- [Narrator] Hey, Psych2gos.
Depression.
When does it creep into your life?
(bell rings)
You never know.
I first experienced depression in middle school.
As a preteen,
I naturally wasn't able to tell
how my mind was working differently.
Probably the most common features in a scenario like that
is depression in sadness
being somewhat interchangeable terms for you
because you haven't learned the difference yet at that age.
In fact, it probably wasn't until my 27th birthday
when I realized how truly separate the two were
when I spent a week unable to leave the house,
despite being in a pretty great mood.
And really for two thirds of my life at that point,
I'd only experienced depression in terms of extreme sadness
or lethargic in response to an event, usually interpersonal.
Most of what I've learned about it
has come from the past five years.
As a preteen, I experienced a great deal of depression
or sadness as I would call it then,
mainly due to academic, social,
and presumably hormonal difficulties.
Being a perfect example of your inherent shy kid
of the family left me nihilistic.
I was often finding ways to try to draw attention to myself,
passively, of course, because of shyness.
From drawings and writings to song lyrics,
I began to express what I was going through
in a number of different ways
for the sake of expression
and as a way to prove myself as more capable
than the person I negatively perceived myself to be.
But somewhere between middle school and early high school,
I degraded emotionally to a great extent.
I began making threats of self-harm
and was even pulled out of public school.
When this happened,
I also went from (indistinct) 10 pounds to a staggering 160
over the course of about three months
due to the medication I was on.
Throughout most of 2002, I smiled in exactly zero photos,
including a professionally done family portrait.
I now recognized that this was stated and deliberate.
A sort of generalized clap back against the outside world
because of how I felt.
I would sometimes be needlessly better, stubborn,
even explosive.
And I often spent all evening in my room playing video games
or watching TV.
Although I never stopped drawing,
I did stop experimenting with crafts like collage
and writing, etc.
The lowest moment
was likely after committing
a particularly upsetting form of self harm,
which I covered up with a bowling glove.
This only attracted attention to it.
And in no time,
the secret was wide and in the open,
causing me to double down on attention-seeking behavior.
There were brushes with depression throughout the decade.
More chronic form of depression arrived in my late 20s
as I finally got my bachelor's degree
and facing a difficult job market living in Atlanta.
A decision was made to apply to grad school.
While undergrad was easily one of the happiest
periods of my life,
grad school was much more complicated
and came with persistent bouts of depression and anxiety.
I was substantially less social
and prone to spending hours laying on the couch,
either playing with my phone or doing nothing at all.
And I would stare at the ceiling
or bray my head between the pillow and cushions.
Most of grad school was back lit by anxiety and depression,
bouncing off of each other.
However,
I became much more proactive in my mental health
as a result and eventually settled on a prescription regimen
that I still follow today.
I then started regular therapy
for the first time as an adult,
which I mostly kept up with since then.
Following grad school,
I moved yet again and spent all of 2019
squeezing as much employability as possible
out of my extremely narrow window of interest
and commercial work.
An intensive outpatient program via Zoom kept me afloat
on three therapy sessions a week.
And looking back over the past year,
I can see my mood as something zigzagging
like the chart of a tumultuous,
but slow, upward trending company on the stock market.
Over time,
rock bottom becomes a little higher than before,
and the good days become more like actual good days
than simply normal.
Much of this time was spent in a suffocating,
crowded and dark apartment and taught me an important lesson
about considering the mental health impact
when looking for apartments on a budget.
Over the decades,
I've had a number of methods of dealing with depression
that weren't particularly healthy.
The ones that were healthy, however,
often involve distraction or turning to friends.
Distraction could mean driving around
and listening to music, a rural pastime, for sure,
or it could mean something more hobby-oriented.
The video game collection I mentioned earlier
continues on and off to this day
and opened up a little time capsule
to turn on in moments of stress and escapism.
However, if not handled correctly,
this hobby becomes detrimental very quickly.
Escapism can limit one's ability to make a real change
in their life and improve their situation.
Art was far and away the healthiest channel for me
to process and express things going on in my life.
And it has always run the gamut.
I've experimented in essentially every type of drawing
I could get my hands on
and most types of paintings and photography.
As a preteen,
I would work with clay as well as modifying existing toys
to make new things out of them.
Pictures said from toy story, but less nefarious,
even though I had the same t-shirt.
More than anything though,
simple drawing and writing have been my go-to formats.
In pursuing animation,
I made films about subjects like depression, anxiety, grief,
and emotional dependency.
I was able to unload the things that weighed on me
and make a recognizable semi-permanent change
in my mental state.
As I entered my 30s,
I started regular therapy and learned a host of other skills
and coping mechanisms,
many of which I still use today.
I try to walk outside as much as I can,
as walks outside can carry a lot of benefits.
Others include journaling, mindfulness, meditation,
and self-parenting.
All of these have helped me get through
several periods of stagnation to the current day
where I've had a number of breakthroughs
as to the causes of my psychological struggles
and have been able to work on them directly
and make plans for treatment.
And that's not only more effective,
but potentially more permanent.
Depression arrives in many forms
and can disguise itself as sadness, lethargic, apathy,
and others.
I've learned that recognizing depression
can be deceptively difficult because when it's at its worst,
it has your mind under its control.
And it gets harder to differentiate the real world
from the dystopia that depression will convince you
is real.
Time helps as does mindfulness, exercise,
and spending time with loved ones, if at all possible.
And no matter how long you've dealt with it,
you can always let your guard down without noticing.
It's important to try the things that work.
But the most important part
is maintaining some semblance of effort
trying to wrestle control from depression's grips
so you can steer yourself in the right direction.
It may mean complete control,
or just pulling the wheel in the right direction.
Every time you get your hands on it.
Either way,
the most important and often seemingly hardest part
is simply trying.
That often means physically getting up
to do something that will make you feel better,
not the thing that will give you a burst of dopamine
like frivolous spending or junk food.
It's also very important to keep in mind
that this is a process,
not a simple cause and effect solution.
The most important word in this video's title is overcome
as opposed to the past tense overcame.
It can go away. Sure.
But it will almost certainly take time and it can come back.
Dealing with depression is not a singular act.
It's a pattern of good habits,
the knowledge of what activities
will provide you with the greatest improvements in mood
and what activities will be a temporary distraction.
Your most important decisions when dealing with depression
outside of the medical choices you make
will be the lifestyle you live
and the way you treat yourself and others.
Has your experience with depression been like this
or different?
If you have a perspective you think could help others
know when to see a doctor or a therapist,
please let us know in the comments below.
(soft music)
(birds chirping)