Hello steemians! As this is my first post in psychology, it is only fair that you know from where I´m coming from. As a
regular human, I´ve had my fair share of problems, psychological too. I´m not special in that sort, most people have felt depression, anxiety, panic attacks at one time or another during their lives, some(like myself) have even tried to commit suicide. What makes me just a little special is that, unlike most people who had their life turn into hell by their own minds, I spent years figuring out how minds work, since they don´t come with an instruction manual, and had success in getting rid of many mental disorders(or as i prefer to call them "mental viruses") that plagued my own brain. To all those I mentioned, add OCD, hypochondria, bipolar disorder and some others. I´m not saying that there are no physically based mental disorders, far from me to say that, but I´ve discovered that most of them are just "software glitches" in our thought patterns.

If you´re asking how can they be ONLY "software" glitches since you are positively sure you experience lots of physical symptoms from your mental disorders, well all I can say is that everything that affects the mind, affects the body and vice versa, its a closed system, and with its own reinforcement loops. So in the same way a hypertense person usually learns to take everything lightly and to control his rage, if you change how you think, it will help your body, it can never hurt to learn to think in better ways.

Btw, I´m no guru, and I´m in no way encouraging anyone to stop seeing his/her psychiatrist or to stop taking medication. A good psychiatrist can help, and medication can stabilize you, but if you learn better thinking and how to debug your brain, you will have done 80% of his work already, and when you get there, your psychiatrist will find you more stable and happy, more resolute and trustworthy since you can now "take your own mental garbage outside without much help". On the other hand, if you don´t learn how to think better and debug your own brain, you will be depending on doctors to do it for you and on medication to stabilize you each time something goes wrong in your life.

My take on depression:

If hate is the opposite of love, depression is its sad brother, a sense of futility that invades the person who feels it and drains him from the energy of doing anything mundane or even pulling together and trying to change. Instead, the depressed person seeks refuge in momentary insta-happiness like the ones addictions seem to promise us, and from there goes the downward spiral. A quicker path to the end would be to consider suicide right away. Depression is actually a symptom, that we are disconnected from our life coping resources. Those inner resources are what makes life not only bearable, but enjoyable.

How does it feel to be disconnected from our inner resources? It feels as if we are not happy with the current state of our lives, powerless or too tired to change it, and we fear the pain that comes with making an effort. What we don´t realize is that we haven´t learned neither to enjoy the process of changing(or don´t even believe we can change) nor the little things of life themselves. Yes, I know you are probably a little angry at me saying that´s not the case, but look really deep into yourself and you will probably realize there are some similarities.

Now the good news: you can totally learn to enjoy life... I did, and there is not a single day I have regretted making the effort to do it! Whatever unsurpassable metaphorical mountain of things or goals you "must do to be happy" lies ahead of you, you can learn to climb, or maybe you can take another road through the valley, or skip alltogether, realize its in YOUR power to choose your direction. Yes, stop blaming others, I know they contribute to your misery occasionally, but you and only you are at the helm of your boat, and in the long run you can steer it to wherever you want, even if in the short term you need to focus on learning how to navigate. I know you still don´t believe me, its ok. But lets recap, when you think about it, you are not powerless at all, you can learn to change your life into what you want, even if you have to go slowly at first, you can also learn to enjoy that change, and to be happy with the little joyful things that you experience. Will you have bad moments? Totally! I´m not here to tell you that "everything is and will always be perfect" or that you need to "always think positively", even when there is a nail going through your foot(metaphorically, or even literally). Yes, postivity helps, a lot, but its not realistic to deny every problem you have by thinking ONLY good things. Instead, what you can do is to make a pact to yourself that "every negative thing you say to yourself about a situation, should be said in a way that facilitates a solution, and never to punish yourself." If I had a literal nail through my foot, my first thought would be to cure it by going to a hospital(focus on the solution first), and then I would go about it cursing in every language I know. Far from me is to "Flanderize" the experience by saying "everything is allright, its just a scratch." As you can see, it IS possible to be both REALISTICAL and POSSITIVE THINKING. But in retrospective you will see that those bad moments once they are gone, will have made you a more resilient person, and they will have left you with more confidence in yourself(even if you screw up sometimes - that´s called being human and being "in-training").

What a magnificent road lies ahead of you! Yes yes, I know you still don´t believe me. The old me wouldn´t have believed myself even if I could travel to the past and actually told myself that same thing. What? What happens if you fail in your quest? Well, once that you have established that you want to get a better life, are predisposed to work to change for the better and accept that you need to learn how to enjoy yourself in the process, and that there will be some bad days every now and then(in which you will also learn important stuff that will help you after that) you can also realize that THERE IS NO ROAD. If I really really wanted to get somewhere, lets say a vacation spot that was 500km away from where I am, I could go about it in train, bus, car, etc. The train could get cancelled, the bus could break in the middle of the road, or my car could get a flat tire, all those would stop me temporarily. But what if I REALLY wanted to get there - life or death-like situation? I bet I could even go by foot or hitch a ride right? You could probably too. So its not really a question of getting there, but rather of "what are we going to let us stop us from getting there". Do you really want it bad enough? Ask yourself that. It´s ok if you discover you don´t.... just reorder your list of priorities, you always can do that, and be happy with the new order they take.

You can read this post and remember this new outlook every day, not because I said it so, but because it will help you figure out what you really want, and how you can go about it in a way that actually produces change. Don´t believe me, try it. And don´t think this is magic, you will see some initial change, and you will be happy about it, but you will have to keep working on yourself for years and years to become a more resilient, life-enjoying person.

And leave me your questions if you want.

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