How I Make Depression My Bitch

Ah,‘tis the season! The temperatures are plummeting, snow is falling and depression is lurking around the corner.

How fucked up is it that the coziness of fall and winter also beckons in some of us an internal darkness that blankets any pleasure wrought by the joys of the season?!

I’m not a doctor or a counselor. I don’t even have a college degree. Shit, I don’t even have a high school degree. But, I am deeply acquainted with the old depressy spaghetti, commonly referred to as a depression.

Depression runs in my family.

When I was a child, every few years, my relentlessly friendly and active grandfather would get pulled under a dark wave. His bright smile would dull, and a painful numbness would radiate from him. My grandmother, who had been divorced from him for decades but remained his closest friend, brought him to her house each day for meals, gently watching over him at her dining room table while he slowly ate whatever meal she prepared.

Within a few weeks' time, the wave would retreat, and he would emerge his usual self, sharp and witty and loving and present.

I’ve been chased by that same wave of depression for most of my life. It is my unfortunate homeostasis if you will. I was an anti-social kid, constantly worried about matters of the world that were way above my pay grade. As a teenager, angst veiled what a probably clinical depression. I was in my mid-20s when I was pulled under, and knocked so hard on my ass, I wasn’t sure I would be able to get back up. But I did, and I learned a lot lot.

And now, with the most wonderful and darkest of seasons upon us, that wave of depression is gathering speed. Here is everything I do to keep from getting sucked under.

Editors Note: For shits’ sake, if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts and persistent feelings of despair, get professional help from your healthcare provider, or call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Group Exercise

Exercise is fucking magical. Right now, where I live, the sun is setting around 5:15 p.m., and the urge to crawl into a pile of blankets and dissociate is strong. But instead of falling into a cozy K-hole of inner turmoil, by 6:00 p.m., I’m pumping my legs to sick beats in a dark room illuminated by multicolor LED strips and a screen projecting a mountain road I’m pretending to bike up. I fucking love my spin class. After 45 minutes of stationary cycling with an instructor screaming at me to give it my all, I have a second wind that carries me into the evening. The energy I reap from spin allows me to make dinner, clean, write, prepare for the next day and make it to bed without answering the beckoning call of depression to disassociate my life away.

I’ve been exercising for years, but until I joined my local Y and started hitting the group fitness classes, I never pushed myself hard enough to get the mental health benefits I get now.

“Mind over matter,” is a common refrain for mentally pushing yourself to do something you think you physically can’t or don’t want to do. The reprieve I get from exercising has made me believe in “matter over mind.”

I Cut Back on Scrolling

My depression loves scrolling. Hours and hours of stimulation, barely reading, half-watching, time flying, what’s not to love? Everything. Doing almost anything fucking else is better for me than scrolling. Swimming in hot shit is probably the only thing slightly worse for me than scrolling mindlessly for hours.

I don’t have any social media apps on my phone. Not a single one. If I did, I would lose my job and my entire life would crumble because all I would do is scroll. But that doesn’t stop me from hitting YouTube reals, Pinterest, news apps, and the most delicious of them all, Reddit. When I feel the dark wave of depression close behind me, I cut that shit out. I use an app called SiteBlocker to put a wall between myself from all the sites and apps that give me sweet little zaps of dopamine and a false sense of living. Yeah, I can disable it, but I usually don’t.

I Read More

Along with cutting down on scrolling, I read less on from a screen and more from books and magazines. Reading more books has never made me more depressed. I’m reading the Game of Thrones series right now, and I have 3,567 pages left in the series, so I won’t be done anytime soon.

Magazines have also made a comeback in my life. It’s like the provide carefully and artfully curated information relevant to my interests or something. Reading …

I keep a book in my bag, next to my desk, in my car, next to my bed, etc. etc. In the moments when I would typically reach for my phone, I grab my book and read for at least five minutes.

It helps stave off the brain fog of scrolling and I get a healthy bit of escapism.

I Listen to 90s Euro Dance

This is my latest discovery in my quest to find any and everything to ease the effects of depression. As much as I want to spend the day staring at the wall to the beautifully bleak sounds of Elliot Smith or Nick Cave, ala my teenage self, I don’t even entertain that shit.

My Alexa is set to blast 90s Euro Dance every morning from 9 a.m. to noon, so I awake to the sweet throbbing sounds of clubs days gone by. How can one be bummed out when listening to “Rythm is Dancer?” How can one possibly disassociate when “Rythm of the Night” is blasting?

I Schedule Shit

If I didn’t schedule things, I would never leave the house. I know that if I bail on my commitments, I will feel like absolute shit about myself and leave an opening for depression to settle in. Even if I don’t feel like showing up, I do. I schedule hangouts, classes, and appointments and socially engage like it's my fucking job. I don’t overdo it, but I don’t let myself slide down the slippery slope of social withdrawal, which never feels as good as it sounds.

I Walk Dogs at an Animal Shelter

Being at a shelter full of unwanted or abandoned animals might actually sound like the most depressing shit on earth. But hear me out: The shelter is only a sad place if you are not there. During my weekly dog walking shift, I get to be a part of bettering the lives of dogs who are getting a second chance at the love they should have had in the first place. Nine times out of ten, the dogs are so stoked to go for a walk that their excitement eclipses the sad circumstances that brought them to the shelter in the first place. Every positive interaction they have and every second of love they get from people gives them a chance at a better future.

Sometimes, they don’t want to walk, they may just need to cuddle in the grass. Other times, they may not want to walk or cuddle, and sitting near them while they slowly learn to trust people is all they need.

Drugs are great but has a dog who was once terrified of people ever crawled into your lap after days of just sitting next to them while they slowly learn to trust you?

Getting out of my own head and showing up for other living beings for whom the world is joyfully simple, might be as good for my chemically deficient brain as my SSRI.

I Take Medication

Not everyone needs medication. But if I want to keep not walking into traffic for no reason, I do.

I first got on medication eight years ago when I was swallowed by a massive dark wave and dragged for months under a depression that nearly crushed me. I threw a lot at the wall before I called my doctor to get on meds, but nothing really stuck.

I read all of Brené Brown’s books. I meditated every day. I did yoga every week. I exercised. I went to talk therapy. I did energy massages, for fuck’s sake. I hit it with everything I could think of, and I could still barely breathe for all of the space the depression took up inside of me. I cried most days. I barely ate. I disassociated so hard that I was, at times, afraid to drive. I landed my dream job editing a regional magazine that I loved, and I was terrified my depression would fuck it up, would take it away from me.

One day, after six months, I thought in passing that I could understand how someone could want it to end — and I immediately made a doctor's appointment to get on medication. I was prescribed an SSRI, and three weeks later, my symptoms eased. I felt like myself for the first time in a really long time. It can take a long time to find the right medication to treat anxiety or depression, and I consider myself one lucky bitch that I hit it on the first try.

Since then, I’ve waded in depression, but I haven’t been pulled under. I might be on the medication for the rest of my life or I might not, I don’t fucking know; but what I do know is that it helps me keep my shit together so I can go to workout classes, have the energy to read books and follow through on plans and show up to walk dogs.