Trying to work(out) through depression

I haven't gond through what you have but i do suffer from depression and anxiety disorder. I have my whole life. I see a psychiatrist once a month. I have noticed I have not had an episode since I started running. running has brought my quality of life up so high. I am never depressed. anxious yes to go run but that is a good anxious.

Just wanted to let you know, you are not alone. I also suffer from depression. I have had a few anxiety attacks in the past few months as well. After a bitter divorce and court battles and my ex ending up in jail for some horrific crimes he committed before I met him I just didnt care about anything anymore, especially the way I looked. I gained a lot of weight and became kind of a recluse. I do homecare for my eldery Mom and I have an 11 year old son. Amidst all my divorce issues my Mom was diagnosed with colon cancer and had to have an ostomy bag applied. She is soon to be 80 and I have to help her with all of her everyday chores. It is a really tough job sometimes and I don't have much time for me, but I started my journey about 4 weeks ago and I am not looking back. I have started exercising daily and am much more careful of what I eat. My advice to you is worry about you. It is okay to doat on yourself for awhile. When you dont feel like working out, that is the best time to do it. You will feel so accomplished afterwards and know that you have more strength than you thought you did. Somedays I dont even want to get off the couch, but I push myself and do feel much better for it. I think of it as it is only 30-45 mins a day, that is nothing. I have a whole 23 left to do whatever. My heart feels for you and I am praying and hoping you will get through this rough time in your life, and it is just a time.....it will get better, I promise!!!!
Darlene

I went through something similar when my father died last year. Just do the best you can and allow yourself this time. It took me a solid 8 months before I had any desire to even bother trying. In the beginning I wrote up a routine and stuck with it because that was the routine....trust me I hated it. I did it though and I found that after about 6 weeks of faking it the results were enough to actually want to make me go and get out. They say fake it till you make it...sounds like great advice to me.
I also found the exercise was doing wonders for my mood and state of mind.
I wish you all the best.

I do not suffer from chronic depression, but everyone has their days.
I'm going through a rough time right now (for many reasons) and I find that getting exercise is a natural mood elevator for me. Especially if you can find a form of exercise you look forward to (hiking, swimming, dance, whatever it may be)...so that becomes your "you time"...
I lost my mother a couple Christmases ago (on Christmas Eve)...being home was rough because it was winter and I couldn't get exercise...and the way human beings seem to console each other is with food...people were constantly bringing food over and it was hard to turn it down...many bottles of wine shared. But like you I told myself I could have X number of months to mourn...and to not focus so much on weight, exercise, calories, etc...then I went back to it. I honestly felt better when I was taking good care of myself than when I allowed myself to give in to eat and do what I wanted.

If you ever want someone to talk to, you know this is a very supportive network of people on MFP...(despite some of the forum posts you may see). I'm certainly here if you need an encouraging word or someone to talk to. *virtual hugs* I'm so sorry for your loss and for all of the $hitty times you're going through...You're in my thoughts.

I've never been diagnosed with depression, so if this doesn't apply, then disregard. But I did have a rough time this winter where I was really struggling, fatigue and depression which I thought was hormonal related. Turns out, I was vitamin deficient, vitamin D and B complex has helped me immensely. Once I started the vitamins I felt like a completely different person, I didn't realize how bad I really felt until I was feeling good again.

I'm sorry to hear that you've been dealing with such difficult things in your life. It's great so far that you've tried to chose healthier foods at the supermarket. Don't feel discouraged; you'll need to take this one step at a time. I've delt with mental illness as well (manic depressive) and know what it feels like to feel like there's no point in getting up, and moving on with life at all. And not being able to believe in yourself, not believing that any motivation will ever come, or that it's even possible for anything to turn out right anymore. Since there's no easy way to just randomly overcome depression on your own, you'll have to be very sure to take your medicine regularly. When it kicks in you will feel a lot better. Even though things may seem bleak now, remember every morning that you have the ability within you to make a brighter, happier future for yourself.

I am honestly so sorry for your loss and all your struggles. I have terrible anxiety and it has recently triggered depression with all the changes and issues I've dealt with over the last couple of years (and some for my whole life). I wouldn't wish these metal illnesses on anyone.

I would like you to know that although we are strangers I will always be here for you if you need to talk or vent about anything. I may not always know what to say but I am ALWAYS here to listen.

I'm very proud of you for even making an effort to WANT to be better and for taking the steps towards that direction. Doing that is overcoming something huge in it's own way so bravo to you.

Sometimes you feel like giving up but you know what? That's when you need to stick around! Good things always happen after the bad things have passed. It may take a while, but I promise you it will be worth it. In 2009 my grandmother died, in 2012 I seemed to lose all my closest friends, earlier this year I failed my college courses and the guy who seemed to be the love of my life left me for another girl.... my heart just kept seeming to break more and more to the point where I didn't want to live anymore...but you know what? I decided that enough was enough. Going to sleep crying and waking up doing the same wasn't me, driving to school wishing a car would hit me and feeling like my life was completely irrelevant was NOT good enough for me. I decided I needed to make an effort to be happy. I used to have people tell me that they are jealous of me because no matter what I go through, I always have a smile on my face... that was in 2011. I'm not 100% there yet and I don't know if I will ever be able to get to that point again, but you know what? It's the middle of this college quarter and I have straight A's, the rest of my family is alive and well and things may be difficult but I've got them... and my grandma is watching me, I learned that the 'friends' who left me really weren't my friends and I'm better off with a couple loyal ones rather than 50 that made me question myself on a daily bases. I'm working out and slowly changing my eating habits. I've seen a difference in my will power AND my confidence has gotten better and I find that life is so much easier when you don't care what others think.

My point is, acknowledge the bad things in your life and learn from them but look forward to the good. Think about everything nice that has happened to you. Try! Wake up, smile, stretch, listen to some happy songs from the 80's on the radio, dance around like no one is watching, take a walk, smell some flowers, tell a stranger you like their hair, help someone cross the street, drink tea before bed and think about one happy thing every night so that way you go to bed with a smile and wake up the same. Karma, whether you believe in it or not, will reward you.

You seem wonderfully kind and caring and I hate to see someone like that being hurt.

Find a way to "bribe" yourself out of bed and do put the alarm clock across the room! I have trouble waking up. I bribe myself with a piece of candy (that may not work for everyone) to get up. I'm a total sugar fiend so it does work!

Exercise helps with depression. Situation depression, clinical depression, short term depression and long term depression. (My step-father is a psychiatrist/neurologist so I know a bit about mental illnesses.) A good motivator for running (not my favorite thing but a lot of folks like it ) is to get dressed for a run and tell yourself you're "only" going to power walk. It's a way to trick your mind into going outside to run. Then do a half run/walk routine and give yourself a reward (candy for me but that might not work for everyone.) Good luck!

Thank you for your post! I haven't talked to many people about depression, so it is healing for me too! I am guessing that a lot of us feel that way-as you said, we don't want to burden our friends and be a bummer for them. It is awesome to have this community. I think checking in every day or every few days is a great idea.

I've personally been struggling with major depressive disorder for about 10 years now.

I know there are some days that it's really hard to simply get out of bed, that you just don't want to move or do anything and that it's hard to care because the entire universe will continue rolling on without you.

How I usually deal with not wanting to work out is force myself to get up and do 5 minutes. I tell myself if I still don't feel like working out after five minutes, I can stop. Usually by the time five minutes rolls around, I almost never want to stop. Start light to sort of get yourself into it a little bit, dynamic stretching, jogging, jumping rope, whatever you're into. Once you get up and get your blood flowing and the endorphins going, it gets a lot easier to work out. I don't ever pay attention to time unless I have somewhere to be, but at the moment I school entirely online and my chronic anxiety has left me more than a little unemployed so my life is pretty free.

It's a lot of little, silly things that have helped me get into a regular routine. My psychiatrist and I are actually cutting down my anti-depressants because of all the lifestyle changes I've made recently. Getting yourself on a regular schedule for things is good for you mentally. Exercising is also extremely good to improve mood and eating better will have you feeling better. I can tell the days that I don't care and emotionally feel like crap and go for unhealthy comfort food verses the days I wake up and reach for something a little healthier. It's a whole package.

They say it takes 21 days to set yourself in a new habit. It's hard, but if you routinely make yourself work out, preferably around the same time every day, you'll start to get used to it more and it will just become natural. I've begun setting that up for myself and without fail around eleven every morning I find myself itching to go running.

I'm really sorry for the struggles you're going through. It's good you're getting help for it though and not just wallowing. Depression is harder to deal with than a lot of people realize and I'm proud of you for trying to cope with it instead of letting it win.

I understand how all of you feel maybe we should start a battling depression group