The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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In my personal experience, depression is part biological and part psychological. What’s worse, depressed thoughts make the brain release depression chemicals, which causes a negative feedback loop.
Also in my personal experience, both the hardware and the software can be reconfigured. But not in the way society generally thinks they can.
First, biological depression. Before trying prescription drugs (assuming you aren’t already on them), have a physician check your blood for levels of vitamin D and zinc. Odds are you’re deficient in at least one.
Vitamin D definitely impacts my mood for the better when I take it within a half-hour of waking up, and I don’t presume to be a neurochemically distinct anomaly. The 10,000 IU pills are fantastic to get levels up, and 5k IU should be enough to maintain.
I have no clue whether proper zinc levels impacted my depression, but they’ve kept my colds from being horrible by improving my immune system, so I mention it anyway.
As for psychological depression, my personal experience is that unburdening myself through a CBT hack has made a huge difference.
The Fourth Step “moral inventory” of AA, CoDA, Al-Anon, and other such groups is an invaluable CBT tool which most CBT practitioners don’t use because they didn’t invent it. By listing the meaning, the semantic weight, of the choices others have made which impacted my life negatively, I was able to get to the cruxes of many of my issues.
Being in a weekly peer talk support group (such as those I mentioned above) with journaling has also helped me to face my issues head on. Never underestimate the value of company in misery.
I’m autistic and introverted, but I still need people around me for my brain to generate the community chemical, oxytocin. I have several community-based hobbies and a “Third Place,” church in my case, to produce lasting friendships. I also watch My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, which was the first thing to really pierce my depression of nine years by that point. I think the show affects my brain like the “ecstasy” drug does for those who take it. I recommend starting with episode 4 of season one, watching to around episode 10, then watching episodes 1-3. It’s on Netflix and the official page. And don’t worry, it won’t turn you gay. (These are the jokes, folks.)
And when the mind isn’t as depressed, it relieves the brain, which relieves the mind. Relieve either one for a positive effect on both, and life will have more meaning.
All this is well and good, but besides the point. As your Bible says, man does not live on bread alone. I am capable, sometimes, of enjoying myself. I can masturbate or drink alcohol or play a video game or watch an entertaining video. I can take a walk through nature or something more traditionally considered to be pleasurable. I can engage others in pleasant, polite conversation. None of these things make me feel less cold or inhuman on the inside, though they might distract me.
I have been depressed on and off for about 2.5 years. I don't think there's some biological mechanism. My moods don't seem to be correlated with sunshine days, diet, or supplementation. My testosterone is quite low but that's about it.
For for a moral inventory, I honestly don't feel that anyone has ever had a negative impact on my life (except myself).
The question, I think, is about desire and happiness. Is the route to happiness followed by putting aside or ignoring your idiosyncratic desires. And if so how do you separate your own desire from that of society.
That oft-reviled individualist, Ayn Rand, said that creating something great by your own standards of greatness is the only way to generate happiness.
There was a time about three years ago when I was struck by an inexplicable urge to build a new shed out of cinderblocks. I did not, for various reasons including the fear of hassles, but I believe it would have resulted in a satisfaction and happiness I have not felt since recreating a particular Macintosh AfterDark screensaver in Turbo Pascal on a 486 in 1996.
If you’re looking for a purpose toward which to put the work of your hands or mind, my suggestion is journaling your honest reactions while reading the book of Ecclesiastes, at least three reactions per chapter. Here’s a poignant translation.
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