like – Pass Through Fire

theyorhe:

lettersfromthegreenroom:

vicarious–vagabond:

laryna6:

Anhedonia – not finding pleasure in things you normally take pleasure in – is a symptom of depression.

When depressed, you will also be reluctant to start things, and won’t find things appealing.

This sets up a nasty vicious cycle where ‘life feels bleak’ -> ‘nothing sounds fun’ -> do nothing -> don’t have fun -> ‘Hey I’m not having fun, life really is pretty bleak right now’ -> More depressed.

The way to break that cycle is to do things that you enjoy. Doing things solely for the sake of having fun is an important part of handling depression. Not only does it keep you from getting more depressed, but it can make you go ‘Hey I’m having a really nice day’ and give you bouncy energy to do productive things with.

I get so focused on all the things that need doing that I forget that when depressed, doing things solely because they’re fun is the practical thing to do if I want to get thing done.

There is a difference between procrastination and having trouble activating. If there’s a thing you need to do and you know you aren’t going to be able to do it now, do something fun, and afterwards you will have better odds of actually doing the thing.

If you find yourself in the situation in the picture, pick something that you are intellectually aware you would find fun if you were feeling better and start doing it.’ This means that you are focusing on something other than *sigh* and playing a game can make you feel productive, put ‘life is good!’ and ‘I can succeed at things!’ chemicals into a brain that is sorely in need of them.

A couple weeks ago when I couldn’t even find any interest in reading fanfic, I eventually managed to start playing a random RPG and felt much better a few hours later.

i certainly wasn’t expecting anything close to actual, halfway decent advice that might help some folks out when i threw this little Funne Picture out into the wild, but that’s nice. thank you. i’m not sure if i’ll ever break this little cycle for more than a few hours, but .. yeah man. it’s just a little nice to see folks trying to help other folks out on posts of mine instead of the usual terrible nonsense

Exactly what I needed right now.

Easy to parse version:

Anhedonia is a symptom of depression, it’s not finding enjoyment in things that once made you happy.

If you find yourself in this situation, pick something that you KNOW you would find fun or enjoyable.

When you’re depressed, the best thing to do is do things BECAUSE they’re fun, it’ll help motivate you more.