cobolcowboy

Honestly, learning to program. I was listless when I got into university, and couldn't cope with the fact I wasn't the smartest person I knew anymore. That hit me a lot harder than I expected, and cascaded into a complete loss of confidence.

Learning a skill from the ground up I couldn't bullshit from random esoterica I'd picked up from high school forced me to confront my lifelong hubris and put aside my ego. Eventually I got decent enough at it that it became my career. It was a slow, grinding, painful process, but it taught me a lot about humility and the value of incremental progress.

To the people in this thread advocating antipsychotic medication for anything other than treating psychosis and as an adjunct for severe depression, don't. These medications are serious things for serious situations and can have unexpected effects on you mentally.

I went on them in my early twenties due to a nervous breakdown, and while they stopped the endless loops of thought and insomnia (I ended up sleeping ten hours a night without breaking a sweat), they reduced my libido, made me gain weight, and worst of all, robbed me of my natural sharpness and creativity. It was as if my brain had been wrapped in a layer of bubble wrap, and my ability to come up with those sparks of inspiration that you need to do intellectual work was almost extinguished. I'm 100% now, fully recovered, but it took me about 3-4 years to get back where I was before it all happened. If your doctor thinks you're right for them, go for it, but only as a last resort.

They do work, but they're the last tool in the box that you only want to use when everything else has failed.