As in no motivation, no will, completely dead inside, too tired and too depressed to do anything, brain is stuck in PTSD mode all the time, etc etc. how do you manage? Especially if you have no one or anything to turn to and with a shitty economy everywhere to boot?
If you don’t have access to therapy, reach out to as many like-minded people as possible. A burden shared is a burden halved. I mean it, better to trauma dump on Lemmy than to let it ferment inside you.
Besides that, keep asking yourself what you need, and do it honestly, openly and with grace. I mean in the here-and-now, immediate things which you could do for yourself. There is no wrong answer to this question, anything which gives you something concrete which to grip for a while is good enough, even if it’s binging a comfort show or stewing in a warm bath. Plus asking yourself what you need will bring you closer to yourself over time, which may mitigate things a bit.
And that’s all these are, to be clear, they’re mitigation tactics, but I’ve found that depression is one of those illnesses which need to have both their core cause and the symptoms kept in check at the same time. We do need to push through depression a bit, yes, but I’ve found that just means presenting some opposition to the incoming tide of ennui, not giving ourselves anxiety attacks over unreasonable standards and goals.
And try to join a community when you feel that you can, even if you don’t feel that you have the motivation. I’ve started looking into volunteer work and civic action groups, and even just seeing that there still are people who’re trying to do some rational damage control and to improve things has lifted my spirits a bit. I imagine actually joining in would remunerate tenfold, and the work never hurts, either.
To be clear, I don’t think I’m depressed right now, but I most certainly have been through what you’re describing, and these are the things I now wish I knew to do back then.
Society would like to have a word with you.
Jokes aside, from personal experience serious venting - let alone trauma dumping - is an instant way of getting outcasted and isolated from everyone, most (normal) people would rather you just bottle everything up and rot forever, nobody really cares.
Somebody finally seemed to acknowledge that, that is unexpected. It’s definitely easier said then done though, not sure what one can do if their depression is from how hellish and unbearable life is, or how awful or cruel everyone around you is, you can’t control any of that, there’s only so much you can do to get by or have small enjoyments to distract yourself with with all that going on, and gaslighting yourself into thinking everything is fine anyways is sorta impossible if you aren’t a literal NPC that can ignore the fact that everything around them is on fire - including themselves - so. Not sure how much “mitigations” can help before they inevitably wear out with the crushing weight of the world still pressing against someone relentlessly and refusing to stop.
Community and volunteering is nice and all, but yeah it’s not an option sometimes, not every place has any of that, and not every society is caring enough to bother with it or foster it to begin with, and it’s only getting worse with time it seems.
So care to elaborate a bit more on your experiences? Where exactly do you even find “like minded people” in the first place? Let alone ones that’d be willing to hear all the fucked up shit you go through on a daily basis and give you a hug?
Yeah I feel like volunteering and community action is a few steps down the line. As for how to find people who can hear you out - they do exist. To be honest I answered a local reddit post looking for friends. I think her post mentioned she was struggling with mental health issues. It’s important to be open about that from the start. Maybe I got lucky, but we turned out to have so much in common. We started taking long walks once a week. Not too much of a commitment, but I had something to look forward to every week. And yeah, there was some trauma dumping from both of us at times. It’s far less embarrassing when there’s a back and forth, and we found we could relate to a lot of each other’s experiences.
It may seem counterintuitive that you need to find someone who is also struggling. It’s much easier for us to have compassion for someone else, even if our situations are the same. But eventually you’ll realize that if your depressed friend deserves your compassion then so do you.
And so what if you have to try this a few times to find the right person or it doesn’t pan out? At least you tried something and got some fresh air.