5 Things To Do (Instead Of Killing Yourself) When You’re Depressed

A lot of folks clicked this link to get all hot and bothered about something while they’re behind their desks at an unfulfilling 9-5. This isn’t for you people. You’ve found your outlet and it’s taking things written by non-medical professionals or people otherwise who will admit outright that they don’t know shit about shit (check out my podcast.)

If you’re like me and you’re totally fine for a span of like, three months and then you’re totally NOT fine for two weeks and finally you’re figure out a way to lie to yourself until you’re not fine again, this post is for you.

I went to therapy until I fairly recently figured out that my therapist may be lying to me and taking advantage of me. The reason why she felt compelled to take the manipulation to the level that she did is probs because I have sat in her office before, crying like a bitch and saying, “it’s very easy to lie to me and take advantage of me because I never expect people to do that because I actually listened to the preschool teaches when they told us we should never lie or exclude ourselves.”

And then I’d drop my head into my hands and pay for someone to watch me cry for a little bit and then stick a Band-Aid on it so I could go out into the world for another six days.

So I’m in one of these happy-mood droughts that usually turn into me only sleeping on the couch, complaining to my friends too much and tending to my dog as much as I can get away with without it being considered abuse.

Now that I’m not in therapy or getting a weekly paycheck that’s almost too much for anyone to be making weekly (don’t worry, I spent it all on clothes and buying my friend’s drinks at Soho House), the only thing I am relieved by is that this is not an unfamiliar feeling and I know something will come up that will keep me floating just high enough to continue ignoring the “big problems.”

There are plenty of baby assholes like me out there, I know some of you are still reading this so here’s your list of five simple things that you can do while depressed beside killing yourself (which I honestly think of doing every day but never will because I don’t like being totally obvious):

1. VOLUNTEER

Just kidding. I was testing you to see if you would think that I’m actually one of those people who are dumb enough to suggest volunteer work to people who hate themselves so much they can barely be brought to watch last week’s episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey for a fifth time. Don’t volunteer. That’s for A list celebrities who need to fix their reputation and D list celebrities who have no reputation.

What you should do is watch a whole new reality TV show without knowing anything about it. I picked this show “Addicted to Rehab” about a sassy blonde who gets herself into disasters week after week while flipping houses. She’s like a boring Lucille Ball who’s not anything like Lucille Ball. The fact that I wound up appreciating moments on her show was good for my “happy” levels and the fact that I thought I could do her job without being so fucking insufferable made me feel even better about my generable ability to exceed at things. So I think I went to an AA meeting that night and put the clothes that had been sitting in my washer for 2 weeks into my dryer. They didn’t smell like mold. I felt pretty good about a few things going on it my life, so I went to bed at 4 AM while watching Grey Gardens.

2. STALK ALL THE LOSERS YOU KNOW

Nothing is more motivating than the realization that all of the losers you used to pity have caught up to you or are doing better. Especially if you don’t get said-loser’s politics. Like their “brand” or “writing ability” has always been terrible, and now actually talented and charming artists like myself are not getting jobs over them because once we didn’t need to be desperate, we stopped being so fucking desperate because that was fucking exhausting. But that loser who’s now achieving more than you are is like, always going to be desperate and there’s something safe, predictable and reliable about someone willing to show up and stuff everyone’s nuts into their mouth at 4 AM.

Now that I’ve even begun to articulate my feelings about people that hoard nuts in their mouth and worry more about their appearance than their overall appearance (a nobody toting their grandma’s Chanel—obvious to even the most oblivious because imposter vibes are strong) has made me angry enough to write a fucking entire encyclopedia about phonies and that’s more than I was doing when I first opened my Instagram app today.

3. EXPERIMENT WITH DRUGS

Why the fuck not? You’re probably unemployed or underemployed so it’s not like you’re going to have a ton of cash to blow on blow so you probs aren’t in any real danger. Like, do some shrooms or molly and try to find some answers. You probably will find some answers, but it’s not entirely likely that you’ll put anything you’ve learned into practice. Smoke, vape and eat a shitload of weed. Save only for the randos that live in states with like, zero dank, you probably start to feel like a Cheeto crossed with a hobo from an early-80s cartoon and eventually you’ll disgust yourself to the point where you have a day of productivity followed by a day or two of more smoking followed by a day where you wake up thinking about how cool that one day of productivity went and how you should totally try that more. Then you’ll probably decide to start a business with a friend and he’ll come over and help you think up some URLs you can buy. Doesn’t matter if you just buy them for a year and never do anything with them, at least you’re open to people now. That “one foot forward, two steps back” way of life hasn’t always been that hard on me.

4. MOVE

Wake up and decide that you want to move that week. THAT WEEK. Don’t give yourself any wiggle room. Sign a year lease on the first apartment you see that’s in your price range and move. Don’t think about it. Don’t explore options. Go back to your current place and throw almost everything you own in the building’s dumpster, buy a new lipgloss online and have it shipped to your new address so it feels like, really real. Then dump car loads of your shit into your new place and give your old key back to your landlord. Then start opening boxes & unpack. This project is great because it’s emotional AND it’s boring which is plenty to keep you both busy and sedated for like, two months. Your new place may not be right for you, but that wasn’t the point. It was for a pause button on the heavy sadness that was lingering over your life and for the time being, that’s more than enough.

5. CHECK INTO WHAT THE REST OF THE WORLD IS DOING FOR A DAY

Go to brunch and see how exhaustingly average most people are. Invite an old friend to a flea market and remind yourself why you stopped hanging out with them. Watch a network sitcom; feel dumber afterwards. Try to make a recipe out of a cooking magazine, melt the fuck down when you realize an hour and a half into “incorporating ingredients” that you don’t own the right pan to cook it in. Eat the raw ingredients you have left while thinking about what a sham the entire world is and remind yourself that that’s why you withdrew yourself from daily life in the first place. Everything was a lie and you refused to accept that or “make the best of it” because then you’d just feel cheated by this lifetime that we were supposedly given as a gift. Journal about that. Wake up the next morning and stay away from everything you decided to try yesterday and go to a part of the city where you don’t know anybody and do that every day until you’ve decided it’s the place for you. Then get a hot yoga membership there.