Over at Hyperbole and a Half there’s a post that explains why she hasn’t updated for several months. It’s about depression.

I’m glad to say that my experience of depression has been nowhere near as severe as this. But one thing in particular rang true for me:

But trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn’t going to work.

The most effective ways I’ve found to counter my (again: much more limited) depression have been: exercise, sleep regularly and enough, and eat properly.1 The terrible thing is that each of these (apart from the vitamins) is liable to be disrupted by depression itself, starting a vicious circle that genuinely deserves the name. Exercising and eating properly take willpower, which depression saps. And at least in my case, depression often brings insomnia (not exercising enough contributes); I also tend to spend more time consuming low-quality screen-fodder late at night when I’m low (lack of willpower again) which makes falling asleep harder.

The hardest thing to explain to people who don’t suffer depression is exactly captured by Allie’s quote above. It’s sitting staring at rotten television at 1am and knowing you should go to bed and knowing that this is making you even more tired and unhappy… and flicking through the channels anyway. And hating yourself for it, and knowing that that is making you more unhappy, but not stopping.

Because of the willpower issue, curing depression (“from inside”, as it were) is really really hard. People you’re close to can help, but just giving you well-meaning advice probably isn’t enough: sitting on the couch you know what you should be doing, it’s just that doing it feels impossible. It takes a pretty powerful kick to get you moving; it might be that those of your friends and family who would be willing and able to give you that kick don’t realise just how hard a kick you need.2

These days I put a lot of effort into preventing depression before it hits. I exercise regularly (in a schedule with other people, which makes it hard to skip a session if I start feeling a bit low). I monitor my sleep patterns and make sure I consistently sleep enough hours. Living with Olga has vastly improved the quality of my diet (and my general happiness, although oddly enough that seems to have less to do with my downers than you would expect). And I keep a watchful eye out for the early signs, so I can do something about them while I still have reasonable amounts of willpower to do it with.

If you didn’t already click through to Allie’s story, go do that now. It’s not what you expect; it’s got hilariously demented pictures and a twisted happy ending and it won’t make you depressed. In fact, when you realise that it exists only because she got better, it should make you bloody delighted.

Notes:

  1. And perhaps: vitamin D supplements; jury is still out on that one but I’m keeping them up through the winter just to be sure. [↪]
  2. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to give the kick, either. It’s not enough to give advice, someone has to basically supply a portion of the willpower the depressed person is missing. That effectively means bullying them into going for a run now, cooking a healthy meal for them, pulling the plug on the television, that kind of thing. And then putting up with the complaints, as well as the fact that a depressed person is lousy company. And probably knows it and isn’t happy about it. [↪]