I have been on this journey for a few months now. For the prior two years, I had been in a deep depressive hole for reasons, which is too long to get into right now. Anyway, I decided that 2023 would be when I change. I started seeing a career counselor, I got a new job, and I even found my way into a relationship somehow. I also started exercising and seeing a chiropractor to get into better shape.
Regardless of the actual longevity of some of those things since January, I started myself on a new path to not feeling suicidal. I still struggle with depression, but I haven’t had nearly as many intrusive thoughts because of my new therapist and my quote board for positive affirmations and inspiration.
Regarding Reddit, we all know how toxic it is. I had a mental breakdown over there which exacerbated my thoughts and got me banned on all of my accounts. So I moved as quickly as I could to Lemmy.
Yes, I still have a lot of progress to make and goals to achieve, but I’ll get there, and you can too. I have long realized that you are the ultimate decision maker. Even if people tell you what to do, you still have the power to subvert expectations and impulsively make your own decision.
It can be very easy to go the bad route with that decision. You have to tell yourself to go the good route and make it possible to help people help you. It starts with saying that you can’t be this way forever and wanting to genuinely make an effort to seek help, whether in your mental health struggles, career, relationships, et cetera. All it takes is one decision, one step at a time. It will be slow, but you’ll get there.
My depression and intrusive thoughts actually got worse during the redditpocalypse. But that was, at least in part, coincidental. A lot of life stress stuff started happening at the same time, and my usual coping mechanism for when things would become too much (scrolling through reddit) was seeing a rapid drop in quality. After approaching a new low, the stressful stuff started subsiding, and things are mostly better now. There are some aspects about yourself that you can’t change, but you do ultimately choose how you react to, cope with, and manage these issues. I will have depression and ADHD for the rest of my life, I but I can choose to manage things in such a way (taking more time for myself, having a better diet, being more active, etc.) that these “attacks” are less frequent.
Keep it up, buddy. I am currently being assessed for whatever I may have (ASD or ADHD are the top contenders…) so I kinda feel you on that. The same thing happened to me. Reddit was my favorite social media site besides YouTube and Telegram if those count at all, but once Reddit’d blackout started, my mental breakdown started because I got into a heated argument with a few moderators. I made fake profiles, harrassed them to make them listen to me, and sent disturbing messages to them. I am much better now… lol