How do you dust the gloom away?

Vitamin D, Go Lite Blu, exercise, redecorating, cleaning, peppy dance music, and weather permitting…I garden…a lot.

If I can, I go out to a nice place for a coffee. If not, I look for inspiring TED Talks, YouTube clips, and find hilarious pages to follow on Facebook to lend to my overall glow.

Embrace the misery.

I have had problems with severe depression for most of my life. I’m talking serious sit in the dark holding a big pot of pills depression.

If you are depressed, looking at it from the inside, then you probably can’t see the reason in my method, but for me it works.

When I notice I am starting to get depressed, I take a step back and remind my self that depression is something I do to my self, and that I have the ability to stop it by will alone.

One day I will die, one day the sun will extinguish, one day our entire galaxy will collide with Andromeda, one day the universe will just stop existing all together. In 30 billion years, when time is broken, your light bulbs wont seem like such a big deal.

Sure, sitting in a dark room thinking about ending your own life may not be all that happy and jolly, but at least it is interesting. At least more interesting that watching Dancing with the idiots on TV.

Why worry about light bulbs, when you could find a sadist on craigs list, and volunteer to have them come round and torture you for a while.

Watch Fight Club, read some Nietzsche, watch Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, then go out and find an interesting way to amuse yourself. Perhaps entertain yourself by telling a stranger in an elevator out of the blue that you think about hacking off a limb for fun, see how they react to that information.

…. or not.

A walk, a talk with a good friend or being productive in some fashion helps me. I woke up with the blues today but taking care of some business, running errands and inviting a friend over for dinner have lifted the gloom some.

I never really feel “gloomy”, but if I feel the need, i’ll grab one of the wife’s skirts & do a spot of housekeeping…......sure to get rid of any surplus“dust”.

During my first and second years of college I went through a serious bout of depression. Not only was I really far from my family, but I also had trouble making friends because I made myself believe that my English wasn’t good enough, so I pretty much closed myself off to everything and everyone. On top of all that, I hated my major (Computer Engineering) and the other students in the program because they were just so competitive and snobby and full of themselves! What helped me a great deal was that, with the help of a wonderful psychologist (my university has a really good support system for students and, included in my tuition, were the services of an on-campus psychologist), I came to realize that I needed to take it upon myself to change my situation. So I changed majors to Hospitality Management and that alone was better than going on any medication. I met some truly warm and welcoming people, students and administrators alike, and I was always excited to go to class in the morning from the time I changed majors (sophomore year) all the way through to my senior year. I also got over my fear of expressing myself in English, especially when I began to see that people had no idea that it wasn’t my first language because I spoke it really well and barely had an accent, and they were also always impressed to learn that I was fluent in 5 different languages – huge boost to my morale!

Since overcoming depression, I’ve come to realize that I hated being sad and miserable and now, almost 5 years later, whenever I start feeling a bit under the weather, I quickly analyze what it is that is making me feel that way and take it upon myself to change it immediately. Life’s way too short to do things that make you unhappy and don’t leave you feeling fulfilled. But in the instances when I can’t change what’s bothering me, I change my outlook and perception of whatever it is. However, I do agree with @poisonedantidote that at times you might just have to embrace the misery because, oftentimes, the fear of misery is what makes you feel even more miserable. Embrace it, learn from it, change what you can, accept what you can’t change, and then move on. Life goes on, my dear ;)

Many times I find that the gloom is caused because there is something that I have to do but don’t want to do. It can be anything from paying my taxes to laying someone off and anything in between and many times I don’t even know exactly what it is.

The trick for me is to sit down and pinpoint what it is that I am delaying doing. Most times quiet meditation helps me locate the source and give me focus. When I know what I need to do I gird my loins and get it done.

Once it is done the hood is lifted from my head and my mood brightens.

I don’t suffer from depression but today was such a dull gloomy day that the potential was there to affect my mood. What happened instead was I read some short stories on the Internet suggested to me by a friend. They were great, really well written and insightful. They really took me out of myself. This evening I watched a fascinating documentary on the BBC about the Scottish painter John Bellany. The programme itself was a work of art. It was by his son, Paul who is a filmmaker and it was very moving, heartrending even, but in the end, uplifting and all filled with wonderful art.

@flutherother Sounds like a great program!

@janbb It was, and I just came upon it by accident.

I dust the gloom by thinking, it could have been worse. Most of the time it works. I also think being alive is more of a privilege than a right.

I like going for long walks. It doesn’t always work but often enough it does. It helps to clear the mind, but at the same time, eventually the physical activity tires me out, so that feels relieving.