#everything is all

We’ve found, for us, that it’s important to keep doing things that we remember used to feel good, rather than just kind of giving up on everything and laying on our beds for all time, unstimulated and so on. In the same way that sometimes you have to sleep even if you don’t feel like it or don’t feel tired. In the same way that you have to eat even if you don’t want to. Sometimes you have to do things you remember feeling good, even when they won’t feel good.

It’s not your fault if you don’t feel good while doing them. Sometimes you won’t like food while eating it. Sometimes you won’t want to go to bed when you do. Sometimes you hate your pills when you’re taking them. It’s not your fault for not feeling like going to bed, not feeling like eating, hating your pills - but not looking after yourself? That is something you have a measure of control over. Not like, ‘perfectly mentally healthy’ levels of control. A measure. Enough. But enough control that you’re worrying about it anon and seeking some help for yourself even now, and trying to be responsibly self-caring. Enough control that you want to try and be good to yourself somehow, even if you don’t know how. <3

So doing those things and not feeling good is not like, a sign that those things will never feel good again. They probably will. It will probably happen on a day when you’re sure it will feel like crap. It’s worth rotating a lot of different things too. Video games you gave up on a while back, or fics you haven’t visited for five years, children’s books and fairy tales, movies you always think ‘I keep meaning to watch that again but haven’t yet.’ Get some new stimulus happening. Even if it doesn’t feel great, and just feels like nothing, it will still be giving you something more than nothing at all.

But, also, if you’re in a place where nothing is feeling like anything at all, it may be time to seek professional help (if that’s possible) if you haven’t already. Sometimes knowing your diagnosis isn’t enough to fix what’s going on without someone to help out chemically or in other supportive ways. Anhedonia is a pretty big red flag in depression, so it may be time to consider other ways of supporting yourself too.

But, ALSO, dude, my dude, you just ended your finals three days ago! THREE DAYS AGO! That’s no time at all! You’re also probably still crashing from what must have been a prolonged period of stress, studying and general BLERGH that comes from finals! So firstly a huge congratulations that YOU DID IT (that you may not feel but that’s okay I’m still beaming them your way), and secondly, it’s definitely normal to feel flat after you’ve achieved something big that was stressful for a long time. So give yourself some time too. Keep going through the motions of self-care, and gently stimulating that (very tired) brain of yours, and give yourself some time to kind of just peace out for a bit.

Finally, if guilt is something that plagues you a lot, it can help to do this: ‘Right, on Monday, I am going to sleep the day away. I’m going to stay in bed, snoozing or dozing, as much as I can, and when I feel guilty I’m going to tell that to go away because I planned this. I planned this for that part of myself that seems to need it. Because it’s planned for 24 hours, it’s not just indulging the depression, it’s an intentional act to see if it will help. On Tuesday, I’m going to try watching X movie and doing some stuff. Wednesday, I’m gonna try some studying. Thursday I think half a day should be for sleeping.’

Plan that shit. Give yourself permission to make some space for it, instead of guilting yourself for not being whatever you think a person should be after finals are over.

Like, you can bet your ass when I’m super depressed I’ve scheduled two days in bed to not do very much except occasionally trawl the internet and feel sad about life. It may be useless for other people, but it actually really helps me to plan it, it sort of helps some sad part of me feel heard and listened to, and because it’s planned, I can sort of reflect after those days like... ‘okay has anything changed.’ Sometimes things have. (Tbh, for me, on the second day I get really bored and I’m like ‘right I have to do something’ not out of guilt, but just because the part of me that needed that got that). And if nothing has changed. Then it’s time to also seek outside help. (This has also happened, that, my friend, is when I got put on Valdoxan, lol).