Should I take a break?

[Markness]

I am wondering if I should take a break from posting because my mental health has really dived lately. I really don’t enjoy being depressed and hopeless about the future. I want to be happy and to feel like change is possible. I really tried to make some changes to my life this year but things have not gone my way. I wonder if taking a break will help my mental health?

 

[Crossbreed]

Is this forum making your depression worse or helping in some way?
(

I would think that isolating with depression would be a bad idea...)

 

[Thinx]

I think depression is affecting how you are seeing things, for example, you've been doing some terrific writing recently, wow it's good. Also, the museum application you made was processed fast and you are seeing them on May 1st, that was a great idea and is progressing. But what you said about waiting was quite despairing. It sounded like a sign you were experiencing depression, or starting to.

Have you looked at @Aspychata's thread about this? She and @Skittlebisquit and maybe others are making some interesting and potentially useful posts there. What helps if you are starting to get depressed?

 

[Raggamuffin]

I have suffered long with depression. I too have often wanted to give up, or get away from certain things. What's hard to admit with depression is that it's based around false core beliefs. Whilst we often feel trapped by our thoughts and emotions, they're also what's required to free us - if we believe we can. If we admit defeat or think things will never change - that is how life will present itself.

Here's an quote from a book I'm reading, I hope it might provide some insight

"
Your beliefs generate emotion. It is somewhat fashionable to place feelings above conscious thoughts, the idea being that emotions are more basic and natural than conscious reasoning is. The two actually go together but your conscious thinking largely determines your emotions, and not the other way around. Your beliefs generate the appropriate emotion that is implied. A long period of inner depression does not just come upon you. Your emotions do not betray you. Instead, over a period of time you have been consciously entertaining negative beliefs that then generated the strong feelings of despondency. If emotion could be trusted above conscious reasoning then there would be little point in aware thought at all. You would not need it. You are not at the mercy of your emotions, either, for they are meant to follow the flow of your reasoning. Your mind is meant to perceive the physical environment clearly, and its judgments about the environment then activate the body’s mechanisms to bring about proper response. If your beliefs about existence are fearful, then the emotional reactions will be those leading to stress. Your own value judgments need examination in such a case. Your imagination of course fires your emotions, and it also follows your beliefs faithfully. As you think so you feel, and not the other way around."

Ed

 

[Major Tom]

Sometimes that helps me. But what really helps is finding something I'm interested in and diving in. Too many people stagnate nowadays and it leads to a lot of frustration and depression I think.

 

[Wolfsage]

Comedy helps. Take a break if you need too.

 

[unperson]

It's not a super busy forum and there's a lot of older folks here, but younger people's forums can be very high stress...

As forums go it's pretty low stress imo.

but yuh, if you need a change, try it i spose.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Yes totally. Especially since there are a couple of "Captain Bringdown" types that post nothing but negativity. While you're at it, shut off all sources of news for one week. I promise you the world won't end if you don't keep up with the news headlines!

So just go outside, find a little nature spot, and breathe.

 

[_eri_bellehumeur]

I would be careful with this. When I get depressed, I often withdraw and it seldom helps, as now I have lost connection with the outside world which can help to draw me out of my unhealthy perspective. If the forum provides you with an outlet and you feel safe here, I see no reason to take a break from it, but there is also nothing wrong with taking some time to be away from the world if that is what you need to regroup, so long as you are taking the time to actively nurture yourself by eating well, getting outside, keeping your mind busy, etc.
It's also important to not be hard on yourself. Depression happens and it happens to far more people than those who would admit to it. There's nothing shameful about it, and if it has reached a point that this state just feels like it won't go away and if you feel a loss of control, asking for help/advice from mental health professionals, friends, family or people on the forum is very healthy.

Some of the most basic things can be immensely powerful, like drinking water, eating good food, breathing mindfully, watching silly videos. Treat yourself like a good parent would treat their sick child, and do what you need to for yourself to get through this.

 

[Gift2humanity]

I am wondering if I should take a break from posting because my mental health has really dived lately. I really don’t enjoy being depressed and hopeless about the future. I want to be happy and to feel like change is possible. I really tried to make some changes to my life this year but things have not gone my way. I wonder if taking a break will help my mental health?

It sounds to me that when our mental health is poor, cutting off contact may worsen it.
Worrying about the future wastes energy as we only have the present, it is what worsened my mental health.
Of course you want to be happy
Sometimes things don't go our way.
Other times they do. Some things are beyond our control so worrying about these things brings us down.

 

[Skittlebisquit]

Stock up on ice cream, trashy novels, and cat food. Whats the happy place for you? ( the first time i was asked that i had no answer)0 Its spring time so, plants are cheerful. 1 Great time to layout the arms court for martial arts training[ needs be flat, its bigger than the one for fencing but sim proportion]
2 Let the project for the season for your house be..... a seven foot bathtub

3 Get a bicycle, have two they are small.

4 Do the stray animal summoning ritual, the goddess wil cherish you for your decency and the new pet will make things not boring.

5 Start buying and shipping thoughtful gifts to a nieghbor, totally anonymous(secret like). Then hide out with specs and watch her get presents.

6 Give a dollar a day with a note of encouragement in the church poorbox

7 Learn to do graffiti art

8 Build a launch ramp for skateboarding

9 Borrow a donkey

10vGet a golf cart, too much fun

11 Find a sexy hat

12 Build a slingshot

13 Go fishing

14 Rig a decent hammock up between two trees forty feet up and tie yourself in overnight(very very careful and also sober, use the webbing and the rope )

15 Buy forty frisbeess and throw them all as hard as you can at nite, like presents

16 Plant food

17 Alter signs with hopeful homemade stickers
about love joy and peace

18 Make stencils in number sets and paint a maze of numbers all over town on the sidewalks

19 Buy pastels , spray glue and heavy paper. Glue the paper up on your wall(inside) and do a mural of a nature scene

Buy some houseplants, they will cheer you up(doesnt count, too easy)

20 Tie a goat onto a doorknob with a note explaining that its an orphan......

K, some of that is just spoofin on ya, no goats, bray? Bro? Brau? Braut? Brrraupt?

Hope you feel better

 

[Skittlebisquit]

So there were 12 of these strips of paper with slogans on them, for the first year they were tied to a bundle of feathers and hung from the rafters outside like in a barn roof overhang, then they got stapled to the outside of the door over the winter one year and these are all thats left, all the rest blew away...