You don’t have to go to a specialist to get antidepressants; many GPs will prescribe them if you ask. I also see a lot of online clinics offering prescriptions without an in-person appointment, but I don’t have personal experience with that. The standard antidepressants are fairly safe and I wouldn’t be too worried about side effects to take them without a psychiatrist’s supervision. Nothing except antidepressants worked to end my depressive episodes, as opposed to making them easier to bear.

Other than that, what helped me most was realizing that I couldn’t trust my own thoughts. It’s hard, because generally “X is true” and “I think X is true” are subjectively the same thing. When I went through periods of depression, I sincerely believed that I had never been happy and that my depression would never end, but as a matter of fact I had been happy (or at least reasonably content) for most of my life and prior episodes of depression had ended. Being able to realize that I had actually been happy and probably would be again, despite what felt true in that moment, made depression much more bearable.

Another key intervention for me was moving closer to my family. It felt like a huge defeat (here I was, an adult who couldn’t handle living on his own) but I told myself “plan based on who you are, not who you wish you were”. Having supportive people around helped a lot; when I’m depressed I don’t want to be around other people but that is actually the wrong strategy. “I just want to be alone” is one of those thoughts that I shouldn’t trust.

Finally, a really useful mental strategy is to consider what advice you would give to a good friend in a situation similar to your own, and then to act on that advice yourself. My depression was accompanied by a great deal of self-loathing but that loathing didn’t extend to my friends (even my imaginary friends). I found that I often knew exactly what advice I would give a friend, and it wasn’t to do what I had been planning to do.

Do you think you would be not depressed if there was something different about your life or yourself at they are right now?

Lots of good advice here, so I’ll add a few easy things that helped me that don’t take much energy. 1: get at least five minutes of direct sunlight a day, not through a window. 2: take an iron and vitamin D supplement, having more energy makes me less depressed. Try a multi vitamen if you don’t know where to start. 3: making sure you have healthier snack foods, I swapped out candy for gummy fruit snacks, yogurt for ice cream. I know how hard it can be to eat real meals when you are struggling so make your snacks count positively.

So much good advice, I find being grateful for things really helps, and I would also recommend CBT. Good luck, and remember, one step at a time, one day at a time.

Distract yourself into some offline activity which you love especially with someone you are comfortable with.

Once mind in place, deal with the problem which lead to depression in the first place. But if nothing can be done about the issue, then stop worrying about it. Work around it.

I make it look easy but I know its not.

Recognize that it’s not your fault, you don’t deserve it, and sometimes accepting it for what it is makes it easier.

sing. doesn’t matter what you sing or how well.

Severe treatment resistant depression here, not able to be controlled through medication, will never feel good yadda yadda.

I find goal setting is very important. “I just have to make it to X” then just move the goal post.

When hurricane Milton hit I lost power, internet and my cell signal was like using dial up so all online access was gone for about a week. Sent the family to go stay with friends and I stayed behind. With no electricity and no internet all I had was myself. The first 2 or 3 days were tough. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I cleaned and sat outside in the shade to escape the heat. By the end of the week I was in a good place, not perfect, but better than when I started. I was relaxed, my thoughts were clearer, I could comfortably focus on one thing at a time. I think knowing that after I was done focusing on something I could return to a comfortable quiet helped.

When power and internet came back within 2 days everything was back to ‘normal’. No more peace. No more comfortable focusing. Back to my usual habits. I recommend disconnecting from phones and computers for a few weeks. Give your mind time to get into the habit of not using them, it’s so easy to fall back into old habits, you have to set the stage for new ones to slowly grow, like trending a garden it takes time and effort.

One of best descriptions of self mental health care was from Rick and Morty. It’s like wiping your ass, or washing the dishes. It’s not fun but it’s something you have to do everyday. You can suffer the pain of doing it, or suffer the pain of having not done it. Front load the pain don’t offload it to your future self. Give future self a break, do some work for him/her and I know they’ll be incredibly appreciative.

I’m my past when I was at my worst I noticed that I was in a better place when I was around people than when I wasn’t. Be around people/friends if you can. Ask someone to spend party of a day with you doing absolutely anything.

Exercise until you know you will be sore the next day. I didn’t exercise regularly, but I did notice that whenever I did some physical activity that left me sore the next day, within about 2 or 3 days I was a much better version of myself for a day or two.

So in conclusion. Do nice things for future self, even talk out loud to yourself about future you like they’re someone else. Disconnect from Internet and tv so your mind can have some time to itself. Be around people, we are social animals, we need to feel like we are part of a group, a tribe, maybe go take some night classes that will force you to work on a project with others. Exercise or do something strenuous.

Oh and a couple more things, try to establish a regular sleep schedule! Someone mentioned this already and they’re right, change your environment. Your mind and body will default to the feelings it’s used to having in the place it most often has them. As an example, if you’re a home pooper then when you get home your body will go into pooping mode. If you only use your bed to sleep and not look at your phone or watch tv then you will feel sleepy when you get in bed. New environments will put your mind into learning mode not default mode, keep finding ways to keep it from sitting back down into the depression it’s left in the chair. Like that song, you can get used to a certain kind of sadness.

Okay one more thing, video games. I like playing them but I have a habit of using them like a drug. It feels good to use a drug, and when you hardly feel good why wouldn’t you use it. You will play them again, and you’ll enjoy them more after your mind has had some quite time to itself. You’ll get to play again someday, you just have some mental chores that need tending to first.

Last thing I promise. Quite time is even better when done in nature. Any nature. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution designed us to be in nature, part of nature. Quite time means no podcasts or music as well.

Now get out there and do the dishes, wipe your ass, and do something nice for future self, they fucking deserve it.

I hear you. Not just in money but in time as well. Its very different when your situation is the cause of depression as loosing what little freetime and money you have to try and treat it is just adding fuel to the fire. Meditation. Buddhism as a philosophy, trying to get away from modern corp bs. Its easy to say and harder to do but there is a mindset. You want cheap and easy food treats and media so its easy to say hey its worth getting pick up food or paying for a streaming service. If you can realize how much nicer a clean environment is and how enjoyable it can be to make a nice meal from simple ingredients. Walks, preferably in nature, are great. If you get to a certain point you will despise the smartphone, the fast food, the monthly non necessities. OMG take a hot long bath if you have a tub. Embrace what you can.

I’m not sure if I was clinically depressed or not. But I definitely went through a couple months where I wasn’t feeling myself. My GF moved in with me this year and I thought it was just me adjusting with a new “roommate”.

I eventually realized it was the house. It was a mess and that was what making me feel depressed because it was hard to talk to someone about being a slob if you loved them.

So I guess maybe think hard about things that have changed and when you were happy and see what you can do to change them?

I know it’s probably not great advice but it’s free and it worked for me

Some of the things that helped me:

• Regularity. I also have ADHD so actually getting me to catalog daily/weekly things that I need to do was hard enough. But now that I have like 5 todo lists things are looking up.
• Cataloging things. I love photography and writing down interesting ideas. Someone looking through my photo collection might wonder why I take photos of random shit. Simple reason: Something managed to brighten my day and I just had to put it in on the record. I feel happier when I know that those moments won’t ever disappear if I can at all manage it. Similarly, if I have cool ideas that made me happy for some reason, I write them down.
• Crap social media is the worst. Be on the social media to fearlessly shout your cool ideas to the void if you have to. Don’t be there to passively and silently afraid to speak up and stick around with people you barely know and watch them slowly turn nazi yes-men. (Yes. It has happened. Before Elon bought Twitter. Can’t even imagine how shit things are nowdays over there.)

I don’t have depression. Journaling help, saying stuff out loud helps. Seems that antidepressants work. There might be other factors that contribute to the depression and can be minimised to help take the weight off.

This’ll probably get drowned but I managed to beat depression before flying off the deep end and developing psychotic symptoms.

Had depression for 12 years before I decided to put work in it. 6 years ago, I didn’t know how to, or what to expect. Figured if I spent 10 years depressed, it would take 10 years to recover. It ended up taking about 3.5 to 4 years of remission. I didn’t take any medication or drugs. Only addiction I got is videogaming. Still haven’t beaten that.

I’ll try to keep it chronological, but it’s hazy. What I did was:

1. The opposite of what I had been doing my life up till that point.

I was digging my own grave, but didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. So I did everything ass backwards to find out what did and didn’t contribute to my own misery. For me, that meant saying what’s on my mind, embarassing myself and learning from it. Trial and error is the way to go for paupers. That and radical acceptance that it’s gonna suck. Gotta welcome shit with open arms when cleaning your psychic septic tank.

2. Change of enviroment.

In my case. It meant a change of goals. The first was getting better. The second was learnibg something new. Got lucky I had a 2nd chance at studying towards a new work field. But it can be anything else. Just something on the horizon. Mind you, don’t focus on it. The thing to look out for, is useful as a distraction, and only as a distraction. It’s a bad source of motivation as the future isn’t real. It can become the now, but the future itself never is real. Focus on the now, with just something to look out for. At this stage, you’ll still won’t understand the point of it all, so just accept you don’t. Take it 1 day at a time. Only look back or at the future on occasion. You won’t see a change every week, but over time, you might.

First change in depression I noticed was the ability to feel negative emotions. For me, it was anger. Pure rage. Never had I understood what seeing red, white hot fury or hothead meant. Felt like a hot rock was lodged between my skull and top of my brain. I realised I had never been angry. Anger is a double edged sword. The positive side is that it’s there to fight injustice. Your injustice. The bad side is seeking dominance or control over something. The only thing you should seek control over, is yourself and how you handle life. Not others, or things that can’t be controlled.

Then the hormonal changes occurred. I became restless, and my ADHD symptoms got worse real quick. Had tons of energy. Had no libido before, and suddenly did. Depression affects everything. So expect weird shit during remission. Nothing to be afraid of.

About a year in or so doing step 1 and living inside step 2, I beat anhedonia. It was like background radiation. Except instead of cancer, it gives you energy. Just a tiny hum of joy in the background. Doing new things becomes rewarding. Doing something for the sake of doing it becomes rewarding. Fun is an understatement. And it isn’t some intense dopamine hit either. It just is background joys. And man, it is damn worth it.

3. Exercise. I had tried on and off to hit the gym. I kept trying for years before, and still failed now. Even got sick for a year due to shitty night shifts messing with my circadian rythmn. In hind sight, I wonder how much it contributed to my psychotic symptoms, considering it was cortisol related. Lockdown from the 'rona saved my ass who couldn’t set healthy boundaries.

2 years in, I did something I never done before. Applying for a job just for the hell of it. You start doing stuff because of an intrinsic drive, and not because “it’s the sensible thing to do.”

When you’re depressed and passively suicidal, you don’t understand the point of living. Anhedonia and motivational anhedonia are the reason you can’t understand it. And man, was it a radical discovery. Suddenly, it just “makes sense” why people want to live. Because hell, I wanted to live!

3. Exercise again.

Attempt #godknows. 3 months of weekly exercise it took to learb to enjoy sports. I didn’t lose any weight, but my obese ass was able to keep running 9km/h for 15min straight. Ate healthy for the most part too. Felt good despite being fat as fuck. Did wonders for my confidence.

Got lucky and built up some friends. Never really had any before.

4. Figure out your maturity, and deal with family. Generational trauma galore.

Like anyone else, I have family issues. My parents aren’t mature people, and expecting them to change is… stupid. But I still saw my mom hurting, and hurting others as a result. Mostly my sister and I. I wanted understand her. She was born from a mess, into a mess, and made a mess of her family because she doesn’t know any better. She scores high in narc traits and ADHD. Allround, a difficuly person to be around with.

Perfect for learning how to navigate diffocult relationships. Learning what’s okay, and what isn’t. Learning how to set boundaries, and discovering they mean nothing to someone who doesn’t respect you. Boundaries are only respected by those who respect you. In all other cases, boundaried are only respected if you can enforce them. Seems like a yah-duh moment. But it’s not something I understood. Learned it through trial and error, with the luck of a narc for a mom to practice on.

And by some miracle, we made progress. I know how to get her guard down. The source of her bad behaviour is survival mode. Who could have thought there was a human being behind a manipulative monster? One who beat her 6yo daughter for wandering off. One who aborted a 3 month pregnancy because she felt it was going to be a boy, and she didn’t want a son. I’m sorry bro, but you dodged a bullet. She would have treated you worse than my sister and I.

Point is, you don’t know shit. And your family history shapes you. You take over their bad traits, and it’s your choice on whether you want to become like them, or learn to deal with it and grow as a person.

5. Don’t move the bar.

Shit stranger. You get this far in recovery? It’s a fucking miracle you did. Keep doing what you’re doing and don’t move the bar.

Because if you keep doing that, you’ll end up like me.

Every time you raise the bar on yourself, you’ll lose that background joy. Your motivation will vaporize. Take health for example. Move the bar too often and going to the gym isn’t enough anymore. You’ll start looking too much at the horizon, other people and it’ll all start seeming pointless. You’ll feel less and less in control. Not saying you should take baby steps, but you ought to stick to your own shit. To what you are doing, not what you desire. That’s how you make progress.

Raising the bar, is the fastest way to redevelop anhedonia and relapse into depression.

My fall:

Shit fam. Wish I could offer better experience. But life didn’t turn out well due to some stuff I hadn’t forseen snowballing into an avalanche.

In case you want to know. Had some issues that required mental health care. Jury is still out on it. Most likely untreated PTSD, untreated ADHD and just neglectid autism (diagnosed). DID, bipolar disorder, early psychosis, brain tumor, dementia, etc. Are all good guesses too. Or just the result of things going poorly. Print the DSM-5, strap it onto a board and throw some darts at it. Whatever it lands on, is as good a guess I suppose.

Past 2 years I’ve been fighting chaos, rather than my mental problems. From my GP not taking me seriously and turning 7 months of waiting into 15 (and I still consider myself lucky). Along with downplaying my issues. “You don’t have ADHD, autism makes things difficult too.” Lo and behold. I scored high on a DIVA test, the neuroscientists I got the privilage to work for saw my traits, the professionals who I got lucky to meet saw my traits. But the one person whom I depended on, didn’t think I had ADHD. Must all be in my little woman’s head. Imagining things. Well lady, that’s kind of the problem now. “The hallucinations are stress related.” Geez thanks, tell me something I didn’t know. How do I make sure they don’t get worse? “Just keep me posted.” I did, and it got bad real fast. Personality changes my family saw. “I don’t think I can make you happy with a 1 year waiting list. Luckily this one instance happens to be open for referrals and only 2 months wait.” Those 2 months are almost over and I’m crawling.

Another instance that was supposed to help me, went bankrupt. At the time I was at step 3-4 and thought “I can do it without!” That failure was picked up by a new instance. One that railed me the past 2 years. I was again dealing with trying to get a ball rolling, rather than my issues.

Look. Any place that has a high turnover rate is bad. A mental health facility that has a high turnover rate, is a laboratory waste dumpster fire.

People quit, only psychiatrist available was spiritual. Something I can’t work with. Internally waiting, and waiting. Appointments canceled last minute due to planners fucking up. Next week, 3 strangers and the 1 guy who saved me, are going to make a descision. The 3 strangers are the new folks taking in a spot for those who quit. Never met them. What a circus.

Now I have to face the fact I can’t function at work anymore. Having episodes where I remember shit, feel stress, and forget about it. Can’t sense my own exhaustion proper, while rest and sleep are the only things that stave off the 'chosis. Except cortisol derps make sleep difficult. I’m aggressive and have attacked family members twice in 1 year. I feel bloodlust. Can’t have that happen at work. The only reason I’m allowed to drive, was because I had a grip on my early stages, and work was too important to me. Monday is gonna suck.

Hyperfocus is what got me through the last 3 months. Thank fuck for having a “safe” addiction to videogames.

I want death, but fuck me. Promised myself 6 years ago that I would give it my all. I’ll make sure to off myself before I kill someone else.

Maybe see if there are help groups like the ones for alcoholics. I’m sure they also exist for depressed people, or people who procrastinate. Generally they’re lead by volunteers and people who suffered through it themselves and not professionals who need to be paid…

I know your point. Access to professional help is a privilege that few have.

I think next best thing is socialising. There’s probably groups in your area (see social media for that, meetup, Facebook, forums) that meet up and talk. I highly recommend in-person meetings. Also I tried giving my body some help with food. Carbs give you some serotonin.