(Chapter 2) What Can I Do Today?

Dealing with any mental illness is a day-to-day chore. Recovering can take months or years, and often requires therapy and/or medication. But taking any drastic steps toward recovery may seem like such a leap that you will never even try. A race is not run in one step, and we don’t often change our lives in one instant. Every day you can do something to help yourself feel a little better, a little more normal. The following is a list of suggestions that I have found helpful for myself, that others have said have helped them, and that professionals suggest.
*Get out of bed. “You may feel like spending all day in bed, but do not. While a change in the duration, quality and timing of sleep is a core feature of depression, a reversal in sleep cycle (such as sleeping during daytime hours and staying awake at night) can prolong recovery. Give significant others permission to wake you up in the morning. Schedule "appointments" that force you to get out of the house before 11 a.m. Do this scheduling the night before; waiting until the morning to decide what you will be doing ensures you will do nothing.”[1]
*Go outside: the sun is good for you. Your body needs certain vitamins that are best derived from the sun, and exposure to the sun helps your brain’s internal clock reset itself and release mood-influencing substances[2].
*Exercise: go for a walk, go jogging, play tennis, basketball, soccer, tag with your kids, swimming, weight lifting, aerobics, anything that you enjoy doing. Exercising releases chemicals from your brain called endorphins, which enhance your mood and cause “natural highs.”
*Focus on the good things you do. Don’t expect too much of yourself too soon.
*Recognize the fallacies in your thinking; learn to say, “that’s just the depression talking. I know it’s not true.”
*Have regular conversations with people—ask about their lives.
*Make a list of people to call and call them.
*Make a list of things you like to do and go do them. “Try exercising, going to a movie or a ball game, or participating in religious or social activities. At a minimum, such activities may distract you from the way you feel and allow the day to pass more quickly.”[3]
*If you’re at home a lot, go visit someone—get out of the house, go get some ice cream, go to the park.
*Pay attention to what and how much you eat so you can monitor it. Eating too much and too little are both symptoms of depression. Healthy foods have chemicals that improve moods, while junk foods can worsen mood.
*Sleep when you’re tired. If you suffer from insomnia, try taking a warm bath or sipping something warm; sleep on your back; exercise a few hours before bed; don’t eat right before bed.
*Let your spouse get close to you—don’t separate yourself or hide; allow physical affection. Try to let them know how you feel.
*Meditating, writing down feelings—this can be cathartic and clear your head, but it could also make you feel worse; pay attention and don’t do it if it doesn’t help!
*Tell your family how they can help you, if you know—they can learn not to ask what’s wrong if you’ll communicate
*Tell yourself it’s not your fault, and keep telling yourself until you believe it.
*Do what you have to do: do the dishes, make the bed, go to the bank, pick up the kids, wash the car, etc.
*Find small acts of kindness you can do for others (service doesn’t have to be some big production to help you feel happy).
*Get a priesthood blessing.
*EVERYBODY needs at least one person who is close to them who knows that they are depressed. You have to have support. Really your whole family should know—at least everyone you live with—but if you don’t want people to know about it, at least your spouse or parent should know. It makes such a difference to not feel like you have to hide from everybody. *Smile at yourself in the mirror—smile even with your eyes. It sounds strange, but seeing yourself happy or pretending you’re happy can help. “One day I just decided to pretend that I was happy. When I would want to be sad or feel bad about something I just faked it. I pretended that I was a happy guy and eventually I began to believe that I was really happy and that it wasn’t just me pretending and eventually I didn’t have to pretend anymore” (Jared, 26).

In addition to these suggestions of what to do, I would advise a few things not to do. Don’t do things you know will make it worse. Don’t sit and think about your feelings if it just multiplies them. “I avoid thinking for longer than a couple minutes about myself or more specifically about how I feel that day” (Candice, 19). On the other hand, however, if it is calming or cathartic in some way to analyze and sort out those feelings, do it. Do what works. Don’t take a nap if you know you’ll feel even more down when you wake up. Try not to be alone often for long periods of time if it’s depressing to you, as it is for most people. Do things that you know will help. If writing down your feelings helps you feel better, then do it. If not, don’t. Don’t feel that you have to do something that other people suggest if you know it doesn’t work for you. But always be willing to try something new. You never know what will end up being one of your saving graces.
President Ezra Taft Benson gave a talk[4] in 1974 on ways to avoid and deal with discouragement and depression. Because I didn’t spend a lot of time searching, it was really the only gospel material I found at the time I was actually depressed. In his talk, entitled “Do Not Despair,” he gives twelve suggestions which he promises “will lift our spirits and send us on our way rejoicing.” These twelve ways are: repentance, prayer, service, work, health, reading, blessing, fasting, friends, music, endurance, and goals. Each one of these requires us to act. We must do something. I firmly believe that these are principles that will help us in our times of trial. The ones that have helped me the most are service and friends, and, as I discuss elsewhere, prayer and endurance.
Since having Emma, I have found that service is quite a bit easier to come by as a mother than ever before. It requires that I be here for her constantly, that I stop thinking about myself and tend to her needs. Playing with her can truly make me happy if I let it. Comforting her can comfort me. Another mother told me, “As it progressed, my only light was my daughter. I absolutely know that I would have committed suicide when I was in the depths of it all, except that I didn't want her to feel abandoned and have to go through life feeling the way I did.” Focusing on another soul saved this woman when she felt all other hope was gone. President Benson says, “A woman whose life is involved in the righteous rearing of her children has a better chance of keeping up her spirits than the woman whose total concern is centered in her own personal problems.” This is not to say that mothers will not get depressed, because many will. It also does not mean that mothers who do get depressed are not doing what they should be doing. It simply means that if we will try our hardest to devote our efforts toward serving others, it can help us if we will be open to the positive feelings that can accompany it.
Getting out of the house, helping others, going outside yourself, thinking about the needs of others—these are powerful tools in forgetting our difficulties. When I was severely depressed, one of the worst things I could do was to sit around doing nothing and wallow in my dark feelings. One of the best things I could do for myself was to go to my friends’ house. Though I never told them that I was there for my own comfort, it helped tremendously. We didn’t necessarily talk about anything important; sometimes we all just watched TV. But being around people who were feeling carefree and happy, and who included me in this, was very healing.
Recently I was having one of those bad days that tend to frighten me a little more than they would have had I never suffered from major depression. Jeff called from work and could hear the sadness in my voice. He asked what was wrong and I started crying, told him I didn’t know, and got off the phone as soon as he’d let me. Ten minutes later he was home, insisting that I get out of the house. He dropped me off, along with Emma, at my sister’s house and the rest of my day was just fine. Simply being around her and her children, talking about everyday things and not feeling bad for myself anymore made all the difference. Jeff knew that and made me take action on it, and that made all the difference. I used to have a list of people to call when I was depressed, comprised mainly of family members. I knew that when I was feeling particularly down I wouldn’t be able to think of somebody off the top of my head who would be able to help or who would actually like to hear from me, so I made a list of people to call, along with their phone numbers. I even wrote a note to myself on the list, which reminded me that they loved me and wanted to hear from me, in the hopes that this would boost my motivation to actually make the call. It was difficult to convince myself that I didn’t need to give them an excuse for me calling, that they would actually like to hear from me for no reason. Sometimes when I called I would tell them why; other times I’d just chat with them to make me feel a little more normal. Small things like this could make me feel like I was part of the world, a normal person in society again.

[1] “Tips for Managing Your Depression” Josepha Cheong, M.D., Michael Herkov, Ph.D., and Wayne Goodman, M.D. 20 Nov 2000. http://psychcentral.com/library/depression_manage.htm

[2] “Mood-Boosting Sunlight,” Consumer Reports on Health Vol. 16 Issue 10, p12
[3] “Tips for Managing Your Depression”
[4] Ezra Taft Benson, “Do Not Despair,” Ensign, November 1974, 65.