Depression affects millions; it’s incredibly vicious, and a coward of a disease. It likely is something some of the people you love most are dealing with, and I can’t stress enough that if you notice a friend or family member acting strange, and it doesn’t always appear as “down in the dumps,” please ask them if they want or need to talk. At the very least it’ll brighten their day, and as unfortunate a situation as it might be, you could possibly save their life. I want to stress, I’ve never been diagnosed, mainly because I thought I would just be wasting the doctor’s time. I used to wake up every day wishing I didn’t, and the following is a super condensed list of things I forced myself to do each day, or whenever I had the opportunity, because I, through force of will that I didn’t believe I even possessed, wanted it to change. I needed it to. I hope this might help anyone that was or is in that kind of position.
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1. “Never argue with a stupid person, they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” Mark Twain What makes a person perceptibly better than you at something? Practice. How do you run longer? Practice. Lift more weights? Practice. Roll More Nat20’s on every dragon you encounter in Faerun? Pract…well no that’s the Gambler’s Paradox, and you can’t really practice that, however, the point stands that in this metaphor, the more D&D you play, the more natural 20’s you’ll get. In any case, how often has your day been ruined because of an interaction or confrontation you willingly (whether you knew it then or not) participated in or decided to entertain? It was likely an interaction you could have walked away from while still respecting yourself, which is important, but sometimes it’s hard to do that. Though some of these interactions you can’t help but entertain or try to dominate because these people, at least in this engagement, seem so blatantly “stupid” that you feel the need to correct them. They then, assuredly and with vigor, reinforce their position with what might be “the dumbest shit you ever heard” but therein lies a problem: if it’s that stupid, why perpetuate that altercation? They will win, whether it’s the argument or the torment you’ll put yourself in later for not handling it better or walking away. Why on earth did I say that the way I did? Why couldn’t I have been nicer? Now there’s going to be an issue at work, maybe some trouble coming from management? Was that worth it? If you find yourself asking these questions more than regularly, just relax and take a breather because remember, it’s common to need to correct a situation if the moment calls for it, but there’s never a reason to approach levels of self doubt to the extent above in the examples over a small spat at work or home. Nobody, specifically you, feels the better for it in the short or long run.
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