re: Depression is kicking my arse

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Open your Bible.

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Here is your answer. I will go one step further.

Go to a church, join a Bible study group, and you will meet friends (possibly a future relationship) that truly care about you.

The casinos are litered with sad depressed people flushing their mortgage money and life savings down the toilet know as the cramps table, the slot machine or the blackjack table.

Yes, come enjoy the glitz, pretend to be a whale for a couple days till your kids lunch money is no more and you are pissing your pants, bumming cigarettes from strangers and begging for cab money to take your sorry arse home.

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I used to be a night owl, and now I can’t stay up past 10.

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Congrats on the newborn

You are doing the right things, just try your best to be patient. Any new medication will take a couple of months to be much help, and it often makes things worse before they get better.

Self love is huge. Try to look in the mirror several times a day and tell yourself I love you (and mean it). The harder it is to do, the more you need to do it.

Exercise and good diet are of course great advice, but I know from experience that when you're near rock bottom it's really hard to do. Baby steps. Do something you enjoy, like walking in nature or riding a bike.

As you improve and can do some reading, try books on mindfulness. A few good ones: The Power of Now. The Untethered soul. Whereever you go, there you are.

I firmly believe that the root cause of most anxiety and depression is negative thought patterns caused by a focus on the past and/or the future. The only way to reverse these patterns is by retraining your brain over time to be focused on the present.

Good luck.

you need to methylate

take methylfolate and creatine for mental health.

Pubmed

And try to find some time each day to remind yourself of what you are thankful for. And really push that feeling of gratitude within yourself.

Feeling and expressing true gratitude can work wonders on your mood.

And good luck.

The best advice I can give you is to build your support system.

When I got divorced, it was like my entire support system was ripped out from under me, because it effectively was. I had become closer to her parents than I ever really had been to mine. My wife was my +1 to almost everything. Football games, concerts, festivals, dinner, etc. We did everything together, and our friend groups were enmeshed from being together for 7 years.

What helped me more than anything was accepting the fact that I missed the roles she played in my life, but that it was okay. Those roles are important, I cannot fill all of those myself, and I do need other people in my life need to fill those roles, but it doesn’t need to be just one person.

I realized that I had been a fairly closed off person outside of my wife. While I had many old friendships, they were mostly based on a shared activity and rarely were more than superficial. I had no emotional confidants. I had to learn to trust a few friends with some of that emotional baggage. I found a friend to be my go-to for sports. Another friend was my go-to for concerts. Another one really liked getting dinner. Slowly, I built a network of friends who, together, fill a lot of the roles in my life that my ex-wife used to fill.

By spreading around my emotional needs among a larger network, it helps keep me social, and it has helped me go from missing my wife, to missing having someone who was my whole world to care about, to just missing having a companion sometimes for a handful of activities.

It’s not an easy solution, nor is it a fast one, but it’s a real solution that works and is sustainable.

If you were around Baton Rouge, I’d be happy to grab a drink with you and swap sad boi stories. My deepest sympathies go out to you in this struggle. It’s going to suck, and it’s going to suck for a long while. The best thing you can do is just keep making a little progress everyday. As long as you’re moving forward, even if it’s only by inches, you’ll eventually get where you need to be.

I also encourage you to make a list of goals and keep that list handy to look at daily. These can be everything from long term goals like saving for retirement, to spiritual goals like feeling fulfilled, to chores you need to get done around the house. Have a mix of goals that are short, medium; and long term. Goals that are chores, mindset changes, career milestones, wellness, and self-care. Then, start checking items ofd as you accomplish them. Keeping that list visible will constantly refresh your memory and keep you working towards your goals.

Get off meds, find you a hobby, a project, something to occupy your mind. Seek the Lord.

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and now I can’t stay up past 10

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Consider yourself blessed, seriously.