Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
You need to seek professional help. If you have friends or loved ones t hat live near you, now is a good time to lean on them until you get the help you need.
This is true. A professional can help you the best way possible, especially if exercise isn't helping as much anymore. Help yourself. Go see a doctor.
+2. Never be afraid to seek help. I have been there and the hardest part for me was learning to swallow my pride and ask for help. It's scary because when it comes to mental health, you really don't know what could be wrong, you are facing the unknown.
So don't wait, if you feel bad, and are only feeling more bad because you are feeling bad, it's getting worse and you need to break outside of your routine and comfort zone with the energy to address the problem. Seek professional help.
Other thought/ideas:
Did you try pharmaceutical grade fish oil? I went through a period a few years back where I had crippling anxiety and had to leave work for like a year. Anxiety and depression are almost indistinguishable in some ways. I am much better now but I basically have always had a mild form of anxiety so I do my best to keep my mood in check. I take an EPA mood supplement once a day that is fish oil with really a lot of EPA which is supposed to help the brain. I notice a difference. If you were to try it, a therapy dose of 3x a day could be good. Ultimately, you need you omega-3's so your body can produce what you need, so I recommend flax oil or chia seeds, something like that, daily. But I just started taking 5-HTP (with P5P to activate it) and am dreaming more, noticing improved mood, so if that didn't work for you, you may need some real meds.
Also, a lot of problems are about associations. I was able to fix my problem with time and got lucky seeing the root cause where I would have least expected it. I saw how a parent's behavior was unhealthy to me and always had been and I had to distance myself from them. This was from lifelong childhood trauma. It sounds cliche but once I realized this, it was like I woke up from a nightmare - very noticeable change for me emotionally. I found the problem and could meditate on it to fix it. These days I largely have it beat and am like a new person and I didn't go down the road of being medicated - I had that choice but I refused because I was no danger, and wary of meds. My psychiatrist was really cool, experienced and wanted to medicate me and when he started he would only medicate if he had to, but explained these days they have better tools when it comes to antidepressants. So a doc might be able to fix you with a carpet tack hammer, instead of a sledge hammer.
Even though I was never medicated, I would be more open to the idea now, if it was planned to be a temporary thing. It all comes down to chemicals in your body, if they are from food or drugs. So learning what works and what doesn't is a process.
My other advice is to break associations and habits to see if you can figure out the root cause of your problem. Take a 2 week break for your health, rack up debt if you have to, damaging your financial future a bit is nowhere near as bad as ruining your health. Get someplace where things are unfamiliar, new, and comfortable so you can look at yourself possibly from a new perspective.
I would say hang in there, but you're depressed, so stop hanging in there. Let it go and accept it. Get out on the street and just go. Find new people to help you. Doctors can help, new friends can help. Step outside your comfort zone. Find new places and things to experience so you don't continue to drown in yourself.
And good luck.