Finding Temporary Relief
Even during the worst of my depression, there were moments when I felt a little better.
Three things helped.
1. Focusing on the present moment
When I was depressed, my mind very much wanted to think deep thoughts. All. The. Time.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking deep thoughts… unless they are always negative, and unless you can’t ever bring yourself out of it and focus on what’s happening right now.
If you can’t buy groceries or do the dishes or fold the laundry because you’re too busy thinking about when the world might end… something’s wrong.
So, focusing on whatever was right in front of me could help to block out the negative thoughts and provide some relief for a little while.
This ties in with the second thing that helped:
2. Being around other people
This was hard. Very hard. When I was depressed, the last thing I wanted to do was to go anywhere. Or see anybody. That would involve getting out of bed… and getting dressed… and brushing my hair… and getting myself together. All of which seemed overwhelming. Then, when I finally got where I was going, I would have to try to act normal. Put on a smile. Fake happiness. Pretend everything was ok.
I just wanted to stay in bed. If I had to get out of bed, I wanted to watch TV and forget about real life.
But, the best thing I could do was to do exactly what I didn’t want to do. Get up, go out, be around other people. Because when I was looking at another person and that person was talking to me… I had to focus on the conversation. I had to focus on the present moment. I couldn’t let my thoughts go in whatever direction they wished. I couldn’t become overwhelmed with deep thoughts and start pondering the meaning of life.
I had to focus… on the person speaking… on the conversation… and my mind had to stay in the moment.
And when I was actually focusing on the moment, I couldn’t be thinking about everything else.
It was very good for me to go to work every day. Yes, I hated it. Every morning I woke up and thought about how much I wanted to quit my job. But once I got there, I had to focus on the people around me and the work I was supposed to do.
I’ll be honest, the depression affected my work. Sometimes I didn’t do my work as well as I should have. But even then, it still had to be done. Which meant I had to focus on it, and that meant I couldn’t just shut down and brood over the negative thoughts.
Looking back on it, I remember feeling happier at work than I did almost anywhere else.
3. Reading about other people’s depression
The last thing that helped was reading about other people’s depression.
In my church library, I came across a little book about a pastor who had gone through a depression a few decades earlier. He became so depressed that he spent some time in a mental facility. But eventually, his depression lifted, and he recovered and went back into the ministry. Reading his story was extremely comforting. Knowing that other Christians have gone through depression and that it didn’t last forever, gave me hope.
Reading stories about overcoming depression gave me hope even when my brain couldn’t really think happy thoughts. Because, at the very least, it provided relief from the unhappy thoughts. Even if I couldn’t really feel happy, I could sometimes feel not unhappy. And that was much better than how I felt the rest of the time.
No quick fix
No, there is no quick fix for depression. And I can’t tell you what will work or not work in your own situation. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t attempt to give professional advice.
But these are a few things that worked for me. I hope these ideas will help you!