u/LongZealousideal102

Please hit me with your self harm reduction tips or ways you cope when you want to self harm. I haven’t self harmed in years but I’m really struggling.

Has anyone with MDD ever had a “oh poop I’m stuck with this forever” moment?
I was talking with my therapist today about getting a med adjustment and how needing med adjustments kinda sent me in to a depressive episode. When I first started taking meds and seeing a therapist I viewed it as temporary. Every time things got rough I would blame it on not having something I wanted in my life (ex. Graduating, getting a job, moving out, etc). I now have all of these major things and I’ve been more depressed in the past 3 months than I have in the past 4 years. My therapist was helpful and compared the chemical imbalance depression & event based depression to type 1 vs type 2 diabetes.
My major frustration (and this could be bc of her analogy) is bc I’m tired of having to make behavioral changes, diet changes, and a very heavy effort just to fight literally my brain. I want to be able to live a productive life without needing medication & biweekly therapy.

How do you stay physically healthy as a person with depression?
I have gotten some of the physically unhealthy symptoms of depression. Including but not limited to:
-overeating primarily unhealthy quick foods
-hypersomnia
-little motivation to shower, brush teeth or bathe
-skin picking
-hair pulling- I have thick curly hair so I’m not balding but I have perpetual frizz because of all of the short hairs growing in
Because of this I truly hate my physical appearance which then becomes a vicious cycle of eating, not taking care of myself and not leaving my apartment for days. I literally dread leaving my apartment because I feel like other people view me as disgusting. I’ve had clinical depression since childhood and every time I try to address this with people in my life they say you just have to do it which means literally nothing. I’ve tried discussing this with my therapist but she is also overweight and I feel like she may not be the best person to go to about motivation to take care of themselves (typing that out made me feel like a horrible person).
I take medication for my depression and have set up an appointment with my doctor to get a prescription change bc clearly my prescription isn’t doing its job.
Overarchingly I just want a way to feel good about my physical appearance again.