Depression- part 1, an unwanted visitor

It has been such a long time since I have written an article on hubpages. It is not because I have nothing to write about. It is not because I do not want to, but because I am depressed. What is depression?  Why do people suffer from depression? Why I am depressed? I will try to write about depression in my own way. There is a lot said about depression. I do not wish to pile up on those information again. More likely I would like to write my personal view about depression and why I ended up with this unwanted visitor in my soul.

What is depression?

Depression is simply a mood disorder. When you lose someone dear to your heart, it is fine to be sad for some time.  Loosing someone important to us is always sad and puts our mood down.

When you are depressed the reason why you are sad is missing. Sometimes I walk throught the town and see unhappy people. Especially young people get sad without any mayor reason. Depression without medical help can least 6 months or less. It can also grow into depression which can cause suicide.

Symptoms of depression

Sadness- neverending sadness. No matter what you do during the day, you are sad.

Low confidence- Whatever you do makes you think you are not good enought. Everyone has their own dreams and goals. When we do not achieve them, it makes us loose our confidence.

Apperance – the way we look can take our confidence away. Watching succesfull people makes us think they are just perfect. It can let our mind wonder about our apperance. Words like I am ugly, I look skinny/fat can trouble us and put us down.

Crying – When we are depressed, we get over sensitive and emotional so we cry without a reason.

Negative thoughts- Have you ever woken up in a morning and felt down? Everything is bad, you feel out of power, tired, bothered to do anything. Negative thoughts are a very powerfull tool for our mood and creates sadness.

Living- the way of life can depressed as well too. Relationships, Marriage, world news, work, school, friends, parents.

Health- when we are sick for a long time it can make us feel useless, pointless. Being permanently sick is tiring enough to get us into some form of depression.

There are many symptoms which makes as sad, unhappy and depressed and trying to name them all will make this article too boring if I continue. So I must simply state : Depression is like a mother in law; you never know when she comes!

There are also many forms of depression. This article is about the easy and medium form of depression which can be treated without medical treatment such as antidepressive.

I am depressed

As it was said before, many of us has experience with depression. When you find out that you are feeling down for quite a long time, you are depressed.

None of us wish to stay depressed and therefore let’s think about how we can fight depression. First of all we need to know what makes us depressed. We need to check our daily activity as that is the common problem.

Example from LizzyBoo

1/ I work 8 hours a day in a court house. I am constantly under a stress as I have to work with my head all the time. Filling out forms, writing letters. I am personal assistant for 3 judges.

2/ Two hours a day I spend on a train as I work far from home. The train road is the same all the time so I find it very boring.

3/ When I am home I put all my remaining power into my sister. She is disabled and mentaly ill. She drives me mad by her phone calls and special requirements all the time. She needs a lot of attention and I fel like I cannot give her more than I do. She talks a lot about death, she panics a lot. She breaks things a lot. The biggest problem is that she keeps hurting herself so I am worried about her all the time. She calls me in the middle of the day asking me to come home or she would kill herself

4/ Health- My health is not good . I have a skin cancer and it does not makes me feel happier at all. The fact that I have cancer does not bother me, but the hospital enviroment does.

5/ Sensitivity – I am sensitive person. I am naive and silly. I trust people a lot and that upsets me sometimes. I am also addicted to online Role Playing Games. When you play them a lot, you can lose the point of reality

6/ Friends- as my life is mad enought during the day I have not many people to talk to. I work all day and then I am home with my sister so I do not get out a lot. So my life in few words looks like this- wake up-train-work-train-home

The biggest fault I made is the fact I believed I can cope with all that. I believed I could get the strenght from other things but I was already falling. Falling into depression when I found my confidence pretty low. I accused myself for being a bad sister as I cannot help my beloved sister. I never had a chance to fullfill my dreams and I made myself responsible for that. My social life went to zero, I ended up with less friends. I have used the internet as a tool to create my own world where I can be anyone. I locked myself in a tiny world where I felt secure. Now I am in a stage of thinking that I am not good enough in anything I do.

7/ English- Everyone who knows me a bit also knows my love for the English language. I always wanted to be a teacher of English, travel around a world. Now? I think my English is bad and not worth to try to be good at it.

I did write it here as an example. I know everyone has their own problems. I just wanted to show what kind of self discovery you need to make. You have to focus on your daily activity and how they work on your mood! When you find out what makes you depressed it helps you to work with it to change it.

Fight the depression

Now I would like to talk about how we can fight the depression to get more positive about being alive. I will again do it in my own way as I think it is the best way. I would say when you are depressed not only does your soul has to be cured but also your body. So we will focus on things which can help us mentally and physicly fight the depression.

Activities which can help us to stay positive

Indoor activities- anything you can do at home or from home. There is plenty of things we can do. The mayor point of this is to focus our mind or something different than our negative thoughts

Cooking- Yeah, cooking can be fun especially if you experiment. Invite friends around and cook with them. It does not matter what you cook just enjoy it! Of course you can cook alone, but cooking with others will be so much fun.

Watching TV – Yeah watching TV is fine but change drama movies to comedy. I personaly love comedies with Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz.

Riding a bike – Most of us has an Exercise Bike at home. Ride 20 minutes on it and put all the sadness and anger into it. Your mind will focus to make the goal and all your thoughts and strenght will focus on it. Do that everyday and you will feel fresh and happier soon.

Decorate your house – for some people this activity can help. It does not mean you have to rebuild your house. Just look for things you could replace or change to make your rooms more comfortable.

Pets – I’ve got a ZOO at home so that is the best activity for me. If you do not have a pet, go and get it!! Even, if you do not wish to own dog or a cat, fishes will do! Pets makes you happy and you won‘t feel alone.

HubPages- the second best indoor activity to me. Write your thoughts down and share them with amazing people, writing is the best therapy for a sad soul. You can meet many writers on this internet site. I was lucky enough to meet people I like, look up to and adore. I got them all in my friend‘s list. Reading articles of others also gets your mind thinking of different things than yourself. I love HubPages!

Outdoor activities – Basicly that is anything you can do outside of your house and is the most recommended! Go where the life is!!!

Outdoor biking – Take your bike and ride into nature. Ride into a forest, visite places you like. Fresh air will boost up your mood and you never know who you will meet with! After a good long ride get into pub and drink a beer and enjoy the sunshine.

Shoping – Call all your friends and go to the shops. Even buying something small can boost your mood up well.

Cut a wood – I live in a house without a man. So I do cutting wood which I use in winter to keep my house warm. When I am really grumpy and depressed I just cut as much wood as I can. I mostly end up exhausted but happy!

Dog – use your dog to get your mood up. Take your dog out for a walk. I always do that. I take my dog into open and secure land and we run around like mad. I am running and she tries to catch me. She always gets me after all as my Donna runs pretty fast.

Not everyone has a dog so you can play with hamsters, ferrets, cats, snakes, lizards. I have most of them and people who think you cannot cuddle up with snakes or lizards are losers!!! Does not mean you cannot enjoy it if they are not fluffy!

Sometimes I walk around my house with 2 lizards on my shoulder and it is great fun. I got snakes too. They are still small but I love when they explore my hands.

As you can see there is many activities. Again I did not write them down as there is plenty things you can focus on. Everyone can find activities which makes their life easier.

What I have learned

I learned that depression is stage of mind where you feel unhappy and sad. Mostly caused by stress. I have learned that most of the time you cannot get over depression by yourself. Sometimes we all need to hear something positive from a mouth of our friends which help us to feel better.

Personal help

I have been feeling down for a few months now. When I am down I do not wish to talk about it or share it. I have abandoned my dreams, my hobbies, my friends. I left myself locked in my own world I did not want to get out of. I stopped writing, learning english. I was only doing things as a duty. Few months ago I just logged on HubPages to see what is new or if I got any comments. I always ended up with the same conclusion- “Yeah, you do not have any comments.“

A few weeks after I recieved a comment from a very good hubber named Kaltopsyd. As I said, I did not want to get involved in any socializing at all but I checked her profile. I read some of the hubs the very first day I looked. I was impressed by her work but said to myself- One of those succesfulls, she won’t talk to loser like me.

I remember times when I was talking to jimmythejock that I am not a writer, not good enough etc. It always makes me smile to think about it now when I see the traffic comming.

So to get back to point and Kaltopsyd, I think I wrote her an email. I started to read her hubs and she started to read mine. Apart from hubs I said a lot about myself to Kaltopsyd. She is an open hearted person with a pure mind. She kept sending me emails of support, kindness and care. I gonored most of them as I was not in stage to reply. I was really hard to her sometimes.

Even when I ignored many of her emails she did not give up. She kept sending me emails all the time and I started to slowly believe she meant every word said. She just made me get out of my hiding place. She encourage me to move on and keeps supporting me still.

Thank you Kim for all your help!

Depression is hard to deal with. It can hit us well and holds us down for such a long time. I just wish to say there is always a way to get out of depression. Sometimes it’s fast and sometimes it takes time. We all are allowed to get depressed and most likely we get depressed but having friends and focus on a good activity can help us a lot.

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