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What Helped Through Depression

2024-08-06 · letter vlog · John · 4:13 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Global development) · mode: Personal essay · tags: heavy topic

Back after a nervous breakdown, John lists what helped him through depression: absorbing but undemanding pottery, his communities (Nerdfighteria, friends, AFC Wimbledon), helping others such as Henry Reider's Freetown well, and above all therapy, where his psychiatrist showed him he acted as if he were worthless, against his belief that everyone deserves love.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John's breakdown and break; counseling, secret-keeper pottery finished as P4A perks, exercise and gardening

  • ★★★ John says he had a low-to-mid-level nervous breakdown and took a break from the internet; now back-ish and feeling better-ish, he describes what helped through this serious depression. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ For the first week or two John got a lot of counseling and sought a path forward, spending the rest of his days on something engrossing but undemanding: making pottery. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John makes small closed forms he calls secret keepers: you whisper secrets or traumas into them so they hold them for you; asked whether it works, he says not really. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John promised the secret keepers as Project for Awesome perks about 18 months ago and never finished them; now he has, which is a relief. — 00:00:29 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ For John, pottery feels productive enough to be meaningful without feeling like pressure, which was perfect in the pits of depression. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Exercise and gardening also helped John. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ The second thing that helped was his communities; John gets unusual, unreplicable support from Nerdfighteria, for which he is very grateful. — 00:00:29 · Nerdfighteria

00:00:58 — Communities that helped: Nerdfighteria, real-life friends, AFC Wimbledon's co-founder and the new shorts logo

  • ★★ Once John asked for help, his other communities supported him: real-life friends offered to take him on bike rides or kayaking. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ A real-life friend offered to have John explain all his jobs to look at his work-life balance; it was not balanced. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ An AFC Wimbledon co-founder, who needed something to look forward to when depressed, mailed John the club's new away kit, which will take time to arrive. — 00:01:27 · AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★ A new logo on the back of AFC Wimbledon shorts, between left thigh and buttock, was made by Nerdfighter Jen Koch and is based on space mission patches; John loves it. (playful) — 00:01:27 · AFC Wimbledon

00:01:56 — Helping helps: Henry Reider's well in Freetown and John's TB work

  • ★★★ Helping helps: engaging with issues he cares about, and the friendships and connections that emerge from that work, encourage John. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ John's friend in Sierra Leone, Henry Reider, is trying to build a well in Freetown to address the water crisis there. — 00:01:56 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John donated to Henry's well project, promised to help share it, and links it in the doobly-doo. — 00:01:56 · doobly-doo
  • ★★ John's work on TB has been a great source of solace and connection this past month. — 00:01:56 · tuberculosis

00:02:26 — Therapy: toxic online spaces, the core belief that he is worthless versus his belief that everyone deserves love

  • ★★★ What probably helped most was meeting his therapist and psychiatrist. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ John's psychiatrist (quoted): John's psychiatrist said they needed to shift John's understanding of himself and how toxic online spaces inform it, which no one had told him before. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Some online spaces John engages in are pretty toxic; swimming in them all day and wondering why he feels sick is like Olympians swimming in the Seine. — 00:02:26

  • ★★★ Asked his core belief about humans, John says we are here to love and be loved, and that is the one thing we all deserve. — 00:02:26 · meaning of life

    “we are here to love and be loved”

  • ★★★ John's psychiatrist (quoted): The psychiatrist said John isn't acting on that belief about himself: his core belief seems to be that he is worthless, so he takes every online message saying so as true because it confirms it. — 00:02:26

  • ★★★ John really did believe he was worthless, which he thinks he said in his last video. — 00:03:14
  • ★★ Believing you are worthless is very strange when human consciousness itself is so rare, precious and wonderful. — 00:03:14
  • ★★★ John is working hard to embrace his belief that every human being, including him, deserves love and compassion and a generous, empathetic welcome into the human fold. — 00:03:43 · empathy

  • ★★★ Most important to John: he is not a piece of crap, nor is any viewer; we are all flawed and failing but still worthy of love and compassion, which he is making his foundational belief. — 00:03:43

    “I'm not a piece of crap, and neither is anyone watching this.”

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: depression · love · self-esteem

Also: People: Henry Reider · John's psychiatrist

Projects: Project for Awesome

Organizations: AFC Wimbledon

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: confirmation bias · consciousness · empathy · meaning of life · physical exercise · pottery · psychotherapy · tuberculosis · water scarcity

Places: Freetown · Seine · Sierra Leone

Events: Olympic Games

Only in the description or credits: Jen Koch · Partners In Health

Also centred on depression: Perspective · The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed · Minus Its Charms · taking a break

Also centred on love: I Love My Brother · Happy Esther Day! · Lives Made of Love - Esther Day 2016 · Two Love Stories · Uncertain and Afraid · you're bundled up now? wait till you get older.

Also centred on self-esteem: What Boys Look For in Girls · You're Not Good Enough · Some Rough Advice for the "Real World" · My Earthquake Story - (And Thoughts About Numbers) · Looking for Alaska Movie (BUT BETTER) and YouTuber Things · What Matters

Replies to

  • continues · taking a break — “I think I said it in that last video I made.”

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