How do you ward off depression?
I wanted to name this something cutesy like “keeping the sad gremlins away!” Or, “how to wrangle the depression dogs!” (Eek.) At the end of the day though, depressive symptoms cannot be cute-ified. Depression is a cruel illness that destroys its own cure. It makes every motivation hill ten times higher, makes beloved pastimes empty and boring, creates hollowness and fractures in relationships, and can come on completely without warning—or conversely, rides in alongside one of the hardest times of your life. Depression says, “Oh you just had a major life transition? Hi, I'm here. Oh you just got a scary medical diagnosis? Hi, I'm here. Oh, you're having a shift in your hormones? Cool. Hello. I'm here.”
I have an analogy I use with people where I say that if you were a car on a roadway beside a ravine, depression is like poor wheel alignment that is continually steering you towards the ravine. Depression creates mood-congruent urges that just self-perpetuate. It makes you want to listen to your sad playlist, to lay in bed all day, to withdraw from your friends. To get worse. That wheel alignment steers you towards the ravine. And once you’re started on that slope, it can seem like you build momentum, going lower and lower and lower.
A big part of managing depression is not going too close to the ravine in the first place. You start feeling sad? Opposite action to those urges, all the way. You want to listen to your sad playlist? You need to listen to your poppy happy playlist. (I half-jokingly tell folks that it’s really difficult to be sad and listening to Kesha.) You want to withdraw from friends? You need to text someone a meme. You want to lay in bed all day? You gotta get up. Even to a chair. Because while the wheels are pulling, you’ve got to be on the steering wheel attentively course-correcting.
But Allison, you may say. What if I’m already in the ravine? What if I’ve been sitting in the ravine and the car is long gone and all I see are rocky walls around me? What if I am no longer “course-correcting” and I’m just, here?
How to Climb the Wall
Do things you once enjoyed, knowing you may not enjoy them. Don’t judge it.
Give to others. Even if you feel no-good very-bad, you can’t in good faith convince yourself you’re terrible if you’ve recently checked on something going through a hard time, if you’ve donated to a food bank, or if you’ve taken a shift as a favor to someone at work.
Take a shower or brush your teeth. Understanding that these can be burdensome from a sensory standpoint, it can also make a world of difference in how you are feeling.
Eat a meal. If your body isn’t nourished, you will be even more vulnerable to the intense sadness or blank apathy of depression. Even if it’s a frozen dinner or a can of soup.
I definitely don't want to be thaaaat person (“have you tried going outside?!”), and going outside and getting sun can help. Obviously touching grass won’t revolutionize your mental health, and at the same time, vitamin D comes from the sun and can really mess with you if you’re not getting it. I have a dear friend who at one point was a nightshift nurse. She started feeling really funky, went to the doctor for blood work, and lo and behold had a vitamin D deficit (because of working at night!). She started taking vitamins and felt better fairly quickly. So this is a real thing that can actually make a difference.
Use timers. Your body really wants to stay in bed and wallow. See if you can really, deeply, veg in bed for twenty minutes—then get up. You really feel validated by sad music—okay, listen for fifteen minutes then dive STRAIGHT into pop or EDM or something with a good beat. Set a timer to allow the mood congruent behavior you want to indulge in (a little wallowing, as a treat), then move fully into opposite action.
Every small gain is a gain. It’s all building blocks and handholds to get you back up the mountain. You have to keep stacking these behaviors to make a change. I've had people literally make checklists of things they can do to help nudge themselves in the right direction, almost like a diary card and not quite. You include a few things that are “gimmes” for you—say, “pet my dog,” or “took my medication”—and a few reaches, like “went for a walk” or “went through the mail.” The list serves as accountability and a list of ideas. If you're laying in bed scrolling, saying, I don't even know what I want to do, the list knows! The list knows that when you made it, you thought stacking the dishwasher or listening to music or walking the dog were good ideas. It makes forward movement easier.
There's not a tidy way to close this post other than the dialectical acknowledgment that depression can be very hard to work your way out of, and it is absolutely possible to get better. If you'd like more ideas on how to pull yourself out of depression, or if you'd like a therapist in your corner, I offer in-person therapy in Huntersville, NC, and online therapy in NC and SC. Thank you for the time you invested reading this.
