Lol.. indeed. Natural then? I think people need to talk a lot about it. And I don't think that's rude unless the intent is to be rude or dismiss it. I'm not dismissing it in the least, but I'm not allowed to talk about it either.. I had fake depression, or I've forgotten what it's like etc. I think ignoring the possibility that people aren't helpless to it is enabling.. tis all. I wish people knew how strong they actually are and that "fixing" takes a lot of practice. Much like quitting something.. it's never easy and it's never going to be easy, but people think if it's not, they're a failure so turn to the patches or pills etc. I can see how they could set your mind on another path to be able to practice though, so it's not all bad.. I just think they're abused and most often not necessary at all. I haven't seen that course yet; think I'll look into it, thanks!
I get depressed all the time. I feel lonely, alone, and isolated every single day. But it's really natural for me because I've always been like that anyway. I suffer from stress as well due to the pressures of being an adult and also from worrying too much about the future. When it has already gotten tough for me, I would just read a book or listen to good music. These activities help me relax a bit.
You are right, people should be more open minded for discussion; on the other side, so many people, without wanting to be rude, on the opposite, wanting to be helpful, take it upon themselves to give criticism and advice where none is needed and where the repetition could get tiring. Not just for depressed people, too -- people are just always so ready to explain to you that you should try X miracle diet that would fix all your problems, or X visualisation exercise, etc, etc. Which is nothing bad. But for the people who have to deal with serious chronic problems, this well-meaning can become as tiresome as pity, especially when the advice is not only uncalled for, but also ignorant. The course is pretty cool, too.
I see it in all walks of life, these days – people not speaking up for fear of being politically incorrect. It's got to stop, because it doesn't help anyone. You have to speak your mind when it comes to important issues, like this one for instance Hellavu, that link is very interesting. Thank you for posting it Bad emotions are essential to our lives. All emotions have value. But it is about where the majority of your energy lies - within the negative emotions, or the positive ones. I mean negative and positive in their simplest definitions with this, as far as health. Negativity meaning to take away from, and positivity meaning to add to. Any being with an emotional capacity, I believe is capable of getting depressed.
Ah, I see.. yes, I got a lot of it too. I think everyone and their dog has been diagnosed with depression; I wouldn't dare offer advice about it. Can't even talk about it. Nobody can; all thanks to Brook Shields and her empowering comeback to crazy Tom Cruise, sending the message to people everywhere that "you're too weak and that's ok". And because I don't believe that in most cases, I'm insensitive. Not allowed to speak. So I don't. If we're still talking about offline anyway lol.. I need SOMEthing to write about
Every. Single. One of us. Very true. We're not allowed to be introverts. Or sad. Or so beyond stressed we get sick over it. We have to be perfect at all times. It's sad. And I agree.. nothing good comes from ignoring the elephant in the room. I get it when people throw a superfood at you or tell you to stand on your head for x number of minutes with a feather in your mouth to cure it, but discussion is important. Real discussion.. not a bunch of people saying "It's all in your head!!" or "It's out of my control!!" and running in circles. I'm tired of ignoring it when my mother is downing her pills for the millionth year in a row with little improvement because she expects the PILLS to fix her. So she waits. I can't talk about that though. That would be disrespectful to her and her need to believe it's out of her control.
And let's not even get into the side effects of these pills. I mean, I know that we have touched upon this topic a million times before. But it fits here too. People are sitting there, expecting these pills to fix them, and these pills rarely ever tackle the root cause, and on top of that there are negative side effects to deal with too?? It is just not cool. in my opinion. Not when our focus could be on the prevention, rather than the 'fix.' I mean, I am sure that depression tablets do help people. I know people who have found some relief, but many of them have 'relapsed,' so to speak. Or worse, they have become dependent on the pills. In fact, the doctor told a friend of mine that they should not just stop taking their pills cold turkey, which implies to me that there is some type of addiction factor to taking the pills, maybe? One of the biggest gifts that we can give people are our own personal experiences. Not saying anything to others, for fear of being politically incorrect really harms the circulation of such gifts.
Agreed. Depression is the saddest thing to watch happen to someone. Real depression, not sadness or self hatred or poor me syndrome (all of which are drugged every day), but actual depression, which I don't see much of. I would never tell someone with schizophrenia to work on their thought patterns, reprogram themselves, grab a new world view etc, but we're not talking about schizophrenia. We're talking about depression and there are many levels of it, but I do believe you can do these things for all of them. And I know many people think they've tried.. but so did I. I said all the same things. "Do you think I WANT to be depressed?", "Do you think I enjoy feeling my children would be better off without me?", "Don't you think I've tried to think positively.. it's not that simple!" etc etc etc.. but I was already "programmed" to feel a certain way and look at things a certain way and not get what I wanted from my efforts in all aspects of life. But I'll tell you, when I finally found out what that all actually meant, and how to match my feelings with what I was telling myself, my life completely changed. I chose happy and suddenly I felt it, I looked it, I acted it, the pain was gone.. my parenting changed, my relationship changed, my entire world changed. It isn't that simple to choose happy.. but you actually have to know what that means and how to do it and that once you choose it, it takes practice and then one day you wake up and it's like breathing. People are determined to believe it's out of their control. I was too.
Oh yes! I agree 100%!!! That negative self-talk is 'input.' That societal programming - the one that makes you think that you have no control over your mind and body is 'input.' It all contributes to how your body/mind works. I think that a lot of people feel like improving their relationship with themselves is too 'easy' in a way? Like, oh no curing my depression cannot be that simply. I need medication. I need an exterior solution. It also comes down to not wanting to take responsibility in some cases too, which I can understand. Taking responsibility can be intimidating. Just that fact that smiling for a certain period of times releases the 'happy' endorphins in ones brain, should be a clue, I think. It's all 'input.'
Absolutely! And right on about the responsibility aspect too.. it's extremely tough facing yourself and then forcing yourself to take responsibility. Its a tough road and a lot of work. I read one of those quotie things the other day.. something like, "when you believe everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot". When people don't look within themselves to see where their well being took a dive and instead look at how the outside world contributed to their pain and just won't stop.. they will always suffer. It's obviously not always the case, but I see it more often than not. My mother is a perfect example. She will only see how the world affects her and never look at how she affects herself. That's how I got stuck too. If we're constantly waiting waiting waiting for perfect conditions, or not accepting the here and now fully and completely, we never discover the amazing ability we have to make OURselves happy. It's beautiful and we all deserve it. If we all had one week to live, I believe we would all drop our baggage to enjoy what we have left. The things that do make us happy, the people we love.... we live like we have forever and I think if people truly appreciated our reality, they would drop the baggage. It is a choice and I firmly believe it. Should I get started on food now? lmao...
Stop stealing the words right out of my mouth, before I take legal action against you, JosieP. It's plagiarization!! Lol. That is so so true. It is so easy to blame other people. My mother is one of these people. Loves to guilt and blame everyone else, and can't figure out why she is still stuck with the same problems. *rolls eyes* She knows a lot of this stuff too, but knowing something and putting it into practice is a lot easier said than done, most of the time. When you take ownership, it is essentially self-empowerment. When you blame other people, you tell the universe that you have no say in what is happening to you - that outside influences have the final say, and law of attraction grants your wish, and often times people like this become the 'victims,' of life, when if they'd just take responsibility, that would not have to be the case. In my mother's case, she love to have the moral high ground. I hope the trade of is worth it for her, because for as long as she needs that moral high ground, she is going to be a 'victim.' May I ask what star sign your mother is?? I love how when you get the hang of how to brighten your own day up. It is like you've found the key, or the secret, and it is a powerful too - great for your self-esteem too!!! Hahaha!!! That is a fabulous way to put it. You hear stories about people being terminally ill, and then dropping all of the baggage in their lives in the expectancy that they are going to die soon. They often take those trips that they always wanted to take, and just enjoy life. They smile a lot, knowing that they only have this short time left, and then poof... they recover, shocking doctors and the world! Not that the world takes the opportunity to look deeper, and learn from what that actually means though.
Lol.. but we can't focus on just the recoveries or just the people blaming other people, because then people think none of this applies to them. Like in my case, I wasn't blaming others. I was blaming.. I don't know, the universe? lol. My world seemed to be against me; everything that could go wrong, was going wrong, I was a walking talking curse lol.. like my world was being created for me and I had no say. I gave into it.. I was too weak, I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop the constant horrible or stressful thoughts that incessantly bombarded my mind. So I gave in. I couldn't control other people to make these situations work more in my favour, so I gave in. I couldn't control ANYthing. And when it all started working out, I was still depressed. I had a beautiful family, the life I wanted and I couldn't explain why I was depressed. It wasn't until I realized I do have control that things started changing. I've told you before about my blocking my thoughts.. that was the first step. I was laying there one night and the thoughts started hitting me, one after the other and I was so exhausted by it, my whole body hurt, day in and day out from this stress, so I literally blocked them. Started thinking about something else. And the thoughts continued to come and I continued to think of other things. This is where most people would stop.. the thoughts keep coming means no control, but that's BS. I started playing with control over my thoughts and more and more I realized, we may not be able to help what enters our brains, but we sure as hell have the control over whether we think about those things or not. Realizing I had at least some power that night and choosing not to be depressed and bombarded, led to many more days of playing with that super crazy notion.. that I may just have the choice. I practised like crazy until I saw the proof in it and continued to get better and better. But the change was literally overnight. I made the choice to be happy and from that moment forward, I worked for it. Retrained my brain and my habits. I saw the person I wanted to be and, day after day, I worked at becoming her. If something bad happened, I didn't throw my hands up and feel defeated by life once again.. I chose to look at it differently. Accept the now and chose the most positive route. You can't change the world, but you can change yourself. Always always. There's obviously more to how I went about it, but I see I'm rambling again lol. And no, just because I can do it, does not mean everyone can.. but I truly believe they can lol. My brain isn't special.. and if the all powerful chemical imbalance is the key, I'd still have it. I'd still be depressed. I didn't take one pill that whole time. I didn't get therapy. I just believed in myself and the fact that I'm human and brains are crazy cool and powerful. Leave it to me to point out I'm rambling and keep on going, lmao! Oh.. and she's a cancer and you described her perfectly. Same mother perhaps? lol. But she doesn't accept this stuff as truth.. it's safer to believe she had nothing to do with the results of her life choices or even the day to day things that don't work out. It's crazy how talented she is at blaming everything and everyone but herself lol - it's like magic! I feel so bad for her though.. she doesn't know how good she could have it if she let go and accepted responsibility. And your dead on.. the empowerment from that is beyond amazing because when you take it out of everyone else's hands or the hands of "the universe", then it's in your own where you have the control to change and finally put the bad things to rest. UGHHH, I did it again! haha.. ok I'm done..
I often think that in many cases it's not a disease that kills a person, but the stress behind or around it. Avoiding stress has to be one of the main priorities in life. It doesn't just save you a lot of agony, but in the end it will also save you money that you need to spend on treating your various symptoms.
Clinical depression is a chemical imbalance that happens to some people and I am not sure there is a way to get around it without medicine unless you are able to find an herbal remedy that does the trick. As for being down in the dumps, you first have to discover why you are feeling that way. Perhaps you are bored and don't get out of the house as much as you should. That would be an easy problem to solve. I find that being around positive people makes me feel better.
Exercise is a very helpful tool to avoid depression. Not only that, it also helps to treat depression. It might not be apparent at first, but with consistency, trust me that it's really gonna happen. It worked for me. I have been depressed for a long period of time, and I was too shy to share it to someone, so I resorted to exercise, and yes it worked for me.
