A cool guide to depression

I realized I had clinical depression for a while when I didn't feel sad but everything felt so meh. I'm doing fine now, though.

How did you get better?
- I have no idea. It was probably a combination of a change in mindset and different lifestyle choices. I started exercising more often, eating healthier (lost 10 kg), pushing depressing thoughts out, weeding out toxic people, and rekindling my interest in some of my hobbies by forcing me to do them. I know this is probably not helpful and it's what's generally recommended but it worked for me this time. It took a few months to get out of the slump. Or maybe whatever was bothering me worked itself out or I got over it. But who knows!

Well damn. It's less of a cool guide and more of a checklist for me...

because it is a symptom checklist out of the DSM.

this has absolutely no business posing as a pie chart.

Don't forget the irrational anger, most common in males. Thank gawd for therapy.

One of the worst for me was thinking about the past, the people, the things that happened, the incidents, and finding out that it was always me or my actions that were the reason something went wrong for somebody. Everything, always. I guess this fits into the chart's self-loathing sector.

Not necessarily - e.g. if you've been shitty to people in the past (I say "if" but we've literally all done that:-P) then that's a natural process of growth to recognize that, hopefully make reparations and move toward healing, at least on your side but again hopefully on both.

Then again, your "actions" are not always up to you - e.g. if traffic made you late somewhere then that's at least partially out of your control - but you can only accept your own portion of responsibility there (reasonably anyway).

Be careful with "Everything, always" language bc it's always a lie:-|. e.g. I bet you could find a single instance, somewhere, where you did not do that. Perhaps find it and start to move forward from there?
- I haven't been in that place for years, decades even. The "everything, always" was the feeling when the days were the darkest and I was pretty much a recluse in my apartment.
  
  Luckily it didn't last for too many weeks and I got a lot better. Of course I did mistakes in my past, but when I think about how absurdly distorted view of the past events I had in my mind it reminds me of how the depression can really fuck a person up.
It does not help that it gets confirmed every day. It's only possible to lie to yourself so and so often before it all comes back. It's all my fault.
Depression is like being stuck thinking of the past and anxiety of the future