I have never sought professional help, mainly because of the cost, time, and shame. If you can, of course, get professional help, but since you asked me how I treat it, here it is.
First, one of the main reasons why I felt that depression was not meeting my parents' expectations. There is always someone better than me and my parents always compared our successes, directly or indirectly.
Then I had a great religious crisis when I learned about truly evil and disgusting human behaviors. It simply made me lose my faith in God and in humans.
And finally I was never good with the opposite sex. Although I had many friends, I still slept alone.
At one point, in my life I simply didn't see any point in it. I realized that I can never make my parents proud, there is no God and humans are evil, and I will never find love.
I exercised regularly and ate decent. There was no need to add more exercise to fight depression.
I had some thoughts about suicide but nothing serious. It scared me though and I began to enter Buddhism and meditation. But Eastern philosophy did not work for my logical mind. The meditation was too boring for me.
That's when I discovered stoicism, it seemed to click better with me. Almost at the same time, I also found an online CBT software that also helped my anxiety.
Then, after trial and error, I developed an external observer mentality. I think of life as a boring video game. I think of money as points of video games. And I only focus on getting the maximum scores. I know this sounds superficial, but it helps me on difficult days.
Before this mentality, I was changing jobs without thinking about career change in general. Now I am very strategic and I progressed a lot in my career.
I really don't care about my parents' approval anymore and they seem to respect me more. When I stopped chasing the opposite sex, I started to attract them and now I am happily married. I still see the world as a dark place and this is something I still struggle with.
But I have to play this video game, control my character, and try to get a high score. My character needs sleep and exercise to keep its mind sharp for work. My character must do chores and do nice things for spouse or spouse will leave it.
I have never sought professional help, mainly because of the cost, time, and shame. If you can, of course, get professional help, but since you asked me how I treat it, here it is.
First, one of the main reasons why I felt that depression was not meeting my parents' expectations. There is always someone better than me and my parents always compared our successes, directly or indirectly.
Then I had a great religious crisis when I learned about truly evil and disgusting human behaviors. It simply made me lose my faith in God and in humans.
And finally I was never good with the opposite sex. Although I had many friends, I still slept alone.
At one point, in my life I simply didn't see any point in it. I realized that I can never make my parents proud, there is no God and humans are evil, and I will never find love.
I exercised regularly and ate decent. There was no need to add more exercise to fight depression.
I had some thoughts about suicide but nothing serious. It scared me though and I began to enter Buddhism and meditation. But Eastern philosophy did not work for my logical mind. The meditation was too boring for me.
That's when I discovered stoicism, it seemed to click better with me. Almost at the same time, I also found an online CBT software that also helped my anxiety.
Then, after trial and error, I developed an external observer mentality. I think of life as a boring video game. I think of money as points of video games. And I only focus on getting the maximum scores. I know this sounds superficial, but it helps me on difficult days.
Before this mentality, I was changing jobs without thinking about career change in general. Now I am very strategic and I progressed a lot in my career.
I really don't care about my parents' approval anymore and they seem to respect me more. When I stopped chasing the opposite sex, I started to attract them and now I am happily married. I still see the world as a dark place and this is something I still struggle with.
But I have to play this video game, control my character, and try to get a high score. My character needs sleep and exercise to keep its mind sharp for work. My character must do chores and do nice things for spouse or spouse will leave it.
Life is just a video game.