One important thing about dealing with depression is talking to someone. If you don’t have anyone close to talk to there are counselors, therapists, and crisis centers who will listen. If you’d like you can even send me a message using the Contact Me link above and I’ll listen to you. Just make sure you talk to someone. Take a look at these resources as well.
I remember going to sleep with the anticipation that I won’t exist for the next 8-10 hours. I woke up dreading what had started again. This happened almost every day for many years.
Depression does not come all of a sudden. You don’t wake up one day and go, “I think I’m depressed”.
Slowly your thoughts, feelings and actions change until one day you look back on the past few months and how you feel so terrible now and you realize (if you know the symptoms) that you might be dealing with depression.
The first few months I felt lost. Then I lost all desire to do things. Then I became sad. Then came suicidal thoughts. And I know you might think that these are all normal feelings, which they are, but when you’re depressed they are intensified and don’t go away.
Normal:
I hate work. I hate paying bills. What if I just didn’t exist? Wouldn’t that be nice? What if I could just disappear?
And then you go hang out with your friends, have a good time, and come home happy that you spent the night with them. And a couple of weeks later your depressed feelings are gone.
Depressed:
I hate work. I hate paying bills. I hate living. What if I just didn’t exist? Wouldn’t that be nice? What if I just jumped in front of this train as it comes into the station and get run over, my body flattened like a pancake and my blood splattered all over the platform? No, that’s too painful. What if I drowned myself by jumping off a bridge? That could be painful too. What if I took some kind of pill(s) that would numb me and then overdose?
That sounds terrible but that is the reality of how a depressed person thinks.
And then either you try it or you’re too scared so you cry yourself to sleep and wake up 12 hours later wishing you could sleep even more. And a couple of months later your depressed feelings are just as strong, if not stronger.
Now What?
There’s a lot of discussion over depression and how some people might not actually have it and are just being negative or looking for an easy way out or something like that. What does it matter? If somebody says they are depressed, then they are depressed. They are asking for help. The only thing is depression can’t be magically healed by someone else.
A history of my depression:
I dropped out of college to pursue truth and enlightenment, specifically through the path of Buddhism. I began reading a lot and tried to expand my knowledge about the world as much as possible. I also started meditating and immersed myself in spiritual thoughts and philosophies. I began questioning my life and what I wanted and who I was. What really set me on fire was the Buddha’s concept of Anatta, or “no self”. So I started trying to figure out who/what I was and what I wanted out of life which I had never done previously.
I started to lose interest in all the things that used to be important to me like money, material possessions, and sexual relationships. I was obsessively searching for something but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. At the time I thought it was enlightenment and spiritual power but looking back I’m not so sure. I believed being a monk and learning from a teacher would give me what I was looking for.
I left to India with the intention of becoming a monk but came back after two weeks after seeing the monks being “normal”. They had cell phones and just seemed like ordinary people. I then became disillusioned with monkhood (Looking back I realize how I was chasing something supernatural and therefore could not accept that these monks were just “regular” people. I wanted something more than the reality I was in. Of course I realize now everyone is human.). After coming back I felt extremely lost and didn’t know what to do with my life. I decided to go back to school. It was during this time that I realized I may have depression. I just wanted to sleep, had little appetite, didn’t want to do anything, felt sad all the time and started having suicidal thoughts. I started seeing a counselor who tried to help me work through it.
I ended up dropping out during my 3rd semester. I then worked for the next 8 months at various jobs and saw 2 more counselors. Then fed up I went back to school again but dropped out midway through the semester after finally realizing school is not where I want to be. Then I started working again and entered a really rough time of really bad depression. I didn’t want to go to work at all and could barely stand being there. I would often go to the washroom and cry. My hatred for work, which was already quite high, had reached new heights. I absolutely did not want to spend one second working and equated work with hell. I quit that job and didn’t work for months. I just sat alone doing nothing mostly. Then I found another job and worked just 1-3 days a week and I could handle that. I then decided that I hated living this way and decided to give monkhood another try. I wanted to live without working and thought being a monk would be my best option. I felt fine when I did nothing and wanted to do that all day, every day, for the rest of my life.
I saved up my money and decided to travel around India for 3 months alone before going to Thailand to visit a Buddhist monastery. I was going to stay at the monastery for around a month to see if I liked it.
And this trip is what changed me.
I left April 7.
Over the course of traveling in India I met a lot of people and realized many things. People who worked were able to provide for themselves and others, including myself. I Couchsurfed and met great people who opened their hearts to me and took care of me and part of the reason they could is because they worked. I met extremely poor people who had nothing and I realized that by just being born in the West I was in a position to help them in some way and that I should. The feelings of depression and sadness had started to burn away. I also started to think about acting, writing and art as something I want to do.
When I entered Thailand and came to the monastery I felt like leaving right away. I became intensely aware of my tendency to run away from everything. I chose to stay to get a good feel of life here but knew deep down that I didn’t want to be a monk anymore. There were too many people in the world who needed help and I couldn’t just leave them. On my first day I told myself that I am tired of this depression and it ends now! I told myself in 7 days it will be gone. And in a little less than a week it was gone. And that was it. It was over.
And this is the key thing. We don’t have control over things. I had depression and then I didn’t. What healed me exactly? I have no idea. Depression came without asking me and it left without letting me know why. Something pulled me to go travel and try to become a monk so I went. My feelings started to change slowly over the course of the 4 months. By the time I was at the monastery the depression was gone. The only thing I can think of is that I felt I had to leave on this trip and I did. I did it. I didn’t question myself or think of something else to do. I listened and did it. But maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was meditation or some other realization. I don’t know.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is no “solution” to depression. Different things work for different people. This is what happened to me and how I overcame it. I had a strong desire to do something so I did it. Maybe this will help you. Maybe there’s something you know you should do but are holding yourself back. With depression it’s easy to get lost in thought and not take action. But at some point you have to take action or stay stuck inside of the depressed bubble you’re in. Maybe that made the difference for me. I took action and it worked. If it hadn’t worked I would have taken another action that I thought would help until I found a way out.
Don’t give up.
All things come and go, rise and fall. Emotions come and go every day. If you have depression that means, most likely, one day you won’t. You just have to be patient and do what you think is best right now. When I left for this trip I had no idea if it would change anything. I had no expectations. I didn’t know what I would do if it didn’t work out. I didn’t know if I’d survive. I didn’t know anything. But I did it because I felt deeply that I had to and that it was the right thing to do. Maybe you have that as well?
And really that’s with all of life. If you feel like doing something and know you should do it, then do it. Our minds pull us everyday to do something. From brushing our teeth to sitting to meditate. So just do it.
I don’t want to simplify it and say that you just have to do one thing and your depression is over. Like I said, the people I met affected me deeply. My meditation practice has helped me greatly. And I’m sure other things I may not be aware of affected my depression too. But I can only see this looking back. At the time all I had was what I was doing at the moment. What are you doing right now? That’s all that matters.
You can’t control it or say that you will get over it within a month or a year. It will happen when it happens. And I can’t say that you just need to listen to what you want to do and it will go away because it might not. You might meditate for years with no effect. But I believe very strongly that you will find a way out and I want to be here to support you through your journey which will be long and hard. But patience is one of the most powerful things in the world.
I came back home happily on August 7.
And when I came back it wasn’t like all those thoughts that bothered me before went away. They were still there but they didn’t affect me anymore. This is probably because of my meditation practice which I work on every day. This is the other major thing that I believe will help you conquer depression. I don’t know if you meditate or what your thoughts on it are but I believe it is not just something you do but it’s the way you are. I will be posting a guide on how I meditate soon but if you like, see the links below for more info.
Sam Harris
Jon Kabat-Zinn
There are a lot of resources online if you search for: Mindfulness, Zazen, or Vipassana
And here are some resources for depression:
Your Local Crisis Line (google it)
If you think you might be at risk for suicide read this.
Psych Central
Metanoia
One important thing about dealing with depression is talking to someone. If you don’t have anyone close to talk to there are counselors, therapists, and crisis centers who will listen. If you’d like you can even send me a message using the Contact Me link above and I’ll listen to you. Just make sure you talk to someone.
I would love to hear your thoughts. And if you have stories about your depression and how you dealt with it, or are dealing with it, then I would love to hear it. Please leave a comment or use the contact me link above!
Much Love,
Andy
it's hard to stay awake 