Genuinely glad you guys are getting better / have got better. I can particularly relate to PHP's post as it very closely portrays what happened to me; the only difference being I was totally unaware of it. I'll try to keep my story short since it's rather similar and not the focal point of my post.
In my younger years during high school, life was great. I was happy, doing well in most things and very social. I got top grades in school because I had motivation and actually studied. I was very outgoing as well, being involved in productive things like sport on a daily basis. This continued into my first year of college (UK college that is), which is during the ages 16-17. In my first year of college I spent a lot time with friends or making new friends, as well as studying a sufficient amount. Basically, it went well.
However, in the second year of college things took a complete u-turn. I was like the complete opposite of my younger self; to the point that family members and friends sometimes said "you've changed" and "are you depressed or something?" I became very anti-social and spent the vast majority of my time camped in my room on the internet, where I just chilled on PS as it was an escape from real life. Motivation was completely out of the window. I literally did no studying for my exams, the only reason I ended up passing was because the grades from my first year salvaged me, as it brought my weighted average for the 2 years just enough to pass. I barely exercised or ate, and most of what I ate was pure junk food. This had effects on my health and I became quite skinny and weak.
I had literally zero idea what was wrong with me. I used to wonder myself why I've changed so much, but I just kept telling my self "oh you're just a lazy shit, you need to fix up." This is what I kept telling myself and I repeatedly convinced myself I'll change tomorrow, but that tomorrow never came. I ended up hating myself. I'd have never considered myself depressed, because in truth I had no idea exactly what it was. My idea of depression was some kind of constant state of sadness. Since I wasn't exactly FEELING sad, I thought there's no way I'm depressed, which is why I was convinced it was simply me being a lazy shit. But that was obviously not the case. I figured later you don't just suddenly become so lazy like that, especially when you were so productive and motivated before.
I can't really pinpoint what it was that put me into depression, but my best guess would be that rather than one event, it was a combination of things which were:
- Shit ton of family issues, some which continue today. The rest kinda went away because I cut off contact with them.
- Things not working out between me and this girl I eventually developed a crush on.
- Loss of a really close girl mate due to some shitty circumstances.
- Mild financial issues.
- Some other things that were going in my life that are a bit too personal.
This state continued a year after college, where I was completing my first year of university (what you Americans call college). I did well for the year but that wasn't because of being motivated and studying, but rather it was me already knowing most of the content they were teaching as I learned it during college, so the year was more of a recap. I still spent my days camped in my room, being anti-social and not being healthy. No eating healthy and very little exercise. Communication with friends and family was minimal, mostly limited to "hi" and "bye" and that's being generous. I became quite lonely too as most of my former friends were separated due to heading off to different universities. It's like I was just going through the motions in life. I had no real plan, ambition and long-term view. My days were like "oh I have university today, guess I'll go." "Oh university finished, welp time to go home and camp in my room." Routine was something like: wake up, eat little, go to university, come home, eat little or none at all, chill in my room, have dinner, go back to my room and chill on my computer 'til I fall tired and sleep. Repeat. I never asked myself questions like "what do I plan to do today / tomorrow," "why am I doing this," so it becomes clear how empty my life felt.
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending as I feel better than ever now. I've become significantly more productive, social and healthier. I started hitting the gym and am stronger than ever. I'm no longer skinny, I'm actually quite built now. I eat very healthy and significantly more than I used to, mainly because I was on a bulking program. I'm way more social with my family and friends, talking to them on a daily basis as opposed to hardly ever like before. My days are no longer spent camped in my room. Now I spend 3 hours exercising everyday with a couple more being social, by either chilling with friends or spending time with family. I semi-quit PS, I no longer spend 4-5 hours a day on it. Now it's barely 1, and at times I go a whole week without even logging on. I just play RandomBattles here and there with my elo currently at 2100+ (flex). I've also made new friends or caught up with a lot of ones through social media and it feels really good. I've been getting comments like "you look better / bigger," "you've changed for the better," and "you're a lot more talkative now." I pretend to just brush them off but really they make me extremely happy as it shows I've made progress.
Getting out of depression was a slow process. It started with faith, closeness to God. I know some of you are atheists so you'll brush this off laughing, but I personally am a believer. Praying to help me get better in life was key. I felt an indescribable feeling in my heart, like a special kind of connection. Gradually, hope grew, then came motivation and a will to get better, then came actually getting better. My habits during this time of praying remained the same, so when the will to get better hit me, it really felt like my prayers were being answered. This is what kickstarted the recovery. What furthered it was hitting the gym and becoming healthier. After that I noticed myself slowly becoming more social. I started using social media again and really put myself out there and now I've become more popular than I've ever been in the previous 4 years of my life. Now I'm happy again, my days are spent productively, I'm healthy as ever and social as ever.
That's my story. Some points I'd really like to make are:
- If you feel you are depressed, try something called "non-zero" days. Non-zero days are basically days where you spend any amount of time doing something productive. It could be 5 minutes, it could be a few hours, it doesn't matter. Just finishing the day knowing you did something productive, so that you've made progress as a person is a great feeling. As for what's productive, it could simply be anything that helps you reach your goals. Non-zero days are a really effective way of gradually becoming better, because how much time you spend being productive is totally up to you, there's no pressure and therefore it is easier to do it. Generally, depressed people hate themselves for how they have spent / are spending their time, so non-zero days is a great counter measure to feel good about yourself.
- Getting healthier goes a long way in jumping out of depression. Spending time exercising and then enjoying that good rest makes you not only feel physically better, but mentally too. This has great short-term effects which then can reap long-term benefits.
- Re-evaluate properly whether you're depressed, or if you're just lying to yourself. I think a big reason a lot of people are unaware they're depressed is because they don't know what it is. I'm an example of this. If you're spending your days glued to PS, being anti-social, camped in your room, procrastinating school and lacking motivation to do anything, ask yourself what's wrong with you. If this is your habits you probably are depressed.
Since this is a COMPETITIVE POKEMON website and seeing how much time some users spend on it, I imagine a good portion of the user-base has the same habits I did. It's not hard to guess someone spending 4-5 hours a day on PS is procrastinating school, staying camped in their room being anti-social and being unhealthy in general, and let's be honest the majority of users here do exactly that. So, I feel the above points are relate-able to the userbase on this site. Last point I'd like to make is just because you don't necessarily feel sad, doesn't mean you aren't depressed. I never particularly felt SAD during my depression; but I learned now depression is a broad topic which also describes things like absolute lack of motivation to do anything, which summarizes my second year of college and first year of university.
Huge shoutouts to
user php who has been a fantastic friend for me during this time. We have a really funny friendship. You live across the world so we've never met and probably never will, but somehow you're one of my closest friends. I've told you things which I haven't even told family members and closest irl friends. I like how we push each other to do good and monitor each others progress, while giving each other shit when we slip up. We've still got one key thing to work on and you know what that is. RnD jokes will prevail though. Also
Starmei and
Daenys for also being really good internet friends and always there to offer some good advice.
Peace.