Fighting my depression

1. There are times when I don't want to fight my depression, I don't feel like helping myself, like I'm not worth saving and so on... This is me, most of the time.

2. and there are other times when I'm determined to not let my depression get the better of me, and also to help other people with their depression. I feel like this is the first step to fighting depression.

The ratio of 1 to 2 is like 80% to 20%, i'd like to change this, I'd like to be (2) most of the time, and I'm trying to force some change by being positive. Sometimes I can switch from 1 to 2 and back in a few minutes, and it's very frustrating.

can anybody relate to this? Thanks.

Yes, I can absolutely relate to it. It's so frustrating. I've had a good couple of months where I found myself in "2" most of the time but the last 2-3 weeks I've been slipping back to "1" more and more often.

Each state seems to have its own momentum (or maybe "inertia" would be a better word for state 1) and once in it, it can be hard to shift.

I've tried to come up with things to help me in state 2. Keeping my diet healthy and making sure I sleep regular hours helps some. There are also things I can do around my apartment, like making the bed or washing the dishes, that seem to help a bit.

Going for a walk or having a cheerful interaction with someone usually helps, too.

I've been trying to take note if there's an activity or pattern of thought that occurs before I switch from 1 to 2 or vice versa.

I haven't come up with any magic formula yet. I had a medication change in the spring that helped my sleep a lot. My mood immediately got much better. The medication isn't helping my sleep as much now and I've noticed my mood slipping to a bad place more and more often during the past couple of weeks.

Good sleep is probably the absolutely most important thing for me to help my mood.

You sound like you're still in a pretty good place, even if it is frustrating. I know I'm in trouble when I stop caring about fighting.

It will be interesting to see what other people share about what works for them.

Keep fighting! Life is worth the battle. It isn't going to be easy but it's a nice investment.

That makes a lot of sense, sometimes it's like the bad thoughts gather so much momentum that it can't just be stopped with just trying to be positive. Sometimes I do have rapid mood swings though, where I'm suddenly happy all thanks to a happy thought.

Sleep and good diet are definitely things that help me. Also watching videos that make me laugh or restore my faith in humanity seem to help.

That is something I wish I could do, but I've lost my trust in people. I take frowning faces as a sign that I'm not welcome, but I guess I'm also frowning which makes them frown too.

[quote] I've been trying to take note if there's an activity or pattern of thought that occurs before I switch from 1 to 2 or vice versa. [quote]

Good idea, that might help.

It seems like my environment doesn't matter that much to me, keeping myself busy always works, but at the end of the day when I try to destress, my mind becomes overrun by depressing thoughts and I quickly becomed depressed.

Yes, I really have no other option but to keep fighting.

Okay, now I'm expecting people to appear and suggest CBT or rubber bands.

Hi dysphoric,

You might find that these notes

http://egg.bu.edu/~youssef/SNAP_CLUB...0164151576.pdf

and this plan helps

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4262681-post105.html

The fact that you can switch sounds very promising to me. You just have to figure out ways to control it. - vital

I can certainly relate...I go back and forth a lot too. It sucks.