A story about my self

WARNING: This is a different kind of article than my usual ones but if it helps even a single person to heal themselves and live the beautiful and brilliant life they deserve despite struggling with the darkness then it was worth it. ############################################ I’ve lived with bouts of deep depression my whole life. I’m not afraid or ashamed to say it. It’s just the way that it is and what makes me, me. It’s a part of who I am. I don’t think of it as mental illness or a disorder or a disease. It’s just part of the way I’m wired. This may seem strange, but frankly I don’t think about it all that much anymore and I rarely talk about it. As I’ve gotten older my time in the dark has gotten less and less frequent and intense. That’s because I’ve found some very effective ways to deal with it. That’s what this post is all about: Dealing with it and living a big and bold and beautiful life anyway. So if you’re struggling then come walk with me for a little while and I’ll show you a different way out of the darkness and into the light. Fake Self Help Let’s start with what not to do. Number one, stop reading fake pop psychology articles like Fifty Things Overachievers Do Every Day and Thirty Things to Do Before Breakfast. These articles are crack on Medium and everywhere else. People posting these articles have 100s of thousands of followers and a rabid group of fans who just want a taste of syrupy sweet nonsense after rolling out of bed with their smartphone before rushing off to work. If you want to be super popular on social media just tell people a bunch of bullshit that sounds great but really does absolutely nothing to make you healthy and happy. It’s also the key to getting on every best seller list and getting quoted on Oprah and tweeted by mega-celebrities who sell products they don’t use because they’re pretty to look at and have a few million followers on Instagram. It’s all a lie. Nobody does a bunch of things before breakfast. Nobody is constantly at the top of their game. Nobody is pretty all the time. Nobody has fun all the time. Those stunning girls on Instagram didn’t lose weight because of Detox Tea. They lost it because they work out hard and eat right or because they’re twenty and their metabolisms are revving at 10x. The faster you realize this the faster you can start to heal yourself and live an authentic life, the life you imagine for yourself. It may seem like I hate these writers and celebrity teeth whitening pushers but I don’t hate them at all. Sure a number of them are outright, cynical hucksters but many of them are probably sincere. And that’s the real problem. They’re unwitting agents of delusion. That makes them the worst kind because they don’t know they’re creating delusion. They believe their own lies and think they’re helping people. Hell, maybe they do help you every once in awhile if you just had a bad day because someone yelled at you at the office or cut you off on the freeway. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the times where you wake up and can’t get out of bed and you feel like nothing will ever go right again and your whole life is meaningless. That’s when those articles are less than worthless. They’re actually even worse. They’re hurting you. That’s because what they’re selling is the easy button and there is no easy button here. This is something you will deal with every day of your life. Take a breath though. That’s the bad news. The good news is there are some powerful ways to actually deal with it instead of pretending you dealt with it by reading some fake Chicken Soup for the Soul knockoff. Dealing with depression starts with understanding. Know thy enemy. If you can shine a light on the darkness, the darkness disappears. So let’s get to know our antagonist, the Demon of Depression.