Why You Should Probably Never Read Medium Articles on Treating Your Depression
There’s no shortage of them: lists and long-form articles on simple steps to alleviating your clinical depression so obvious you can’t believe you didn’t find them sooner.
First, your symptoms are described in uncomfortably relatable detail; you’ve isolated yourself, unable to get to the door and take up even the simplest tasks. You’ve skipped dinner because the thought of cooking is unbearable, and even if it weren’t, you have next to no appetite anyway.
You used to jog regularly. Oh how you loved jogging! But how did you find the energy when you now find yourself staring blankly from the couch, buried in rumination?
Even when you’re surrounded by friends on a Saturday night, you find yourself unable to laugh at the things that send everyone else into a fit. And I don’t mean just making the sound of laughter. I mean actually laughing.
Remember laughing?
See? I’m doing it now. This is every article on treating depression you’ve opened on Medium, initially relieved to find a voice that understands your particular situation and, without exception, ending with you thinking “are you serious? Do you really think it’s this easy?”
Movement, one person says. All you need to do for yourself is move. Get to the door before you can even think about it and go for a run. Go hiking. Strap on those Merrells and brace yourself for how good this is going to feel. You might even find yourself laughing without realizing it!
Organize your desk, because a cluttered desk is a cluttered mind!
Write in that journal you haven’t touched in so long; feel the burden of your depression lifting, the clouds parting, and the sense of renewal that’s taken you over after just a few cathartic sentences?
The thing is, you’re being had.
I don’t mean to say that advice like this is given with ill intentions. I don’t think that at all. The problem is, as you already know, that all these tips would be well and good if you could actually muster up the motivation and energy to do those things.
And that’s where the problem with mass online counselling starts; your particular situation — your own fun, unique brand of depression, is just that. It’s yours. And like it or not, your path to recovery isn’t going to be anyone else’s.
Because not everyone’s depression manifests itself the same way. You might be staring at the ceiling lost in rumination, but you might just as easily be carrying on with your everyday tasks and social life. Just without any feeling!
At the risk of sounding horribly new-age: embrace this opportunity to think about your own situation. Try to identify those negative thought patterns that send you into your own head while you lose all sense of time. Try and identify ways to alleviate or minimize them.
Eventually, when the time is right, you may even find yourself taking that first step toward seeing a therapist, who might prescribe you medication that deflates that grey fat suit you’ve been walking around in.
And don’t take my word for it. Don’t take any of our words for it. Because there’s no one-size-fits-all list for you. There just isn’t.
So stop reading articles like “11 Around-the-House Tasks to Alleviate Clinical Depression” or “What I Wish I Knew About Treating Myself.” Stop thinking to yourself, “what is it about me that I can’t even get into my jogging clothes? Why isn’t waking up and making sure to smile doing anything?”
There’s nothing on here that will answer those questions.
And that’s a great thing, because once you find that strategy or that professional that actually works for you, you won’t believe how good it feels to remember what makes you laugh.
