Feeling depressed
In my case, treatment for depression is going well.
However, I am still far from a full recovery.
In order to reaffirm that I am recovering.
To reaffirm that I’m recovering, I’m going to list the symptoms I’ve been having and see how much I’ve improved.
List of symptoms
Mental symptoms
- Two contradictory sensations prevent me from taking action.
- Agitation and lethargy
- Obsessive need to do something and feeling stagnant
- Feeling of helplessness
- Stagnation due to inability to think
- Automatic thinking
- Having a conversation with someone in your head
- Sometimes I don’t even make an appearance
- Thought resources are being allocated
- A kind of escape from reality?
- Leaning towards negative thoughts
- Burning sensation in the brain
- Self-deprecation
- A strong sense of shame that you have failed and will be laughed at for all your actions
- Generalized anxiety
- Fear of other people, paranoia about being yelled at
- Black and white thinking, extremes of meaning and meaninglessness
- Delusions
- Delusions of being disliked
- Delusion that your thoughts will be understood by others
- Delusion that your state of mind or state of being is not understood
- Fear of wanting the other person to think you are smart and not to be disappointed
- Fear of being blamed for failure
- Feeling as if you are terribly at fault when there is a discrepancy in your perception of information
- Feeling the need to cheat
- The pain of being conscious and not doing anything is hard
- Feelings of wanting to die
- Feeling that life is over
- Feeling that you are tired of living
- Not being able to take care of yourself
- Cannot take a bath
- Not being able to brush your teeth
- Loss of appetite or binge eating
- Feeling like you shouldn’t do things that are good for you (make you feel better or easier)
- Afraid to go to sleep at night or wake up in the morning
- Unable to manage money
- Unable to be conscious in the first place
- Feeling like you are a stranger
- Loss of understanding of one’s own feelings
- A sense of separation between the mind and the will
- Losing touch with things you used to like, in my case, rejection of guitars
- A strong sense of rejection of certain places
- Rejection of moving content such as anime, and difficulty in being moved by it
- Sense of dependence on others
- Reload social networking site notifications incessantly
- Feeling like a so-called “menhera”?
- Only stopping to send messages in succession.
Physical symptoms
- Sluggishness in arms and legs
- Unable to move, sitting on the street, unable to turn over in bed.
- Inability to act without a strong sense of awareness
- Loss of appetite for tasty foods
- Weight gain or loss
- Physical pain
- Unexpected chest pain
- Headache
- Back pain
- Discomfort in the throat
- Insomnia or hypersomnia
- Waking up in the middle of the night
- Dizziness
- Jet lag? Feeling very sick
- Tooth decay
- Tooth decay due to skipping brushing?
- Tooth decay progresses because you don’t visit the dentist regularly
- Tension
- Stiff shoulders
- General body tension
- Calf tightness
- Decreased cognitive ability
- Inability to read letters
- Inability to hear what others are saying
Efforts to recover from symptoms
- Visits to the internal medicine department
- Prescription of psychotropic drugs
- Prescription of sleeping pills
- Increased time spent in bed.
- I slept for almost a month.
- Visit to a psychosomatic doctor
- Prescription of psychotropic drugs
- Prescription of sleep inducing drugs
- Application for medical treatment for independence support
- I could feel the change in my symptoms after the change in medication. From that point on, I have been slowly recovering over time.
- Counseling
- To be honest, I don’t know how effective it is. I continue to take it because I feel I need it.
- Supplements
- No particular effect was seen.
- Aroma oil
- No particular effect was seen.
- Bath
- Bathing stimulates the body’s senses and provides some distraction.
- Sauna
- It became easier to fall asleep after the sauna.
- Massage
- Makes it easier to fall asleep.
- Mindfulness
- I mainly did body scan meditation. I was able to confirm that I was wasting energy in my body. It also helped me fall asleep.
- Employment
- It brought about a change in environment, but it was a very risky move.
- Regularly hang out with friends
- In order not to succumb to suicidal thoughts and the feeling that my life was over, I made plans and gave myself a reason to live that long.
- As a result, I had a lot of experiences.
- The next thing I knew, I began to feel bored with being able to perform steadily with the same members.
- Becoming aware of pain and suffering, and creating imaginary friends who comforted me and told me I was okay.
- The results were very positive. Over the course of a month, the sense of pain really did decrease.
- On the other hand, I became newly aware of the pain that I had been feeling unconsciously.
- This will continue to reduce the stress response.
- For delusions and cognitive distortions, verbalizing these thoughts and feelings and consciously counteracting them
- Derivative of the above method
- Combined with written disclosure
- Imagery to correct bad habits in emotions and perception of reality
- Guide yourself to a more objective perception of reality
- Take a walk
- Does it provide some distraction?
- I feel a faint sense of entrapment when I stay in my room, so I take walks more often.
- Creating a support app to make a habit of the behavior that may help improve symptoms.
- I made the app myself.
- Creating the app itself did not improve my symptoms.
- Also, I don’t feel that using the app has led to any improvement in my symptoms.
- On the other hand, I was able to recognize that my strong desire to escape the pain was strong enough to accomplish the creation of an app that I had no experience with.
- Writing a diary
- I used voice input to talk for 10 minutes.
- It helps me recognize my thoughts and the things that have been lingering in the corner of my mind.
- I can also see how my symptoms have been changing from past sentences.
- I can check the severity of my symptoms from the progress of my writing.
- What is my current condition? Is it good or bad? I didn’t even know that, so it was an important indicator for me to see how I was doing.
- Drawing illustrations
- I’m not a painter by nature, but it was a good distraction.
- Go to a sports club
- I heard that exercise is good for your physical and mental health, so I tried it.
- Nervous about working with unfamiliar people
- But I feel a little refreshed as I try my best to exercise.
- Read a book
- Rehabilitation for not being able to read anymore
- Also, I heard that in the UK they give books as a prescription for depression?
- I started with one line a day.
- It’s still hard for me to read.
- I think I read 3 or 4 books a month even though it’s hard for me.
- Exposure to moving content such as anime and movies
- Crying
- Rehabilitation of the mind
- I felt that my emotions were fixed, so I imagined moving them.
- But it’s really like rehabilitation, and it’s painful.
- Finding a girlfriend
- Not very effective.
- I don’t know if it’s because I’m not ready to enjoy love or if it’s because of my health condition.
- Attending a session
- I didn’t enjoy it that much. Hardship comes first.
Examples of failure
- Suicidal thoughts turned into a doomed desire and I went to fall for a scam.
- I ended up in financial debt. Now I’m on track to pay it back.
- I got a job even though I am in a condition where I cannot move well.
- I went there to avoid a change in environment and financial difficulties. I was desperate even then, but it was a reckless act. We believe that there were ways to recover from the disease sufficiently and to utilize employment support.
- When I was transferred to the hospital, I failed to apply for medical care for independence support.
- It was hard for me to submit an application for medical care for services and supports for persons with disabilities, which resulted in high medical expenses.
- I ended up using the medical care for independence support.
Summary of what helped me improve my symptoms
In the end, going to a psychosomatic medicine clinic, doing nothing but resting my mind and taking my time seemed to be the most effective.
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