What to Do When You Are Depressed

Jeffrey
Apr 5, 2019
7 min read

Updated: Apr 12, 2020

This article is about what you can do when you are depressed. It may also apply to other challenges like disappointment, discouragement, guilt and condemnation. Basically, these are all conditions are inter-linked. And each person feeling depressed may be due to a mixture of these root causes.

What I am writing today are some suggestions that you can consider to apply to get yourself out of the pit. I hope that this article will help some if not all who are desperate in needs.

We are living in a world where life is never a bed of roses. There are times when you feel good and everything you do seems to prosper and successful. You may at times feel you have tried you best and worked so hard. And you have done everything you could and be a good person. You tried so hard to be selfless and tried to believe that God will reward you for every good deed that you do. But sometimes, things may not turn out the way you wish.

There are also times that you feel disappointed, discouraged, negative or feeling condemned. And you resent why other people are not treating you the way you treated them. Everyone’s experience is unique and no two people will have exactly the same things that happen to each one.

Even when we tell those who are going under that we understand, but no, you don’t. Your past experience maybe similar to the person you are helping, but still it’s different. It is so easy to give up in times of failure and disappointment. We can become depressed and discouraged.

Your life is not supposed to be filled with extreme drama and pain. If your mood is swinging up and down frequently in an unusual way, then something is not right. While I acknowledge that in this world, bad things do happen to good people, but take a closer look. Are there many problems that are frequently a result of our own making?

Today, I am going to share with you what you can do to alleviate your pain and emotional struggle when you are feeling discouraged and helpless. I do not claim to be the expert in this area, but I do hope that as I share the limited knowledge I have, someone may benefit from this.

Accept Yourself Who You Are

I am not going to suggest that you search high and low to find out what exactly went wrong. Knowing the root cause of your problems may help. But often most people do know what is their problem but they have no clue or do not have the ability to overcome it. It would be an addiction that you are unable to kick it or it could be an upset due to a failure in a recent task. It could be due to guilt and condemnation for something that you had done or resentment for being treated unjustly.

The list can go on but hey, I have already said, the priority is not to do that. Instead, in my subsequent section, I would like to suggest some of the things that you can do to improve your situations. Different people react well to different method, I do hope that at least one of them is going to help you to get out of your situation today.

First and foremost, you need to love and accept yourself as who you are. I like what Pastor Joel Osteen always like to say. You are one of a kind, a master piece, wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God. There is no two person that is exactly like you in this world. Begin to see yourself not as a failure, but someone who is loved by our Abba Father.

People may disappoint you, let you down or betray you, but there is one God above who promised us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but our Lord Jesus said He had come so that you could have life, and life more abundantly (John 10:10)

You may experience depression for a while during setbacks. There is nothing wrong with that and you don’t have to try to suppress it. You must not label yourself as a psychiatric patient. Depression is something that everyone of us will experience in some parts of our life. It’s just like fever, which comes and goes away and is temporal. Similarly, depression is not permanent if you don’t allow it to control you. What is important is that you do not stay with it but try to get over it with some of the advises I have written in this article.

So, take the first step now to put aside all negative thoughts. Begin to love and accept yourself. Never believe the lies of the devil when he whispers at your ears that you are good for thing or a failure. Treat it as fakes news because the truth is that you are a master piece of the Almighty God and God wants you to be prosperous and successful.

Depression Self Help Books

When you are lost and helpless, and have no clue on how to get out of the pit that you are in. It will really help if you can catch hold of some wise advises from others. I have put up some of them on the right-hand panel, feel free to check them out.

If you need to talk to someone, go ahead to call up or meet up with a friend who is able to encourage and lift you up. But be careful with who you are seeing. You do not want to meet someone who is going to aggravate your situation.

That’s why it is very important that in normal days, you build relationships with people of good character. Surround yourself with wise and Godly friends so that they can be a lifeline to you in times of needs.

Secret to Happiness in Life

Explore my other post on this topic of Secret to Happiness in Life. There may be some nuggets of truth that may be applicable to you. You may have dropped into disappointment and emotional challenges due to some of the reasons that I have written about in that post. So please click HERE to access that page.

Below are some YouTube videos in the post I mentioned above. I’ve repeated them here and I hope that your souls will be blessed as you watch them.

The Power of Distraction

When you are in a situation where you feel like you are drowning in a sea of worries and cares. It is not difficult for anyone to realize that if you continue to let your mind dwell on the problems will only make it worse. Lamenting on why should this thing happened to you, rehearsing the hurts in your mind over and over again is suicidal.

What you can do now is to do something. It can be anything except to think about the problems you are experiencing. It can be as simple as going out for some outdoor activities, go for a swim or spend time with good friends. So indulge your time on your passion and interests to diverge your attention away from the problems.

In the past, when I have a depressing challenge and I feel upset and lousy, I would distract myself by putting all my energies into my secular work and use all my times to perfect the tasks that were assigned to me. By doing that I have no time to think about the problems. Sometimes certain issues do disappear naturally as they may not be a big deal after all, just that at that moment it overwhelmed you. And I like what Bryant McGill says in his book “Simple Reminders” that “The Number One Skill in Life is not Giving Up”.

Practice Random Acts of Kindness

I always experience enormous joy when I get to perform random acts of kindness, no matter how small that action is. Sometimes it’s as simple as holding the door for another person, or helping an elderly to cross the road. Or it can be anything from a simple hello & giving a smile to a stranger who had a rough day.

As you help another person in needs, it also reminds you that you are blessed to be in a position to help. And often, you may realize that the challenges you are going through is so insignificant compared to the plight of the person you are helping. And also not to forget, it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.

There are many people in the world today who would rather be in your shoe with all the challenges because they are in a much worse condition. I don’t mean for you to compare yourself with someone less fortunate just to make yourself feel better. But it is to draw your attention to the fact that perhaps your problem is not really big.

Instead, it could just because you do not have enough grit. Dr. Angela Duckworth describes GRIT. GRIT is the secret to outstanding achievement, is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence. Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual’s perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state (a powerful motivation to achieve an objective). Click here to watch the short Ted Talk by Dr. Angela Duckworth on GRIT

And if you want to know more on GRIT, I would recommend her book below for you. It’s called “Grit – The Power of Passion and Perseverance”.

Take a Short Holiday

You may also want to consider getting away for a short holiday out of the country. It needs not be an expensive holiday in a country far far away. The objective is to go to a place that is new to you. Sometimes when you are in a foreign country, and with new environments, it does have some healing effect to the soul. You will be free to think and recuperate from your emotional challenges in such an environment and refresh your spirit.

Wake up to a brand-new day at a brand-new place, take a good breakfast and enjoy your day doing anything you like. Walk around and see how people from other countries are living their life. You will be amazed if you are in a developing country, that often the people who are living in poverty are naturally happy.

It may start you thinking that life is perhaps simple. It would certainly be simpler and less complex without the distraction that we have in an affluence society. Perhaps you may have an enlightenment that most of your problems are due to your own doing or unrealistic expectations of yourself. Learn to relax and live a let go life, at least for this period that you are on holiday. I have a book to recommend to you, it’s called the “Live the Let Go Life” by Joseph Prince.

Conclusion

I don’t guarantee that what I share is a one size fits all kind of solution. Everyone’s situation is unique to each person. I mention in my opening paragraph that no two problems are exactly the same though they may be similar. But I sincerely hope that perhaps someone will benefit from what I have written above.

Before I sign off, I would also like to share with you this lovely song entitled “He will carry you”:

Take care and may you be blessed with the quotes from Bryant McGill below: