I don’t really know how I ended up coming out of my depressive state, nobody really ever noticed or helped me out and I never got any medical help.

Basically all I can say is that one day I decided that something had to give and started working towards something, whether I really felt like it or not. Found a friend I could talk to, worked on getting rid of years of withdrawn emotions. I went for walks, I meditated (not just sitting and relaxing but also actively fighting my brain and reining it in), I ranted and got angry, cried, tried to be compassionate, basically started feeling again bit by bit instead of repressing.

This all took a whole year and it wasn’t smooth sailing at all. Some weeks felt like hell and at least a couple of days felt worse than when I started.

But I will say it was worth it, most of my anxieties are gone, I have better thoughts and emotions; all because I actively worked very hard to change my mentality and honestly because it’s something I accomplished myself I don’t feel like I will ever truly fall back into that depressive state ever again. Things might not be perfect but it’s never going to be that bad again, I won’t let it, I trained myself not to let it.

I’m not sure if this will help you or not, but I hope this shows that it might not be easy or quick but it’s doable to change your brain yourself with the right amount of effort. In my experience just knowing life is great and thinking “if I do this and this, I should be happy” isn’t enough. It’s a war of thoughts and you have to back the right ones up and make them win with all your might.

I find that I can often predict events with scary accuracy and that used to make me feel quite good when things went exactly as I imagined they would, it was almost like a game, how far ahead could I see. Then I realised that it worked for negative things too, if I thought something wouldn’t work out, it didn’t and that wasn’t a good feeling at all.

Eventually I realised that while you can predict a lot of things it’s the attitude that matters in the end, not the prediction. I also found that while you can imagine an overall situation and where it might lead, the details almost never end up how you imagined. It’s those details and how you deal with them in that moment that matter the most, not how things end up in the grand scheme of things.

For example you imagine that you will get rejected, you do the maths and the possibility might as well be 80%. Here is where attitude matters; do it anyway! You might indeed be rejected but for example the rejection itself will be nothing like you expect, or the events afterwards will unfold differently because while you concentrated so much on prediction, you stopped thinking about the afterwards. Whether you are right or wrong there are things to learn, opportunities to grasp and rewards to find in the little details you had no way of knowing. Or you come up to the point where the expected happens but your reaction is what will determine whether you succeed in the end or not and you can’t react to something that hasn’t happened yet.

Another words you can predict with a high degree of accuracy where a wave might be heading but you won’t know how it will happen or what you can do in its midst until you go with the flow.

Consider that you might be trying too hard to “prove” that you’re changing or have changed. It is for yourself that you are doing this, nobody else, therefore no proof to anybody except yourself is necessary.

When you feel good about yourself and how you’ve changed, what other people say doesn’t matter so much anymore. Instead of feeling that their comments have hit a nerve, you can laugh it off as something ridiculous. If you feel that you have something to prove, consider that perhaps your changes are not for the right reasons.

It might take the rest of your life to try and prove something to other people, they might never listen and they don’t matter.

Remember who you’re doing this for: you.

People will see the changes then, otherwise people will only see how you’re trying to prove the changes.

I think it’s important to achieve a certain mental attitude before standing up for yourself to other people. If you are wavering in your beliefs, if you feel self-doubt or have low self-esteem or even arrogance, then standing up for yourself is a very difficult task.

Without knowing yourself how do you know who you’re standing up for?

I think the mind blanks when we are not calm. When calm you’re not worried about who you’re standing up to or what to say, you can take all the time in the world to come up with a response that suits your beliefs. We often think the fastest response is the best one, but that is not true, it’s about saying the right things, however long it takes and having inner comfort.

It’s not about who or what you are up against, work on your inner self and it will radiate outwards through words and actions.

So if you want to be able to stand up for yourself you have to know what it is you’re standing up for and why.

Also only very small individuals bring other people down, they just want to feel big, even when they have achieved a lot, they still remain tiny on the inside. They also just want to be happy, the same as you, but their methods never grew.

I don’t like all these terms like “GAD” that keep popping up, since when is being human and worrying about things, sometimes excessively, indicative of a condition? I get the feeling slapping labels on things that have for a while been considered normal just makes the people that have those labels slapped on them worse.

So let’s assume you don’t have GAD or whatever the latest psychological fad is and go with intelligent, analytical and clearly quite philosophical. I too tend to ponder on the nature of things quite often, or on the thoughts that give rise to thoughts etc…

There’s nothing wrong with doing so; deep thinking, analysing situations, entertaining other points of view and so on. It’s great! It’s insightful! These things gave rise to books, to philosophies, I bet you anything Buddha would have been diagnosed with a whole bunch of mental issues these days. Sitting under a tree and worrying / overanalysing life for days with no food? People in white coats would have taken him away long before he got to reach enlightenment.

So things you might be able to do is:

1) Be occupied with something more productive
2) Be mindful and know when your thoughts are going around in circles (staring at the sky for an hour probably qualifies), sit back and work on just breathing and meditation instead (just not analytical meditation, careful you don’t spend the next week under the sky)
3) Work at being more calm, just by being more self aware (which you already have to be to analyse deeply) and training your mind to calm down, google monkey mind

The one thing that helps me now (ironically I got this originally from overthinking things as usual) is that more often you have to do something and then afterwards you have the time to reflect, most things never go according to plan, no matter how good of a planner you are. Even little things never turn out quite as you expect.

Are there no services you can reach out to in your area that deal with addictions? It’s hard to say what will happen but I think once he realises that he has nowhere to go, he will be more willing to make compromises (such as getting counseling), as harsh as that sounds. With such a caring mother like you I think everything will work out in the end, a lot of people have come back from worse.

That’s interesting, where did you read about what Buddha said on this subject? I’d like to read some more texts like that.

Desperate times call for desperate measures as they say. Is there any way you could force him into counseling? Or some kind of rehabilitation group? The “cold turkey” cutting the power or dumping into the street approach might also do him good as long as you have the ability to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.

You may just have to treat this like a gambling / alcohol problem and act accordingly. As his mother you know he is still a good person inside, believe that it is good for him in the long term, even though it might be a painful lesson.