A poster above recommended the gym. I agree wholeheartedly. Physical fitness and diet are two very fundamental weapons in your arsenal for taking on depression. Even if just down in the dumps and not depressed.
Always make sure your diet is on track ("healthy" is debatable, so I'll just say make sure it's free of fast food") and you're spending time working out and getting the blood flowing throughout your body.

I think most guys who enter the game were probably depressed at some point. It really gets better as you get older trust me.

Like crazyfool and Vicious said, see a professional immediately. If you are depressed, you will not be able to pull yourself out of this on your own. Ignore the well-intentioned but ignorant people here who say "exercise" or "working on your inner game" are enough; they've never been depressed (or are still depressed) and don't know what they're talking about.

1. See a psyCHIATRIST. He will prescribe you drugs. Take these drugs even if you don't feel positive effects immediately. The brain is a complicated instrument, YOUR brain is unique, and you may need to take a few drugs before you find the one (or set of drugs) that works for you.

2. See a psyCHOLOGIST. Ask your doctor to recommend one. Stick with therapy even if it feels pointless at first. (It will.) If nothing else, therapy will "regiment" your treatment. Treatment minus a predictable habit structure, e.g. seeing a therapist once a week, can feel "disembodied". The point is to make treatment i.e. helping yourself (and letting select others help you) as much of a habit as possible. And remember that the traditional male disinclination to talking about feelings or unloading while sometimes (usually) correct is not correct here. ex. We here at the forum TALK to diagnose and solve problems, learn, and help each other. Nothing unmanly about that at all.

3. Second-tier adjuvants like exercise or lightbox therapy can be added later, and aside from their primary effects (ex. exercise releases feel-good chemicals. Exercise attenuates the cortisol response. Per Sapolsky hypersecretion of cortisol atrophies the hippocampus, causing cognitive deficits commonly seen among depressives e.g. memory loss), further "regiment" your treatment. If you're lucky, depression is a one-time thing and will pass through you and leave you in one piece. If you're not so lucky, depression or a predisposition to depression is endogenous to your neurotype and you will deal with it in one manner or another for the rest of your life. If the latter, regimenting as much of your treatment as possible is key.

Anyway, good luck with this.

Fuck medication.

I don't understand how anyone not dying of cancer, aids or paralyzed in a wheelchair (an can't fuck) can be depressed about anything in life. Seriously.

So long as I have my 100% health, and am physically in-shape, nothing else has any bearing on my happiness - even money, and definitely NOT women! If I have to go scrub toilets at the shittiest gas-station on the planet until I am back on my feet, I WILL!!

Yeah, I don't understand..I truly don't. When you grew up in the mean street of NYC, where you physically fought everyday as a 10 year old with a mob of thugs trying to bash your skull open with baseball bats just to make it to school in one-piece, shit.....nothing in life can depress me now - I've been though hell, and lived.

Mixx

Quote: (08-28-2011 10:13 PM)MiXX Wrote:  

I don't understand how anyone not dying of cancer, aids or paralyzed in a wheelchair (an can't fuck) can be depressed about anything in life. Seriously.

So long as I have my 100% health, and am physically in-shape, nothing else has any bearing on my happiness - even money, and definitely NOT women! If I have to go scrub toilets at the shittiest gas-station on the planet until I am back on my feet, I WILL!!

Yeah, I don't understand..I truly don't. When you grew up in the mean street of NYC, where you physically fought everyday as a 10 year old with a mob of thugs trying to bash your skull open with baseball bats just to make it to school in one-piece, shit.....nothing in life can depress me now - I've been though hell, and lived.

Mixx

See Mixx you had some rough stuff growing up and made it through which increased your confidence and made you appreciate things. Growing up in the suburbs can make you soft. Still its no excuse, just saying it happens. Sometimes I think about shit and think damn how can I be depressed, so much people have it worse and I have my health, youth, family, etc etc

Btw how do you know not getting laid in a long time wont make you feel depressed?

Quote: (08-29-2011 01:24 AM)Riker Wrote:  

Btw how do you know not getting laid in a long time wont make you feel depressed?

Getting laid for the sake of getting laid is easy. If you are at a point where you have gone 14 mos without ass, it's time for 2 things:

1. Hire a hooker from Craigslist or backpage.com
2. LOWER YOUR STANDARDS AND GO FUCK A GHETTO GIRL 30LBS OVERWEIGHT!!
3. Get your ass over to Tijuana!

No. 1 runs a small risk of being sent to jail py a police undercover sting in USA, so YOU MUST BE SMART!

No 2, sound like a shitty option, but I bet you it beats depression, hands-down!

Mixx

Not in the US so I could do it no problem.... thing is wouldn't it depress you that you can't get a girl without paying?

It would depress me more to go from 14 months without ass, to 15 months without ass.

Mixx

Quote: (08-29-2011 02:47 PM)MiXX Wrote:  

It would depress me more to go from 14 months without ass, to 15 months without ass.

Mixx

Also absolutely impossible to concentrate without sex. It is like being a walking boner and makes it impossible to work.

Quote: (08-29-2011 02:51 PM)Carne Wrote:  

Quote: (08-29-2011 02:47 PM)MiXX Wrote:  

It would depress me more to go from 14 months without ass, to 15 months without ass.

Mixx

Also absolutely impossible to concentrate without sex. It is like being a walking boner and makes it impossible to work.

Yea true, I can't stop thinking about sex. Now I feel bad about deleting this hooker friend I made that was a 7 and offered it up at half her usual rate. I thought it would motivate my game more but maybe I'm just going nuts lol, sometimes even making me regret breaking up with my ex for the regular sex.

Quote: (08-28-2011 10:13 PM)MiXX Wrote:  

I don't understand how anyone not dying of cancer, aids or paralyzed in a wheelchair (an can't fuck) can be depressed about anything in life. Seriously.

So long as I have my 100% health, and am physically in-shape, nothing else has any bearing on my happiness - even money, and definitely NOT women! If I have to go scrub toilets at the shittiest gas-station on the planet until I am back on my feet, I WILL!!

Yeah, I don't understand..I truly don't. When you grew up in the mean street of NYC, where you physically fought everyday as a 10 year old with a mob of thugs trying to bash your skull open with baseball bats just to make it to school in one-piece, shit.....nothing in life can depress me now - I've been though hell, and lived.

Mixx

This all seems true if you haven't dealt with depression, and I would have thought the same thing had it not happened to me. This reasoning all seems valid assuming depression is purely based on your environment and how you deal. But depression often has a very real biological cause.

In fact, I wouldn't have known something was up if I wasn't for how great my life was going otherwise. My job, family, and other life situations were going fantastic. I had a hot GF that I slept with regularly (to dispel the "no ass" syndrome). But I just felt "blue". It wasn't like I wanted to kill myself or felt "hopeless" (If that is the case i DEFINITELY recommend seeing a doc), but just generally felt down and couldn't let go and have a good time.

OP, if you're feeling fine, sane, healthy etc, but feel like something is off because you're unhappy without any clear reason why, I strongly recommend St. Johns Wort. You can buy a three month supply at the grocery store for like 15 bucks. Read up about it on the internet, as I did before I bought into the hype.

I never had any problems with depression systems ever in the past, this kinda stuff can happen to people.

A pill for every ill........I wonder if we were not programmed to think something is wrong with us, where there clearly is nothing wrong by companies like Pfizer.

Mixx

When I took Prozac as a teen all it day was make me shit

Quote: (08-29-2011 07:30 PM)MiXX Wrote:  

A pill for every ill........I wonder if we were not programmed to think something is wrong with us, where there clearly is nothing wrong by companies like Pfizer.

Mixx

I'm totally against over-medication. Pfizer is an evil corporation. I agree that their stupid commercials make people think stuff is wrong with them when there isn't. I'm recommending he try an herbal supplement you can buy at a grocery store, not some strong bullshit from a psychiatrist that will turn you into a zombie (e.g. Garden State).

That being said, getting exercise, going to the gym, and getting laid on the reg will certainly help as well. Please don't associate a cheap ground weed capsule with Pfizer tho. It regulates serotonin levels if there is indeed an imbalance.

Most people describe themselves as being depressed when they're not. Being in a bad mood, sad, down, etc. has nothing to do with being depressed.

Those who have never been depressed cannot pass any judgements on what depression is like or on what depressed people should do because it's so different to a normal person's experience.


It's like saying I know what it feels like to have survived Auschwitz when you are in your Midtwenties living in a good neigborhood of San Diego. Getting poonani doesn't cure depression...in fact, when you're severely depressed you very often don't give a hoot about sex anymore because your libido is so low. Often, depression is associated with anxiety, so that further hampers your ability to get laid.

Imho, there is no alternative to
1)Psychotherapy
2) Meds

Sports, especially running !!, can help quite a bit.

Bumping this, because I know the bitter ennui of the long dark tea-time of the soul. And I don't want to dupe the thread and force Tuthmosis to wield his hammer of moderation.



When I was a young man, late teens to early 20's, I went through years of really struggling with depression. Bad, pitch-black depression, where I couldn't imagine a future for myself that didn't involve suicide or being sent to the loony bin.



This would alternate with periods where I felt invincible, unbeatable, wired with energy and able to do anything and talk anybody into anything.

But the bad days would always come back. It didn't matter if I was getting laid or not, or working out, or whatever. They always came back.


Like having a Radiohead concert in your brain

I never saw a doctor about it, which was foolish. I just gradually learned to cope with it, partly by learning to spot the pattern of downward-spiralling thoughts and try to consciously turn them around.

Music and humour are great tools for this. Listening to happy, upbeat tunes and deliberately trying to have a laugh - while avoiding sad songs and depressing news or films - helped.


Andre 3000 saved my life

I stopped watching or reading the news, because it made me sad and angry. This strategy worked quite well, but it wasn't completely effective. So I had a backup plan: self medication.



Booze helped me sleep. I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, and embarked on a glorious career as a high functioning alcoholic. I still went to work every day, and did well. I wasn't hiding liquor in the toilet cistern or anything. But every night I was pounding beers, then whisky when the beer stopped working.

Of course, drunkeness is only a temporary solution. But hey - you can always get drunk again! So I did.

After about a decade of this, I went to the doctor one day for the results of a pee test for a minor unrelated complaint. He was pissed off.



My test results came back showing elevated enzyme levels related to the early stages of liver damage. The doctor told me to cut down on my drinking or I'd get serious liver damage and die. His advice was: "Son, you can drink yourself into an early grave if you want, but don't come crying to me when your organs start to fail. Sort your life out!"

Faced with this stark ultimatum from a respected medical professional I did what any champion alcoholic who no longer gets hangovers would do. I kept boozing for another two years.



But it was no longer fun. At the back of my mind, I kept worrying about pickling my liver with every sip of the finest Glenlivet.

So one day, I stopped. And it was awful.

Every hangover in my life came back to haunt me. I was fucked for two weeks of sweaty, achy, sleepless withdrawal. I was so weak and feverish I could barely lift a cat. My liver woke up angry after a decade of marinating in booze and it hurt like a bastard.

And the depression came back too.

No longer able to nuke it with alcohol, my happy thoughts tactic proved horribly ineffective. I had beaten the booze but not the underlying problem that made drinking so irresistible in the first place.

After about a year of trying to fix things myself - with St John's Wort and exercise and sunlight - I was fighting a losing battle. I was unhappy and becoming withdrawn. I couldn't sleep and stayed up most nights worrying about everything. My work started to suffer. My libido fell away faster than a man who has seen Lindy West naked. I wasn't coping.

So after two different doctors told me to try sertraline, I did.

It worked.



Most people don't need pills, but some of us do. In my case, a simple chemical tweak to increase the amount of naturally produced serotonin in my bloodstream makes the difference between being an unpleasant, miserable, unhappy dick and being a boisterous, brilliant, awesome dick.

TL;DR version: the drugs can work. If you're suffering, and nothing else is helping, consider seeing a doctor. And don't self medicate with booze unless you can afford a new liver.


Take it from me and Robert Downey Jr: crazy pills are better than being drunk off your arse all the time. And stay in school, kids!

Telling a depressed person to pull themselves out of it, is like telling a disable wheelchair bound person to just stand up. I do think though that physical factors are a big cause, I used to get bouts of depression, but when I started taking up sports, no fap along with eating healthy, this started to go.

I stay away from drugs, especially booze. Been through that nightmare and it's a bad one. Scripts like prozac are just as bad. My best medicine is working out and eating well.

A few steps (in no particular order):

*Get enough good, restful sleep
*Stay hydrated
*Proper and varied diet
*Cut out any rec drug use
*Cut back on alcohol
*increase physical activity
*Get fresh(er) air
*Try to limit the amount of meds you take; sometimes the cure is worse than the ailment

Working out, nature and hiking cured my depression and given direction in my life.

The first time I was in the Alps, it was the most profound, spiritual experience of my life. It is humbling and intoxicating at the same time.

Example: I shot this 3 years ago:

Guys who are depressed should get tested for vitamin deficiencies and get their testosterone levels checked before getting on anti-depressants.

Quote: (06-05-2011 02:43 PM)CupCake Wrote:  

If there is one thing that has affected my game the most it's certainly depression. I've been dealing with it all of my life and I'm only now (in my late 20s) beginning to realize its effect on my life, especially in the areas of friendships and women.

It doesn't matter how serious I've been about approaching, I know that if I'm depressed my negative attitude bleeds through everything I say and do. It's very frustrating and serves to make me more depressed.

I was wondering how many of you out there have also dealt with this issue and what you've done to get it under control.

Depression is awful, keep the strength. It will get better, never lose faith. I'm not an expert in the least, but I do believe these things work;

1) Exercise: it helps to make your depression more bearable, especially running. There's been some studies on this.
2) Grow a bubble: if Foxs News, Paul Krugman, global warming, your bitching neighbors & melancholic love songs make you unhappy, then isolate yourself from all these negative emotion triggers. Just ignore it/them whenever you see/read/hear about it/them. There's no need to feed unhappiness/frustration/anger on top of your depression.
3) Talk about your problem with your loved ones. Depression isn't something you can solve by yourself -- nor can others, but it sure helps if other people can give your feelings some consideration & show some compassion.
4) Go see a doctor: they have experience with people with depression. This might seem obvious, but a lot of people think doctors can't help them, so don't go.

Good luck, I really mean that.

http://www.dangerandplay.com/2014/07/21/...n-anxiety/

I find this helps me a bit, been taking it for a year now.

+1 Exercise. Yoga. Gym. Whatever. Get yourself moving. Smile more, fake it for a while. Go traveling for a bit, on your own, when you feel you could handle that. Makes you feel a lot better.