In Part 1, (which you can find here Pushing Away…Part 1) I detailed 5 things you may want to consider putting into practice, should the unthinkable happen and depression comes knocking at your door. Here are 5 more, like exercise and my personal favourite, being judgemental.

6.    Exercise

If, as in Item 4 in Part 1 (Get Out) you do decide to take some air, then while you’re there you may want try to do a bit of exercise.  If you’re anything like me then that would be something like taking the dogs for a walk for about a minute, trudging really slowly all the time, whilst eating chocolate.  This is not a good form of exercise unless you want to exercise those aspects of your alimentary canal that turns food to fat. If that is your goal, then this is the perfect kind of exercise for that.  

Don’t take any notice of all that rubbish Doctors spout about doing at least twenty minutes exercise, three times per week.  Doing that is already putting pressure on yourself that you really don’t need right now. Start small, by doing something, even if it is a one-minute trudge with a Crunchie in your gob.  It’s a start.  Maybe tomorrow it’ll be two minutes with a large slice of Battenburg between your fingers.  Maybe one day you’ll dispense with the sugary treats for a day too.  It’s all possible.

7.     See People

During your regular forays outdoors (by regular I mean once a quarter) you could consider seeing friends and family.  It is really amazing what a difference a brief chat with some friends can have on your overall demeanour.  It won’t make a permanent difference but all these things are what the Sky Pro Cycling Team might have referred to as marginal gains.  You may not see an improvement from any of them in isolation but put them together and you’ll have no need for EPO or WADA banned asthma inhalers or even jiffy bags brought to you by couriers with no knowledge of their contents.

The thing I discovered was my outlook would improve while I was out but as soon as I returned home it was as if the evil spectre of depression was waiting at the door for me and I would swiftly return to my previous sombre self.  The point wasn’t to expect to beat the depression in one fell swoop.  Rather, it was to reduce its negative impact one step at a time.  Chip away at it. Seeing people who had an idea of my condition and were compassionate in their feelings towards it, was of great benefit.  Be selective about who you see.  A misplaced word or negative attitude put me back weeks.

8. Diet

This is not so much about taking up the keto diet, or becoming a vegan, vegetarian or even a flexitarian.  This is about taking note of the type of things you are eating every day.  I piled on the pounds when I was in the deep throes of depression.  I was eating all the rubbish I could get my hands on because I could, I didn’t care and because I was punishing myself.  Many people find depression causes a loss of weight due to a distinct lack of appetite.  Unfortunately for me that didn’t occur, but the message is the same.  

You still need to be vigilant to the vitamins and minerals you are getting from the food you eat, and the usual story regarding vegetables is always a good place to start. I’d give fruit a miss because its full of sugar (and no, natural sugar isn’t ok).

But be aware that you are literally feeding your depression by shoving that Crunchie down your throat, because vitamin and mineral depleted foods can lead to weight gain/loss, whichever is your enemy, and that gives you further licence to hate yourself, and while your doing that your depression is sitting back, metaphorically rubbing its hands with glee and saying joyfully, “You’re making this too easy for me!”

9. Communication

This is where you stop imagining everyone else is a mind reader and you start talking to people rather than hoping they know how you feel and what you need, naturally by osmosis.  I found most people to be very supportive towards me, but I did also recognise that banging on about it 24/7 can be a little tiresome for others.  You want people to want to help you, or at least understand your condition, not think, “Oh shit, here he comes again, it’s enough to make me depressed the way he goes on about it.”  By the same token it helps no one, least of all yourself, if you suffer in silence.  It’s about finding a balance between silent martyrdom and constant prattling.

10. Judgement

Being judgemental is effectively feeding your already overweight, negative mental attitude with a big, fat, unhealthy lunch, followed by a large gut-busting dessert, then nipping down the road for dinner at an all-you-can-eat burger joint.  Which is the last thing you need when you’re depressed.  It’s like entering a hopping race when you’ve just broken both legs.  Judgemental people (like me) tend to have an overblown opinion on something or someone which in itself is okay, except that it tends to a.) carry with it negative connotations and b.) is usually based upon incomplete knowledge, which is not okay.  

First Dates

Item 5, in Part 1, about Lena Martell, is me being judgemental, although I do have a fairly good knowledge of music so I would probably argue that it’s nothing more than a very robust opinion based upon information I have accrued over a number of years.  The facts are, most of us are judgemental most of the time.  Every time I watch something like First Dates on Channel Four and I see someone to whom I don’t naturally or immediately warm to, I start to think, ‘Well he’s and idiot,’ or ‘She’s a bit full of herself,’ and stuff like that.  

Then they get to tell you their back story and if they open up about their vulnerabilities or the issues they’ve suffered due to say, a difficult upbringing, then I start to think, ‘Well considering what he’s been through he’s actually turned out okay,’ or, ‘I’m not surprised she’s putting the barriers up, if that’s the kind of life she’s had.’  

Jumping

There I was being all judgemental, jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts and I catch myself doing this constantly, so I do what I can to stop it happening too regularly.  Vikki, my wife, might say to me, “Well that’s a very judgemental thing to say,” and initially I’ll go on the defensive and look for ways to back up my statement but then I’ll stop and think for a moment or two and come to the conclusion that I had made an uninformed statement based on limited knowledge or information.  

So, it’s quite possible you’ll see someone in the street, or in a bar somewhere and you’ll immediately think ‘What a freaking weirdo,’ and you might be right, based upon the generic westernised society definition of what a ‘freaking weirdo’ is.  But do you know why the person is the way they are?  It’s highly unlikely you have any idea, if you just saw them for the first time.  If you’ve already decided you don’t like them based upon the way they appear to you, then you’re being judgemental.

The Cycle Of Negativity

But what has being judgemental got to do with depression, you might ask? Well, being judgemental feeds a negative attitude and depression feeds on negativity. It has a voracious appetite for all things negative. In fact, it loves negativity so much that if there’s none to be had, it invents some for it to feed upon. And when it invents some, it’s called being judgemental.

Below is a link to a page on negative thinking.

How Negative Thinking Patterns Affect Anxiety

I can remember being on a training course many years ago at a converted Stately Home, west of London. Everyone on the course was staying at a hotel near Heathrow and there was one chap on the course who I decided I didn’t like.  He had bad skin and a funny shaped head.  These were the main reasons I didn’t like him.  He looked like the generic westernised society’s definition of a ‘freaking weirdo’, as far as I could tell. So, I decided he was.  For this reason, I didn’t speak to him for the duration of the course. 

The Thing From The Planet Zog

On the last night, we all decided to meet in the hotel bar, have a few drinks, kick back and relax.  This was all going very well to begin with.  The people I had bonded with over the course of the week were all on good form and we were having a very good time.  Then the unthinkable happened.  We went to another bar and all the seating positions changed and I was stuck next to Mr Weirdy Pants and so “Bang!”, I put the barriers right up.  I wasn’t having any of this nonsense, where I would have to talk to old banana head.  So, I sat, or stood, I’m not sure, next to The Thing from the Planet Zog, resolutely ignored him and sipped my beer very quickly.  But then it got worse.

He spoke to me.  Can you imagine that? I was fuming.  And I was outraged at what he said.  He said something like, “So Lee, we haven’t spoken much this week, what do you do?” and his head was all wobbly and I could feel my skin crawling.  Inwardly I sighed.  I was angry, as now I was in this invidious position, where he’d asked me a perfectly reasonable question.  So, I decided against my better judgement, to answer.  I told him where I worked, what I did, the usual stuff.  Then, the unthinkable happened again.  We found ourselves agreeing with each other and then he mentioned he was very interested in film which, at the time, was one of my favourite subjects. 

The Funny Shaped Head

What happened then was we got into this long discussion about Hollywood blockbusters, Film Noir, British film, Foreign Films, Classics, Black and White, Silent Comedy – the whole shebang.  We were there hours and then suddenly it was 2am, the bar was closing and it was time to go and get some sleep.  Never have I been so disappointed at not talking to someone sooner than I did.  I was inwardly mortified that I hadn’t allowed myself to talk to this guy for longer.  He’d been there all week and I hadn’t bothered and all because he had a funny shaped head.

Judgemental.  It’s not all about you, you know.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion. the idea behind my shopping list wasn’t to do all of those things, every day without fail.  That would have been impossible.  It was primarily an aide memoire to remind me of the types of things that might assist in creating a positive mental attitude.  I didn’t have a positive mental attitude most of the time.  In fact, I had the opposite but I recognised, in my calmer moments, that a PMA was something which could help me get back to the promised land, and so I would occasionally scan the list and see if there was anything on there which caught my eye, then I’d try to implement it at some point during the day.

Pushing Away The Demons

Other days I’d look at the list and say with a scowl, “Well that’s not happening,” and that was the end of any positivity for that day.  This then, is not for the days when it feels like depression has you in a headlock on the floor and is manoeuvring you into a half-nelson, it’s for those days when it leaves you alone for a few hours. You know the time, when you start feeling guilty that there’s nothing really wrong with you. Look at it then. It’s almost impossible to be positive when you’re depressed but having little reminders of positivity when your negativity levels are a little lower than usual, is one way to push away the demons.  Even if at first, it’s only for a few minutes at a time, it all helps and it all adds up. The fact I’ve written this and you’re reading it, is proof it works, for some of us at least.

Thank you for your time. I hope you found some of this useful. If not, there’s always next time.

Lees Blogosphere (theleeadamsblog.com)

1. Numbers are for a 170g Apple (approx.) and a 330g can of Coca Cola which means by volume, an apple has more sugar than a can of Coke.