Mental illness and Self-Care

I have a mild depression, or at the very least, there is a definite chance that I have. It's mostly just feeling down quite often, and having trouble to get things started/done. I personally found that it's quite heavily tied to my loneliness and boredom, so I try to keep myself busy with all sort of different things. This usually ends up being either reading or talking/chatting with other people. I'm currently thinking of going to talk about it to a psychiatric, since the constant threat of this turning into something worse isn't really all that pleasant. And I must admit that I'm not exactly taking care of myself all that well, since I quite often just forget to eat, but I'm blessed to live in an environment, where there are people who take care of me. And my personality type, it's kinda mix of INTP & INFP, if those terms are familiar to you at all.

Pretty much the only advice I can give, with the very limited knowledge I have, is talking to someone who you can trust and understand. Finding that person might be hard, or just feel like it is.

 

A lot of these things and facets don't apply too much to me so I can't answer too much on them; however,

This is something that I can answer and speak on.
My experiences may not be perfectly applicable to you, and you may even do something different than what I've done - or even just outright disagree. That's fine; I won't be offended by that. I will simply share my experience as it has happened, and you may do with the information what you will.

To begin, I innately do not trust people, to the point where it borders on distrust. The reason for this is that a placement of trust towards someone involves you opening up somewhat to that person, which is inherently a risky act, because while you open up the possibility of trust and friendship, you also open up the possibility of being hurt or neglected. The latter has happened to me a few times in my past, and coupled with the fact that I usually do not find much incentive to trust someone else, this has made me effectively an island.

Of course, humans are inherently relational beings, and thus I do have a need to at least reach out to someone - and the trust can come later. I'll say that there is a very small handful of people that I do trust, and while not to every degree, enough so that it is beneficial to me and that I know I will be able to approach those people if I find myself in some sort of mental rut. Bizarrely, I don't actively try to seek those kinds of people out, at least not at first. Rather, I observe them first, striking up conversations, recognising what types of personalities they have and what sorts of mindsets they follow, and then inwardly deciding or calculating if such a person is 'worthy' of my trust; until that happens, I basically keep 'at arm's length' from that person, so that I'm close enough to know and see how they act, but far enough away that I won't be affected one way or the other. I know 'worthy' is a very odd word to use in this context, but given the very high importance I place on trust to begin with, it's also a very apt word.

As a practical application, what does that mean, though? For me, it's meant that, first off, I am not a risk-taking individual. The handful of people that I actually trust is extremely small, and I'm not willing to make that handful any bigger unless it's absolutely necessary. Because of that, I need to accept a possibility that I may need to be alone or at least apart from people I know and trust for some time, even though I'd always rather not - after all, I want to keep my friends close, do I not? This involves some measure of mental and emotional robustness, however, and as strange as it may sound, it's also a risk - on the one hand, you risk being hurt if you get too close to people, but on the other hand, you risk being alone and distant if you aren't nearby to someone else mentally. The difference lies in which risk you are more willing to accept - at least that's how I see it.

For a cursory answer, that's all I have to say so far. I'm more than willing to elaborate and answer any follow-up questions you may have of me, on the subject of trust and its role in friendships.

 

I will repeat what I said before.

I put my problems in a paper and when I am out of mood, I just take a sit and think about how I am feeling at the moment and try to figure what's my problem. If i can't find a problem then I start looking at the others, if I can't find something I restart the process.

Everything has a reason (even if the reason is totally stupid sometiems it can give real problems).
Taking the time just to look at yourself or the person you see at the mirror is enought to say that you already gave the first step.

Remember, it will never be an easy process until you get used to it. That's how life works for me in part, don't know if it could fit with your way of living.

Hope it works!

 

I know few people that suffer or suffered from depression, beyond myself. They at least took medicine for it, and usually tried to deal with the depression with humor, either making fun of the depression itself, or finding it from somewhere else. If you think that would help, I recommend giving Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, considering it's pretty much full of black comedy involving depression and other similar things.

As for the trust related things, It's natural for someone to lose quite lot of trust in someone, in case they mess up in a really important stuff, but how much, is varying between how important it was, and how much they messed up.
And pretty much the best way to regain trust is to apologize, and try to make it up somehow. Time is also an important thing to considering when it comes to this. There are also sadly times when one cannot regain the trust at all, but that is usually result of repeated mistakes and/or really major things in life.

and going for something slightly off-topic. I can trust practically anyone, but yet at the same time, I cannot truly trust anyone, that includes myself, since I cannot really trust myself with some important things, except when it comes to screwing them up, by either forgetting to do things, or just by procrastinating. It also greatly varies based on my mood, as when I'm feeling down, I find it harder to trust others, and myself. This is both a blessing and curse, since I can more easily forgive someone for making a mistake, even if it was really important, but at the same time, if I don't trust others, it will cause others to not so easily trust me, which in turn causes mood to go down, which makes it even harder to trust someone else.

 

ADD and slight Autism, it has been normal for me, tedious though how I see life, I feel that others are doing it wrong and are not learning anything, I take pills for ADD, autism I have been stuck with, it is a blessing though, it means I special

 

I'm not sure if I can answer your questions, but I can relate to you that I have mental disorders as well. I'm in therapy and on many medications though lol
I find though that when all else fails I may

• take a nice shower =u=
• Distract myself by coming here or on my social media
• watch a lighthearted show/anime
• Work on graphics?
• pester you all on discord

 

I have depression and at one type I was psychotic for a bit (yes I heard voices in my head and they weren't there). I treat it with a combination of doctors, medication, and treatment to help manage my symptoms. Talking and hanging out with friends helps out alot because we are a social species. Exercise also helps me because in a ditto. To weight loss it releases a chemical in your body that makes you feel good. Drinking lots of straight water helps because your brain is mostly water. Good sleep helps out alot because it acts like a reset button on your mind and mood. 8 to 9 hours is highly recommended for people with mental health issues. Talking to people again is important but you need supportive people to talk to, this will allow you to vent, get advise, and work out problems. Finally, take some time for yourself and do things that you want to.

I have had anger issues in the past, surprisingly writing angry letters then destroying them works wonders. Communicating with people can ease tensions and reduce stress. If you have a problem, just go and solve it without stepping on toes.

It all depends on what disorder the person has but this is the best general advise that I can think of.

 

I gotta say, I'd never heard that term before until about yesterday when someone said "self-care" is important.
I'm that Architect personality from the test thing, and can't say I've ever gotten on top of any of my "not caring for self" issues so I'm not much help