I was severely depressed between 2008-2012. I got better. Ask me anything.

The first thing I did was finding a psychiatrist. He prescripted Prozac and said I should begin to work (at the time, I was only studying,in college).

I did as I was told. While I tried to find a job, I researcheddepression, as thoroughly asI could. I read half the cientific literature available, watched every other conference, read books from experts, account of depressed people of ex depressed people, talked to depressed people online, etc.

And I found claim and statistics of certain things I could do to improve. Very specifical things. And I was through with it. Fed up. I mean, most of my 2010 was spent awake,in bed, feeling sorry for myself. I'm still wondering how come I never got through with suicide.

So, I put hem into practice. Every single one, as religiously and obediently as I could. Waking up early has been showned to maybe probably have an impact? There, no matter what, hit the bed at half past ten, wake up at seven. Late brakefast? Delay breakfast until 9. Cold showers, right after I woke up, right before I went to bed. Who cares if it's mid winter.Meditation? Learned how to meditate, and I would meditate 15 minutes right after breakfast, right after lunch, right after midday. Spend time with friends? Shit, that one was taxing, and often I wouldn't feel like it, but I still did. I'm quite extrovert, but when I was depressed meeting someone would be so discouraging, for some reason. And I was fat. Severly Obese kind of fat. So I looked up at diets which were reported to impact depression and I found Keto diet did. So I began, and went from 287 lbs to 195 lbs.Excercise was allegedely a big game changer, soI began running 3 times a week. X ammount of Omega 3? Eat salmon three times a week (I HATE fish. I totally despise it. Not to mention it came out as an expensive medicine), with a spoonful of flaxseed every morning. Everything. Every single little thing. I even went as far as to watch comedies while I bit a pencil, because I red in a book (Paul Eckman's, if you care) that people who would do this actually laughed more and harder while watching comedies. I have no idea if it's true, but I did it. I watched every Mel Brooks movie, Every Leslie Nielsen movie, every single stand up act (My favorite is Dara O'briain, hands down).

I still felt like shit. Utter shit. The same shit I had felt trhougout all those years. I'd be running and I'd begin to cry, in the middle of the park. I'd lye awake for hours, not daring to touch my cellphone -which I'd leave in the kitchen- or any screen at all, because it'd keep me from sleeping, and I'd only manage to sleep after hours of laying, wide awake. I'd feel like not doing things, but I did them anyway.

Because bythen I really, really, really wanted out. More than anything, I really wanted to improve. I learned all about defusing my thoughts, about being mindful, about almost everything listed here under training techniques to cope with everything from depression to sexual abuse to whatever, and tried putting it into practice. Every single psychological game, every single coping mechanism I would find or that I'd thought of, everything, I tried to do. Even if I couldn't follow them up later, I'd do it, at least once, at least for a week, see if I could put them into practice, place them in my routine.

Maybe it wasn't that each had a success. Maybe every single one of them was pure placebo. Maybe it was the fact that putting them into practice had the already explicitdouble effect of keeping me busy (I did end up having a busy routine, with a pretty filled up schedule) . Or maybe all those things did have special effects.

Half of these I still do. I meet with friends less often as I used to in the beginning, because I did manage to get a job, and I don't eat fish anymore, but I still eat a spoonful of flaxseed, and I wake up at 7 every day, and I try to do everything you can find around that implies any enjoyable routine (keeping a journal, writing a lot, whatever). I still meditate three times a day -it hasn't been all that much of a game changer for me, but I still do it, just because I enjoy it a lot-.

I'm far from "cured". I know I'm not, and probably I'll never be. I'm sitting in the kitchen, cooking (I love cooking) and I'll just stop because of a sudden impulseof sticking the knife right in my veins. Sometimes I skip my job because I can't really bring myself out of the bed, but that happens one every two months, and I allow it. I'm just better off now, I consider myself lucky because of it. There's no actually ending it, of course,there's only coping.