I am someone who has been diagnosed with Major depression disorder. I've attempted suicide multiple times and been to a point where I felt this world was utterly hopeless and meaningless and cold and no one cared about me. All while I'm going through it all I've found there aren't many people who actually understand what I was going through or why I was feeling the way I felt and they said extremely ignorant things that just made it all worse.

The point of this post is to give more awareness on depression. I'm not going to do a study but I feel if I did there would be a strong correlation on people who seek to improve their social skills and sex life and those with depression. Often times in this forum while I was going through depression it just made me feel worse. Not only did people not understand and put me down but they thought they were helping by giving "tough love" [which is really just ignorance and laziness as far as I'm concerned]. There were a few that stood out and may not have understood what I was dealing with but were there for me and helped motivate me to be happy and at least helped me feel someone gave a shit and wasn't super ignorant. PoeticPUA and Skills360 are two that stand out in that regard.


So, Depression certainly makes your game worse. A lot of people don't know how to deal with it or someone with depression. This world is pretty cold about that... but it's cool, depression can be worked with. It's tough and it's a lot of work to stay happy [trust me, I've been battling depression since as far as I can remember and am just now, at age 30, starting to see more consistent happiness and it's not easy but it's worth it].

Anyway, I posted this in my blog on here. I feel everyone should read it before trying to help someone learn pick up. Cause a lot of people who're trying to learn pick up are depressed about their sex life or life in general.

Also this is very useful when talking to girls and they're feeling depressed. So there's that.



If you've read my other Journal "The life of chime" it's no secret I suffer from depression. In recent times I've done a lot to keep myself happy and it's a lot of work to maintain this [it gets easier over time]. I feel this message board doesn't have enough awareness on depression and that depression and those seeking advice on dating and pick-up would show very strong results in a correlation study... but I'm not going to run that experiment [I don't think it would be very purposeful and I don't want to waste time doing it. Plus I'm not sure how accurate I could make my findings].

So, here's a list of things you should and should not say to someone suffering from depression while they're depressed [yes, I said that right. People who suffer from depression periodically feel depressed and aren't depressed all the time. But they're usually depressed more often than not].

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0, ... 8,00.html#
This is where I got these from.


How to show you care

What do you say to someone who’s depressed? All too often, it’s the wrong thing.

“People still have such a cloudy idea of what mental illness is,” says Kathleen Brannon, of Herndon, Va.

“Sometimes people will say, ‘Oh, you’re depressed? Yeah, I’ve been depressed,’ and you realize just the way they say it that, nooo, it’s not quite the same thing. It’s not just that I’m feeling sad or blue.”

Below is a list of helpful things to tell someone battling depression, followed by what not to say, courtesy of the Depression Alliance.


What to say:
-You’re not alone in this.
-You're important to me.
-Do you want a hug.
-You are not going crazy.
-We are not on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.
-When all this is over, I'll still be here and so will you.
-I can’t really understand what you are feeling, but I can offer my compassion.
-I’m not going to leave you or abandon you.
-I love you. (Say this only if you mean it.)
-I’m sorry that you’re in so much pain. I am not going to leave you. I am going to take care of myself, so you don’t need to worry that your pain might hurt me.

What NOT to say:
-There’s always someone worse off than you are.
-No one ever said life was fair.
-Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
-So you're depressed. Aren't you always?
-Try not to be so depressed.
-It's your own fault.
-Believe me, I know how you feel. I was depressed once for several days.
-I think your depression is a way of punishing us.
-Haven’t you grown tired of all this “me, me, me” stuff yet?
-Have you tried chamomile tea?

Speaking from personal experience this is an extremely accurate list. The NOT section often gives you the impression the person saying those things is extremely ignorant on the subject of depression and mental disorders and doesn't care much for you. Also they're basically kicking you while you're down when they say this.

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I feel like the point of a community is to help where/when/however u can.
-Aceospades12

This is good advice and it's nice when someone re-awakens me to that perception as well...

Great article and thanks for the name drop

Peace and Love,

Vic

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Just another guy from back in the day.

Blogging again living life: http://www.Scienceofnaturalgame.com

Ohh, thanks for the post.
I, too, am depressed, I think, I'm not sure, I feel lost a lot, I guess.

Just reading the lines of what to say gave me a slightly better idea of what I'm missing, thank you.

hmm... the quotes are backwards but whatever I'm glad it's helping someone out.
Personally I find that forcing yourself to smile makes you happier [studies have shown that forcing smiles actually makes you happier. Personally I've been making a habit of smiling all the time for no fucking reason]. Also doing things that give a sense of accomplishment help release dopamine which will make you happy. Personally I'll force myself to learn a new song on piano, do my homework, or otherwise do productive shit and it makes me feel happier usually.

If you need someone to talk to about things I'm willing to listen. If you want I could tell you a lot of the things I've been doing to feel better and be happier and a lot of the stuff I've done to get over things that make me feel so down.
No problem. You're one of the very few people that was there when I was at my most depressed point. Really just knowing someone actually cared and gave a shit has helped me feel good enough to not want to commit suicide. btw, sorry I fucked up your name.

_________________
I feel like the point of a community is to help where/when/however u can.
-Aceospades12