How to cope…..?

Phew… sorry this turned out so long! I hope there’s something in there that could be of use.

I’m not sure this will be helpful, because I see it in quite a different way. I hear people talk about depression and suicidal thoughts as knowledge or realisation. Sometimes people talk about it as though it’s helped them see the world as it really is. But I feel it really limits me. It’s like a block on most parts of my mind… like I’m caged into a small place where I can only experience certain thoughts and feelings. Sometimes I’m amazed by the force of depression, and it couldn’t only be described as a limitation, but I feel that’s a part of it.

For me the struggle involves trying to widen that small place that I’m left with. Sometimes I can push the wall a little, and I can breathe more. The thoughts dissipate temporarily. Eventually I hope to smash it down until one day I can just walk over it. I refuse to accept that this is just something some people have to live with. Since I finally understood that I had depression, I went through years thinking that it would come, but it would leave again, and that was the best way I could look at it. Now it’s stuck, and since then I’ve heard of people who have shifted it and managed to keep it at bay for the rest of their lives. I could be deluded, but I truly hope that’s possible for anyone, although obviously not everyone will manage it.

I spent a long time trying to distract myself. I haven’t been less depressed but I just realised that lately I’ve been trying to face my mind as it is (through meditation and mindfulness), and that’s a huge step forward from the last several years where I ran and ran from it because I felt essentially like it was trying to destroy me. Right now I believe that’s the key. To learn to accept your mind as it is, but with the long goal of changing it. The suicidal thoughts begin in the mind, and for me my depression began in my mind (as long ago as I can remember)… it seems that the only place to change it is in the mind. If you’re deeply depressed or suicidal, distractions are necessary, but you’re likely to return to those feelings and thoughts at some point. So I do think you need more, although they’re valuable.

That’s just my current perspective. To be more helpful though – one thing I found really helped me was physical exercise. Any type. I did exercise videos at home. To begin with it was in a desperate attempt to lose weight, but eventually I grew to love them. They really did lift the depression, although mainly only while I was exercising. It helped a lot. You know how some people take anti-depressants and they don’t cure them of depression but they take the edge off? None of the pills I tried worked, but that’s what exercise did for me. I know some people would find it could have a much bigger part in curing them. If possible, I think it’s great to train both your body and your mind. I’m interested in meditation and similar techniques, but I find them incredibly hard for the obvious reason: when you let your mind be as it is, it comes back to the suicidal thoughts and to the pain. I’ve been trying meditation-like exercises for a few weeks now and I’ve seen a couple of differences, although fleeting, that were small but meant the world to me. And I’m finding it easier to just exist when I do it. It’s not necessarily something I would suggest (I found other people’s experiences inspiring for a long time, but I’ve hardly tried it yet so I can’t attest to much), but I do think the best way to find peace in the mind is by looking at the mind itself.