Depression sucks right? If you are here then you are depressed, or know someone who is and you can relate straight away to the condition of depression and its effect on yourself and those around you.
The worst thing is there seems to be no easy way out of it ...
I suppose if there was then depression would not be such a problem in today's society! I was once depressed, and even worse than that I did not REALISE I was depressed.
I was not as bad as some I admit but I had a malaise that hung around me that stopped me living my life to a greater potential.
I had feelings of insecurity in love, work and family and a pervasive fear of failure and success.
Yet I did not consider myself depressed, I had enough keeping me going that I did not fall into a pit so deep I could not find a way out I suppose.
I have had friends that were in far worse than me though and perhaps only after seeing the soul destroying effects of full blown clinical depression did I realize I may not be far off myself; a sobering thought.
I know in some people depression is more chemical imbalance than mental anguish and drugs can help them but I found this hard to swallow as drugs always feel more like a band aid fix to a problem rather than a natural and healthy cure.
In addition I had heard of some pretty bad side effects of anti-depressants and decided to stay well away.
How I got myself out of my depression and advice I give to others is pretty simple in theory but will differ greatly from person to person as there is no cure all program you can assign to every person, however there is a theory you can tailor to your own problems and life.
The key point here is YOU tailor it to yourself, no one can do it for you, you can seek some help but the bulk of the work must be your own.
This is the second obstacle (the first is realizing you have depression which can be hard to judge sometimes as I found).
However let's start from the beginning defining and realizing you have depression This can actually be quite hard to pinpoint.
I find it quite annoying when people casually toss around the word "depression" and say they are "depressed" when they hardly show any real symptoms of real depression.
They might just be in a passing bad mood instead but over-react.
That being said I wouldn't want to class anyone as such in case they actually do have a problem, most people would not have thought I was depressed, just unmotivated, I hid the symptoms of real depression.
Once I realized that I had depression I realized that this person I had been for the last few years was not the REAL me.
I could see I could do so much more with my life and be so much happier if I could kick the black dog.
I found a lot of things about myself over those next few weeks.
I realized that over the last five or so years I had only done what made me feel better not what made me be a better person.
I wasted countless hours on computer games for the thrill of victory I could not feel in real life, its social networks sustained me somewhat but they were still a part of the same trap that destroyed the time I could have been using to make my life more complete.
I found that I could apply the same gaming psychology I used to become a good computer gamer to exercise and little by little started gaining a fitness I had never had before as I had never been able to summon the motivation to exercise properly; things were looking up! Now I am not just boasting of how good my willpower was as it really wasn't for quite some time.
The point I am trying to make is that I found a system that worked for me, I took my competitiveness in gaming and applied it to exercise for one example in that I challenged myself to get better not because I had great motivation but because I set myself a challenge and I HATE to lose.
I realized I had been doing the same thing over and over again, a rut that threatened to lock me in so hard I could never fight my way out.
I bemoaned my lack of success on certain aspects of my life and blamed many factors, always external instead of having a good look at myself.
Or when I did get introspective it depressed me even further as I never thought I could change.
When you keep doing the same thing you keep getting the same result! I decided I needed to try doing something different to achieve a better result but nothing so drastic it would scare me.
I started small by just acting slightly differently around my co-workers and friends, a small social experiment which yielded interesting results.
I found I did know everything about the world as I once arrogantly thought and decried those how did not think the same as me.
I found I had to expand my aptitude for change and accept some hard truths and reconcile them with my own beliefs.
While this does not relate entirely to depression the seeds of change were sown in my mind and the possibilities flourished.
The future was a much fuller place now as I could see more than just one option for myself.
In the six months since then I have had a better love life with a fantastic girl, a boost to my career and am much happier with myself and my choices.
Yet I still have more to do as the path of self improvement never ends.
However the groundwork to keep me out of depression and motivated to change the things in life that keep me down means I feel I will never be back in that pit again even if I do have ups and downs.
What I advise is to try something different with your life bit by bit, find something that is not working and causing you stress and anxiety and change something small in the way you approach these problems, and keep doing it.
Dwell on each success not each failure as hard as that might be.
There are many other things you can do to help you along but I found for me it was the process of change and how I approached it that really made the difference.
Exercise, sleep and social interaction are also the basic groundwork of feeling good and motivated.
While I cannot offer exact advice I hope you have learned something to help yourself or someone you know.
Good luck!