For the past ten years I have suffered from major depression. I have constantly struggled to overcome it. For a long time I self medicated with cannabis but ultimately that made it worse because it only made me happy for short amounts of time so I kept getting high all the time and that had a negative impact on some of my friendships, family relations, and my wallet. Finally I quit smoking, actually only because I had to take a drug test for a potential job. During the month that I quit smoking I felt really depressed at first so I tried to do other things to make myself happy. I spent more time with friends and family, started exercising every day, eating a better diet, meditating, and every time I felt the urge to get high I would pick up a book or search the internet to learn something practical and useful. As a result I ended up discovering a potential career path, which for me is huge because I have never been able to find something that I would be willing and able to do on a professional level. It hit me today when I woke up and just starting smiling and realized that I am starting to be happy. I still have a lot of work to do to achieve the life that I want, but I am moving towards my goals every day. I still feel sad about some things but they are things that I should feel sad about like the loss of my best friend recently. It feels good to be sad for a reason, after feeling sad for ten years for no reason. So for anyone out there struggling with depression try to have hope, and even though depression often makes you lose all motivation only action can improve your life.
that's great! i really enjoyed reading your post, it's so amazingly simple but it's so true. really the best thing you can do for yourself is to find something to focus on, try to maintain a sort of schedule and keep active. how you feel effects what you do, but what you do also effects how you feel.
I definitely click with you on some of what you said. I am a frequent cannabis smoker and a sufferer of clinical depression (I've been slowly getting better and better though I do have some really awful days that come and go), but I've personally found that I feel more motivation after I smoke to get up and do something. I guess it helps me to take my mind off of ruminating thoughts that don't get me anywhere. I am glad to hear you are moving on and up in life, depression really is a sucker punch to the brain and to the heart. Good friends and loving family are the key, though, to helping yourself out of the dark.
that's awesome man, keep up the good work! this just adds to my thought that we can only make ourselves happy, nothing or no one else can do it, its quite an exciting concept huh? just be happy, thats all you gotta do. love that!
That's awesome! I just recently went to rehab. I've been depressed for a LONG time. I'm on dr's meds now to help and it does...along with the glass of wine a night but I've been sober since Aug and it does feel better...even tho I still have my cravings.
that's really great. pot actually gave me a bit of a problem. i had some kind of bizarre flashback one day. so you're very lucky.. maybe it has the opposite effect. sometimes i think that happy people get affected negatively by pot while others use it to self-medicate.
