A Collection of tips from Anons

Table of Contents

Combating Depression: Many Small Successes

Think of them as "the primary gameplay loop" of combating depression: ALWAYS have a couple of those. Seek out small, well-defined tasks that are easy to do. Atomize a task into as many sub-tasks as is feasible. Reflect on succeeding at the sub-tasks. Keep lists. For example,

  • VERY BAD:
    • [ ] clean house

Reason: ill-defined, no clear goal or way to do it, you get stuck/overwhelmed, end the day with no boxes ticked, feel even worse.

  • GOOD:
    • [ ] put 1 sock into the laundry where it belongs
    • [ ] clean 1 plate
    • [ ] put 1 tissue away
    • [ ] vacuum [particular corner of your house that takes no more than a minute or two to hoover]

Reason: autistically narrowly defined, clear goal and means execution, even if you don't accomplish all you know where to pick up again and have a clear visualization of all the things you did.

Things you should consider as tasks:

  • cleaning
  • maintenance of your body (washing, teeth brushing, eating, drinking)
  • opening windows for X minutes
  • going outside for X minutes

Things you should schedule:

  • screen time (otherwise you will spend the entire day in escapism)
  • bed time (regular sleep schedule strengthens body and mind)

Journaling as a means to externalize self exploration

I think one thing that could be added that's helped me a ton is encouraging journaling your memories and feelings about them. I found it helped me immensely in both recovering from and uncovering old trauma I was still carrying around, as well as feel more connected to myself as a person in my own right by giving me a private, safe place to put my inner voice into outer words.

It can be weird to start, but a prompt that usually helps is to try to write as much detail as you can recall about how you got from being born, to being where you are now. It will jump around a lot and have a lot of holes to start with, but it was amazing just how much myself and others have been able to remember about ourselves from just asking yourself to bother remembering it. Even a year later I'm not great at remembering what age things actually happened at, but I've been able to carve out a very solid timeline even for my first 4-5 years of life, and I'm getting there for the next 10-15 slowly but surely, and that's helped me feel a lot more real and capable of handling things like self improvement, because I know the self I want to improve for better.

Mindfulness exercises for better mental health

If can throw my own advice in for what helps me to be in a really good head space, even just 5 minutes of really letting myself meditate, as in let my mind loosely focus on being empty, and take deep breaths, really makes everything feel so much better, especially if I do it daily.

General Tips: Knowing where to start

My own general contribution here, if you’re someone looking to have a better life:

  1. You need a therapist, possibly a psychiatrist. Look, I'm in a solid position and still do weekly therapy. It's good shit.
  2. Medication helps with many, but not all, disorders. Disorders that meds help include bipolar, ADHD, schizophrenia. Disorders that meds do not help with are often personality disorders, especially BPD. If your disorder has medication indicated, try it.
  3. If you have BPD specifically: Try different therapies depending on your main concerns (behaviors: CBT/DBT, thoughts: MBT, trauma: talk/psychotherapy, other comorbid disorders: treat as appropriate). Also research the disorder - read “I Hate You Don’t Leave Me” 3rd edition, good book.
  4. Only you can fix you (or improve you). Others can support you, not do it for you. The self-sufficiency and drive you develop while improving yourself are skills necessary to maintain that improvement.
  5. Life’s fucked and you don't even know where to start? Start small. Fuck, clean your room or do your laundry. Anything. Get the ball rolling by any means within your grasp.
  6. Meditation is based, mindfulness is a critical skill. Do meditation, train mindfulness, don’t judge, berate, or deprecate yourself any more. If you’re still reading this, you’re a good goddamn person and deserve to feel that way.
  7. Stick up for yourself and defend your boundaries. If people disrespect them, kick their ungrateful asses out of your life

Going Outside

Walking (preferably through nature) does wonders for the mind, is pretty easy and a hundred times better than staying indoors. If you have trouble starting the day getting breakfast from a bakery can be a good idea.

DIY Cognitive Behavior Therapy

As for advice I can probably offer how insanely powerful long-term and well thought out cognitive behavior therapy is on yourself both positively and negatively. Saying "I am suicidal" over a long enough period of time will point you in a direction that will affirm your suicidality, that doesn't mean every suicidal person can just say they aren't suicidal, its that even after treatment or therapy self-affirming oneself as "bad" "depressed" "suicidal" will linger. Instead say positive things about yourself, "I am strong, pretty, smart". Maybe have a daily routine where you say at least one nice thing about yourself and genuinely mean it and try and debate yourself into it. It sounds dumb but it really helped me.

Post-it notes/loving reminders

Dumbest shit that's ever worked for me

Partner's therapist suggests she put a note on mirror to help with maintaining hygiene routine

Partner is very sardonic, takes bright pink sticky note, writes "brush your teeth you dumb sad bitch" on it, covers it in kawai stickers, puts it right in center of mirror

Every time I'm getting ready for work/bed i think "eh i don't have the time/energy", see note

Went from brushing once a day or so to twice a day, now i even carry a brush in a travel case in my bag to brush after every meal, addicted to that clean mouth feel

Get hacked idiot brain, feels good man

Spotting unhelpful thought patterns

For the attached info-graphic, see https://archived.moe/lgbt/thread/29101662/#29106457 or rather: https://archiveofsins.com/data/lgbt/image/1673/23/1673239786196754.png

I'd also like to add a small resource, hopefully others find it useful as I have: I've struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts for years, and I see a lot of people on this board struggling with similar thoughts. A lot of posters seem to get easily wrapped up in how their feelings must dictate reality, and they are quick to ignore anything positive as they see fit. I was in a similar place (and sometimes find myself back there), but I found cognitive behavioral therapy to have a great impact on my perspective on life. I can't really summarize an entire CBT (heh) program here, but pic related is one of the useful tools that helped me.

All of these things are the irrational automatic negative thoughts we often have in response to stressful situations (even if that stress comes from something mundane like answering the phone). Not only are these responses very immediate and demoralizing, they also tend to overlap with thought-terminating cliches. It's easy to have an immediate thought like "Nothing I do ever works," and then carry on accepting that thought as fact. I think it's immensely useful to have a vocabulary for these kinds of thoughts so that when you do find yourself thinking these things, you can challenge them. "I failed my chem test, I'm such a worthless student" but aha! that is all or nothing thinking, passing or failing one test does not decide your overall success as a student.

A short video on suicide (and why it helped anon)

I want to share this video, which got some popularity from YouTube's algorithm a while ago. This is a fairly brief summary of Albert Camus' idea of the absurd, and I hope maybe a few people will find it a useful perspective as I have. He doesn't make any appeals to God, Religion, Philosophy, Morality, Science, Reason etc. etc. When I was at my most suicidal, I wouldn't have given two shits if someone tried to convince me that "Jesus would be sad" or "Your electromagnetic waves won't be in tune with the noosphere when your brain stops functioning." Maybe someone will find it refreshing to hear an argument for Life that accepts only what we know about the world, that it is cold and brutal. At the very least, maybe contemplating the ideas in the video will be a helpful mental exercise to keep your mind off worse thoughts. It should be noted that, obviously, if you are feeling suicidal, please seek help from a phone call or professional. (The video also notes that Camus makes depression seem much smaller than it actually is) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35s4-3T5dJY

Mindfulness exercise: "5 senses"

I have a small meditation-type exercise to share that might be useful to have as a daily goal. It's called the "5 senses" exercise, and it's about being mindful. Note, being mindful is about being self-aware, but not self-centered or self-conscious (a subtle difference, but important).

Basically, you just sit quietly, wherever you may be, and go through each of your sense.

  1. What can you see around you? Describe it to yourself using specific words.
    • Is the wall beige or tan?
    • Is it roughly finished, smooth, or scratched?
    • Are the leaves of the trees more green or yellow?
    • Is the wind blowing them around, or is the air still? And so on.
  2. What can you feel?
    • Are your clothes heavy or light?
    • Is there sunlight shining on your skin, do you feel its warmth?
    • Or maybe you can feel the gentle breeze of a fan or air conditioner brushing your hair.
  3. What can you hear?
    • Are there dogs barking in the distance?
    • Maybe the sound of traffic or the wind through the trees.
  4. What can you smell?
    • Maybe your clothes smell faintly of your laundry detergent.
    • Or maybe you can smell some coffee or tea from your mug.
    • If you're outside, you can probably smell all sorts of plants or the exhaust from a car that passed by.
  5. What can you taste?
    • What did you eat last?
    • Are you chewing gum? Has it lost its flavor, or is it still pleasing to your tongue?
    • Maybe you can taste the air slightly if you breath in.

Hopefully, the end, you'll feel a bit calmer. I have found it useful for clearing my head of unwanted thoughts that stubbornly refuse to leave. It helps distract my brain with more immediate things and makes it easier for me to move on afterwards.

Recovering from too much masturbation

The way i judge if i have to much porn or fapping is the quality of my orgasms. My best orgasms have me flex the muscles in my body so hard that and feel good from my dick to my face with a comfy after thing. My worst orgasms when i fapped 9 times a day because of stress didn't even feel good and my dick didn't even get hard. If you do pure no fap you will notice around day 7ish a spike in your testosterone which is just a result of more sexual interest usually. It will chill and spike normally after that. If you are having porn ED or addiction symptoms you can just retrain your body via habit and cardio to get it working again. A lot of lower body work and kegels if you play with your prostate way to much will get your pelvic floor strong and tight again which will help with how hard your boners are and how far you can cum but just remember the muscles are relatively small and work together with your abs and surrounding muscle groups all at once to rocket your sperm out. You can do a beginner exercise program or even just walking outside for distance (where ever you start is fine) if you want to get your sexual and physical health better as well. Just start with one thing and kind of praise yourself as you accomplish simple things, don't beat yourself up to much if you fail because failures are required to figure out what is specifically practical for yourself.

Is seeking therapy risky? What counts as "immediate risk" of suicide?

Q: Does a therapist where I can talk about my sui thoughts without getting locked up a thing? I feel like it's probably not, right?

A: Yes. Unless you are at immediate risk of killing yourself or hurting others a psychologist cant "lock you up" as it were. you can talk about everything from attempts to sh and what ever else you feel is important

I looked up the exact criteria because its been a while since the mnemonic was taught SADPERSON

  • Sex,
  • Age,
  • Depression,
  • Previous attempt,
  • Ethanol use,
  • Rationality,
  • Social support network (friends),
  • Organised plan,
  • No spouse.

I know that seems like an info dump, but basically if you're male or trans (ftm or mtf) (because women are less likely to have a successful suicide) and have a certain number of the other factors it increases your risk category. a plan in place a year from now is a tricky one. Because its so far away i don't think a clinicians would considering you a high suicide risk but the concern would you you pushing the date forward.

I highly recommend talking about it, at most they may mention certain facts to your doctor if antidepressants are required (since they cant prescribe) but both people knowing cant give away any info unless again you're at immediate risk of killing yourself.

The safeguards are really weak as well. to share my experience with the system. after i attempted to kill myself i said i still wanted to die and had access to a method to do so, but i don't want to commit suicide right now and i wasn't committed. this was in a mental hospital too, not just a psychs office.

Edit Config
Pub: 4/13/2024, 12:25:32 AM Edit: 4/13/2024, 12:25:32 AM Views: 2