I suffered from a major depression some years ago, and with "major" I mean a condition where I used to have panic attacks everytime I left my house. It was painful and took me a very long time (2 years in the middle of my twenties), but in the end I made it.
Some random advices based on my own experience that helped me feel better and bow out of depression (please consider that I am not a doctor):
0) You are not alone, so you don't have to feel alone; talk to people that you won't feel judged by (the internet is great for this, and so are the therapists) and spit out everything
1) As you pointed out, medications can alter somehow your ability to focus, particularly on the first days. I lived my depression as a condition where I hadn't really too much control over myself, so I decided not to take any med because I didn't want them to take control over myself: you probably want to do the same
2) Day by day, write down simple todo lists, and try to complete all items. These lists will help you distinguishing days by their completed items and reacquire the awareness of time. Additionally, there is always a little bit of satisfaction in completing things you were supposed to complete, and we all need that!
3) Your job pays your bills, work hard but don't forget that you're only in it for the money, your life is something else, somewhere else
4) When you feel you're at the lowest mood, don't question if you deserve to be alive or not, rather smile and think that one day you will be fine again. If you didn't deserve to be alive, you would be probably already dead so let that bad bad thought go away
5) Don't be ashamed of your current condition but at the same time try not to get into the collective imaginary as 'that depressed guy'; there's nothing wrong about being depressed, but the last thing you want to deal with now is people's pity. I occasionally run into people that knew about my condition and I can still clearly see that 'oh, poor guy :-(' look on their faces: a bit frustrating to be honest!
6) From time to time during the day, for several days, give your mood a rating, write it down, then look for patterns and ask yourself why, at some point, your mood was increasing or decreasing. You have no idea how this helped me
7) Read this two parts post [1, 2]
8) As you sense you're starting feeling a little bit better, that is the time you should ride the wave and get yourself out of it, no fear, no look back: you made it
Well, that is not really the point: I do want to pay taxes. If I don't declare anything, I would end up being a zero income and run into some finacial trouble very soon.
Totally agreed. And I'd add a fourth point in:
- never ever try to please everyone.
As @jaimebuelta pointed out in another comment[1], your bosses will see your kind disposability just as a capability to do more work for less charge.
It happened to me when I was younger: I started working in a small company, only three employers, and I often was (secretly) asked to fix what other two coworkers made wrong. One thing led to another and one day, after 8 weeks that I was working there, the boss fired my two co-workers since I unknowingly proved him to be capable of doing alone a three-person job.
Although in the very first place I was kind of proud of myself — I was showing evidence to be a reliable software developer and it was nice — after a while I realized that things just couldn't work out that way: tripled efforts and responsiblities for same amount of money and same deadlines, I had to work afterhours and in weekends, and I had no more time for social life and hobbies, feeling more and more depressed, it was just driving me crazy.
At that point I thought to myself: "Why the hell people should see me as a sort of super hero? For whom or what am I doing this? I'm only in it for the money, this job pays my bills, I am not this job".
Next morning I talked to my boss and my amount of work came back to what I applied for, and that was one of my best decisions ever.
I'm "fear of fear", and I can't be strong enough to face up regular life situations. And I have to find a solution, I have to find the strenght to do something before summer comes. Hot wheter increases depression.
At the moment I'm trying to work less and study/read/distract more. I spend great time on the road by car on my own or with my girlfriend, going nowhere and listening to some music I used to listen when everything "was fine".
Some times I can't even remember "how I was" before the whole depression thing. I look at my old pictures and I think to myself: "I was this guy. Really? I used to go to concerts, meet a lot of people, everybody used to love me. Who am I now? And why?"
I've been fighting depression since one year ago and I'd like to share my story with you guys and hope to get some warming advices. Quick introduction: I've always been a self-educated about computer science, but my mother always wanted to see me studying in a _regular/acknowledged_ way. When I turned 25, I started feeling very bad: my career in information technology was going really good and since I didn't passed through the academical stages (exams, graduation, etc) I felt like I didn't really deserve such professional "glory" (sorry for quick and dirt english).
So I decided to join the university: I started passing exams, and finally I could go to bed with a clear conscience!
One year ago I received a job offer from a big enterprise, a job that could have change my life. This job (9h/5d) would not allow me to continue my university career and they gave me one week to decide. It was really hard, and in the end I refused that job.
My odyssey begins from this point. I had a panic attack on the first day of university after my choice, a huge panic attack that I thought: "I'm gonna die". After that event, my condition degenerated: I was no longer able to go out from my house, neither going downstairs to feed the dog. Everytime I went outside, I had a panic attack, it was a nightmare. Because of this hard form of agoraphobia I was neither able to go out and see a psychiatrist. I also developed tinnitus in my left ear and a painful hypochondria.
It took about 4/5 months before I realized the actual cause of my depression: in this age of economical crisis, when people commits suicides for not being able to pay debts, I rejected a permanent full-time contract. After this realization, my condition started going slightly better: I had no more panic attacks and I was able to go out with my gf and my friends.
At the time of this writing, one year after my first crisis, I'm still not able to go to places with many people, ot taking a train, or staying away from home for too long.
I see that such a condition is common to many computer programmers, I think that alienation caused by working on computers make things worse. At some point, I also considered the option of giving up with computer science, but it's not possible, it's really the only thing I can do.
I'm still fighting depression, I'm still not able to answer the questions "where would you be now to be happy?" , "what would you be doing now to be happy?". It's really sad when you can't answers these questions. Is it ever happened to you? How did you behave?
Some random advices based on my own experience that helped me feel better and bow out of depression (please consider that I am not a doctor):
0) You are not alone, so you don't have to feel alone; talk to people that you won't feel judged by (the internet is great for this, and so are the therapists) and spit out everything
1) As you pointed out, medications can alter somehow your ability to focus, particularly on the first days. I lived my depression as a condition where I hadn't really too much control over myself, so I decided not to take any med because I didn't want them to take control over myself: you probably want to do the same
2) Day by day, write down simple todo lists, and try to complete all items. These lists will help you distinguishing days by their completed items and reacquire the awareness of time. Additionally, there is always a little bit of satisfaction in completing things you were supposed to complete, and we all need that!
3) Your job pays your bills, work hard but don't forget that you're only in it for the money, your life is something else, somewhere else
4) When you feel you're at the lowest mood, don't question if you deserve to be alive or not, rather smile and think that one day you will be fine again. If you didn't deserve to be alive, you would be probably already dead so let that bad bad thought go away
5) Don't be ashamed of your current condition but at the same time try not to get into the collective imaginary as 'that depressed guy'; there's nothing wrong about being depressed, but the last thing you want to deal with now is people's pity. I occasionally run into people that knew about my condition and I can still clearly see that 'oh, poor guy :-(' look on their faces: a bit frustrating to be honest!
6) From time to time during the day, for several days, give your mood a rating, write it down, then look for patterns and ask yourself why, at some point, your mood was increasing or decreasing. You have no idea how this helped me
7) Read this two parts post [1, 2]
8) As you sense you're starting feeling a little bit better, that is the time you should ride the wave and get yourself out of it, no fear, no look back: you made it
[1] http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.it/2011/10/adventures-in-d...
[2] http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.it/2013/05/depression-part...