<p>hey, i'm in college and am currently depressed. it's a lame scenario i guess, and there is no clear reason why. i am seeing people about it, but ultimately i think the problem needs to be solved on my own. i have read pretty much every decent book out there on happiness. my favorite was by bertrand russell, called "the conquest of happiness," which pretty much said the way to combat depression was to look outward rather than introspect. i'm having a hard time doing it.</p>
<p>i'm a person of extremes. that means i either study hard, party hard, drug up hard, exercise nonstop. i'm trying to become balanced. but whenever i get off track (for example, wake up at 12 pm rather than 8 am as i had planned), i become depressed. also, my interaction with other ppl isn't really that great. there aren't any tangible qualities that make me annoying or anything, and i still get invited to parties a lot. but i don't have any good friends, and i want to try to make them. i th ink i want to be emotionally connected to someone before i get to know them as well as i should. i don't like engaging in "unemotional" activities as you would call it, like simply hanging out or playing sports, etc.</p>
<p>i'm also having major problems dealing with mistakes that i make. i can't help view them as failures. i know i shouldn't, but part of my brain keeps saying that i can only learn if i dwell on correcting mistakes and remain pessimistic (remember coach k from duke who put a newspaper clipping of his worse defeat on his desk for a whole semester?).</p>
<p>i need practical advice, books, anything that you guys could recommend.</p>
<p>I'm going to guess you're a narccisist. You are trying to control everything on the outside because you can't control how you feel on the inside. Ultimately, you are overly concerned with self.</p>
<p>Yes....that's true to some extent, wutang. but I can relate. Do you ever get panicky? I get REALLY panicky about stuff for no clear reason sometimes. Like say I lose something. I FREAK out and start looking for it everywhere and start crying and yelling at myself for being so stupid. I know that sounds reallly lame but that's what I do...It's been worse since I moved to another country in the middle of my senior year and i have some family issues, so I actually have an appointment to see a psychiatrist or psyhcologist next monday. If you're open to the idea of medicine, (I am), you might want to consider lexapro. its a new antidepressant medication that helps with depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>Paco.... I don't want to put a label on it (it's not narcissism, though), but it does NOT sound like you're struggling with depression.
Drop by your university's counseling center and see about a free evaluation. They usually offer free intake sessions and very low-cost (free to $10 or so) sessions with a counselor, who may be able to offer some intervention strategies. If the problem is what I suspect it is, then the sooner it's caught, the better in terms of overcoming it.</p>
<p>Are you getting enough sleep and eating properly? I know this seems unrelated and simple, but often times problems with one's mood can be caused by overexerting yourself and not giving yourself time to recover; I definitely feel more depressed if I haven't been sleeping properly for a while.</p>
<p>i agree that it doesn't sound like depression.
and i know you're looking for advice from the outside, and while CC may be one place to start, i REALLY recommend you go see your college's psychologist. just to talk things out. he/she can help you tremendously and get to the root of your issues.
but it's NOT depression. if it were, likely you wouldn't be doing ANY activities, or getting up at 8 am, or knowing WHY you feel so crappy. or seeking help in the first place.
you do need to talk to a counselor/psychologist. and read up on depression and its symptoms: some people use the word "depressed" to mean "crappy" or "feeling bad about myself" and not so much in a clinical depression sense.</p>
<p>The developer of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, now commonly used throughout the world. Recommended for everyone, whether or not you have depression.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info, i agree its not all depression, but the psychologist keeps thinking it is. i don't feel bad, just VERY NUMB, i've been reading Albert Ellis, I LOVE his book, even for ppl without depression its a fantastic read, but I'll try to figure out, just wondering whether you guys have gone through this. I feel really happy these days about life (they put me on anti-deps), but of course, that wasn't my problem in the first place.</p>
<p>honestly, just go talk to your professional. you need to tell him/her everything that you're telling us. tell them exactly how you feel. give the pills and therapy sessions a month or two and see how you feel then.</p>
<p>don't listen to people online telling you what you are and what you aren't. they don't know what they're talking about.</p>
<p>Try to find something your passionate about and pursue it, it will help your problems because you will always be thinking about it. If you have no passion, find one. Pretty bad advice, but believe me, EVERYONE feels depressed at some times or another, I feel down right now, but I learn to deal with it in other ways.</p>
<p>YES. remember what matters. whenever i get depressed, i get cheered by reading the Bible or some indispensible classic like Decline and Fall or Paradise Lost..they give me a sense of worth and their powerful language or information infantiles my own miseries...the tremendously great deeds, the unimaginable happiness or despair, of success or failure, of eternal damnation or eternal bliss..all these overwhelms me and my petty pathetic feelings of hurt forgotten...</p>
<p>depressed person needs to be stimulated...and that means challenges like climbing buildings, banging on african drums or fasting..</p>
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i'm a person of extremes. that means i either study hard, party hard, drug up hard, exercise nonstop.
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<p>You're not the only one with that issue. Today's society expects us to live a life where we do the extremes. Back in the days when I was touring colleges, I was told a countless number of times, "We study hard during the week and party hard during the weekend." </p>
<p>Now from an overall perspective I think it's best that you learn to relax. If you want to feel good inside, do something nice for someone you like being around. Perhaps just taking someone out to coffee and paying for it would make you feel good inside. Or if you have a friend that has a girlfriend (or boyfriend) give that person tickets for him/her and their boy/girlfriend to a school concert out of no where just as a gesture for that person being nice to you. Doing things for people will make you feel better about yourself and people will better respect you and enjoy being around you. </p>
<p>Have you been in a relationship in recently? Many people become depressed when they can't form a (dating) relationship with someone.</p>
<p>you sound exactly like me right now. i mean, to a tee. the over exercising, oversleeping, extremes. i have days where i can't leave my house or talk to anyone. right now i'm trying to decide about transferring colleges next year and that decision alone sends me into hysterical tears every time i start to talk about it. but, i've struggled with anxiety/panic attacks almost my entire life, and after going through a serious bought during 7th-8th grade, during which time i was medicated, i stopped going to therapy and gradually went off my med's in the beginning of high school. during the start of second semester of this year (i'm a college freshmen) i started having severe depression and panic attacks again and it's continued since then. i'm bacl to seeing a psychologist again and possibly doing medication, though i'm hoping i won't have to. all i can say is, keep getting professional help, possibly try medication, (if you haven't already) and know that you go through phases and this is a really hard one, but it will pass.
i sympathize and wish you the best of luck for dealing with something, i am also very familiar with.</p>
<p>It's the summer right now. Not depressed at all at the moment.</p>
<p>Problem is, as soon as I go back to class, it sets in. I think it's because my close friends all go back to their schools and I'm suddenly without them. Schoolwork merely replaces more occurances of me working at my job, so the workload really isn't too different. However, I hate rude people and have the privelege of going to college with a lot of them.</p>
<p>I refuse to use a mind-altering medication to treat anything. I've just come to the fact that my life will always suck whenever I'm at college.</p>
<p>if u are so aware of the times and actions in which u feel depressed, when u come to those moments, literally take a step back, take in a few deep breaths and just remember to just chill.</p>