Post: #1

I've always had depression. I have feelings of worthlessness and lethargy, and occasionally sadness. The last few weeks have been worse but that could be due to weather and not being outside enough. I do see a therapist and have for a very long time. The problem is the thoughts of worthless, low self-esteem and lethargy are still there.

Fisto recently posted about frame being everything in pickup. Is it possible to reframe your own thoughts to be more cheerful? And how would you approach this.

CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy does something similarly I have heard. I do have the book Feeling Good which is a intro to it, but haven't read it yet. There is also a website called Mood Gym. I'm going to register today on that. I'd like to hold myself accountable here because I can get lazy with doing things.

Post: #2

(10-23-2013 10:04 AM)kbell Wrote:  I've always had depression. When I was younger I would cry a lot which I no longer do. However the same feelings of worthlessness and lethargy are there. The last few weeks have been worse but that could be due to weather and not being outside enough. I do see a therapist and have for a very long time. The problem is the thoughts of worthless, low self-esteem and lethargy are still there.

Fisto recently posted about frame being everything in pickup. Is it possible to reframe your own thoughts to be more cheerful? And how would you approach this.

CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy does something similarly I have heard. I do have the book Feeling Good which is a intro to it, but haven't read it yet. There is also a website called Mood Gym. I'm going to register today on that. I'd like to hold myself accountable here because I can get lazy with doing things.

Hey man! I too suffer from depression. I have done therapy (specifaclly CBT) and it has a tremendous effect on my happiness. It literally changed my life. I would highly recommend a good CBT therapist.

Post: #3

Also, see this thread on the original CBT, REBT:

/thread-28873.html

Post: #4

Is there a huge difference between CBT and REBT? I'm reading your review which focuses more on REBT which sounds similar in concept but more based on spoken or thought sentences affecting the mood.

Post: #5

Do read Feeling Good, and do the exercises.

Even if you dont feel like it, force yourself into following the advice there.

Its so good I didnt even got to finish it. I got as far as the Cognitive Bias exercise. I even typed it in and keep it in a file to forwards it to any friend that says he wants to "get better". Its that good.

Post: #6

REBT is the original CBT. Think of REBT like a tangerine and CBT like an orange. They look similar, their related (both citrus), but they have subtle differences.

CBT as described in Feeling Good is more popular, but I think REBT is better because its more philosophical. It goes more to your core beliefs.

Post: #7

You must learn to control your mind!

That might sound a little crazy but that is exactly what you need to do!

Control your thoughts.

(10-23-2013 10:07 AM)Kaii Wrote:  The problem is the thoughts of worthless, low self-esteem and lethargy are still there.

These are just thoughts. They have no power unless you believe in them. You know your brain is broken. Why do you trust it?

Are you worthless?

Of course not. You just think that you are. You just believe that you are.

You are not living in reality. You are living in your own depressed version of reality. You are literally living a lie.

(10-23-2013 10:04 AM)kbell Wrote:  Is it possible to reframe your own thoughts to be more cheerful? And how would you approach this.

Of course its possible.

There are many different ways to do this.

Most people use the methods that are popular in their culture. In America, this is therapy, anti-depressant pills, positive thinking and action, etc.

Other cultures have different techniques like family bonding, friendship, support groups, etc.

Other cultures use meditation, nature, spiritual exercises, etc.

Other cultures use plant medicines, torture, etc.

Every culture has its own way of dealing with depression.

You need to experiment with all these methods to find the ones that work for you!

Some will work better than others, some will naturally feel good to you, some will not agree with you.

What worked for me is this...

1) Read, learn, and educate myself about how the mind works. I read books about the brain. I read books about depression and happiness. This gave me a basic understanding of the problem and how it can be solved.

2) Cultivated strong and healthy relationships with friends and family. This is a big one. We all need support and brotherhood. Don't try to do this alone. Let your loved ones help you.

3) BE AGGRESSIVE! Fighting depression should be the most important thing in your life! Find the books, talk to the people, make the phone calls, do the research, go to therapy, travel, challenge yourself, etc, etc. You must work hard to battle your issue. The biggest factor is "how bad do you want it?!". BE AGGRESSIVE!

4) Try different therapists and different counseling styles. Some therapists suck and some are good. Find one that is a good match for you. Try new ones.

5) Experiment with meditation.

6) Experiment with psychoactive medicines. (mushrooms and ecstasy did a lot to help me)

7) Experiment with spiritual practices that help empower the mind. (studying buddhism helped me alot)

8) Live a healthy lifestyle. Have more fun. Get better sleep. Eat better. Exercise.

9) FACE YOUR FEARS! I explain how to do that here.

10) Fight. Nothing is more primal for a man. This is a great exercise to connect a man back to reality.

If you do these things aggressively, you will get results. If you do these things passively, you will not get results.

This is life and death. Treat it as such.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have specific questions..

Post: #8

(10-23-2013 12:06 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  You must learn to control your mind!

That might sound a little crazy but that is exactly what you need to do!

Control your thoughts.

If you are talking about a chemical-imbalance type of depression that is impossible.

It simply doesn't work that way.

Post: #9

(10-23-2013 12:09 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  If you are talking about a chemical-imbalance type of depression that is impossible.

It simply doesn't work that way.

It worked for me.

The mind is more powerful and more mysterious than we know.

What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa.

Try everything to see what works best.

Thoughts effect chemicals. So, have better thoughts.

Post: #10

(10-23-2013 12:18 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  It worked for me.

The mind is more powerful and more mysterious than we know.

What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa.

Try everything to see what works best.

You are diagnosed with major/clinical depression?

I had to do it through exercise. I found no other way besides medication and that wasn't a good enough option for me.

I can tell when I didn't exercise and a bout of depression may be coming on, I get a strong urge for chocolate and sometimes alcohol. I will hit some intensive exercises and be pretty good. I haven't had a problem since I got into a normal routine of exercise.

I tried to "bring" myself out of depression the way you suggest because I originally thought it was just the way I was thinking. It wasn't. To be honest, I am surprised it worked for anyone with the same problem.

Too much alcohol will mess me up for days.

Post: #11

I exercise 2 to 3 times a week depending on how the muscles feel and my energy level. I like to do heavy weights in deadlifts, squats and benchpresses. I also do dips, pull ups and chin ups. Some times I do interval training on precors (treadmills always really bothered my ankles, more so than simply running on grass). This does help with mood as well, but the thought process is still off. Its probably a core belief.

Post: #12

(10-23-2013 12:38 PM)kbell Wrote:  I exercise 2 to 3 times a week depending on how the muscles feel and my energy level. I like to do heavy weights in deadlifts, squats and benchpresses. I also do dips, pull ups and chin ups. Some times I do interval training on precors (treadmills always really bothered my ankles, more so than simply running on grass). This does help with mood as well, but the thought process is still off. Its probably a core belief.

I remember reading some books on happiness because I was fascinated about why people were happy while others were not. Probably had something to do with my own problems with depression but still an interesting topic.

I remember a book talking about how people who had things to look forward were generally happier.

After reading that, I realized I was happy and excited when I thought about some of the projects I was working on and how they will work when done.

I think that is why I like business so much. It gets my mind working and the possibilities are endless. Those type of thoughts make me happy and it seems is something that makes most people happy.

Actually, this type of thinking led me to changed my whole view which is why I posted the "Grass is greener" thread.

Post: #13

(10-23-2013 12:25 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  You are diagnosed with major/clinical depression?

Yes, and I was severely brainwashed as a child.

I had to rewire my brain.

I taught myself how to do this by using the steps I listed above.

(10-23-2013 12:25 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  I had to do it through exercise.

Yes, I listed exercise at #8..

(10-23-2013 12:06 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  8) Live a healthy lifestyle. Have more fun. Get better sleep. Eat better. Exercise.

(10-23-2013 12:38 PM)kbell Wrote:  Its probably a core belief.

Of course its a "core belief".

The key word here is "BELIEF".

You believe it. Thats why you are living as if it is true.

You should assume that IT IS NOT TRUE.

Change your core beliefs if they are no longer serving you.

Post: #14

(10-23-2013 10:23 AM)germanico Wrote:  Do read Feeling Good, and do the exercises.

Even if you dont feel like it, force yourself into following the advice there.

This.

I used to be "depressed," too.

Then I just realized that my brain and body were not living together but instead were living apart.

A lot of "depression" is alienation from one's own body.

The more cerebral you are, the more likely this type of depression will occur.

Once I learned to unite my body and mind through various exercises, my depression went away.

Post: #15

https://moodgym.anu.edu.au/moodgym/user_guide/intro
That's the mood gym thought you guys might be interested. I created an account for it.

I lost my book for Feeling Good. Will have to look for it. Probably buried under something. If I can't find it I will check that out and the Guide to Rational Living from the library which is half as long.

What type of exercises MikeCF?

Post: #16

I suffered with major depression for over 3 decades, since my teens. It was touch and go sometimes whether I'd live. Now I'd say I haven't been truly depressed for about 5 years, despite going through a very difficult relationship break-up.

First, I want to put in a good word for medicines. Prozac saved my life more than once, no doubt about it. It may not work for you, but it was a lifesaver whilst I made the long-term adjustments necessary to finally kick the depression. Another medicine that worked great for me is Tianeptine. It has been proved to help increase the size of the hippocampus, which often becomes smaller with chronic depression, which causes problems with memory and affect.

Long term:
Get fit. (Tianeptine is also a mild analgesic, so it reduced muscle soreness and helped me to train harder.)
Stop thinking so much. This is absolutely crucial. Too much thinking is very bad for you. It won't ever solve your problems. I have a PDF book about this which I could dig out if anyone is interested.
Stop being a perfectionist. We're all fuck-ups some of the time. Allow yourself to be imperfect, and gloriously so. Be *extremely* you, whatever that is.
Develop a relationship with your inner child. It sounds sappy and woo-woo, but if you're still hurting from your childhood at all, it's necessary to give the inner child the support he never got when you were young. Learn to love him (yourself).
Therapy helped a lot (neo-Reichian, in my case).
It may be coincidental, but I've been taking 5000 IU VitD per day for about 6 years, and my mental health has improved markedly.
Behave somewhat manically (unless you're bi-polar). If you rush around and make yourself do lots of things in a short space of time, you won't have time to ruminate, and the hyperactivity will give you a buzz.

Hope that helps.

Post: #17

(10-23-2013 01:10 PM)kbell Wrote:  What type of exercises MikeCF?

Buy the book.

If you're not a reader/book type, watch Elliot Hulse's videos on bioenergetics.

Post: #18

Ok, I'm reporting in as (potentially) the first RVF member to openly admit that he has Bipolar Disorder.

There is a lot of stigma surrounding this disease, and I assure you that the only thing wrong with me is that I have trouble balancing my MOOD only. Bipolar disorder is not 'Schizophrenia' or 'Autism'. My mind is 'in tact', just my mood is sometimes unpredictable.

Bipolar disorder is characterized by euphoric 'highs' and dangerous 'lows'.

My advice to anyone with depression, is to go to wherever your mind wants you to go. Today is cloudy in the place that you are, and you MUST go to somewhere sunny. You cannot change the weather in the place that you are.

I've stayed in cloudy places for far too long before, and it's made me drink myself to sleep and become a complete mess. Sure, you could take anti-depressants to help you, but in my opinion these are the equivalent of Brave-New-Worldian 'Soma': they merely quash your brilliant dysfunctionality and force you to become content with Blue-pill-dom.

A neck-full of these every morning could steer a good man into believing that he should slave in a cubicle all day and only have respite to fuck his wife, of whom he has developed an irrational oneitis for. You are better than this. You want out, and you should get out. Your 'irregularity' is only irregular in comparison to an irregularly regular society. The ones who exhibit the greatest degree of mental disorder are surely the ones who bottle it up and let it eat them alive.

You, in comparison, are a very normal human being. You remember being six years old and shouting "NO GOD DAMMIT, I'M NOT DOING THIS" in response to something that you didn't want to do. This is a very human reaction.

For the past 14 months I have had NOT ONE depressive episode, as I now know full well to follow my my brain whenever it tells me to move.

Most people have had a brilliant resistance beaten out of them. You need to make sure that it's not beaten out of you.

Every six months or so, I become completely overrun with an urge to just fucking drop everything and do something different. I follow my brain, and I am now always happy because of it.

No one is above you. What YOU want to do is the number one priority in life. Never let your mind be quashed due to the irrational beliefs of someone else.

Post: #19

I used to be hyperactive too so it would be weird to be impulsive again. I was on ssri for probably about 15 years. I had to get off it since it was giving me strong hand tremors. Made it difficult to draw straight lines. And I do draw a fair amount. The medication gave me a dull feeling like I had no emotions there was no highs or lows and you still had feelings of worthlessness.

Another med I was on gave be very dark thoughts and made me even more depressed to a severe degree when I went off it.

The type of therapy I get is the type where you talk and the shrink writes stuff down. He talks too so its like talking to someone in a way yet less judgmental. I have had him since I was 6 and learned how to play chess from him. He does know quite a bit about CBT, but not sure how well he would be at teaching CBT.

I wonder if people are big on the anti-judgmentalism if they simply want others to play shrink for them.

Post: #20

^ Talk therapy is nonsense.

Look at what you are doing...talking.

Several people have vouched for an approach that works.

You talk too much. Take action. Find the nearest bookstore or go online, and get "Feeling Good."

Post: #21

People tend to pull a lot of stuff out of their ass and treat it as "TRUTH" and live according to these core beliefs they pulled out of their ass, which often times undermine them. "Pulling stuff out of your ass" is called dogma. You set up these rules in your mind based on your dogma (a lot of which you learned from family's and society's dogma). Real change comes when you look at these rules and say "Wait as second, is this belief really true? Where did it come from again? Why exactly do I need to believe this when all it is doing is hurting me and I can not even verify its accuracy?"

We are all plugged into a Matrix we built in our mind. A fake reality. For some reason, this fake reality that we create tends to be biased against us.

Use CBT or REBT to unplug from The Matrix.

Post: #22

(10-23-2013 01:32 PM)kbell Wrote:  I used to be hyperactive too so it would be weird to be impulsive again. I was on prozac for probably about 15 years. I had to get off it since it was giving me strong hand tremors. Made it difficult to draw straight lines. And I do draw a fair amount. The medication gave me a dull feeling like I had no emotions there was no highs or lows and you still had feelings of worthlessness.

Paxil I was on before, coming off that I tried to strangle myself. So no way I will try that again. I don't remember how I was on it though.

The type of therapy I get is the type where you talk and the shrink writes stuff down. He talks too so its like talking to someone in a way yet less judgmental. I have had him since I was 6 and learned how to play chess from him. He does know quite a bit about CBT, but not sure how well he would be at teaching CBT.

I wonder if people are big on the anti-judgmentalism if they simply want others to play shrink for them.

If you have been in therapy since youve been 6 and you still are depressed.... then this shit is obviously not working.

I would tell that quack to go fuck himself and look for better alternatives.

Feeling Good is really good stuff. Go check it out.

Post: #23

I'm glad you guys pointed this out!

Most therapists and counselors are full of shit! They are just getting paid to listen to your problems. It's just a hustle/job for them.

The best helpers are people that have been through and successfully dealt with the exact same issues that you are facing.

However, a good, experienced "guide" can be very helpful. Essentially, that's what we are. "Online guides"

Post: #24

OP:
Have you considered sending a PM to the respected forum member who lives closest to you and trying to arrange a meet-up? That may very well be more effective than any type of counseling or therapy.

Post: #25

What am I supposed to ask them I don't think they have CBT training?

I found the book was buried under stuff. 600 pages, but its a page turner so far. Burns does reference Ellis in the book.