Devotional blog dedicated to the Goddess Sigyn offering support to those who are "holding the bowl" within difficult relationships.
Depression.
Sometimes it’s screaming and crying and smashing plates
Sometimes it’s numbness and quiet and “oh god why am I not dead”
And sometimes it’s getting up anyways and staying alive, even if you don’t want to
honestly students with mental disorders such as depression anxiety etc that go to school should get more recognition and support, most people have no idea of what it is to have to pick yourself up every morning and attend class even when you feel like dying
I am so proud of each & every one of you that this post applies to. You are so much stronger, more inspirational, and more resilient than you realize or give yourselves credit for
SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE WHO STILL TRIES TO GET BACK INTO THE SWING OF THINGS AFTER DEPRESSION HIT THEM HARD. THERE ISN’T ENOUGH RECOGNITION FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THAT THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE INTEREST AND MOTIVATION AGAIN BUT PUSH THEMSELVES TO DO STUFF ANYWAYS. YOU ARE FIGHTING A DAILY BATTLE WITH YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND YOU’RE STILL COMING OUT ON TOP, YOU’RE ALL BRAVE AS FUCK
what they don’t tell you about depression is that sometimes it feels a lot less like sadness and a lot more like the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry
here’s a tip: if you start dating a depressed person, don’t be surprised if they are still depressed while they are dating you.
they’re not depressed because they’re single, and you are not an all-powerful cure for mental illnesses. just be there for them.REAL
FUCKING
TALK
or if youre friends with a depressed person and they are upset whenever you hang out with them. Dont take it personal ok
YES
Here are a few suggestions for getting through the holiday season if you struggle with holiday depression:
1) Non-holiday gathering. If you have friends or acquaintances who struggle with the holidays, consider having a gathering of your own preference. Maybe even invite people you don’t know who are also in the same boat. Whether or not these are close friends, you already will have common ground in helping to support each other through the holidays.
2) Break the holiday idealization. It’s just another day. While the media and social media won’t let us believe that’s the case, the holidays are only as grand as we allow them to be. Some people don’t regard the holidays as a special day at all, and just live them as an ordinary day, filling the day with whatever brings them fulfillment.
3) Time off from social media. Even when it’s not the holidays, social media have a way of making people feel bad about their lives. The holidays on social media are sort of like regular days on steroids — all of the seemingly exorbitant levels of happiness dressed in a holiday theme. (Maybe it would help if people also posted the frustrations and not just the good things that make it seem like life is always wonderful). Around the holidays (approximately a week before and a few days after), keep with reality by taking a break from Facebook, Twitter, and any other happiness media.
4) Take a break from TV. If you’re going to be alone around the holidays and must watch some TV, I suggest watching things that make you forget it’s the holiday season. Reruns of tv shows (not the holiday episodes), movies that aren’t holiday themed, sports, or otherwise. Be careful with TV — the commercials will still remind you of the time of year. (And maybe stay away from all Steve Martin movies. As funny as they can be, even his non-holiday movies have a way of portraying life with the ideal happy family living in a mansion in Beverly Hills. Come to think of it, maybe just eliminate all comedies with snow…). So, if you can, I recommend another form of entertainment — books, puzzles, word puzzles, cooking, baking, gym, crafts, building, etc.
5) Focus on your hobbies. If you find yourself alone, or choose to be alone, around the holidays, make it a time of year to focus on your hobbies. These can be any of the activities above, or anything else that interests you — traveling, hiking, bike riding, movies, golfing, gaming, etc. Also, try meetup.com as a possibility for activity groups around the holidays that can bring you around other people who enjoy the same hobbies as you.
There are other possibilities for getting through the holidays. The main idea is to know that you don’t have to be alone, and to know that you are not alone in your desire to move straight from November 15th to Jaunary 3rd.
Depression – it’s a bit like walking down a long dark corridor never knowing when the light will go on.
To all my fellow depressives, getting hit hard by the suddenly shorter, colder days? I’m with you. I’m on an unshakeable schedule when it comes to Seasonal Activated Depression (SAD – aww. Nice acronym. But wouldn’t Feeling Under-Cheerful, Killing The Happy Inside Syndrome be more accurate?)
Leading up to Halloween? Couldn’t be happier. The second after midnight on the 31st? The gloom & grey come down like a mildewy theatre curtain.
Please don’t forget, these next few months, until the spring kicks in and we can all start skateboarding on the serotonin rainbow of summer – you CAN get through this. One way is to go regularly help someone else. In a big or small way. Talk to someone regularly, or bring someone food or just your company. One selfish benefit of charity is it gives you a free vacation from inside your own head. Don’t worry – all that gorgeous nonsense & noise you’ve got rattling around inside your skull will politely wait until you come back.
And now I’m going to give you a weird piece of advice that’s always worked for me.
Read something Russian. Novel, short story, play, poem. Especially Pushkin or Dostoyevsky. Holy moley did those guys live train wreck lives, and they lived them in a state of near-constant, tomb-like winter.
They didn’t write happy stuff, those Russians. But man did they sling some defiant word-bricks at the darkness, as if to say, to their own depression and madness, “I own YOU. You’re merely renting space within my mind & soul. You REALLY want to stake a claim to my headspace? Then you’re gonna have to share it with some darkness of my OWN creation. I’m gonna give you a roommate called CRIME & PUNISHMENT that’ll
send you screaming out onto the Russian steppes.”Read something Russian. Remind your depression that you have access to ancient, arctic gloom-blasts, and that if you can’t make it leave your head, you can sure as shit frighten it into being a polite guest until the snow melts.
Patton Oswalt – To all my fellow depressives, getting hit… | Facebook
The Bionic Mind: Building Brain Implants To Fight Depression, PTSD
The next step is much more sophisticated: a “closed-loop” system, with sensors in the brain, and feedback. So it can pick up when brain activity is going off course, try to correct it in real-time, and then tell whether the correction has worked.
If that sounds sort of like your phone’s GPS system, well, it is, says Dr. Emery Brown, an MIT computational neuroscientist who’ll be working on the algorithms for the brain implant.If you’re trying to get from Boston to Providence and you go off course, your GPS picks up your error and points you back to the right road, he says. With the brain implant, “If I see that your brain activity is starting to move back into that state indicative of you not feeling well, toward a depressed state or toward fears associated with PTSD, then I’m going to stimulate to correct that. It’s wholly analogous, and in fact, the paradigm really follows precisely the paradigm used to build GPS.”
First, though, scientists need to learn how to recognize which patterns of brain activity — which “neural signatures” — indicate depression and PTSD.
Saying “you don’t have anything to be depressed about, your life is great” is like saying “what do you mean have asthma, there is loads of air in here.”
something my 13 year old nephew said to my mum after she claimed I had no reason to be suffering from depression, I repeat, he is THIRTEEN. (via rdjobsessions)
Wiiiiicked. Much love.
(via asapscience)
Holding the Bowl 