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Coping Skills

Brokenlink said:
I don't have a good answer. I suffer from depression and especially the whole seasonal thing.

I endure. I can think all the good shit I want but when I'm in it, I'm in it. Thinking about fluffy bunnies ain't gonna fix it.

I try to recognize where I am at. And I endure. Because I know eventually I will get past it.

Exercise does help. But for me, it has to involve the outdoors. Mtn biking has become my thing. It truly does change my attitude, even if it's for just a short time. Until I do the next ride, I endure.

Knowing someone is there helps too. If you need to talk, I am here.
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I’m high fiving you on the mountain biking.
 
Be here now

An amazing book if you're into hippie bullshit, but it's helped me for 30 years. He was an amazing man that I got to learn from and experience love in a pure form.

Struggling in life, is just life for me. One way or another, one emotion or another. I've gone through different things that have got me to where I am today, but the joy throughout is that helps me cope with the darkness.

The light at the end of the tunnel, is still at the end of the tunnel and it's really dark inside it and those steps are really long to take out of it.

But recognizing it in the moment, acknowledge that it's existing in that moment, and moving on to the next moment...

Be here now

Finding joy in any moment. Whether it's the most magical experience you've ever encountered, or just watching a leaf fall from a tree, is an incredible skill. Changing your mindset from spinning in the dark, to finding the light around you as small or simple as it is. The feeling of a deep breath, the smell of something clean, the sight of a kitty or the sound of its brrrtttt...

Be here now.
 
Melissa said:
It truly helps.
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My wife and I were in Sac a couple of weeks ago for a 3 year old great niece's birthday party, at William Land Regional Park. What a lovely space! I thought about you as I made a wrong freeway turn on the way home that put us on some street in West Sac. Prior to my navigation buffoonery we drove through old town which was absolutely mobbed, then through somewhere in Sacramento looking for a place to eat, which I never found.

Anyway, the point of all this drivel is that if you and your S/O would like to meet for lunch one of these days, let me know. We have talked/typed of this in the past.... SWMBO and I could take a drive.

Above all else dear lady, be well and be good to yourself.

Oh, and be forewarned, I am quite boring. SWMBO can carry a great conversation though! :)
 
for me, learning to cope was around anxiety. after a serious riding accident (horse), i’d get serious panic attacks when i got close enough to even smell the barn. and horses are phenomenal at detecting that when you’re on their back. it was a disaster. then the anxiety propagated to other situations (any time it felt like i had to be focused and ‘on’ - for lack of a better way to say it - clinical term: performance anxiety). spent a lot of years in therapy. learned how i was ‘built’ (how my mind worked). my personal coping mechanism? fix it - or forget it. i usually choose ‘fix’, but have gotten quite good at blowing shit off too (no patience for towing a sea anchor).
 
Yea, it works but only by numbing the brain.
 
budman said:
Classic shit is drink or sleep. Neither fixes a damn thing.

Riding helps but I have to push myself out the door.

Edit to add: Exercise helps too. Get those endorphins going one way or another.
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Mental Doppelganger
 
when I'm feeling down I like to escape into a book or some silly anime, sometimes the right music can help. Going for a walk or a ride can create space for contemplation of what's bugging me.
 
Akira-R said:
One thing that does help is accomplishing tasks. Sweeping the yard, vacuuming the house, hanging up a painting etc.
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Only by reading this do I realize the degree of satisfaction I get from maintenance. My workweek is too frenetic to sit and stew. Any break time is collab time. There is no down time.

Dividing my weekends into categories continues makes me happy. Personal, chores for the family, professional. Today I'll test drive the KTM 1390 super adventure over to my moto bro's house nearby the dealer. Me/social. Then I'll do the maintenance circuit home and away, it's always there waiting. Tomorrow I'll tune-up the presentation my bosses gushed over but asked for changes on. If I'm at all bored and risk of stewing and these things are all done, I'll talk to my partner and watch a Ukrainian guy (I think) restore a FUBAR piece of furniture for 45 minutes and try to add an idea or novel tool technique to my knowledge base. Some days I feel like Neo in the Matrix: "I know how to rebuild a front-loading washing machine." The wife: "Show me..."
 
Another thing that I've done over the years when things got bad was to read, it helped my to calm my brain down so that I could go to sleep. Over the last several years I've moved to audio books, and listening to them has helped. Sometimes, when my brain wants to start back up in the middle of the night, I'll listen to the audio book and calm my mind back down so that I can get back to sleep.
 
I don't have any specific suggestions. I'm a coper, I'm very good at it.
Brokenlink said:
Knowing someone is there helps too.
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But I hope the response and positivty on this thread offers some margin of help, perhaps in showing that there's some light out there.
 
Classical music in car to reduce road rage. You know the, soothe the savage beast thing.

It didn't work well, because even with my windows down, those MFers driving around me couldn't hear it.

Changed from Prokofiev's Piano Concerto #3 to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Much better. ;)
 
If he drives insanely aggressively the brain juice should make other things go away for a while. :teeth
 
There is a difference between ongoing clinical depression and having a down day/week so I'm not sure which one we're talking about here.
The cures are different depending.
 
Allowing yourself to discover the difference between depression and just being sad make things a bit more logical for me. You can’t really talk yourself out of depression, and for sad I think you just submit and go all the way down, up, and sideways along for the ride. For me it’s to try and silence things (the asshole in my head) and redirect the focus to the cheat sheet of crisis remedies I’ve stuffed in my toolbox. Specific Music that makes me happy. Ways to move my body that feel good. Cleaning something (when I’m into that). Making something. Helping someone else. Getting a ride in if I can muster. Making sure to eat bathe dress clean self.
 
littlebeast said:
for me, learning to cope was around anxiety. after a serious riding accident (horse), i’d get serious panic attacks when i got close enough to even smell the barn. and horses are phenomenal at detecting that when you’re on their back. it was a disaster. then the anxiety propagated to other situations (any time it felt like i had to be focused and ‘on’ - for lack of a better way to say it - clinical term: performance anxiety). spent a lot of years in therapy. learned how i was ‘built’ (how my mind worked). my personal coping mechanism? fix it - or forget it. i usually choose ‘fix’, but have gotten quite good at blowing shit off too (no patience for towing a sea anchor).
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My new mantra, if I can remeber to remember it. fix it or forget it. 🥰
 
Distraction + Time.

I have had extended periods of depression, where a distraction gets me thinking about something else and the passage of time brings whatever it brings. The best distractions for me have been things that I do for someone else, as the motivation to do them is stronger. The passage of time, perhaps years, may bring a change of perspective, someone else’s wisdom, etc. It just seems to take time for these things to reveal themselves and for me to be receptive to the input.

It seems to me that the distractions are never the cure, they just get me through the day. Time (so far) has brought the real relief.
 
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Blankpage said:
I suspect remedies depend on what it is you’re depressed about.
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Depends on what you're trying to cope with, I was gonna say.

The unpopular answer is going to be, just ignore it and pretend it's all fine. Believe it and then it will be.

Eventually, those things wont matter anymore, like some things in life are no longer important. Like playing with dolls...
 
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