, because it soothes the savage beast as they say. Make up a mixed CD, or playlist on the computer, of songs that pump you up and make you feel great. When you are feeling blue, put it on to do one of your activities. Whatever it is you love, just do it!

Routines
One of the things that really got me down was that I wasn't getting things done. Housework, cooking, even the things I enjoyed doing, or wanted to do for myself. Routine is the best way to actually get things done. Choose one thing at a time, for example making lunches. Slip it into your routine say, after you do the groceries, and do them for a week. If you want to do yoga, slip into your routine an hour each morning, or whatever works for you. You may think that you don't stick to routines, but just think about how you dry yourself in the morning, the order you eat your dinner. Everyone uses routines on some level. What you need to do is find a place in your day that works. You want to start using day cream for your skin so you feel better about your skin, do it before you put on your make-up so you can slip it in without really noticing you are doing anything different, rather than tell yourself, "okay, I HAVE to do this after dinner each night". One at a time, you can make things work on auto, so you don't feel like you are doing anything, but are achieving so much. See how you do things now and focus on making it more routine, then add one thing a week. I never used to get anything done, so bills weren't paid on time, dishes weren't done, the house was messy, and it left my life in disarray the whole time. It's a vicious cycle, because when you are disorganised, it's easy to tell yourself it's because you are no good at anything, and then you feel too depressed to do anything. When I feel like I have let things slip, I give myself an unbreakable deadline. Like when you need to tidy the house, invite someone over for dinner. If you need to get something done at work, organise a meeting with the boss to show them your finished work. Learn what inspires you to get something done, and keep that as a hook to keep your focus.

Surround self with happy positive people
Sometimes when you are with a certain group of people, you feel like being bad because they influence you. Or maybe some people make you feel happy, because they are always happy. People affect us, so choose the effect you want. These are the people you need to spend time with. Some people bring you down, and emotionally drain you. Avoid them. I smile, nod and walk away from these types of people. Where this is really important is at work, because we spend so much time there. If where you work is full of miserable people who hate their lives, find another job. Life is too short to spend most of it with these types of people. Find a job you love doing (we can't love everything all the time, but you have to love it a lot of the time). We spend a lot of time at work, and it has a major influence on our lives, thoughts and feelings. Also, remember that happy people like to be with happy people. If you are high maintenance, miserable and whinging all the time, you may find that happy people don't want you around. Depression can also make you the type of person who overcompensates for their own bad feelings, by putting others down. Constantly being negative about other people makes you a very tiresome person to be with. People will also wonder if you keep saying these things about other people you know, what would you say when they are not around? Not really a way to win friends and influence people. So take the lead of the positive people you surround yourself with. Some people are the way they are because of their time in life. Young children can be trying because they are testing their boundaries, Teenagers have attitude and uni students think they know it all about everything. Young adults still feel like the world is the oyster and can be naive, and older people can be negative, because they are a bit jaded after a lifetime of that not quite happening. This is just where they are at and there is not a lot you can do. I would always gravitate towards other negative people, because it was nice to know others felt the same. But they would drag me down and make me dwell on things my constantly talk to each other about how crap our lives were. It's great to have people at different stages and beliefs, because they can really expand your perspective. Don't write people off, listen, and if you don't agree, just smile and nod.

Solution thinking - Not problem thinking
This is a great tool. Don't dwell on a problem, thinking about how bad it makes you feel, all of the worst case scenarios and whinging about it. Instead of thinking about the problem, think about the solution. If you have a problem, you need to fix it, it's black and white. If it is money, talk to someone who can help. If it is a relationship or job, list the things that need to be altered and work out ways to fix them (remembering you can't change someone, and only yourself and how you react to things). If things about your relationship or job can't be worked out, decide if you can live with them always being there. Jobs and relationships they are very similar in a way, being that it is usually differing personalities that drive how we feel about them. If you can't have something as an issue anymore, or if it is a deal breaker, get out. It's not easy, so don't make decisions lightly, all relationships have their own issues. Even if you meet someone or get a new job and think that it could be what you have been looking for, once the glow wears off, it will be the same with different issues, because we are still the same people. New doesn't mean life from now on is going to be peachy. I think if you can live with the issues and can picture yourself always being able to talk to this person, as a friend and companion, then it is worth figuring out what is going wrong, and where you can learn to react differently for a smoother ride. Some problems can't be fixed, like someone dying who you loved. Work out ways to make yourself feel better about it. Write a story about how wonderful they are, hold on to the good memories you had. Even respect their memory with some kind of act in their name, like volunteering at a charity they loved. Work out how to spin things around so anything bad can have a positive spin. I knew I had a problem that needed to be fixed when they made me feel sick to the stomach when I thought about them. Get rid of that feeling! Black and white, deal or fix.

Act like you would want others to, and how you want to be remembered
You wish people were nicer, more thoughtful, happier. Lead by example. Act like you tell your kids to - don't sulk, share, go outside and play to get rid of some of that energy that's becoming destructive. Do you want your kids to use emotional blackmail to get what they want? Crack the sad's and sulk whenever they don't get their own way? How do you want people to describe you when they are talking about you? "Oh there is this person at work who always brings everybody down with their negative attitude" or "gee this person is great to be around, it makes the day go faster". Treat people like you wanted to be remembered, and do not let people put you down. We can't get rid of all negative people in our lives, so block them out. I used to be one of those negative people. Imagine what others used to say about me. Life's too short to be mad, so don't be too sensitive. Bite your tongue if you need to, you will find that in a short time, you will have something to laugh at. If you are still mad about something petty from 3 hours ago, you won't laugh and the negative feeling will continue to snowball. If you let it go the second it happens, I bet in 3 hours you won't even remember why you needed to bite your tongue. Do you yell at your partner because they always yell at you? Lead by example and start being nicer, even if they aren't yet. Remember it's about breaking a cycle, and you have to start somewhere. The other thing depression can do, is make you react drastically to situations, because you feel like no one is hearing you. Attention seeking behaviour is annoying for everyone around you. They are less likely to hear you, but more likely to want to avoid you. So if you want people to listen to you, listen to them, don't over react to things, and ask for what you want when you figure out what it is you need.

To do list - include learning something new and something fun.
Make a list all the things you always wanted to do/know and start doing them. A to do list is a great way to feel like you have achieved something, and cross things off as you do them. Learn French, go bungy jumping, do an online course. I always found that cleaning the house/or tidying the office a great sense of achievement for little work, and a tidy space laves you feeling more organised and calm. Half an hour sorting things out can have a great impact. I have three to do lists. A daily one, what I want to achieve today. I make it very achievable so I feel like I have achieved for the day. This list is taken from the main to-do list, but broken down into small achievable tasks that I enjoy beings able to cross off so I feel like I am achieving. The main list, is all the things I need to achieve at the current time, like pay those bills, call that plumber, buy that new rubbish bin. The last list is more like a goals list, for the future, things to be done in 6 months, 5 years etc. Going though these lists is a great way to get focus if you start feeling lost. You can use it to refocus and remember where life is heading. They change all the time, but that's okay. To-do list's are not a contract, they are an aid to help you feel more in control. Once you get things out of your head and on paper, you don't have to remember 100 things, and it takes away that feeling of being out of control when you are busy, and lost like you have no direction. One of the things about depression I remember, and that gives me the heads up now that I am starting to slip, is that I don't want to do anything. I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV, or sleep. As soon as I see these signs, I know I have to get up and do something from my to do list. Sitting around is the worst thing you can do. When I start achieving again, I start to pull myself up again. Don't sit around, keep busy when you feel down.

The thing about a vicious cycle is that once you break the cycle, it is amazing how things change. Then it's just a matter of reminding yourself not to slip back into it, a LOT easier than the everyday battle depressed people deal with. So take a leap of faith, toughen up and just do it. The other option is just continuing to put your family and friends through hell. The thing about these people in your life, is that they don't leave you, just continue to put up with being treated like dirt. Would let let others make your loved ones hurt as much as you hurt them? I hope that if you are feeling you are being sucked down, my words can let you know, it can be better!!! Keep it with you always to look at when you need a boost. Save it on your mobile, and know you have it close at hand no matter where you are. You may want to read the whole article, but really focus on one tip at a time, whatever works for you. It is so important to look at what how you are reacting to things and see what works for you. Listen to yourself, and how you function. Go with it, and don't fight against your own personality. You have a choice when you feel depression coming on, to tell yourself "no way, I'm not going back there". It can be hard, and to this day, I still find myself slip every now and then, so I go through the steps again and tell myself that tomorrow I won't feel like this. Emotions only last a short time, unless you let yourself slip. This article won't give you all you need. Follow the advice and then speak to your doctor when you start feeling better. Give your councillor this article and discuss it. And most importantly, accept life for what it is, not what you think it should be. Let go and just enjoy it, have fun for once. Live in the moment, and don't look back at the past with rose coloured glasses. It was never better then, because things are only as good as you make them. So if you want what you remember from days gone by, work out how to get that back, and remember it may not all have been as good as you remember. We tend to forget the bad stuff of the past, and just look at the bad stuff of the present. So work for the life you want now, and most importantly, LAUGH!!!!