Depression - How to get motivation?

[megano28]

Do you feel a bit emotionally numb sometimes? Like you feel stuff should affect you but doesn't?

Yeah I've felt like that lately, my uncle was murdered last month, I saw the way it wrecked my mom and I truly wanted to feel bad, but I couldn't...I felt guilty for not being able mourn, I felt like a monster to be honest

 

[vampiregenocide]

Yeah, man. All the time. I can go days without really feeling anything. I sometimes have to just force a few smiles and keep going.

I've heard meds can do that, that they turn you into a bit of an emotional zombie.

Yeah I've felt like that lately, my uncle was murdered last month, I saw the way it wrecked my mom and I truly wanted to feel bad, but I couldn't...I felt guilty for not being able mourn, I felt like a monster to be honest

I reacted very weirdly when my step father killed himself. Obviously I felt bad but I didn't react how I expected. Then a while later I really started missing him and feeling shit that I nor anyone else helped him. Sometimes grief takes a while to kick in, and you don't quite register what has happened until you go a while without that person in your life. Death is a pretty foreign subject in most people's lives, so when it does come up not everyone reacts in the way you imagine. Don't feel bad about it, because that can really fuck you up. Someone dying is bad enough without bringing even more emotional baggage into it.

 

[megano28]

I reacted very weirdly when my step father killed himself. Obviously I felt bad but I didn't react how I expected. Then a while later I really started missing him and feeling shit that I nor anyone else helped him. Sometimes grief takes a while to kick in, and you don't quite register what has happened until you go a while without that person in your life. Death is a pretty foreign subject in most people's lives, so when it does come up not everyone reacts in the way you imagine. Don't feel bad about it, because that can really fuck you up. Someone dying is bad enough without bringing even more emotional baggage into it.

thanks man, I'll keep that in mind

 

[stryker1800]

I don't know that i have much advice for you, Ive been kinda on an emotional roller coaster going from super happy to super sad since i got out of high school almost 4 years ago.

I really got to agree with the little things in life advice, for me right now its a girl that recently returned to my life, I'll leave out most of the details but originally there wasn't a very strong connection between though we were friend probably due to working together but now that she no longer works with me we have an incredible connection and just the littlest things when we hang out is what makes it special and makes me feel like I'm actually in control of my life.

Whenever I'm down and i know exactly what it is bothering me at that particular time I actually some times either dive into the pool of depression head first and swim for the bottom looking for the drain to empty the pool, or assure myself that it's nothing a just throw it aside looking forward for something brighter generally a friend or something escapist.

 

[SpiritCrusher]

wow this thread is pretty helpful to me... thanks OP and everyone....
definitely gotta agree with the diet/exercise in the morning. when i do that my life is 100x better

 

[Insanity]

For me. It's all about changing up my routine!.
I live up north so up here it's dark ALOT during wintertime and that tends to get me way down. So during the winter I always get myself to bed around ten-ish and wake up around six am. This so that I cant get all the daylight there is.
Also I found that eating healthier food and exercise just get me going all day .
During the summer though I just ride around on my hog and work so I dont really have the time to be depressed then ^^

 

[Grank]

I don't know you but I empathize with your situation completely. I have been diagnosed with a life altering, life changing and life threatening illness. It's called Schizoaffective/Bipolar disorder and I have been through periods of depression that almost claimed my life. I never acted on my feelings and decided to do the act as I made a pact with my Maker and myself never to do so, no matter what. That been said I have made it through a dark Hell and am grateful at this moment I did not.

Your situation is not new to humanity. I am not a professional counselor, doctor or psychiatrist. I'm a professional human and I can say I have lived my life to it's fullest in feeling and thought and mood.

I'm 42 as of this writing to you so that makes me a little wise but I haven't "arrived" yet. Your depression is strong enough to take over your thinking, as mine was years ago. Here are some coping skills that got me through it.

• Nothing lasts forever. This includes Depression
• You cannot change your mood but you can change your thoughts
• No one is more important than you to yourself and well being
• It is okay to give yourself time to do the things you want to do

I'm on SSD in the US which means Social Security Disability. I earn money with no means or requirement to pay back what I get a month. I recently got out of the "I cannot", "I will fail" and "I won't try" game I played with myself for 13 years. I believed myself I was inept of even making a living. This is far from the truth, for anyone.

Reach out to a real friend in person or a family member that cares for you. Talk your feelings out and vent them. Express your frustration to someone you can trust.

Grank

 

[Guitarman700]

Wall of text incoming.
I thought I'd resurrect this thread, although I have no idea if anyone will read it, or why I'm posting on the Internet about this.
My entire life I have struggled with severe depression, and this has led me to be extremely introverted and closed off, if you will. As a result of this, I have never established any meaningful friendships, never had a girlfriend, and generally been labeled a freak and a loner by everyone else. I'm going to be 21 in a few months, and lately I have been hit with crushing sadness and apathy. I feel like I've wasted my best years, I feel alone, and I feel worthless. I have a hard time getting anything done, and I feel on the verge of crying everyday. It may be irrational to feel this way, but I just don't know what to do.
The only reason I'm typing this at all is because I have no idea where to turn. Maybe someone older and wiser, Who has been in a similar situation, can help me. We'll see.

If you read all this, thank you very much.

 

[Justin Bailey]

I'm in a very similar boat. I haven't delt with depression my entire life, though. But when something bad happens I take it much harder than most people I think. I've been having a terrible time with depression the past 6-7 months. And I've gotten to the point now where its just destroying me. If I don't cry in a day I'm just like you, on the verge of tears at some point. I find it hard to get a lot of work done. I don't have any best friend, or really any friend thats super close. I'm so apathetic that I cant even stand myself at times, and I too feel like I've wasted a lot of time... and yet I can't seem to stop wasting more. So, just know you aren't alone in how you feel, man. I know it's not fun.

 

[Guitarman700]

I'm so apathetic that I cant even stand myself at times, and I too feel like I've wasted a lot of time... and yet I can't seem to stop wasting more.

That's exactly how I feel. EXACTLY. It's like I've tried everything too.

 

[Justin Bailey]

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I feel like I've done nearly everything to fix this. I was sober and just doing whatever I could to take my mind off of it, it still got to me. I've been drinking and doing the unhealthy thing, still gets to me. I've tried getting back into the things I loved, and while they distract me for small moments in time, they never last long enough, and in some way whatever I do just ends up reminding me. I feel like I've been beaten. I try so hard, and it feels like it doesn't amount to shit.

 

[yacker]

To Justin Bailey and Guitarman700
I sympathize with both of you. If you haven't yet, definitely read through every post of this thread because there are some real gems in here. If you have...well then maybe you should reread and ask yourself how each bit of advice might apply to you.

I think one of the most important first steps is to be honest with yourself about the thing(s) that are causing your depression. There can definitely be several contributing factors, but sometimes you don't want to be honest with yourself about one or more of them. I went through a time where I was completely depressed. I couldn't get up the motivation to play music anymore....which had always been my main source of happiness for years and I just didn't want to be honest with myself about the contributing factors.

Personally a lot of my issues at that time were caused by a girl and perhaps my prior fuck ups with women in general and feeling worthless because of it all. The moral of the story though, is that when you can be honest about the things that are bothering you (and there may be more then one and perhaps even some you don't realize) then you can start being honest about the steps you need to take to solve your problems.

I talked with my guitar instructor about it at the time, and he had already been suspecting I had been having depression issues, because he had/has them as well and he could see it pretty clearly. He didn't have any answers for how to "cure" me, but it's important to understand that everyone is different and thus each person will have something different that pulls them through it all....it's good to realize that because it can be fucking upsetting when you go to doctors or therapist's and they can't say a thing to help you. So it would have been unfair to expect him to have some answer for me. We are the only ones capable of finding an answer for ourselves, but others can certainly provide support and advice.

Anyway, my instructor seemed to think that this sort of thing was common in musicians....and here I am typing on a musicians forum and seeing all these responses about people who went through similar stuff and I'm starting to believe him. I can't say for certain if this is true for everyone on here, but I feel like musicians or artists generally have this creative itch that needs to be scratched. Some scratch it with writing music, some with learning music, some with painting pictures, the list goes on forever. But I feel like every now and then something comes along that puts a damper on these itches and the scratching that we get used to. Sometimes you have an ex-girlfriend who decides she wants to fuck everything that resembles a penis. That can be depressing and make you feel too depressed to play music and that compounds because you feel worse for not getting anything accomplished...for not scratching that creative itch. Perhaps this also lets down your band mates and they ditch you because of it and that further compounds the problem. To clarify, I'm not saying ex-girlfriends and shitty band mates are the only source of depression, I'm just listing an example......my example.

Anyway, there are a lot of good examples of how to pull yourself back out of the hole. A lot of them are listed in this thread. One person mentioned taking up something new, something you can get better at. That's really an excellent piece of advice that I put to use but never put 2 and 2 together to realize that's why it helped. Some activities just require too much thought or are too comfortable for you already. If you take up a new one that's unfamiliar you spend less time sulking inside your head about external things going on. Sometimes if you're feeling just too miserable to do even that activity, video games are good for taking you to a different place then being stuck inside your mind. Having a job that allows you to experience a sense of accomplishment or to have social interactions and to laugh on occasion is also a great help. A job certainly helps in general because if all you do is sit and play video games or do drugs you eventually start to subconsciously feel like you're adding nothing to society.....for most of us, it's part of our cultural upbringing.

I know this has gotten a bit long, so I'll close on one thing. I saw at one point in the thread where it was said that you can do things to distract yourself from your depression but that doesn't solve the problem itself. This is true, but sometimes you really just need that bit of shelter to keep yourself out of the shitty weather in your head. So long as you can make steps to scratch that creative itch in some way (assuming that's something necessary to you), or to keep yourself from feeling like you are adding nothing to society, there's absolutely no reason why you can't spend a decent bit of time distracting yourself from the storm in your head until the clouds clear and the weather starts to look up again. Spend time with friends, do things that make you laugh, do anything in the world you can think of that will make you appreciate the good things in life. Eat some Delicious food....do whatever you can find to make you appreciate the good parts of this world, the parts you take for granted, and you will move forward.

Good luck guys

 

[leandroab]

I'm unfortunately sharing the same feelings as you. A frustrated love life gave me the extra mile to think about the "fuck you life" approach...

Suddenly I was only living to study, eat, and sleep. No motivation whatsoever.

I'm gonna tell you, working out definitely gave me a lot of confidence back. I was skinny with a ginormous beer belly. I gained muscle and lost 40% lol of that treacherous belly. And with more confidence you improve you social life exponentially.

But the key for me to kinda leave this depression state was to go back to my friends and seek aid with them. And I mean your REAL friends. Living alone with a 92 year old grandpa doesn't help at all the "I'm all alone in dis bitch" thought. So living with your friends for a couple of weeks would definitely help..

 

[VBCheeseGrater]

Life is a game, specifically an RPG. When you are depressed, you are bored or don't like how things are going.

Solution: Level up. Get a hobby that you can get better at. I'm not talking photography, you already kick ass at that. Get something you find mildly interesting but have no idea how to do.

Examples:
Keyboards
jogging
working out
underwater basketweaving
writing a novel
configuring a linux box

Get anything that you can IMPROVE on. Once you can put forth effort and SEE results, you'll start to feel self worth again.

/2p

This is really good advice! I've seen studies on this (watching PBS, discovery, whatever) that shows that learning is one of the keys to happiness. People that are constantly trying to get better at something tend to be happy, and there is scientific fact behind it.

But yeah i've been there my life has had its ups and downs, mostly caused by me. Talking about it is good, taking action is better. There are support groups out there too where you can be around people in person that have gone through the same thing - always help to see you're not really that unique - we are all just trying to make it through the day! Perspective is a huge factor. Good luck. PM me anytime.

 

[linqua]

you shouldnt be ego boosting. you should be ego killing. your ego wants to be great and to be very good at alot of things, and unfortunately this isnt the reality for most of us. you want something you cannot have/be/attain, and thats what is a big part of depression.

find something to do. find multiple hobbies. youre not good enough, practice. no one got anywhere without practice. find something you like doing, that produces a result you can feel good about. strive to become good at something, or just a better person in general. the point is do something to keep your mind occupied. sometimes at work, i need to organize something or clean or sweep something, strangely, i find this theraputic. you are keeping occupied. it might not work for you like it does me, but i sort of have like a touch of ocd at times, and organizing stuff and keeping the edges straight etc comforts me.

if you are not passionate about life, then you should be getting out and doing something, while not being all pessimistic about actually doing so, and finding something that you like and are passionate about. you dont need to be "good" at anything, just find something that makes you feel good, and something you want to do. essentially, find something to live for. long story short, ive gone through bouts of depression and many existential crisis and mental breakdowns and things, and i myself have come a long way since i was 16 or 17. i am just 21, just turned in december. so dont think you are too young, or too old for something. age is just how long youve been here for, not where you should be mentally. i honestly feel like i never went through any sort of superficial typical high school phase or kiddish depression. my worries were always about much bigger things than all that shit, like i said, existential crisis and etc. im in a much better place now, but these things still get at me at times. one thing youll learn, is that no matter where you are, there will always be sadness sometimes. but it is necessary. anyway, getting a bit back to my point, like i said ive come a long way myself, and for one, i am extremely extremely passionate about music far and above anything else. i am passionate about music, and life, and living and experiencing etc. sometimes i simply sit there and think about how crazy it is that were all here, and i look around, and no matter how lame my surroundings are at the given moment, i am wowed that its all here, and that i am not in a place of poverty or something like that, and that i am able to enjoy life without too many problems. sometimes i just sit and think about all this shit, and how great living is, and how great music is, or something along those lines and i am brought to tears by the beauty of life.

anyway, that was alot bigger than i thought it would be. but, depression can be debilitating i know, but its alot simpler to overcome than you think. it always seems more intense while youre in, but after youre out, it seems like nothing. just find something to help you get out. find something that is seemingly impossible, and find the motivation to do it.

one last thing, dont be a bitch/pussy. im not trying to insult you. i tell this to myself all the time. you are a man. dont sit and sulk or any bullshit like that. you want something? go fucking get it. you can get very weak in depression, and thats one good trick to help. its actually helped me alot in the past.

 

[Justin Bailey]

Stumbled on this thread again. How are some of you guys doing with your depression? I hope better.

 

[Burgess]

Hi vampire,
Some tips for you to deal with depression.
Do start some light exercise like yoga, eat a well balanced diet and increase water intake. Share your problems with your family and pals and avoid caffeine, alcohol and other stimulants. If you do not eat well take multivitamin regularly.

 

[Justin Bailey]

Thank god, I'm not gonna kill myself anymore, you saved my life

 

[linqua]

XD

 

[Justin Bailey]

I know it's kind of mean, but as someone who has been... sick for a long time I can't tell you how disgusted I've become when I hear shit like that from people, I know they're just trying to help, but it's so insulting to us, it's like they don't understand the scale at which things are in our minds. They don't understand the doom. Most people's understanding of depression is being bummed out for a little while, and that's far from what it is. Depression is nothingness. Nothing works, nothing helps, nothing you do is right, nothing anyone else does is right. Not a single thing gives you joy and you have no hope. Every moment in your head is this up and down, back and forth, neurotic pattern of thought thats constantly trying to figure out what to do and is constantly coming up with no answers, and it feeds your self hate, and it feeds your hopelessness. Every moment ends with thoughts of ending it. If you pass a certain point you become obsessed with death, suicide is a constant thought and the only logical option.

At least that's how it feels to me. But I'll start drinking more water and taking vitamins.