How I am coping with depression

[apathetic]

This is going to be one very long post. I posted this on the other websites as well. Some things are changed and adapted to this whole site.
Here's a person who's currently going through withdrawal syndrome and has experienced a full-blown depressive episode two times in her life that lasted for months.

When you're depressed, it's important to:

• If you have a melancholic type of depression and have no appetite, you should, as I heard as an advice from a person who's been through depression as well, is to try your hardest to eat at least 3 meals a day. An apple for some meal ? A goddamn apple as a meal. Still something. Firstly, it would be really hard to eat and you'll need to force yourself to do it - but you still have to try your hardest to do it, which is the point of it all. Soon, after maybe a week, it would become easier and easier for you to eat because your stomach will expand for at least a bit more food than usual. Do that until you reach the normal amount of food.
   

• If you have atypical type of depression and have more appetite than usual, you usually eat when you're bored, under a lots of stress and similar. Use the method HALT (asking yourself before you do something self-destructive, because binge eating IS self-destructive -- Am I [H]ungry, [A]ngry, [L]onely or [T]ired ?). If you do match some of those things - that's probably a valid reason why you shouldn't eat at that moment (unless you're hungry of course). If you're actually hungry and tend to eat until stuffed, then try to eat slowly with hand other than the main one you use. Eliminate all the distractions around you and try to eat mindfully.
  Here are some tips on how to eat mindfully.
  This is what HALT method is.
   

• If you can't sleep at night, as people who are suffering from withdrawal, you should consider trying some natural things to help you (that are already listed here, so I'm not going to list supplements). Try avoiding nicotine and caffeine after 3-5 PM. I know that you can't exercise because your body feels too weak for that because of the psyche that's destroying you, so I'm not going to recommend that, but if you feel like you actually can do it - do it. Even 10 jumping jacks is still something. Avoid exercising 2 hours before sleep. If you feel like you're full of thoughts and emotions that are bothering you - write them down before going to bed. One also good thing is meditation before bed and meditation in general; It helps the brain heal after all. Listen to some relaxing music while you're trying to sleep in bed. I can recommend phone application called Relax Melodies (both available for iOS and Android).
   

• If you sleep too much during the day, it may be a side-effect of the medication you're on (if you are on some) and it will probably go away as soon as you get off the medication or are reducing the dose of it. (if the medication is the cause, read the common side-effects in that paper where's all the information about the medication and find out). If you aren't on the medication that could cause you hypersomnia, then I would recommend (for sleeping problems in general) - tracking your sleeping habits and just writing down how many hours a day did you sleep that day. If depression makes you forgetful, then alarm on the phone is always a solution to just write on some piece of paper a number of hours of your sleep during the day every day and see how much hours are you sleeping. What can also be helpful is writing the date and tracking for how long in general are you having sleeping problems and how are they manifesting. I myself struggled with this in withdrawal and it went away after some time of not using the medication.
   

• When it comes to motivation, it's important to start from somewhere. Is it brushing your teeth at least once in 2 or 3 days and then slowly decreasing the number of days to brushing them at least once a day ? Is it trying to do at least the lightest exercise that exists at least once in 3-4 days ? Is it forcing yourself (because yes, when it comes to lack of motivation - you just need to force yourself at the beginning) to write down what happened during that day, what your thoughts were in some important situations and how did you react, or at least one of those 3 things ? It really doesn't matter what are you deciding to do if you think that would help and if it's not anything destructive. The thing that could easily demotivate you is to try doing everything at once. Slow down, because there's a high possibility that if you force yourself to do things all at once and see that you can't because lack of motivation is one big problem, you could have another breakdown and, because of that, try only with one thing that matters to you the most. I would, personally, start with the hygiene thing, because I've had problems with it in my depressive episodes.
   

Those were some major things when it comes to depression, now some small, little tips:

• Unfollow things that are triggering you into feeling even worse than you already do and follow/focus on some things that are more helpful.
• Reach for help on the Internet (and I encourage you to start going to the psychologist to work on some psychotherapy, since they can't prescribe medications), there's absolutely no shame in asking for help when you feel awful all the goddamn time. There are many helpful subreddits (on site called Reddit) with helpful resources on depression such as r/depressed with massive resource lists, many Tumblr blogs that are encouraging and are promoting recovery from mental disorders and many Instagram accounts that can also be helpful.
• Reading success stories when it comes to healing from withdrawal syndrome. I highly encourage you to do that when you feel really hopeless, that's what always helps me or at least, keeps me alive.
• Learn as much as you can about withdrawal syndrome and learn how it functions. Can't read and understand things because of bad cognition that is here because of W/D ? My mechanism for that is - read the same sentence, word until you process it in your mind and understand it well enough to continue reading.
• Try recognizing when you feel the worst: morning or evening ? Usually, it's morning, so try to create a list of coping mechanisms when you're feeling bad.

Wish you the best recovery and healing.

If you read this and have withdrawal syndrome - well done, you're so strong for getting it through the whole text while you can't think properly because of the W/D.

 

That's all, my friends. I truly hope that this would be helpful for someone.

[kangamangus]

This is very helpful, and probably the #1 thing I'm worried about with coming off ADs. Thank you for posting.

[powerback]

nice post apathetic ,after my winter depression I'm building my toolkit to help if it comes back as strong ,good point about triggers ,sadly just being were I live is a major one at the moment but I'm always aware of my thoughts .

 

hope you good and practising serious compassion for yourself ,we need too when in pain

PB

[JenJen]

Thanks.  Very helpful.

 

"If you sleep too much during the day, it may be a side-effect of the medication you're on (if you are on some) and it will probably go away as soon as you get off the medication or are reducing the dose of it."  

 

This was so true for me.  I started tapering, faster than suggested here, and the fatigue and need to take 2-3 hour naps stopped within 2 days.  There were a few days when the W/D was so bad I wished I could sleep.  Napping usually felt good because I needed it so much.  My biggest fear is the return of Depression as well.  The meds didn't cure me but for a long while they helped.  

[powerback]

7 hours ago, JenJen said:

Thanks.  Very helpful.

 

"If you sleep too much during the day, it may be a side-effect of the medication you're on (if you are on some) and it will probably go away as soon as you get off the medication or are reducing the dose of it."  

 

This was so true for me.  I started tapering, faster than suggested here, and the fatigue and need to take 2-3 hour naps stopped within 2 days.  There were a few days when the W/D was so bad I wished I could sleep.  Napping usually felt good because I needed it so much.  My biggest fear is the return of Depression as well.  The meds didn't cure me but for a long while they helped.  

hi jen ,about the depression, I suggest you try clean up your lifestyle as best you can ,I'm worried about my depression coming back as strong so I'm doing everything to try prevent it .I wonder if we are left open to this because withdrawal .

take care

PB

[Plshelp]

I'm depressed and am struggling to eat and drink fluids. I don't ever feel hungry or full, don't have sensations to go to the bathroom or to be thirsty. This has been going on since I've been on the antipsychotics. But now I'm off them almost 4 weeks and i feel as though I'm getting worse. 

 

My gp just prescribed me Cymbalta to help with the depression. I'm hoping that this helps. 

 

Are you having depression apathetic?