Didn't work. Moderately enjoyed it. Would get home, then... crash. Back into the spiral.
Fast forward a couple of years. In a better place, somewhat. Try again, what the hell I'm bored and can only play so much HZD and BotW. It was surprisingly better this time. Started making friends. Texting.
Feels good. Better, at least.
So maybe you aren't in a place where that works for you right now. Maybe it will one day. Don't close yourself off to it completely, though. It's helped others, so who knows.
But the rewiring of your brain is the most important thing I feel in combating depression and getting somehow your lizard brain engaged in the "normal" things. For some reason I have felt that losing the connection to your primal desires (or the real you) is often the trigger, that will cause your body to tell you "hey, you are doing something wrong - please fix it". I know self-blame is the last thing any depressed person needs, but I think positive action and experiences are definitely key-part in overriding the negative thinking patterns. Things such as social connections, the feeling of belonging to a group and physical exercise.
Yet for certain, if you feel you are pushing yourself too much to me it says that there are deeper problems unsolved under the surface, that should be reworked with maybe a psychotherapist before going on a trip around the world. Or maybe it's a chronic chemical imbalance that just can't be fixed (eg Abraham Lincoln). Who knows.
To me physical exercise was like a magic cure that did feel like a natural depression medicine when you get the feeling of progress. Then other positive things started to build on top of it.
> I think positive action and experiences are definitely key-part in overriding the negative thinking patterns. Things such as social connections, the feeling of belonging to a group and physical exercise.
Here's the thing: I'm not sure I've genuinely had a positive experience in a long time (maybe decades). I'm not sure I've ever experienced "the feeling of belonging to a group" in an emotional sense. I routinely do things and have interactions that I can intellectually analyze as having been positive accomplishments, but for me there's a disconnect such that this simply fails to add up to a positive experience. As far as I can tell, most approaches to therapy don't even acknowledge this as a possibility, let alone have a method to address it. Those that do acknowledge it tend to have a questionable-to-nonexistent body of scientific evidence and are often phrased with a weird mythical/quasi-religious/metaphorical quality such that I'm often confused as to what advocates or practitioners are even trying to say once they move on from discussion of symptoms.
She's an anxiety therapist, so I tell her my anxiety is holding me back from connecting with others, but part of me suspects that my inability to "feel" the connections is the real problem.
> Somehow through the act of forcing yourself you find you’re actually enjoying yourself, are making progress and feeling better.
I tried this approach. The "you find you're actually enjoying yourself" part never came. It left me profoundly exhausted, disappointed, and hopeless to the point of being suicidal.
I'm glad that you found an approach that worked for you, but depressive disorders are highly complex and poorly understood phenomena that aren't suited to neat little explanations of "the actual" solution.