By Dylan R.N. Crabb

When it comes to beating depression, I think “faking it until you make it,” is a decent strategy.  Isolating yourself is the first instinct but that tends to amplify the negative feelings in your fucked up head (speaking from experience here).  It can be beneficial to force yourself into the world to remind yourself of your place in it.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with staying inside on your bad days but, when your bad days stretch out into bad weeks, then you have a problem.  For times like that, it’s good to have at least one friend with whom you can speak, someone you trust completely.

I’ve found it helpful to think about depression, not as a typical disease, but rather as an affliction, a condition for which there is no cure.  Depression is something with which a person must learn to co-exist.  As explained by evolution, you adapt or you die.  Adapt yourself to the circumstances that form around you and exercise your own independence whenever possible.  THAT is the key to “beating” depression – accept the circumstances of your life (which you did not choose from the start) and categorize your life between the positive and the negative, the productive and the detrimental.  Analyze what you have in front of you and use whatever is at your disposal to improve your situation.

Life sucks but you’re alive, so what are you going to do?