On Fighting the Blues… and Winning!

No, honest to god, this is NOT yet another post about how miserable I feel!  Quite the contrary.

I occasionally talk about my mental health here for 2 reasons.  One, it is therapeutic to put it out there for others to see… it forces me to deal with it actively.  Two, I know many other gamers have similar issues and I want them to know that there’s nothing wrong with it.  Sadly, such symptoms of modern life syndrome  are now more and more common…

As long time readers know, I’m prone to both Seasonal Depression and Stress Anxiety Disorder.  I rationalize it by saying that I’m some sort of creative genius and that with it comes some form of insanity.

These last few weeks have been harder than most and I honestly feared a relapse into depression. My down periods are often triggered by discrete events like a stressful buisness trip (Switzerland), or the turning of a season (February and October are bad for me).

However, this time, instead of moping about it (well I did mope a bit), I decided to do something about it… and it freaking worked.  So here’s my list of things to do to fight off a mental funk.

Don’t fall in love with your depressed state.

Being depressed/anxious becomes such a great excuse not to do anything and hibernate in our personal caves.  Staying in bed all weekend long, ditching social events, quitting projects, stop exercising, playing online games instead of prepping your next D&D session are all things that I have done.

You must not become complacent of you mental state.  You need to realize that you are depressed.  While its okay to accept it (its far preferable than feeling guilty about it), you must not embrace it.

When the blues crashed on me a few weeks ago, I started planning to beat it.  It took me a few days to get something done about it.

The first thing I did was realize that it was a temporary state and that I needed to rest a bit and plan my crawling out of that hole.

Let there be Light

The next thing my wife did to help me out (Thank you!!!) was to buy me a Luminotherapy lamp (10 000 lux within 16 inches).  I set it up by my desktop computer at home and use it for 30-60 minutes every morning before the rest of the household wakes up.

Its only been a few days, but so far it seems to lighten my mood.

(Get it?)

Get out there and socialize

One thing I realized when I get the blues is that I don’t want to see people anymore.  I tend to eat my lunch in my office (or go to the restaurant alone), I go to bed really early and I want to spend my weekends staying at home doing nothing.

In order to fight this, I’ve started forcing myself to socialize more.  I run with office colleagues during my lunch break.  I have lunch with them every weekday. I also call up friends to see them and I even organized a Halloween party (when the mere thought of one disgusted me. BTW We ended up having a ton of fun!)

During these forced socialization sessions, I refrain from complaining and being a bummer for others.  I sat there and listened to others stories and pushed myself to participate through active listening and making a few jokes.

It worked, my mood improved tremendously.

Fish Oil!

Yup, I started eating more fatty fish and taking some Omega 3 gel capsules.  While the mental health benefits of doing such might not be all that clearly established, its also a great supplement to prevent heart disease, a condition I’m genetically predisposed to suffer from (made worse by my periodic anxiety spikes).

But damn I hate burping fish oil! Gah!

The Best anti-depressant ever

Depression in me is a vicious cycle.  When it does strikes, the first thing I stop doing is exercising. I usually exercise to keep my weight in check (I have high cholesterol) and to better deal with stress.

Thing is, a psychiatrist once told me that exercising 30 minutes a day actually is more effective than most pharmacological antidepressants. And he’s right as I attribute much of my recovery from my Acute Depression 3 years ago to daily exercises.

That’s why I started running at least 2 times a week during lunch and I started going back to the gym.

I often feel like ditching it.. When that happens, I grit my teeth and suit up.  It’s always worth it as the runner’s high makes the rest of the day so much easier to bear!

Relax, it will pass

A drop in energy is also an occasion to slow down and look at your life and what’s filling it up.  While you should act to fight it off, do take that time to rest a bit and review the things that stress you and those that make you happy.

Periods of blues, if tackled actively, will surely pass momentarily.  Its not useful nor constructive to lose more energy being angry about your emotional state, or worse, feel guilty about it.  Its not your fault you feel like that…

…it becomes your fault if you wallow in the feeling and don’t act on it.

Push through and accomplish things

Even if your energy levels are low, try to push through and indulge in work that usually motivates you, regardless if you don’t perform well in said work.  For instance, I wrote my Feedback to GMs, my Supers Trope post and my Kobold Love Playtest report while not feeling like writing at all.

It was not my best work.  So what?  It sure helped me get my mind off my darker thoughts and I could see it get better as the week progressed and it culminated in my Inter-review post which I’m really proud of!

So did it work?

I wrote this on Monday morning, it was the first one in weeks that I didn’t feel like crawling under a bed and wait for Fall to end.

So yes, it sure worked.  Now I just have to stay the course.

You are not alone, many of us are like that.  If you want to share your ways of dealing with it, feel free to do it in the comments.