Debunking 10 Common Depression-Beating Tips PLUS 15 (Very Serious) Ways to Manage Your Depression

I’ve read a lot of self-help pieces about overcoming depression. Mental health articles and blog posts are often the first place people go looking for answers. The internet is a great resource to help us feel connected and to know we’re not alone. But if you Google “how to overcome depression” it only takes a few clicks to realize you have to sift through a lot of junk.

First, you’ll find there are a lot of websites that promise relatively quick fixes. The top Google ads suggest you can fight depression in 4-6 weeks. But the website is suspiciously opaque. From my understanding, the treatment involves a device that sends magnetic field pulses to the head. Perhaps that’s not the easiest first step in managing depression. Other ads promise treatments that reportedly take mere hours to lift depression. All you have to do is take ketamine, which has elsewhere been described as an addictive club and date rape drug. Regardless of your opinions on whether ketamine is the next best drug to cure depression or soothe its effects, these treatments are not necessarily of interest to some people nor are they easily feasible or accessible. So now what?

Beyond the ads, you’ll find articles that list *hot tips* to combat depression. Most of these strategies are recycled across websites and they’re not exactly novel ideas. And while the advice may be useful for some people, I find that most of it is pretty unhelpful. Here are the top 10 examples:

• Meditate

I don’t particularly mind buzzwords, but there’s nothing I hate more than the word “mindfulness.” It’s a useful concept, but it’s overused to the point where I don’t even know what it means anymore. I’ve tried meditation. It was a fun exercise where I spent 15 minutes cross-legged on my hardwood floor, trying to “embrace” the barrage of negative thoughts that images of receding tides and mountainous landscapes couldn’t push away. I spend most of my day shoving aside these negative thoughts—why would I carve precious time out of my day to listen to them when I could be napping and having nightmares instead?

• Do some cardio.

I’m not going to lie—exercise would definitely do my body good. My indoor cat moves around more than I do. It doesn’t help that my medicine makes me impossibly lethargic. I don’t talk about it with my friends, but thanks to my good friend depression, I’ve gained 50 pounds in the past year and a half. Now I can’t find much to like about my body. Those unreasonably bubbly Instagram influencers say that you shouldn’t work out because you hate your body; you should exercise because you love it. But what they don’t tell you is how to cultivate that love. In the meantime, I’ll be on the couch watching reruns of Law and Order SVU.

• Drink more water.

Happy, healthy people always tell everyone else to drink more water. Ever notice that? Growing up, any time I complained about an ache, my mom would tell me I needed to drink more water. Headache? Drink more water. Menstrual cramps? Drink more water. Fell off the porch and broke your arm? Drink more water. It’s not like I don’t try. It’s just that most days I don’t realize it’s 4PM and I haven’t had anything to drink all day. I’ll open a can of sparkling water, drink a few sips, put it down on the end table next to me, and forget about it for the next 2 hours. Then I won’t want to drink anymore because the carbonation fizzled. So sue me.

• Eat foods rich in Omega 3 fatty acids.

Just like drinking water, I often don’t eat anything until 4PM. My body doesn’t know the difference between hunger and anxiety. If I can muster enough energy to make anything to eat, it’s certainly not going to be salmon. What if I was allergic to fish? I’m not, but what if I was? I suppose I could take supplements, but I had a friend in high school who took a fish oil pill every night and she almost always threw it up. Plus, if I barely eat, I’m going to want as many carbs as possible when I feel like eating again. And salmon has exactly zero carbs.

• Make your bed.

This is definitely a suggestion made by someone who has never met a depressed person. The quintessential “side effect” of depression is the inability to fulfill personal responsibilities and instead take 3 hour naps in the middle of the day, everyday. I do everything in bed—sleep, nap, eat, read, nap, binge-watch Netflix, nap, and go to the bathroom. Why make your bed when you’re always in it? Technically, you could consider my bed made if I’m inside it and have the covers pulled up past my head.

• Go outside.

I don’t live in a bad neighborhood necessarily, but last year my next-door neighbor got shot through his front door in a drive-by shooting and died. Taking a walk in the park is not always, well, a walk in the park.

Also, I once paid $120 in parking tickets just because I couldn’t bring myself to go to the city building to rightfully contest them. That’s what we’re working with here.

• Volunteer.

This one is the hardest to argue. Volunteering not only helps the community, but selflessness makes you feel good about yourself.  I want to give my time to benefit others, but being depressed means I have little energy to do the other things I have to do—like meet my work deadline and finally change the litter box.

• Email an old friend.

Old friends are the ones that started rumors about me in high school. Old friends are the ones who pushed me away when I did something good for myself. Old friends are the ones who abandoned me when I became depressed. Old friends and the consequences of their bad choices are, in some ways, woven into the fabric of my mental illness. Some wounds scab, but never heal, and it doesn’t do any good to pick at them. I would rather drink 100 ounces of water in a day than email an old friend.

• Get natural.

I tried to get in touch with nature by planting a bunch of succulents and keeping them around the apartment. It’s not hard to keep a succulent alive. That’s what everyone told me. But the sight of all these dead succulents doesn’t particularly help my suicidal ideation.

• Simplify your life.

They say that one way to simplify your life is to think of an object, a person, or a concept and ask yourself, “Does this bring me joy?” If it doesn’t, dispose of it. I think if it was that easy then I wouldn’t have trouble cutting ties with the toxic people who exacerbate my depression. Also, how does this approach even work for depressed people? The things that once brought me joy don’t really offer much anymore. That’s kind of the essence of depression?? If I am to dispose of everything that doesn’t make me happy, I’m not sure what I’d even have left?

Perhaps this all sounds too negative or it sounds like I’m making excuses. But that’s kind of how depression works. We need to be a little more realistic with the advice we give to people with depression. So I made my own list*. Take from it what you will.

Feeling down? Here are 15 tips for managing depression:

1. Gather all the fermenting fruit in your kitchen, draw a bath, and use the fruit as a substitute bath bomb.
2. Make a voodoo doll out of aluminum foil and heat it in the microwave.
3. Tell your therapist you’re thinking about seeing other people, throw a chair across the room, and see if she begs you to stay or if she abandons you.
4. Call your local radio station, say you’re at a BDSM dungeon, and request them to play Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time.
5. Take a trip to a landfill and key the words “Fuck Jonathan,” or the name of someone who wronged you, onto the side of a near-totaled car.
6. Get high and lather conditioner in your pubic hair.
7. Have brunch with your mom and ask her to tell you about the night you were conceived.
8. Scream the words, “Degrade me, daddy!” while masturbating.
9. Draft a will. Upon your death, designate someone to disseminate your pre-written statement detailing your past sexual trauma to all of your abuser’s loved ones.
10. Paint your cat’s nails red and recount to her all the ways your alcoholic father embarrassed you when you were a kid.
11. Call your best friend and ask her to talk you through an orgasm.
12. Create a character whose primary personality trait is self-destruction. Be her for a day. Don’t tell anyone.
13. Make a low-quality amateur porno with an ex-girlfriend.
14. Go to your local dealership, ask to test drive a Ford Fiesta, and drive it into a creek.
15. Make a fake twitter for your therapist and DM the account any time you’re feeling suicidal.

*I read these aloud to a friend and she thought this was my bucket list.

If you feel so inclined, like this post! And please leave a comment, especially if you’ve tried one of these very helpful tips.