Mostly paranoia and anxiety. I don't like how THC affects my mood. I always been that doom feeling like I'm doing something wrong. — Posty McPostface

Well you don't need more bad feels. When I use it these days it's just the tiniest amount to cross a threshold where the surroundings are freshened up. But to each their own. Maybe I should have recommended a kitten.

Also, I learned recently that psychedelics can effectively treat depression. Unfortunately they’re illegal though. It’s believe that they can help to breakup mental patterns (including depressive patterns, apparently). — praxis

Yes, psychedelics can help. But, I learned the hard way of once taking magic mushrooms and experiencing ego death and complete horror at the whole experience. It was a psychotic state to not want to be in.

That was awesome negative psychology. Now, I know how to become more miserable. Thanks!

Maybe I should have recommended a kitten. — macrosoft

A cat would be nice. :)

A. You are capable of identifying some negative source of your misery,
B. You are absolutely capable of solving therefore mentioned deficiencies.

... C. ?

I was watching fox television the other day and there was a teenager who was golfing blind after losing both eyes after years of remitted cancer. His other senses maxified. Cancer took his physical vision but he still won the will to live.

Take the mechanism that is causing you to spiral downward and flip it upward.

What do you value? If you don’t know, you should be using your energy to shine the light on that. Take that which you hold in the highest esteem, and pursue it. Share it if you already have it. There is a gift that you can share with the world that will justify your suffering. This paradoxical altruism is very real. Some people walk on elevated plateaus by routinely perpetuating their subjectively-attributed [personal meaning] highest good, manifesting a godly form of Being.

What's self-esteem? I have a notoriously low self-esteem. — Posty McPostface

Do you though? The audacity to say such a thing indicates some kind of self-affirmation. I'm just spittballing, but I think a rejection of the ways of the world (adult disenchantment) indicates a stubborn faith in one's own sense of how things ought to be. How might this connect to self-esteem? Do some of us present vulnerability with a cunning we don't fully understand?

When I was about 20, I tended to play the clown around everyone but my closest friend. I didn't take it as a conscious strategy. In a way it was a better mask than silence for a much more essential and serious core of my personality. Silence would have been all too loud, you see --and of course to some degree I did like to goof around more then.

A cat would be nice. :) — Posty McPostface

If you have the space and funds for one, I think it's a great thing to try. My cat is playing the fool right now. I just love that evil little thing.

I just ate a hot dog and some chicken, so I'm feeling less depressed. :) — Posty McPostface

You were misdiagnosed as depressed when you were actually just hungry. It's an easy mistake to make. I was once misdiagnosed as retarded. Turns out I was just sleepy.

That was awesome negative psychology. Now, I know how to become more miserable. Thanks! — Posty McPostface

Knowing what you're doing wrong is part of the answer to navigating your way to a better place. Duh!

It has all been said before, over and over and over again.

You need to be kidnapped and dunked in cold water everyday for a month.

Forced Bikram Yoga sessions (Bootcamp).

Streaking through various social places.

Horse therapy.

Mime classes.

Mime horse therapy classes.

That might help.

I also have a psychotic disorder (formerly diagnosed as schizophrenia) and anxiety. — Posty McPostface

Did I mention that I have struggled with a substance abuse problem. I think that issue is in my past now — Posty McPostface

That's what I'm talking about. You don't just have "simple depression". You have a more complex diagnosis. "Depression" may feel the same for you that it would feel like for everybody else (feeling worthless, passivity, sleeping a lot, etc.) but the cause of your depression is likely more complicated. You have multiple diagnoses (if you were diagnosed CD) of MI and CD--which is fairly common. People often self-medicate with alcohol or recreational drugs to help themselves feel better.

Antidepressants may or may not help you -- they just don't work on everybody. So your psychiatrist may have to be extra good at designing treatment plans. You might benefit by being evaluated at a research university medical school clinic like USC or UCLA. They should be able to give you the best possible diagnosis and treatment plan (meds). (You have medicaid or medicare?)

You definitely would benefit from a supportive therapist and a good support group. The National Alliance on Mental Illness NAMI is a group you can use to find support groups. They have an office near you. Unfortunately, great therapists and great support groups can be hard to find.

I was once misdiagnosed as retarded. — Hanover

Eh, I never make mistakes.

@Posty McPostface IMHO* if you continue to act depressed, you will continue to be depressed. I don't know how anyone couldn't end up depressed spending their days in bed "wallowing". There's probably much more to it than that, but if you're waiting for your depression to lift before you actually get up and do things, you're in a dangerously passive orientation. My advice would be to imagine what you would do if you weren't depressed and try to go and do that anyway.

*Take it for what it's worth. It's no subsititute for professional advice, obviously.

I already see a therapist and he asked me the fundamental question as to whether I am committed to getting better or stay the same. — Posty McPostface

Your therapist asked you a very important question and you answered it in the current time when you were seeing the therapist but time moves on. So maybe entertaining his question, now at a different time would be fruitful?

I told him that I am content with my crummy life as it currently is, and haven't spoken to him since. Does that mean that I can just learn to cope with it? — Posty McPostface

Here is the key: be prepared when you use it, embrace it with everything you have because life has been waiting for you to make this decision.
"When it is harder to suffer than change, we change."

Avoid Atheism; Atheists are depressed (and depressing). — Devans99

Ahem...bullshit :down:

He was leaning into your shit just when you needed to be asking why You were leaning into your shit. — Valentinus

Excellent articulation!

How long you require to take your next walk is a measurement of how well you can manage your condition. That much is up to you. As always, I wish you the best. — Bitter Crank

:sparkle:

Ahem...bullshit — ArguingWAristotleTiff

You are quite brilliant.

I speak from personal experience; I was one.

I speak from personal experience; I was one. — Devans99

I understand that you speak from YOUR "personal experience" but that does not mean that anyone else feels that way in being an Atheist or has the same experiences as you.

You are quite brilliant. — Devans99

I do not apologize for calling you out on a wide brush of bullshit being painted across a section of society that is much greater than just yourself.

~shrugs~

What could be more depressing than Oblivion? And then spreading this depressing message the way people like Dawkins and the cosmologists do creates depression in the general population.

Atheism is wrong and outdated. Science has moved on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

Please do not quote the Anthropic principle; its (to use your favourite word) bullshit:

- The Weak Anthropic explains the universe must be compatible with life for us to be here. It does not explain why the universe is compatible with life
- The Strong Anthropic explains that the existence of multiple universes with different properties account for our existence. But other universes are statistically likely to be like this one (Life supporting) so the SAP does not explain why the multiverse is fined-tuned for life.

What could be more depressing than Oblivion? And then spreading this depressing message the way people like Dawkins and the cosmologists do creates depression in the general population.

Atheism is wrong and outdated. Science has moved on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

Please do not quote the Anthropic principle; its (to use your favourite word) bullshit:

- The Weak Anthropic explains the universe must be compatible with life for us to be here. It does not explain why the universe is compatible with life
- The Strong Anthropic explains that the existence of multiple universes with different properties account for our existence. But other universes are statistically likely to be like this one (Life supporting) so the SAP does not explain why the multiverse is fined-tuned for life. — Devans99

Is this just something you feel like talking about regardless of topic, or are you actually suggesting you have isolated Posty's problems to his lack of faith? If church attendance were a mental health panacea, wouldn't someone have noticed that by now?

The subject is depression not whether atheism is true. If you have actual evidence (i.e. data, statistics etc) of a correlation between atheism and depression, please provide it. Speculations that happen to make sense to you aren't going to cut much ice here. There are plenty of people, for example, who find the idea of an omniscient God who threatens to have you tortured for eternity for not pleasing him a tad more depressing than mere oblivion. But again, evidence. Make a link if you can or move on.

Cross-postyed.

Yes, psychedelics can help. But, I learned the hard way of once taking magic mushrooms and experiencing ego — Posty McPostface

You shouldn't take psychedelics because you're not otherwise doing well. That's my advice to you. My other advice to you is to stop pretending like you have no ego. It's like this thing you like to say, but nothing is more obvious than how egocentric you are. In fact, fewer and fewer threads by you are about anything but you.

The general solution to all your various maladies is either through (1) professional help, or (2) nothing. What this means is that all this talk about you serves no purpose other than to talk about you, which you obviously derive some value from, whatever it is, but nothing we have here is going to make you any amount better.

If I felt my obligation on this forum were to be nice instead of right, I suppose I wouldn't have said what I just said.

@Baden@Hanover

Have any of you ever been depressed?

You shouldn't take psychedelics because you're not otherwise doing well. That's my advice to you. My other advice to you is to stop pretending like you have no ego. It's like this thing you like to say, but nothing is more obvious than how egocentric you are. In fact, fewer and fewer threads by you are about anything but you. — Hanover

That's like trying to pull the rug from under your feet. I can't reference myself without invoking my ego. I don't gratify it however. It just is.

Sure, situationally related to to particularly stressful events, but I haven't suffered from generalized depression with no isolated source,

Sure, situationally related to to particularly stressful events, but I haven't suffered from generalized depression with no isolated source, — Hanover

But, you've never actually felt depressed for prolonged periods of time, yes?

Yes, I have been but kind of know how to control it now. Sort of.

Yes, I have been but kind of know how to control it now. Sort of. — Baden

Then, is it a matter of discipline or willpower that has lifted you from your slump?

Just ploughing on, and being creative especially. And being disciplined about intake of media etc. Activity over passivity, I suppose.