I went off of medication because I couldn’t afford it, but I’ve learned to cope with my depression so effectively that I don’t need meds anymore. Everyone that I have told about my depression in the past few years has been shocked by it because I am almost always cheerful and happy. Overall, I rate my happiness level as high but I am working on ways of bringing it even higher.
I suffer from Severe Depressions with other stuff mixed in. It’s genetic, which made it very hard for me to deal with originally. You trust your mind to tell you how things are, so when I felt sad, I thought I was sad. I allowed my feelings to take control of me instead of taking control of them. I’ve since learned that depression, for some people anyway, is caused by the right, emotional side of the brain being hyperactive while the left side of the brain is dormant. I recently read the case of a woman whose left hand would randomly fly up and try to strangle her. At first, all her doctors thought she was crazy, but a famous doctor theorized that the right side of her brain was out of control of the left side because of a damaged corpus callosum. After she died, he found that her brain was damaged (I think because of a minor stroke) in the way he had predicted.
Whenever I feel a depressive attack coming on, I try to stimulate the left side of my brain by thinking logically instead of emotionally. I ignore my hyperactive right side which keeps sending me “danger” signals and focus using logic. For example, after my computer broke last week, I lost my cell phone. A few years ago, I would have gone into a panic and let my negative emotions overwhelm me. I started to think about how I would not be able to contact some of my friends since I only had their phone numbers which were listed in the phone but I quickly stopped that train of thought. Instead, I retraced my steps in my head and focused on finding my cell phone. I used my left side to plan my actions and tried to keep my emotions out of it as much as possible. The emotion I did allow myself to feel was the intense rush of happiness after I found it. I also focused only on the positive after the event. Yes, I lost my cell phone, but I was able to find it rather quickly and it reminded me of the importance of backing up my phone numbers. I don’t focus on the missing minutes spent looking for it, how bad I would feel if I hadn’t been able to find it, the cost of replacing it, etc. If I hadn’t been able to find it, then I would’ve tried to focus on the benefits of being able to get a much better phone instead of the misery of its loss. A recent thing that I’ve started to do to increase my level of happiness is to write down 3 positive things that happened each day at the end of the day or the next morning. I wrote down “found my cellphone” for that day. A few days later I lost my cellphone again. Before, I would’ve been very angry at myself and would’ve kept telling myself how stupid I was. This time, I looked upon it with amusement and when I wrote down “found my cellphone, again!” that night, I chuckled. I praised myself for the logic that I used to find my cellphone both times it went missing.
I also ignore my desire to remain alone or go to sleep when I am depressed. Instead, I force myself to go out with my friends or do positive things. When I screw up, I don’t focus on the mistakes I made (which is very hard for me to do). Another thing that I have learned is to nip problems in the bud before they spiral out of hand. For example, I used to feel too tired to go to school, so I’d miss a day of class and then I’d feel bad about missing the class, so I never would go again. This time, I don’t allow myself to miss it in the first place. If I must miss it, then I email the professor immediately and do the work to make up for that missed day as soon as possible.
I always try to remember, you can’t change the actions of others, just your reaction to their actions. You can also apply that to the circumstances of your life. Yeah, I’d rather that my computer wasn’t broken, but because it broke, I have been able to do things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. I might’ve lost all my photos, music, files, etc. I don’t focus on that possible loss though, just have hope that I can retrieve it. If I do lose everything, then I will focus on the fact that it will be a very valuable learning experience. I will never fail to back up my computer ever again, no matter the outcome.
At first I was afraid of repressing negative emotions. I’ve heard that if you continuously repress your emotions, you will be both mentally and physically unhealthy. Because of this, when I encounter major upsets, I allow myself to feel angry, sad, etc. But, I only do it for a limited time. I will be insanely sad and/or angry for a short while before I start doing my logical feelings. I find that by allowing myself to feel so strongly during those short times, those feelings go away on their own. Now, sometimes the intense anger or sadness will lead to intense happiness without any logic on my part because my brain is so used to happiness coming after anger or sadness. This isn’t to say that I don’t have to work on it still, just that it’s much easier to get back to my level of happiness. I used to feel a lot of latent anger, but by allowing myself to get very angry for short bursts, I no longer feel that way.
Another thing that has helped a lot is learning that I am hypoglycemic. I no longer feel as tired as I did before which means I am able to accomplish more throughout the day so I have more things to feel happy about and more reasons to be proud of myself.