Nothing in the world seems to help. I spent forever trying to find something to watch, but literally nothing felt good. Even when I eventually put something on it felt empty and I just ended up staring at the wall. I tried playing videos games, some of which I really love, and I turned them all off after a few minutes. I’ve tried other things too. Half the time I don’t even eat. Time passes in slow motion, like some kind of purgatory. The worst is I can’t even sleep. I have the next few days off and they’re going to feel like an eternity. It actually scares me. How do you get through this? I’m desperate.
For what it’s worth, I see a therapist weekly and I’m on a few different medications. This particular bout of sadness is caused by an especially painful rejection.
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Distractions, usually. Or I just accept it and let myself wallow, until I get sick of myself and bounce back.
I do things that require my attention. Passive consumption of media like movies, books, music don’t cut it for me. I go biking or motorcycling where distraction would mean an accident. Or I hit up a sports competition, especially with teammates who I feel some obligation towards to help me stay invested. Whatever it is, I try to find ways to force my attention out of spiraling thoughts.
Next few days off seems like a primo opportunity to break out of all sorts of routines and patterns. I would be looking to do something crazy new that requires a lot of active attention.
That all sounds fun and I’m glad to hear you have those things in your life. I’m just not sure what the equivalent would look like for me.
No time like the present.
Next few days off seems like a primo opportunity to break out of all sorts of routines and patterns. I would be looking to do something crazy new that requires a lot of active attention.
The silly sounding answer is that you just have to try stuff. You won’t know what you’re into unless you go look for it.
I also suffer from looking at other people enjoying things and thinking “that’s great for them but I don’t do that stuff”. You’ll always have the time for indoor time wasting when the weather/budget/whatever is in the way.
It’s very easy to feel zero urgency to go out and do stuff and to look back and think “huh did I waste two months I don’t remember anything happening recently”. Just look up events and meetups and hobby clubs in your area, you can just check it out and leave without losing anything. Sadly corporate social media is where a lot of stuff gets posted, but you can find a lot of stuff just fine without an account.
You can also think of not just what the “event” is but also what kind of people you think would go. I’m not necessarily that interested in TTRPGs but I know those events would attract interesting people I have common interests with.
Don’t stay inside. Find the nearest place to where you live with a lot of trees and few people, and go there, and walk. It won’t cure it, but at least won’t make matters worse the way sitting being sad in your room will.
This. Forest Bathing. Parks, Ravines, Forests, farmcountry hikes, whatever. Get outside and spend the day, all of it, outdoors and away from tech.
Like bathing in the woods?
Or washing trees?
Exactly.
The way I understood it was to immerse yourself in nature as a metaphorical bath.
I do like being outside.
find a used bicycle, if it needs work, even better. tune that thang up and go for rides.
Sorry to hear you’re going through this. It sounds complicated in your case: a history of a depressive or lethargic baseline, medication in the mix and an unavoidable reminder of the rejection.
TV, computer games, etc, cannot meet human needs. We are an interdependent species that generally need meaningful human relationships.
I think that instead of figuring out how to not be sad, you might need to look at what has made you genuinely happy over the course of you life.
Also, do you have a diagnosis that justified the medication?
That’s true about meeting human needs. I have the same struggles trying to meet people on dating apps when I’m like this too, but I think what you said is still a strong point.
Anxiety/depression and ADHD diagnosis. Since I was in middle school.
A partner is a wonderful thing. Sometimes they just happen organically when we’re enjoying ourselves in other ways.
A baseline support of people you care about and who care about you can be very nourishing.
My own best memories are of shared laughter with friends, even if those friendships were fleeting. Those times did more for me than consumption (eg of media).
The diagnosis sound challenging. Are there other neurodivergent people in your life that you enjoy meeting? What are your happiest memories?
I had amazing friends growing up. Now I feel like I have no friends at all. I just joke that I know a lot of people who would be offended if they heard me say that. The truth is I still have them but they all got married and had lives and kids. I rarely hear from them and see them even less frequently. Sometimes I feel like I just got left behind.
I’m struggling to think of any happy memories at the moment that aren’t associated with negative memories later on. That’s not to say I don’t have any happy memories. I’m sure I have many. I’m just not in the headspace to find them.
It sounds like you’re feeling. understandably, lonely. Sometimes that’s because our relationships with our friends have changed, although it can akso be because we become a bit numb even to what is good for us.
I remember what it’s like not being in the headspace to find good memories. It really helped me to keep a mental journal of those. Although I did have to crawl out of a hole slightly first to be able for that.
One thing is for sure, your emotions are telling you that you need something and in my experience doing other things (like playing games etc) only amplifies them. It’s as if they’re demanding our attention and contact.
I do journal, but very infrequently. All the happy memories that came to mind were all of girls that eventually lead to heartache. It’s hard to separate them when they’re so tied together.
I can try to do something over the next few days. But sometimes it’s the evening weekends that get really hard. When you somehow managed to scrape your way through work but there’s nothing else to do. I used to drink probably too much. But even when I wasn’t in the middle of something like this it had more to do with the damn boredom. Right now I’m actually too depressed to drink.
I would say every relationship I had was painful at the end. Breaking up is so hard whether it’s the person making the decision or the person who finds out. I look back on them fondly now, though, and I’m still friends with some of those. My last breakup was very amicable and we’re still besties.
The reason I say all that (and feel free to check out if this is getting too much) is I wonder do you tend to weigh the final moments more in your memories? I’ve been able to separate those breakups, depersonalise them and it’s left me with a solid footing where I look back and feel enriched by the relationship that preceded them.
Learning about cognitive distortions can maybe help a little here, especially maximisation (of the negatives) and minimisation (of the positives).
I think based on past experiences I have a major fear of abandonment, and I see every ending as being abandoned. I also have little to no confidence in my ability to meet anyone new. I feel like each time it happens that was my last chance.
Drugs.
Move your body if you can, light to moderate exercise, even just going for a long walk is the absolute best non-medical treatment for depression. Your body makes a bunch of the feel good chemicals when you move that depression deprives you of. Also a change of scenery can help a lot. If there is a place you’ve wanted to go nearby like a museum or a park or something that can help you start to process and move on from a bad relationship end.
I live somewhere very hot so when I get like that, every other month or so, I go to a shopping mall and walk a few laps in the air conditioning and watch all the people. Your mileage may vary but walking around in places with a lot of people helps me.
It also might not hurt to talk to your provider about adjusting your medication if you feel like you are for more than a couple weeks. The most important thing to remember is that states like these are temporary, you have felt better before and you will again on the other side, you just have to get through it.
It’s hard to see them as temporary, but I logically acknowledge that you are definitely right. But I think my emotions are feeling hopeless right now and I can’t Socratically walk myself out of it. I think hopelessness is the best way I can describe it. Maybe despair. I can try and get outside some tomorrow. A lot of times I get to places like a park and just want to go home as soon as I’m there.
I also feel like I’m coming off very contrarian which I hope isn’t the case.
I’m the same way when I’m down. Nothing anyone could say seems to apply to me and I’ve always got a logical, (mostly) rational reason why. Depression is weird like that. I’m bipolar so I’ve done a lot of therapy and tried a lot of medications but none of it really sticks when I’m at the bottom of the cycle. The advice I offered was stuff I had to figure out on my own the hard way, but it was not something I invented. It was little bits and pieces of things therapists and confidants had shared with me over the years that eventually clicked.
But the only truth that matters is that the only way out of it is through it. You’ve got to find the things that work for you because we’re all different. It’s about taking care of yourself first and foremost. I rationalize and use research about neurochemicals and mindfulness to stay afloat, you might find something else that works better to help you cope. All you have to do is keep trying and eventually you’ll find it.
Sit with yourself. Journal. Walk. Be silent. Watch your thoughts come and go. Experience every emotion to the fullest. Get to know yourself again, light and dark sides. Radical acceptance. Radical surrender. Radical forgiveness.
Thank you for the kind advice. I will give it a try.
You are so welcome. I wish you all the best. Most of all, give yourself time, space and love. All of you.
Aw I’m sorry you’re going through this.
When I was at my worst, I volunteered at the food pantry almost every day. Helped me focus on tasks while sometimes interacting with people…overall distracted myself for moments of the day and made me feel a bit better about myself. Obviously, I couldn’t volunteer 24/7, so it wasn’t a cure-all, but it was something that helped to slightly lessen my pain at the time.
Unfortunately, a lot of volunteer gigs seem to be during normal working hours. At the time, I had off work so I was able to do it.
I know you’re in therapy, but have you heard of DBT? Standard one on one talk therapy didn’t work for me. I was put into a group therapy DBT program where it felt like they were essentially teaching it to us in a very structured manner.
The gist of DBT is basically saying that you have intense emotions and that’s ok. It gives you various techniques about what to do when you have that intensity and how you can build a more satisfying life when that isn’t happening.
The thing with all of these DBT techniques too is that they aren’t going to all work for you. But if you really work at it and play around with it, you can find a combo that works ok to help make things in life more tolerable.
Would you say that the rejection triggered this current mood state? If so, I 100% relate to it and it is how a lot of my mood episodes seem to occur. If this is the case, would you mind talking about the event? I can go over some of the ways I might try to approach it with the skills I’ve learned.
I haven’t heard of DBT but I will look into it. Thank you for the suggestion.
Sounds like you have some grieving to do. And that’s a lot of work. And it’s messy and there’s no direct route. But your therapist should be able to give you things to try.
Overwhelming intoxication.
Have you tried to regularly exercise and walk through a natural trail of some sort near where you live?
I really struggle to maintain a routine, and it takes a lot of willpower for me to exercise. I’d be more likely to start that when I’m in a good place, but keeping up with it would be hard.
There lies the solution to your dilemma. Also likely you have poor sleep hygiene.
Have you tried simply just not giving a fuck? Maybe that works? Seems to for wealthy people just fine.
A combination of exercise, physical activity and doing something that serves a purpose, for example doing some cleaning, tidy up an area of your room/house/desk because a cluttered environment has a massive impact on your mental state.
That “remember you are both the animal in the enclosure and the zookeeper taking care of them, so clean their enclosure and feed them.” meme is more real than you could imagine, so grab a shower and have a long soak in a bath, eat something hearty but simple like a slowcooker stew with some rice (and don’t feel bad about putting leftovers in the fridge)
I’ve been in the same state before, it’s a hard one to build up the motivation at times, sometimes you just have to say “Fuckit, today I am taking things slow. There’s nothing I NEED to do immediately.” (And if there is, potter your way around and get it done at a pace you can manage, you’ll feel better for having completed a task)
Also provide some novel enrichment!
Fill a pumpkin with ground beef then smack the devil outta it
I understand both that you’re joking, and the particular reference, but honestly it would make for an interesting afternoon.
I celebrate making progress. It doesn’t matter how much. “I did a thing today. That’s good.”
I don’t necessarily escape it.
Usually, I keep busy. The feeling of nothing is enjoyable I know too. I switch to something else or wait for it to pass.
As multiple users have already pointed out: 🌲 in the forest everything makes sense again. It resuscitated my photography—🦋 smetterling.eu—which you could do as well. To boot you can document your process, good and bad, on an small web blog:
🌐 Where’s your website?“How to have a proper small web website within minutes; free, lightweight, easy.”
Staying inside while feeling empty/aimless/uncertain is nearly always fruitless. When you have to stay in, at least do something with intent. Draw. Dance. Stretch. Calisthenics. Whatever. If you can, force yourself out and go to the nearest greenery avoiding the ruckus of people and the frustrating sound of cars.
“Researchers found that even low levels of traffic noise negatively affected the benefits to wellbeing that could otherwise be derived from listening to natural sounds.” ―Found via https://mastodon.social/@TheWarOnCars/117162428401203766
All that and sports, running, rollerskating, et cetera. Get your blood flowing and muscles aching. Good luck.
Thank you for the kind response. It’s hard to describe just how catatonic I get. I would love to lose myself in some of those things you listened, even though I’m not creative, but I fear it would be the same story as the other stuff. It just seems like nothing in the universe sparks any kind of joy.
Don’t expect anything. Just go out. Feed the crows.
When I get into these states, I tend to start by drinking water with a good amount of electrolytes. There’s a lot of times where I just don’t do anything and I don’t wanna leave the house but anytime I drink water and I take a walk consistently. It helps a lot.
Being indoors and constantly on a computer is not good however, much you do like computers or video games.
And I do it consistently.
One of the main things that I had when I was very depressed was the fact that I would get dehydrated and I didn’t realize it and it would make me very sad which stopped me from drinking water or doing other stuff.
No, I’m not going to pretend that water is the only thing but it’s a start.
