When you are depressed, do your special interests help......

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When you are depressed, do your special interests help pull you back out, or do you find that you don't even care about them?

I tend to go both ways.

Sometimes when I'm feeling a little down, an indulgence in a super special interest can really help me feel better. It's like a comfort, a warm blanket that wraps around me.

But other times, when I am feeling down, I don't care about anything, even my special interests, all of them, and that is really scary.

They always help me. If I'm upset about something, doing something related to a special interest will always cheer me up and make me laugh. If I cannot actually indulge in the special interest at the moment, a mere mention of the special interest or a joke about it will make me feel better. When I'm in a very apathetic mood, the special interests fuel me and keep me going. One of the most depressing times I've had recently was when I was going through a hard time and wasn't able to have my special interest. That was so awful, and I just felt hollow and empty inside. My special interests give me happiness, plain and simple. I could not imagine a world without them.
-OddDuckNash99-

Not for me, to be honest I'm more likely to do stuff related to special interests when already happy or just bored. When I'm feeling depressed I can't be bothered to do anything even special interests, I just mope around thinking about depressing things.

It depends on the interest and how depressed I am. For instance, writing can be hard and frustrating when I'm very depressed, but can cheer me up when I'm just feeling a little blue.

Regards,

Patricia

sometimes when I'm depressed I do focus on doing my special activity but sometimes I'm too upset to bother doing anything at all, even my special interest is not enough to make me feel happier

They always help! They're always there and I can count on them at least. When I'm depressed or mad, I can literally walk outside take a good picture and then just go edit it and it instantly makes me feel better.

One of my special interests can help, reading...
with reading a book I can close myself off from the rest of the world.

But sometimes I am just not being able to do anything but sleep.

When i depressed i don't like anything, i want to sit in a corner and stare at the wall, i lose interest in absolutely everything.

I don't get depressed much though.

I think it goes the other way around. I lose interest in my normal obsessions because of stress, then I get depressed because I don't have anything good to think about. Stress + Boredom = Depression

They don't help or hinder me, they just keep me busy. I suffer from anhedonia (one of the reasons I think I have co-morbid schitzotypy), so one thing is as fun as the next for me.

Sometimes. If I'm depressed, watching SpongeBob can cheer me up and make me forget what I was depressed about for a while.

Yes.

But i have been so inert that i just rock and stare and cannot do anything except think about a special interest.

Yeah if I am feeling down for some reason working on my special interests always makes me feel better.

i think it depends on the intensity of the depression.
if it is only a little bit then i like to read my textbooks, i like the layout and the information in them. i also like to listen to piano music, specifically chopin.

if it is a big depression then i bite my lips and make myself bleed, and sometimes i drink so i can sleep.
the dark helps me calm down, i like night time better than day time.

without my special interests i get depression, but with my special interests i become immune to depression.

It helps to think about one of my special interests (my favorite actor and his movies; I can replay movie scenes in my head, and that always makes me feel better). But some of my special interests involve doing something, and keeping track of things. If I'm depressed, that can be difficult. For instance, I like making Lego movies, but it takes a lot of planning and setup to make it work. I also enjoy knitting, but since I prefer to make things that are more complicated that just knitting a rectangle, it takes concentration. I can fix my mistakes if I'm doing okay, but if I'm depressed, I don't have the brain-power to deal with fixing a mistake.

I have a tendency to get into a kind of "stuck" feeling, which is sometimes obviously depression, and sometimes it seems to be something else. It's like my brain is powered by a big water wheel, but there is no water to get it going. When I feel like that, I want to pursue my special interests/hobbies, but I can't. That's not fun.