It’s a complicated question to answer, Anon, in part because there’s not “what helped me” so much as “what helps me” — clinical depression, the kind not caused by situation or circumstance (but potentially triggered by it) is not something you cure. Which I don’t think you were implying, but I want to be clear that I didn’t have depression and fix it — I do have it, it’s a chronic condition, and what I have instead of therapy or medication are coping mechanisms. And if you can’t tell when I’m in a depressive episode, well, that’s because of those coping mechanisms.
Second caveat: if therapy helps, or if medication helps, use them. My personal distaste for therapy is not a disbelief in its ability to help people, just a disbelief in its ability to help me, derived from personal experience. The fact that I don’t go to therapy or take medication is more to do with my ability to manage without, because of the relative non-severity of my condition. They are not the optimum weapons for my personal battle. They may be the best for yours.
One of the major signs is my unwillingness to engage with new narratives or ones in which I have an emotional investment — ie, I won’t go to see new movies even if I was really excited about them, BECAUSE I was really excited about them, and I won’t watch new TV shows or even new episodes of shows I like. The emotional impact (even when it’s a good emotion) is too overwhelming, and I know that when I’ve reached a point where I can’t cope with my own emotions, I’m probably going to have a rough few weeks ahead.
I do this. I didn’t know anyone else did. Well, I guess I thought someone must, but I’ve never actually known someone who does it. I know it’s linked to my level of cope, but I didn’t know how anchored it was to my depression/anxiety and how much it was tied to my autism. It’s sort of in that muddly, murky intersectional space, I think.
knitting in the dark 