Comment by SnowingXIV | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SnowingXIV | Hacker News Reader

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It's also a viscous cycle once you stop doing these things. I had everything going well for me, but then a bunch kinda blew up at once and I stopped eating healthy, quit working out, and was losing sleep because I was trying to solve all these other problems and felt those things were pointless. "Oh, I can't get in the mindset to lift today I'm too stressed out and depressed/hopeless." That led me from only skipping a few days to skipping months.

I ended up going into some escapism mentality where if I'm not working I'm going to play video games/watch TV. It was a terrible rut until one morning I looked in the mirror and realized I'm letting life slip away. I'm not growing (well at least not in the productive way). Mind you most of those "explosive" problems were solved, but I wasn't. I freaked out, threw on some gym clothes, went to the gym, and ran. I don't even know what I was running toward. But I was running. I began lifting again, doing meal prep, back to studying, programming pet projects, reading, and it all came together.

It can hit you in waves, but one of the best ways to keep your head above water is to make sure those three things ElatedOwl mentioned are in check.

>It's also a viscous cycle once you stop doing these things.

It is also gosh dang terrifying. I am not so much curing my depression + anxiety as much as I am running away and trying put enough stuff behind me that it can't catch me.

But when it does, it is difficult to get started again.

> I am running away and trying put enough stuff behind me that it can't catch me

I'm not sure I like that way of looking at it. I choose to look at it like I'm an addict. Addicts, even once they're sober, consider themselves to be addicts their entire life. Any day they can fall off the wagon, even after years of sobriety, so they're constantly vigilant. I look at my depression the same way, only not doing the necessary things that keep me well is my version of falling off the wagon. Just like addicts do, I try to keep my streak of "sober" days going as long as possible. And when I slip up, I try not to beat myself up and just try to start an even longer new streak.

It's somewhat empowering to gain a little measure of control over it, even if it's really, really hard. But it's also important, I think, to realize I'll always be a depressive my entire life, even if I'm not feeling it at the moment.

>I am running away and trying put enough stuff behind me that it can't catch me.

I'm a runner with depression. I track my mileage, diet and general mood very closely and have started to brace myself for a depressive periods after major races.

I need redundancy with coping mechanisms, and the OCD nature of distance running is potentially setting people up for a fragile system should an injury occur or low-mileage phase crop up.

I spent my twenties running long distance, but gave up four years ago. The frequent injuries were just too much. A bad injury once had me off training for four months. Going from feeling like a machine to someone who can't manage a jog in the space of an afternoon seriously messed with my emotional state.

I'm writing this on a recumbent bike. I've averaged ninety minutes a day for four years without injury. I've also read a ton of books on my kindle.

And that's where therapy supports the physical care aspect: It can provide you with the tools to deal with these traps. It can provide you with the tools to identify these traps long before your mirror tells you.

Mere therapy isn't everything, but neither is only taking care of the non-brain parts of your body.

I recently had a similar encounter where I was slipping back into a bag routine and then looked in the mirror and freaked out. I'm back on track to being healthier and happier. It ends up taking way more of my time to prep my food in a healthy manner, go to the gym, and shower again but I think it is all worth it for both my mental and physical health to be in a good place.

A viscous cycle? [https://cdn1.medicalnewstoday.com/content/images/articles/31...]

Sorry, not a grammar nazi, this one just always makes me grin :)

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