Depression stress and well help

Dear my fellow jedi

I have been battling depression for many years now and is one of the reasons i found my way into the jedi religion.
To combat this depression i resorted to gym and i'm now a bit of a gym nut, mediatation and i saw lots of people to help me, alas none of these seem to work and as the weeks draw on i am getting more and more panic attacks and more and more depressing thoughts and feelings so much that i may find myself incapable of functioning on a day to day basis, i try not to complain so this is kind of a last resort for me... is there anything which helped you battle depression and any ideas on how to combat panic attacks? All your kind help would be greatly appreciated

What works for one person may not work for another. Just know it's okay to be depresed, I think that with the unfortunate situations going on all over the world from our own backyards to lands far away, the interaction of everything and various outcomes of day to day life make it a little hard to not be depressed.

Have you identified the personal issues that contribute to your depression? Family, relationship, financial, lifestyle and interests? They all have their good and bad sides, and it can help to just realize the bad sides and accept them in order to try to stay focused on the positive. Without getting very personal it will be hard for anyone to make suggestions.

For me it comes down to trying to stay motivated and also observing my own inner reaction to things and putting in the effort to counter a negative subconscious reaction with a positive, constructive conscious one. The depression and struggle inside yourself is what keeps you alive and I think it's totally natural. I know people who pretend to be happy all the time and the drama they get themselves into by forcing their happiness on everyone else and wanting things to go their way so they can remain happy gets to be ridiculous. Then there are people who just numb that depression with drugs and entertainment, or they'll try to fill their void with the latest material stuff or spiritual jargain.

Life is like a rollercoaster sometimes you're down sometimes you're up. When someone is up they may not realize it and not appreciate what they have until it's gone, and when someone is down they can only see what they had or how they want things to be and it takes awhile to make that first step to reconstruction. I actually think of the Batman quote where we fall in order to learn to pick ourselves back up. Also, your perception can determine your reality in a sense. The news is all doom and gloom, the other media is all avaricious trying to portray a perfect human life and reality and it really traps a lot of people.

Focusing on things you can control is good like exercise and diet, I personally was very inspired by Joseph Campbell when I first joined as it kind of opened me up to a new sense of the overall mystery of life and all that. There's also a lot of things you can't control and it can be difficult to let go of these things because sometimes they are in your face like in a relationship or even a problem with your body or something like that. You can try to identify triggers to your panic attacks if you haven't already, sometimes they are social, sometimes you can just work yourself up due to reasons related to expectations of status and self-esteem, or sometimes it's purely a neurological reaction to your environment.

Like I said, a solution for one may not be a solution for another, but here you'll at least have many people to talk to from all over the world and from all walks of life who can share their experiences and ideas with you.

for me, in addition to exercise, i am building competence towards a career that i am suited for and that i find meaningful

but my number one recommendation is to see a mental health professional

just go talk to someone who makes a living by helping people deal with depression and anxiety and stress - they are your best resource imo

Thank you both of you for your advice
lightstrider it seems to be all of those it does not help that i'm still living with one of the causes of my depression... and OB1Shinobi i am trying but its taking very long time...

Thank you both my fellow jedi

I had a grand journey in this matter.

Many things help, but first of all - the will to discover the truth.

As support while you do this, there are many instruments. The heavy artillery is as follows.

Major:

1) Medication therapy - I know how much stereotypes on it exist (at least, here, in Russia). However, if you responsibly choose a psychiatrist and treat meds only as means to an end, an exoskeleton for your mental muscle, they will help.

2) Psychotherapy is also good and also requires a responsible choice of specialist. There are those doctors who will tell you that you are just genetically programmed to be depressed. That is ignorant and unprofessional. Seek the therapist you deeply trust, the one who believes in you. Good psychotherapist must help you train your emotional intelligence and raise your level of self-awareness to the point where you know what to do to heal. Good psychotherapist feels like a boxing coach.

3) Group psychotherapy also is good. It is alike a psychological market exchange.

4) If nothing of this works, the case may be not a mental trauma but an existential (~spiritual) crisis. In this case, for me, IP helped.

Minor:

art therapy
socialization
sports
various relaxation techniques
reflection diary
mood log
focus on *good* work
meditation

Feel free to contact me via private message, I will be glad to help if I can.