ways of coping with your depression and building self esteem

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Being a tank filler starts from within, rather than what you "do". It starts with having a spirit of good will towards others.

And I suspect that you are a tank filler in the making, because tank emptiers aren't inclined to see or own any faults in themselves; they consider themselves perfect, rather than works in progress...

Tank emptiers tend to operate from a spirit of envy, rather than good will. They might express this trait by being the ones who always rain on someone else's parade. They don't want to celebrate someone else's success or happiness, but to diminish it.

Tank fillers respond to someone else's success or happiness with affirmation. This can be as simple as saying "Good on you" when someone talks about something that made them feel good. So start small, practise these little affirmations when the opportunities arise. Tank fillers are encouragers of others. When someone comes up with what they think is a great idea , tank fillers don't point out all the things that could go wrong (that's what tank emptiers do). You can say, "Well, maybe give it a go and see how it works for you".

It can be harder - though not impossible - to become a tank filler if you yourself have had very negative parenting. But not impossible. In that case you start by being kinder and more encouraging to yourself.
You start to get in the habit of filling up your own tank, and drowning out the old negative parental voices.

Start small, keep going, and you will get there (and I will be happy for you). Don't expect perfection of yourself all at once; changing your behaviour is a learning curve; you don't have to get it right first time or all the time.

...

I feel so lonely and disappointed with the world.

There are some good ways to fight depression listed here.

And, obviously, you do have to fight it. You can't just lay down and wallow forever.

But. Some days, you just feel like crap. NT people have days where they just feel like crap. People who have never met up with clinical depression have days where they just feel like crap. Everyone has days where their insecurities get the better of them, and they just feel like crap. They're called crappy days.

The idea that every day should be great, and we should all be smiling (if not genuinely, then able to sincerely fake it) every day is, IMHO, delusional, unrealistic, and frankly dystopian crap. Not even crap-- you can at least rot crap and use it to fertilize the garden. The idea that there should be no bad days is totally, utterly, and completely useless.

Someone (a tough nurse in a psych ward) once told me that, sometimes, all fighting the depression does is legitimize it and give it power over you.

Sometimes, you're better off to say, "OK, I'm depressed today. No big deal. It happens. Today, I am going to do just what I have to do. I am going to, for example, go to work, eat food, drink water, pee, poop, perform basic personal hygiene, and go the f**k to bed. Today, I am depressed, so I am not going to believe anything I think or feel. I am going to accept that, and get through today, and hopefully tomorrow will be better. s**t HAPPENS."

Sometimes, it works. Actually, lately for me, it works a lot of the time. It always comes back, and I have to go through it again, but usually not for days and days and days on end.

Making a big deal out of the down days, and acting like it's a huge problem that they still happen, only seems to turn one bad day into four or five in a row.

Really good read
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2014/10/ha ... s-journey/Arstechnica.com

Challenge yourself to enjoy the things that made you happy, before you were struck with depression. I've decided to try that in the September of 2009 and it's worked wonders.

Learning self defense helped my self esteem a lot, and when you get a pet, that helps for depression.

I keep trying, but more and more I am coming to accept that depression is just a fact of Life on the Spectrum.

Depression is a close companion to the territory, and the idea of self-esteem when you don't have the same way of being in the world is a joke.

The things that work for you will always get you reprimanded, criticized, and castigated-- draining and self-destroying. And the things that will garner praise, gratitude, or for that matter mere indifference involve forcing yourself to emulate the NT way of being in the world-- draining and self-destroying.

Better, perhaps, to make peace with depression and self-hate, to accept them as the norm and thus to stop being so pained by their existence and to really appreciate the times when they are not strong forces as shining gifts from the Universe.

This is something I constantly struggle with. It's actually pretty tough to tell if I'm really depressed or just in a weird mental state where I can't and really don't want to interact with the world. The ebb and flow of contentment vs depression isn't really day to day -- it's more sweeping, like week to week or month to month. But I've found a few ways to at least avoid thinking about it.

The main thing I have is music.. I'm a drummer and I've been very fortunate to find band mates who put up with me and enjoy jamming and creating music. This is always a great coping mechanism. And the physicality of drumming is akin to taking a run, so I guess i get a natural endorphin release out of it as well. It's not always easy to motivate myself to get to the drum kit, but once I'm there everything else fades.

Another big help is binge watching Louie and beating on my practice pad for hours on end

Gonna have to read over some of these again, because I'm in a bit of a slump right now.

Why do we trade our lives like lost property when a bit of self governing is all you need for a friend.