One of the feelings that keep you stuck in depression is feeling overwhelmed. Everything is just too much. You've got so much on your mind. Especially thoughts about what you should be doing with your life...a job, a partner, a house, a family, etc.
"What we ought to do is subjective...everyone has a different life."
Depression involves sadness, pessimism, a preoccupation with personal problems, and perhaps feeling sorry for one's self, anguish, crying, and hopelessness. Depressed people often lose interest in many activities and social contacts because of loss of pleasure in and enthusiasm for their usual activities.
There are many effective ways to overcome depression. Fortunately, we can control our thoughts and feelings much more than most people realize.
With enough work and effort, you can change habitual thoughts and feelings. Perhaps one of the most common reasons for depression is a lack of enough interests and activities. A small number of them tends to become routine and often boring. Interests and activities are very important in mental health, contributing to self-esteem and happiness. They give satisfaction, help make you feel good about yourself, and keep your mind off problems and negative thoughts and emotions.
Simply cultivating them can sometimes cure depression, grief, addiction, explosive anger, anxiety, excessive worrying, or guilt, especially if you do the activities whenever you feel the negative emotion. They are also important social skills that give you pleasant and interesting things to talk about, improving your conversation skills and helping in making and keeping friends. Of course, depressed people often find it very difficult to motivate themselves and often reject new interests and activities without trying them or after one attempt. But even happy people don't enjoy interests without first cultivating them. We often don't enjoy a new activity right away. Instead, it may take time to become accustomed to a new activity and for interest and pleasure to grow.
Stop seeking consolation with complaints, sighs, sad looks, and crying. Work to make your social interactions more positive by showing warmth toward other people, taking an interest in them, developing and sharing interests and activities, etc. Ask your friends and loved ones to ignore your depressed behaviors and to cut telephone calls and visits short when you dwell on complaints or drown in self-pity, spending more time with you and showing more warmth and interest when you act in more normal ways. Asking them to do this is very important because close friends and loved ones generally take appropriate behaviors for granted and try to cheer you up with extra warmth and attention when you feel depressed.
Thank you!