Depression & Anxiety: Snap Out Of It By Snapping In

    I wanted to talk a little bit about depression and the new properties I have learned concerning the elements in which it is often allowed to reside within our minds. While I will not deny that there are many individuals with a legitimate clinical issue causing their depression, I have learned that there are many steps the average person can take to not only curve the symptoms of their depression, but potentially eliminate it completely. Depression and anxiety has been a part of my life for the last eight years. While depression sucks and really pulls down the quality of everyday life, anxiety is a crippling, impending, agonizing experience I could never wish upon my worst enemy. In my personal viewpoint it is the equivalent to hell itself. I hope this article might reach out to some of you struggling in this area and give you some key tips that have not only alleviated some of my depression, but has almost eliminated my anxiety.

Depression Makes Us Want To Be Stagnant

One of the common repercussions of having depression and anxiety is closing one’s self off from external stimuli. This is an element of fear that begins to take over our everyday choices in hopes to avoid future disappointments or let-downs. While by nature we think this survival instinct will protect us, when we become physically stagnant, this actually allows the depression and anxiety to fester and grow. This worsens our mood, heightens our fear, bringing us to the point of not only fearing the external world, but also fearing our own thoughts. In my experience, this has resulted in obsessions or doing things in threes, in hopes to neutralize my internal discomfort. Once we have entered this realm of depression and fear, we are firmly stuck in a rut that will either take medication or extreme self discipline to diminish.

Depression Fries Our Self Esteem

Let’s say you want to fight your depression and use self discipline to counteract your feelings. Once we have allowed depression to fester for a long period of time, it begins to eat away at any self esteem we might have had. This not only makes getting out of the dark rut hard, it makes it even harder than it might be for your average individual who may have just had a bad day at work. In order to utilize self discipline to climb out of the rut, we must first find small simple ways to rebuild our self esteem. Depression is not fixed overnight, it is a step by step process.

For me personally, when at the peak of my depression and anxiety, I made the hard attempt to do only one productive thing each morning before going throughout my day. After doing this a couple of times, I found I was able to carry a little bit more self esteem with me throughout each day. Even if that action was as simple as making a professional phone call or folding my laundry for ten minutes, it felt like climbing a mountain at the time. But as the weeks passed, I found my confidence began to grow and I chose to take on even more “simple” tasks until I felt strong enough to take on the voices in my head.

Being Productive Is Incredibly Pleasurable

Humans are programmed to take pleasure in taking care of themselves, as well as others. One thing I began to realize that when I chased pleasure, or in my case relief, I found it was never obtainable outside of the use of drugs or alcohol. Even drugs and alcohol only produce feelings of peace for a short period of time and then produce even worse results later, either through the result of a crash or a hangover. But instead of running away from my problems, being productive even on a small tiny level gave me a sense of accomplishment that I could be proud of. That small sense of pride increased my confidence and my self esteem which went on to inspire me to take on new goals. Having something to do, even if it is scary, is incredibly more relaxing than sitting alone in a room fearing the next horrible thing about to take place in our life.

Snap Out Of Depression By Snapping In!

This is really the nuts and bolts of the blog I wanted to communicate. While depression and anxiety encourages us to run away from our problems, confidence and self esteem are only generated by running towards our problems, facing them, and conquering them. In a personal example, I remember when I first moved to St. Louis, I was terrified of driving on the highways. It had been about a year and a half since I had driven a car at all, and I felt incredibly intimidated by the hustle and bustle of the four lane highways and the many exits I had to avoid and find at 70mph. I remember thinking, “I will never figure this out, this is just too much!” But would you be surprised to hear me say that driving 45 minutes to work through traffic is now the most relaxing time of my day. Not only did I conquer my biggest fear, I now view it as my greatest source of comfort. After making bold efforts to face my (tiny) everyday fears and seeking out new ones to crush, I discovered that what used to be anxiety turned into a kind of positive energy. Rather than having the urge to run away from the challenge at hand, I realized my mind was now gearing up for the situation ready to crush it. Had I not taken tiny steps into improving my self esteem, I would not have had the mental confidence to face my new everyday problems. Our biggest fears become our greatest sources of comfort after we face and conquer them. This is the case for all things in life.

Finding Our Creeds And Desires Is Dire

While I was beginning to enjoy finding little fears in life and crushing them for the tiny dopamine rushes of productivity, I soon realized I had a new mental problem to face. I began to ask myself, “But WHY am I being productive? What is my purpose and meaning in life?” Due to a falling faith in God during this time, these questions in my mind caused me to begin falling back into a dark depression. Why work on all of this self growth and facing my problems if I have no destination, purpose, or God to follow. So I began my search and thankfully, I was able to come to a solid conclusion for “me”, but it will be different for everyone. A good guideline to follow for finding your own personal creed is by asking yourself this question, “How can I take care of myself in the most productive way to further take care of the rest of the world?” Once we learn how to take pleasure in taking care of ourself, we can then move on towards taking pleasure in taking care of and nurturing others.

Taking Care Of Things And Watching Them Grow Is Universally Pleasurable

For several years I have enjoyed asking random people about their opinion on the meaning of life. Their reactions are always incredibly humorous as most people are not used to hearing people ask them, “What do you think the meaning of life is?” Their eyes turn into golf balls and only 10% of them could give me their own answer. But what I found is that the 10% who could give me an answer had one thing in common… children. The 10% who could give me their take on the meaning of life replied the same way every time, “You will understand the meaning of life when you have kids.” Now this may not be the true meaning of life, but even watching young adults and listening to them talk about their dogs or their cats as if they were a part of the family is their way of caring for another living being and taking pleasure in watching them grow and change. While people crave their own survival, they also crave to nourish others. It is a beautiful element of selfless love that I believe sums up the meaning of life perfectly.

We Cannot Love Others If We Do Not Love Ourselves

I cannot emphasize this enough. In order to reach that point in our lives where we can nourish a part of the world and watch it grow, we must first learn how to nourish and take care of ourselves. The first step to crushing our depression and anxiety is to take the heat upon ourselves to not only do what we don’t want to do, but to do what we are terrified of doing for the sake of furthering ourselves and moving forward. In the midst of depression and anxiety, facing my own personal fears were the hardest, scariest thing I ever had to do. It is not easy, but it made many of the things I was afraid of before become sources of peace. Once we conquer our fears, they become sources of comfort. When people come to you and say, “You just need to snap out of your depression.” Don’t listen to them. Instead of trying to snap “out” of your depression, try snapping “in” to your depression by facing your fears and conquering them. Give it a shot and appreciate yourself for who you can become. It works wonders.