For any mentally ill person reading this thread, here's how I've stayed alive for 25 years: you have to change to feel better. The onus is on you to be happy.
There are days where you can't, where brushing your teeth and eating applesauce is an achievement to be lauded. But on other days, where you have an iota of energy to muster, you have to do something.
Start small. Micro-movements can cause huge shifts over time. Stretch, do yoga, go on a walk, or work out a couple times a week and slowly incorporate it into your routine. Begin a journal, invest in that hobby you have had a cursory interest in but never delved into, or perhaps work on a meditative practice. Depression often stems from not having an avenue to expel your woes. If you're devastatingly ill, consider therapy, medication, and a doctor's visit and work with a professional to feel better.
Mental illness, in mine and others' experiences, is cyclical. At times, the lethargy feels unreal, the intrusive thoughts are inescapable, and it's a total fucking load of shit being in my body. And that feeling always passes. And then I feel like a capable human being able to conquer every task doled out to me. And that feeling always passes. It's a ceaseless ebb and flow that, after years of practice, I haven't mastered, but I've been able to raft the mazy waters with greater ease.
The thing I have learned about this website is that it is a hub of depressed people. People who often put down others just to get an emotional spike to escape their own person. People who are often rejected from their own communities and social circles in real life that desperately cling onto internet clout as an escapism. If you want to feel better—and my own experiences agree with this—and you are incredibly depressed: I implore you to get far, far away from the vestibule of public Smogon communities. Find your group of people, forge that community, and accept that this is not a space for proper human engagement. You can still derive joy from it while accepting that sad reality.
Finally, I have realized throughout the years that there is no perfect identifier for mental illness. I experienced, and witness often, the need for depressive materialism: a holistic diagnosis of why you are the way you are. More and more micro-identities have formed surrounding mental illness (and really, everything), and I believe that accepting there is no real answer is the path forward. We are all fucked up in a bunch of ways. Childhood trauma is part and parcel to living in this world, and you experienced it. Tapping into your body and soul, more and more, will parse out why you are the way you are. Depression is real, but mental illnesses at large are manufactured taxonomies which lack so much nuance. They don't explain your person, they just recognize a pattern of symptoms, many of which don't fit together nicely in a bundle. And often, my own symptoms shift from day to day, mood to mood, hour to hour.
Yes, people will get tired of your shit if you're depressed and don't make an effort to better yourself. It's boring. You lose people. That's part of life. And that should be a motivation to get better. Depressed people are unintentionally selfish so often.
Yes, systemic barriers are real. I am a disabled person and have been privy to loads of ableism. You can't magically think away racism, homo/transphobia, etc. that you experience.
But if you dive into despair, you're missing so much beauty bound within the world. The potential for creation. The potential for community and making the world a better place for yourself and others. And, of course, the potential to be happy. If you don't make small steps, you won't get anywhere.
