Combatting Depression

Socially anxiety is often accompanied by something else that few people, particularly in the community, are willing to talk about: depression.

When attempting to take action, it usually seems that anxiety is the main thing stopping us.

You want to take action, but anxiety feels like a brick wall in your way. You simply can’t do it.

But if social anxiety is a brick wall, depression is a fifty pound backpack filled with bricks.

It sucks up all your energy and enjoyment and makes you want to just go home and be anti-social, to not even attempt to get past your anxiety.

In some ways, guys who are trying to improve themselves with women are more susceptible to depression.

I recently met a guy who had actually turned into an alcoholic in part because it was so difficult for him to handle the highs and lows assoicated with this game.

Learning to get better with women is not an easy road.

When you do a lot of pickup, you are continually putting yourself out there. You are continually being smacked in the face by reality.

It’s been said that people who are depressed aren’t actually pessimistic or negative thinkers. They are actually more realistic.

If each and everyone one of us knew our exact place in life, most of us would be depressed.

But in order to get better with women, we need to test ourselves against reality. It is necessary in order for you to learn and to grow.

This testing shapes and refines you like a fire purifies gold.

But it can be daunting at the same time.

There are times when you feel super confident. Maybe for a few weeks or a few months, things are going fantastic.

Maybe you have so many dates, you can hardly fit another one into your schedule.

And it shows. Women can sense it when you aren’t eager or desperate.

All you can remember are your successes. You’re flying high.

But then the tide turns. Even if you have gotten intensely skilled, your standards may have been raised so high, that you find yourself dateless for a while.

You reach the lower apex of the curve.

Your confidence deteriorates. Women are less responsive to you.

You dismiss your successes as flukes and all you can remember are your failures.

Ideally, you have an emotional support, friends and family that are there to support you.

But if you feel low confidence enough, depression can even knock that out from under you.

This is because depression can make you feel worthless, like you have nothing to offer other people.

You start to take less and less initiative with friends because it seems like there is nothing valuable in your life that you could offer other people.

As you lose confidence, you isolate yourself from your friends, feeling like they’re losing interest in you.

And when you are depressed, people can become turned off by you.

Depressed people are unrewarding to be around because those people aren’t good at taking initiative in social situations.

And the initiative they do take is needy and pathetic, filled with self-doubt and an overriding stench of desperation.

So as you distance yourself from other people, they distance themselves from you.

This makes you even more depressed. It’s a downward spiral that sucks your energy and motivation.

So what’s the solution? What if you feel like your friends are distancing themselves or you feel like your confidence is too low to even begin?

First of all, you’re not alone.

Everyone gets depressed from time to time just as everyone experiences anxiety from time to time.

Everyone at times feels alienated, alone and down on their confidence.

Feeling these feelings does not mean that you are sick or even unhealthy.

It is not actually the absence or presence of these emotional states that define your psychological health.

Rather, it is your ability to accept, move on and take action that will define whether you will move back into an empowered state.

The very first step in starting to feel better is taking initiative. Even though that seems like the hardest thing to do, that is the only way upward.

There’s a tendecy to want to wait until you feel less depressed to live your life. Taking a break can be good sometimes.

But if you are feeling isolated or in a rut, taking less action usually only disempowers you more.

Some ways that you can start to take initiative:

Take initiative to get out into the world.

Find some things to do, some things that have social potential, things where there is an opportunity to meet other people.

Maybe take a class or go to a meetup or some other thing where people physically meet–not something online.

Get out of your house once a week. Just start to do one thing.

You don’t even have to talk to anyone yet. Just get out. Go and do it.

Eventually, once you have enough strength, you can take the next step, which is to simply say something to somebody. But for now, just develop an interest in something.

Get back in contact with old friends.

If you feel low confidence, you may be disinclined to reconnect with old friends. You start to over-read any possible signal that would suggest disinterest.

If someone takes too long to return a call, or is immediately busy, you may read that as disinterest.

Take action anyway. Get in contact with a few friends.

As you take initiative, you will start to feel empowered. And you start to become more attractive because you are empowered.

But not at first.

At the beginning, to get things going, it will take the strength of a locomotive with no momentum.

Once you start to have things in place, it gets easier. When you have momentum and friends on your side, you have a safety net.

Ultimately, even if you do have friends, it’s still you keeping yourself afloat. Friends will come and go. Your power and position will wax and wane.

But as long as you’re willing to take initiative to connect with others in the world, your own movement will build a bridge out of depression.

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posted in Self-Improvement Strategies