“People who conquered depression and/or anxiety, what’s the #1 factor that helps you?”

As some of my prior entries have indicated, I’m a big fan of Reddit. If you use it the right way it can be hilarious, inspirational and adorable.

One of the more popular subreddits – and certainly one of my favorites – is AskReddit. In AskReddit, users can post a question to the Reddit community. Some of the questions are serious: “Why can’t you sleep tonight?” Some are hilarious: “You’re being interrogated and so far you’ve held strong. What song do they play on repeat that breaks you?”

And then there’s moments like these:

This was truly interesting. The top responses are largely along the lines of answers you might expect: Sleeping well at night, keep busy, stay away from social media (irony, right?), stop overthinking, etc.

I answered this question (surprise!), but I took my answer in a different direction. Here’s what I said:

I’m gonna spin this one on its head a bit. I think it’s important to address this answer to those of us who haven’t conquered depression or anxiety, and who never will.

Depression for some is a temporary condition as a result of a variety of factors, including social or cultural experiences, genetics, your upbringing or traumatic events. For people like this, time, therapy and/or medication – as well as lifestyle changes – can result in permanently defeating depression, and never seeing it again.

For other individuals – and people like me – it’s a permanent, chronic condition. Personally, I’m lucky – my ups are relatively long and my downs are manageable. For now. But, for people who will never truly rid themselves of depression or anxiety – who will experience it all their lives – it’s important to realize that this may be your world. Some people are cursed with physical disabilities which dramatically alter their lives and the way they experience it. For others, like us, it’s a mental disability.

What’s the #1 factor that helped me? I honestly think that one of them is this knowledge. The idea that I will never, truly be rid of depression. Why has this helped? It takes the pressure off. It makes me realize that I can lead a good life, even if this is always who I’ll be. That the “black dog” – as Churchill called it – will be a constant companion and challenge.

Second: To an extent, I have power over it. No, I don’t think I’ll ever be rid of depression. I don’t think I’ll ever be rid of the sinking feeling in my chest, the tension at the base of my neck, the imposture syndrome, the constant fear of losing everything and everyone I love. But I do have control. If I seize it, there are things I can do. That means self-care – therapy, medication, writing, working out being a type-A personality, etc. I accept that it has ruined other parts of my life, but strove to make me better in a variety of others.

Third: Accepting the positives of depression. It has made me constantly force myself to do something to improve myself, my life or those around me. It has made me tougher. It has given me a perspective and sense of empathy which I could never have imagined. And it has dramatically and positively impacted my career (I’m a State Representative in Pennsylvania, where I work largely on mental health issues – I also write and blog on the topic).

Yeah, leave it to a politician to not answer the question and answer it at the same time………..

My answer was long enough and pretty self-explanatory, but it’s worth noting again: Some people don’t “conquer” depression. They just learn to live with it, how to manage its ups and downs. I think that’s me. Once I accepted that – once I stopped kicking myself for feeling the way I did – it let go a lot of stress.

That being said, I don’t want to make it seem like my answer to the question was somehow crapping on the other ones. Less time on the internet, sleeping right, etc. – those are REALLY GOOD WAYS of beating depression. I just think that, for some of us, the idea of “conquering” depression is a bridge too far, sadly.

But that doesn’t mean it gets to run our life!