He spent two years just keeping me accountable on the little day to day things and while it didn't immediately cure my depression my quality of increased dramatically. The idea that something like keeping my room tidy would help with my depression sounded absolutely god damn insane at the time, "I want existence to end and you're telling me to make my bed?" ..but somehow those hundred small things mattered, life's pretty good these days.

God damn brains are dumb.

Being home, alone, unshaven, unclean, in an unkept house made me feel worse because of all the things I saw that needed to be done, and the isolation allowing me to think about that and only that.

A bit of tidying made my space feel better (less cramped) and a bit of tidying each day reduced the sense of burden compared to seeing the whole place as one big mess. Same for the self-care and other aspects.

Every undone thing is an extra stressor because it's an extra thing that you know needs to be done, but in a depressed state you do not feel able to do or that there is sufficient time to do (it seems overwhelming, even when in reality it's a small chore).

Being somewhat social (even as an introvert), being physically active and getting my sunlight, and maintaining a decently tidy home (I still suck at cleaning the shower often enough, and I never make my bed), have made an immense difference.

There's also the benefit of routine and ritual. That's part of what the showering and shaving did. I'm lying in bed and I haven't shaved yet, I need to shave, let's get up and shave. I have to do this, once it's done it's done and I can move on. Now I'm out of bed and I can maybe do something else or not, but the ritual helped force me out of bed and gave me even the chance to have a healthy day.

> (I still suck at cleaning the shower often enough, and I never make my bed)

I stopped using the top/flat sheet, which means "making the bed" is as simple as fluffing the pillows and shaking your duvet/comforter/quilt out over the bed. The flat sheet is responsible for probably 95% of the effort in making a bed. Coming home to a made bed is nice.

Bonus: when you buy sheets in the future, you can invest the top sheet savings into a comfier bedspread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvet

I hate making my bed so I can't be happier now :)

He begins by telling me, "If I take this baseball bat, and smash your knee, would you come tell me, or would you go tell a doctor?"

I said, well obviously the doctor. He said "Ok, go and do likewise."

I went to counseling that week, which included temporary relief via SSRI's. I am still coping, but it is _worlds_ better than it was years ago.

Talking to people, especially that have the same philosophies, helps. If you haven't found the right people to talk to, keep looking. They are out there. It took me 4 tries, but glad I did. I live with a spouse that does not understand depression what so ever, so it is an absolute lifeline to be able to talk to an understanding professional.

In other words: less than 25% of them are right. About the same experience here.

My personal gripe: Most psychologists are feminists. If you explain them a problem you have, they’ll percieve it in a gynocentric way. They are in denial that men can be on the receiving end of a problem or injustice, so much that one of them posited to me that male and female suicide rates were the same. Which tells a lot about the state of science on men’s problems.

Many years back, my partner was sexually assaulted, so I attended a few of her counseling sessions with the local Rape Crisis center as a support person. The female counselor commented that I was "very brave" to do that - something I found very odd.

Years later, my partner said that the sessions I didn't attend were little more than "man hating" and "man-blaming" for all of the world's wrongs.

I have also attended counseling, as I've recently started to understand the level of physical and psychological abuse that was inflicted upon me by my mother (and her boyfriend, as well as my stepfather) while I was growing up. My counselor was also female, yet not once did she belittle my suffering as less because of my gender. As I described a few events, I'd even hear her let out a gasp or draw a sharp breath, or a few words of concern.

It seems possible to me that you've come across individuals with their own concerns and agendas that lie outside the requirements of their jobs, but I couldn't write off an entire profession based on that.

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/11/having-sad.h...

Yea I'm in agreement with this. No direct effort to "help" has been useful at all.

You know what would be helpful, is if people actually started being honest about how not together their own lives are. Forget depression, I just want the average person to actively acknowledge and vocalize that they don't have all the answers and haven't figured things out.

One of the biggest sources of anxiety for me is looking around and seeing all the people who "have their shit together" and thinking that I'm the only one over here drowning. Yet when you talk with them one on one, it's pretty clear they don't have any better handle on things than anyone else.

I’m sorry that talk therapy didn’t work for you. It has, however, shown to be effective at disarming suicidal thoughts long enough for other outcomes to seem attainable.

But besides that, what is there to do? Is depression even something that can be helped with?