Quoted By:
I dropped out of college due to depression a couple years ago. I thought a lot about suicide in the months following, the worst time of my depression. For about two years I felt like nothing changed. During that time my brother had a manic episode, and that really changed my perspective. I didn't want to live the life he was living. I wanted to get my shit together and become a real person. I started working out, got a job, and started taking meds. I'm going back to school in the fall. I know that none of the messages about hope that I got when I was really depressed helped me, but I just want to say this: your perspective about life is up to you. Part of depression is the perspective that it won't get better, that you aren't good enough, that it's too hard, and often, that depression makes it impossible to accomplish things. It's a constant fight to stay positive under the duress of mental illness. I often thought that it wasn't worth the effort and that there was no reason to try. My experience has taught me that the way you think about yourself can be changed. Starting to work out put me in a positive enough mental state where I could hold down a job, having the more positive mental state made me able to really understand how important it was not to go back to depression, and motivated me to get medication and start taking classes. It's an upward spiral where each step motivates me to go further. My depression isn't over and this week I have been down, but I know for sure that I'm capable of climbing back out of the hole. For me, my mental health is ruled a lot by my physical state, and working out helps with that, and that it's also determined by having interactions with others, so I try to build both of those things into my life. This post has kinda meandered a bit, but I guess my end message is that you should think about what you can do easily. Once you start taking steps, each next step which seemed insurmountable becomes easier.
