"just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."
A lot of us seem to be having some rough periods right now mentally and emotionally, and I know very, very well how insidious depression can be. I'm complete bollocks when it comes to doling out useful advice, but I thought I'd make a post in an effort to help even a little bit. So here are some very wise quotes and posts by people far more entertaining or more eloquent than I.
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Interviewer: Give us your best tip for overcoming depression.
Stephen Fry: To regard it as being like the weather. It's not your responsibility that it's raining, but it is real when it rains, and the fact that it's raining does not mean that the rain is never going to stop. The only thing to do is to believe that, one day, it won't be raining and accept it so you can find a mental umbrella to shield yourself from the worst. The sun will eventually come up.
Interviewer: What piece of advice would you give to Stephen Fry, aged 10.
Stephen Fry: You're not alone. Everything you feel is fine. Only feel guilty about things you have done that are mean and cheap and unkind. Don't feel guilty about what you feel, no matter what the world might think. Everyone is scared inside, not just you. That's why reading is so good. Keep doing it. Writers are people brave enough to make you feel better about being human because they're not afraid to reveal their own frailties, weaknesses, desires, failures, and appetites.
ADVENTURES IN DEPRESSION: In which Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half recounts her serious bout of depression in a poignant and yet hilarious way, with accompanying doodles.
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO NOT GIVING A FUCK: In which the author gives some incredibly useful life advice.
INFINITE DRUNK RON SWANSON, for when you just need to stare at Nick Offerman in a tiny black hat doing a jig to accompanying hip hop.
THE NICEST PLACE ON THE INTERNET, for when you just need kindly strangers to give you giant hugs.
Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.
MAGIC CARDS WITH GOOGLY EYES: for the geeks out there who need to laugh hysterically at well-placed googly eyes.
SCARED BROS AT A HAUNTED HOUSE, because sometimes Schadenfreude is the best dessert after a bad day.
DEVESTATING EXPLOSIONS FROM OLD SPICE: When things are just too shitty and you. NEED. TO. BLOW. SHIT. UP.
50 PEOPLE YOU WISH YOU KNEW IN REAL LIFE, because we all have horrible days when the people around us make us weep for the future -- and knowing that there is this much awesome in the world can help restore faith in the universe.
RAINYMOOD.COM:, for those of us who just feel better when we can hear the storm.
LOOK AT THIS PUG. LOOK AT IT.
THERE. NOW DON'T YOU FEEL BETTER?
THE ANNOTATED MST: for those long shifts at work with very little to do -- you may not be able to WATCH an MST3K episode to cheer yourself up, but you can always just read the riffs (and the significance behind them)! Think Wikipedia, ONLY BETTER.
BRB, LOLING FOREVER: Angie B's complete Tumblr tag of all things ridiculous and lol-inducing. :D
I HOPE THIS HAS HELPED IN SOME SMALL FASHION.
REMEMBER: I LOVE YOU ALL.
AND I AM HERE FOR HUGS,
VENTING, OR SILLY DISTRACTIONS
WHENEVER YOU NEED OF ME.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
©
Interviewer: Give us your best tip for overcoming depression.
Stephen Fry: To regard it as being like the weather. It's not your responsibility that it's raining, but it is real when it rains, and the fact that it's raining does not mean that the rain is never going to stop. The only thing to do is to believe that, one day, it won't be raining and accept it so you can find a mental umbrella to shield yourself from the worst. The sun will eventually come up.
Interviewer: What piece of advice would you give to Stephen Fry, aged 10.
Stephen Fry: You're not alone. Everything you feel is fine. Only feel guilty about things you have done that are mean and cheap and unkind. Don't feel guilty about what you feel, no matter what the world might think. Everyone is scared inside, not just you. That's why reading is so good. Keep doing it. Writers are people brave enough to make you feel better about being human because they're not afraid to reveal their own frailties, weaknesses, desires, failures, and appetites.
ADVENTURES IN DEPRESSION: In which Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half recounts her serious bout of depression in a poignant and yet hilarious way, with accompanying doodles.
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO NOT GIVING A FUCK: In which the author gives some incredibly useful life advice.
INFINITE DRUNK RON SWANSON, for when you just need to stare at Nick Offerman in a tiny black hat doing a jig to accompanying hip hop.
THE NICEST PLACE ON THE INTERNET, for when you just need kindly strangers to give you giant hugs.
Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.
MAGIC CARDS WITH GOOGLY EYES: for the geeks out there who need to laugh hysterically at well-placed googly eyes.
SCARED BROS AT A HAUNTED HOUSE, because sometimes Schadenfreude is the best dessert after a bad day.
DEVESTATING EXPLOSIONS FROM OLD SPICE: When things are just too shitty and you. NEED. TO. BLOW. SHIT. UP.
50 PEOPLE YOU WISH YOU KNEW IN REAL LIFE, because we all have horrible days when the people around us make us weep for the future -- and knowing that there is this much awesome in the world can help restore faith in the universe.
RAINYMOOD.COM:, for those of us who just feel better when we can hear the storm.
LOOK AT THIS PUG. LOOK AT IT.
THERE. NOW DON'T YOU FEEL BETTER?
THE ANNOTATED MST: for those long shifts at work with very little to do -- you may not be able to WATCH an MST3K episode to cheer yourself up, but you can always just read the riffs (and the significance behind them)! Think Wikipedia, ONLY BETTER.
BRB, LOLING FOREVER: Angie B's complete Tumblr tag of all things ridiculous and lol-inducing. :D
I HOPE THIS HAS HELPED IN SOME SMALL FASHION.
REMEMBER: I LOVE YOU ALL.
AND I AM HERE FOR HUGS,
VENTING, OR SILLY DISTRACTIONS
WHENEVER YOU NEED OF ME.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥