Great way to get through depression

[guitarro]

I myself am a bi-polar manic depressive, and I came up with a great method that might help others too. One of the biggest problems when dealing with depression is motivation. Anyone who is depressed is familiar with this lack of motivation. You either are alright with dealing with life's problems or you can't even bear it. 4 months ago I came up with a great coping mechanism for this illness. Naturally, the harder time you have reaching a goal, the better it is when you reach it. Unlike normal people, manic depressives either feel great, or horrible, thats pretty much the definition of the illness. Think of it like this though, you are going to be dealing with this lack of motivation, but try to know that you will feel better at some point, if you look back I'm sure there are times when you felt good. What I did was, I grabbed a get out of jail for free card from a monopoly set, and on the back I wrote: small reward-1 hour, medium reward-1 day, large reward-1 week, and huge reward- 1 year. Think the longer amount of time and effort put in a task you have upon you, the better the reward will be. This is pretty much common sense, but when you are depressed you have no perception of anything other than your current feelings. Try to think past that specific point of time, even if it is the hardest thing you ever did in your life. In the end, you will only feel better and more motivated. Sitting and dwelling on your shitty feelings and waiting for them to pass, is no way to get through life. If you learn to manage this cycle even just a little bit, you'll feel that much more better in the long run. Hope this helps.

[schrei jess]

That made no sense to me at all. I re-read it like five times and still dont understand it, what are you trying to say?

[Bobby]

Hmm, I'm also confused.

[Hyper]

It's simply called self motivation, you reward yourself if you act the way you wanted to..

[schrei jess]

So he is trying to say to reward ourselves when we act how we want to? That still makes no sense 0_o

[Ethannnnnn]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[guitarro]

ok, maybe i should rephrase it a bit. The jist is pretty much when you have manic depression, aka bipolar, your moods are very unstable. One aspect of this is sometimes you feel like shit, sometimes your cool, and instead of your emotions being more steady, it spikes. This means you get higher intensities of all emotions than normal people. When people with bi-polar get really down, it feels like there is almost no way out. This can lead to a lot of lack and motivation, and can really affect your daily life. If you some how figure out how to look to the bright side, and find the motivation to get yourself through the situation, naturally things will get better. The longer you keep this method up, the better you will feel in the long run.

[Sapphire]

But I have difficulty looking further ahead than a week no matter what my mood. Any self motivation stays for a max of a month and a min of a day. I am not sure what you are saying is of practical use.

[Hyper]

Stuff like that dont realy help against a serious depression

[guitarro]

your brain naturally levels off its cons with its pros. This is my way of coping with depression, other people might find other methods more useful. im just trying to say that there are ways to cope other than meds and therapy. The biggest issue in todays world is people go by their emotions more than their logic, and people that have manic depression have stronger emotions than others. Therefor it is harder for manic depressives to get out of their emotions and follow their logic, but if you KNOW the aspects of the situation, and if you try to follow that rather than your unstable emotions, you can be more successful in the long run.

[Sapphire]

I, sadly, don't agree. What you are saying is in theory flawless. But it falls apart when applied to reality. When in deep depression or severely elated, the ability to "snap out of it" is not available.
Knowing what is good for me is not enough to help. My logic is still intact, but my emotions are so strong that they make it impossible to follow the logical route.
If your theory works for you then I am glad, you obviously have more control over your bipolar than people like myself.