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I would guess a decent amount of the user on KYM have or had this problem once in their lifetime, I'm just curious is all. What are some of the ways you deal with it?

No, and I haven't.

Though I think it's the same as being severely stressed, and I have felt that. A lot of ways I deal with stress is through being engaged socially. Being with friends, family or in a group is better than being alone where it all wells up. Humans are social creatures, it's difficult to solve problems and finding where we want to be without others that can help or give guidance. It can be a monumental task to fix yourself without the right tools people can provide.

Minimizing stress, anxiety, depression I think will show results if you spend time with people, even if you're not necessarily expressing to them what you're feeling at this moment. Having moments with people will always stick to you and make you feel good. Take your minds off things.

Being alone, under duress, experiencing grief will in almost every circumstance, be fixed with forming relationships with people. It will take effort to swallow pride, it will take effort to end self-pity and it will take time to fix old relationships, and that's what people are afraid of, and that's what they'll do to perpetuate the cycle.

Establishing new relationships, reaching out, being strong like that will get you out of the rut. It will give returns. A random from a meme site telling you what to do on a 5-minute whim might be nuts, but try it maybe, it might work for you.

Hey. Thank you for reaching out. Understanding your problems and why you feel the way you feel is a giant move and critical in making progress out of this situation you're in. I'm glad you're making active steps to take care of yourself and embrace the issue head on.

To answer your question, yes. I’ve been having various degrees of depression for the past five or so years of my life. Most of my friends, both online and offline, have gone through or are going through depression. It's hard. We're all humans and we all have problems. Life bears a lot of weight onto us all in different ways, but I think by communicating and understanding each other, we shoulder that weight and make steps together.

Now, where do I begin. Or, how do I begin.

Everyone’s depression is unique, there’s no constant or universal application we can use to treat and understand this. So some things that may have helped my friends or me, may not be as helpful to you. I’m going to try to give advice where I can and address some of your specific points, but I’m no psychiatrist and some things I say may be disagreeable or unhelpful.

I’m going to first just address some points from your paragraph first. I apologize if things aren’t clear or poorly worded, I’m a messy, unorganized, and repetitive writer to begin with, it’s only worse when I’m writing this at 4 am.

started to look up ways to hang myself.

This is… a delicate topic. One which I’m always afraid I’m going to say the wrong thing. I’ve had friends seriously consider suicide. In high school a friend took her own life. We lost another classmate two years later. I wish I knew what to say, but I don’t. We exist in a strange world that does confusing things to us.

”There is not love of life without despair about life.”

There are many things worth living for, things to love and experience. They may come, they may not. We shouldn’t let despair take too much from us. It’s hard. I’m sorry.

I had restless nights, I isolated myself into my dorm room, I ate less frequently, I lost interest in a few things that I enjoyed, and I hid how I truly felt.

That is very similar to what I did to myself. Nights just spent staring at the ceiling, hours and hours passing by. No passion and no energy. Consumed by anxiety which you can’t shake away, and you reach out for help yet people don’t realize. Don’t know what to do. Sometimes I’d try and hide it, sometimes I’d break. People do care, people will respond. You have to be open and give them time to understand and listen. Like you are now.

I contemplated that the world would be better without me.

We can interpret meaning and value and worth in different ways. Our effects on people and the world. Small scale and grand scheme, it’s easy to get lost in the direction you want to go and what you want to do for something other than yourself. That’s something we have our lifetimes to work on, but we should not become disillusioned because we feel we have nothing to contribute. Sometimes it’s simply enough to just care for ourselves. Ultimately we need our own peace. The world will have its way regardless. Give back when you can, and don’t be consumed by how much you are giving back.

I decided to go talk to a counselor on the college I attend. I told her about the many things that have taken a toll on my health and my education: my grandpa passing away in that month, my mom leaving my dad simply because she doesn't want to live with him anymore,

I’m incredibly relieved to hear you are getting professional help and communication. They are there for a reason, to help people that need it. Sometimes counselors and the system don’t give you what you want. But there are more people out there that are willing to sit down and listen, and help guide you somewhere better.

There are many things we can’t control in our lives. Passing of loved ones, disagreeable people. I went through a very similar ordeal last spring. It is a lot to take in and it’s natural to feel confused and mournful and intimidated and depressed. It’s natural to experience suffering and sadness. Things get better. Not immediately and maybe not soon. But things get better. Some things you can’t help, some things you have to earn for yourself. Don’t worry too much about the things out of reach. Work with what you have, what you can control, little by little.

the never ending fear of what I want to do in life, having feelings of hopelessness, and having these thoughts of ending myself.

Again, I’m very very sorry to hear this, and there are countless ways to consider this. So many things are happening in our lives it’s too easy to find fear and angst. I feel… we just have to look at it with an ever open mind always ready for new angles and perspectives, to push ahead and go through anyways. It perhaps truly is better to have experienced than not have experienced at all. This way we can learn. We can shape our intentions and desires, value and determination.

I ended up withdrawing from the semester and I scheduled an appointment for my psychiatrist (I see her for my ADHD) on June 27th. I came back home in early May trying to cope with my condition until the day of the appointment. The day of the appointment, I told my psychiatrist what was going on with in my head and she diagnosed me with major depressive disorder. I am now taking an antidepressant for the condition.

Take this time and try to make the most of it. I’m very glad that you’re putting school aside to focus on yourself. It’s so so so important to just prioritize yourself for a moment and take the opportunity to reevaluate what to do and where to go. Clear things up a bit, away from the stress and obligation of college and assignments and deadlines and exams. Once again, professional help will do more than we here can ever do. We can share our perspectives and our advice, but we can’t meet you face to face and give you the attention and professional knowledge that a psychiatrist or counselor should. Some of my friends have been diagnosed with various anxiety or depressive disorders. Some take medication, but I’m unfortunately not terribly clear on this topic. I don’t think I can qualify to give input on this, but it is one solution and if it helps then I encourage you to use it. Just be careful about how it affects you in things big and small.

I want to give some advice. But sometimes I come off as condescending or frivolous, and I don’t want to make it seem like I’m qualified to talk about many of the thing I’m going to say. Sometimes I don’t even follow my own advice. I’m a flawed and depressed person myself, and if anything that gives me some perspective on what works and what doesn’t. Here are some things that have helped me, but I can’t guarantee you if it’ll help you, or if it’s even worthwhile for you to read.

First, I'm just going to say, depression stays. It persists and hits you anytime, today, tomorrow, next month, next year. It'll stick and it won't be easy. Some days it's worse, some days it might feel it's gone entirely. But knowing this, means all the more reason to plan ahead, fight against it, understand the causes and effects and look for ways to minimize it.

Minimizing the sources, causes, and issues is key. Things that trigger episodes of depression have to be blocked off. It’s going to take a tremendous amount of motivation to combat and alleviate each issue, and depression is one of those negatives that works in tandem with everything else going wrong. It kills motivation and commitment. Some days are spent laying in bed or nothing productive has been achieved. Then you’ll begin to blame yourself and form spite, which only worsens the motivation. It’s a vicious cycle that I’m afraid requires time, patience, an open mind, and active participation to combat. It’ll take a lot of effort and energy to push yourself when you’re feeling down, but remember to take small steps. Taking on an issue head on might seem like the best course of action, but don’t undertake more than you can handle. Trying to cover too much at a given time only adds to anxiety and stress, and failure to address or meet that giant undertaking again, hurts your motivation and drive.

So, start getting organized. Create an environment that you can breath and be comfortable in. If you have a messy room or house, maybe allocate 15 minutes each day, cleaning up one corner. In a weeks time, you can cover a lot and the task isn’t too much to burn you out. Remove clutter and unnecessary items. Old clothes, gifts, things you bought you thought you’d use but never ended up taking out of the box, sell them or throw them out. Look around you, pick something up, and think how much do you value this item. Let’s take clothes for instance. Does a particular t-shirt make your heart flutter or reminisce about a fond memory? Maybe that’s worth keeping. If it’s something that makes you think “oh I’ll wear this eventually” or “I bought this thinking it’d look good I just never had the chance to make the most of it”, maybe it’s meant to be discarded. Don’t wait around to let chance strike you one day and actually wear it. Take what you truly value and hold onto those, let the things that only clutter up your life go, and you’ll feel a lot more free and lighter that way.

edits: formatting, spelling, wordcount. I should probably spoiler box this giant wall text…

Adding to environment, it’s really worth getting out of the house and taking time to appreciate nature and the open world. If you live in a city, maybe that means strolling through a park or exploring your neighborhood. If you live more rural, making go hiking. Get exposure to sunlight, greenery. Find a quiet place so you can be with your thoughts. It’s important to get your mind moving and active. Taking a walk or run releases a lot of pressure.

On that vein, exercise. You don’t even need to go to the gym or start jogging every morning. Just get your body moving and your blood flowing. This way your body will seem more responsive to you, and you aren’t getting used to a state of listlessness and equilibrium. Challenge it to grow. Lots of my friends enjoy weightlifting because it feels great and pays off physically. I have another close friend where we take walks at midnight, trekking the local hiking trail in complete darkness, chatting along the way. It’s just something that physically gets you going and away from bad thoughts and still behavior.

Be aware of how you’re treating your body. Sleep and food is important, I cannot stress this enough. Sleep in particular is one of the most important things you can do to lift depression. Lack of sleep because you’re studying for exams or looking around the internet will make you feel awful the next day and your brain develops this state of chaos and decay. You’re mentally and physically exhausted, and that is preventing you from achieving what you want or need. Having a solid seven or eight hours will clear your everyday fatigue and let you focus on what you need to cover. Get into a steady schedule, it’s tempting for me to stay up to 4am browsing reddit or marathoning shows, but when I wake up in two, four, nine hours later, I’ve only punished myself and delayed myself from achieving anything useful in those morning to midday hours.

Caffeine behaves and reacts to different people. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without coffee, and then drink it daily. But too much can get you on edge and irritable. That’s kind of the case with other friends, but some have incorporated it into their morning routine to kickstart their day. Whatever works. I’m a big tea drinker, usually I have a cup at the end of the day or before bed to calm myself. And sometimes it works opposite to what I want, my heart might being racing and I feel this sinking feeling of anxiety. Be smart about how you use it, and I’d recommend not relying too much on it.

Food naturally is just as important as exercise. Everyone has different circumstances, time, financial situations, cooking abilities, but I do think it’s worth taking the extra step to consume a healthy variety of fresh greens, vegetables, and fruits. Watch for sugar, at least for me it has its effects on clarity and mental energy. I can go into more detail about food and cooking, if you want. It’s a minor hobby of mine and I could say more but don’t know if it’s terribly relevant.

Back on track, one piece of advice I gave to another kym friend was to get into a hobby. Find something that is worth investing your time into. Something that can help you relax and air out those negative feelings. I thrive on music, whether it’s listening or playing. Music is one of the things that makes me feel alive, and playing it, especially with a group of people, helps me understand myself as a person and how harmonizing with people contributes to this beautiful piece of combined effort and talent. It’s a wonderful thing and ideally, I’d encourage everyone to dabble in music. But that’s my bias. As I’ve said before, lots of my friends enjoy excersising more than anything. Waking up at 5 am to lift weights. They’re at the same gym 12 hours later to work on some different part of their body. Write a story, start a blog, read a book, cook some food, experiment with art, take dancing lessons, learn a new skill. I really don’t want to sound patronizing. But doing an activity that is engaging for your body and mind does so much to help you feel, human, again. Looking at memes or watching videos is fine, but personally I would argue they shouldn’t take up most of your entertainment time. Sometimes I draw. Then I get artblock. Sometimes I write. Then no one reads it. Sometimes I play the piano. But there’s no one to listen to it. Sometimes I cook something new. But they don’t like curry. It’s okay. I might feel a bit down, but honestly it’s not wasted. Not only am I doing something, I’m not being dragged down by depressive thoughts. I’m learning a skill, and after years and years of keeping to it, you begin to enjoy and recognize the improvement. Creativity is something we should all explore on a personal level. We as human beings can benefit so much from it, and I really think it puts us in a better headspace. It goes back to motivation. Sometimes I’m especially down and can’t drag myself to touch the keyboard or make a decent meal. But forcing myself to sit down and start playing or starting cooking gets me back in a groove and reminds me that I can do something worthwhile and I’m not sitting around again. It’s pushes your motivation forward, and helps you with other tasks. It’s just terribly hard to start. Always that first step I guess.

I’m reminded of something else, more spiritual in nature. Religion and philosophy are fantastic avenues for personal growth, but it isn’t for everyone. But in a state of depression they really can help. Faith in something might be worth trying out. Religion teaches us how to live our lives, hopefully as better people. Some of it may be nonsense. Much of it probably is nonsense. But it is still worth considering. Experiment a little. I’ve been trying to get back in touch with Buddhism, it’s a beautiful thing I want to aspire towards. I’m just bad at practicing it on a daily level, as part of my depression and anxiety contributes to me making poor decisions that fail to adhere to certain principals. But it’s something like a reminder to be a better person and live a healthier life. It helps a lot with my mental state at times, and is good when I need some quiet time for myself. If that’s not for you, maybe philosophy could be better. Again, it’s up to the individual and there are so many different takes on life and death and meaning. There’s that stereotype of nihilist existentialist angsty edgy teenager that I somewhat fall into, but I feel I’ve learned a lot reading from Camus and his absurdist philosophy. Directly contemplating death, meaning, existence, it helps us set goals and paths in life and helped me cope with a lot of my depression. Literature and philosophy is honestly such a phenomenal thing, so I think that’s another thing to try digging into.

Finally, I just want to mention that people are here to listen and talk. There are a lot of people in our lives that honestly do care about us. Friends, classmates, internet strangers, family, teachers, adults. Talk to them. Some of them aren’t sure what exactly depression is, or how to deal with it. If someone looks down on you for your depression, cut them out. The people you need to surround yourself with are the people that care about you and are willing to share thoughts with you. My friends mean the world to me. They’ve down more than I can ever state and I’m deeply thankful I am in a community that readily accepts depression as a fact of life and is willing to understand the quirks and difficulties of it. That’s both the online community and in real life. I’ve met some of my closest friends and best people on Know Your Meme. Nowadays we just about all use discord, but messaging each other sometimes on a daily basis, it shows that we really care about each other and have established a strong friendship that lasts over the years. Talking about depression and hearing the improvement from their lives, I’m so happy for them and relieved that staying up late at night to talk with them was worth it in the end. And real life friends, having tangible, real world interaction, it’s just… this priceless thing that I’ve only just recently begun to realize the value of. Talking face to face, eating out together, going on walks, hanging around at each other’s place. I shut myself off for all of middle school and high school, a cynical, detached, edgy teenager. Now I truly realize the fault in my logic, the way depression made me think and distrust people. Seriously reach out to your peers and friends. They will come to help and understand you. It takes a lot of words and even more time, but humans are awesome.

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from all this writing is that. To talk with people. Everything else is kind of just life advice and tips that you can read from blogs or watch videos about. What do I know. But I really do think talking with people, friends, adults, that will help you so much mentally and is essential in dealing with depression. Communication is key. So yeah, I feel there’s a lot more I could say and I really want you to feel better. If you’d like, you can always pm me or better yet, find me on discord or something. I honestly stopped using this website entirely because of various gripes, but on a whim tonight I couldn’t fall asleep and was browsing the forums and saw your title, and now I really want to help.

Depression is… intimidating. It slows you down, it pulls you into a lull, and sticks with you. But it isn’t everything. It will ruin you if you let it ruin you. It may ruin you even if you try to do something about it. But it’s that action to constantly work against depression that has a chance to make things right and make things better.

edits: formatting, spelling

Been struggling with depression for a while now: it's been two years since I started taking antidepressants and seeing a psychologist on a somewhat regular basis, and I was feeling depressed way before all that. What I've learned over the last several years is that depression isn't just feelings of melancholy or sadness; depression can also be total apathy – a lack of motivation – nothingness. Motivation has always been something I've actively struggled with, and it's something that I continually struggle with despite the path that I've chosen through university. I could go on about my history, underlying causes behind my apathy, and methods I use to deal with it, but truthfully I haven't found anything, other than simply letting each day pass. And I don't mean to say that in a cold way: I'm grateful to have friends and family that care for me, and I'm pleased to say that I'm not living each day bored. I go out and have fun, entertain myself, keep myself occupied with certain things no matter how insignificant or minor they may seem, etc. But the apathy is always there, lurking somewhere in the back, manifesting at different times and at different places.

Thank you all for sharing your experience and thoughts. Your words of wisdom and stories are deeply appreciated.

I forgot to mention that when I was with my psychiatrist, she mentioned if anyone in my family line has had depression. This question real struck me hard because I had no way of knowing this for sure. Then I remembered that sometimes I'm not great at picking up how others feel due to my own problems. I don't know, I blame my stubbornness and the sphere of influence limiting my growth as a person. I mean that's kind of why I'm feeling this way, I honestly thought that locking up these emotions inside me would solve the problem. Sorry, if this is confusing for anyone I just feel like writing stuff down like this helps clears me mind. Verbal does to, but I rather do it in face-to-face.