The Cure For Depression: Just Be Positive!

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I don't know what my grandmother is thinking, but it's incredibly patronizing to hear her say "just be positive!" every time I'm not happy I get that she's worried about me and I shouldn't be so ungrateful, but I'd be doing much better mentally if she wasn't nagging me. If I could choose to be positive I wouldn't have depression. In fact, I was getting better until my friend killed herself. Now I'm "not allowed" to have depression again even though it's too late for that. She seems to think the problem is just too much negativity and that if I just surround myself with happier things I'll get over it. I already tried that. I listen to my favorite music, I draw, I write, I play with my rats, I go for long walks, I take Vitamin D, I have plushes and vinyl figures everywhere in my room, and I'm still not happy. Whenever something upsets me I can't talk about it with my family because they just tell me to be more positive and the problem will go away. They even suggested that, in a tiny dorm room, I take up yoga again because "it helped me when I was little." It's like they don't know that interests change. Now the words "positive" and "negative" leave a bad taste in my mouth. When I told them this, they screamed "Well what do you want me to say?!" In other words, "I don't know how to say anything else so I'm just gonna scream at you until the problem fixes itself!"

im sorry your going through alot i want you to know that your important you must keep moving forward regardless how hard it is we are only given one shot in life.

I have problems with depression too. Sometimes doing things I like does help. Other times I just have to fight through it. Sometimes I spend all of my spare time sleeping. There is no easy fix. Some people who have never dealt with it do not understand that. They do not understand that it can hit for no reason. As far as dealing with other people I just try to look as happy as I can so they don't ask me questions.

Thanks for the links, kidsandtrainsandcats. I think they might help.
Doing things I like does help a little bit, but I think right now my depression has to run its course.

I hope you will feel better soon.

Sometimes, that kind of advice can backfire. Seeing the world through rose colored glasses doesn't make good common sense. Acknowledging there is a problem and getting the right kind of help is the main thing that can contribute to a better outcome.

When the only words of advice you hear is suck it up, you f!cking special snowflake of a buttercup from family and friends, I'm better off shutting myself off from the world and never coming back. In short, I gave up.

I've myself really struggled to stay happy, not saying that I've been depressed.

I know it's not a mere choice. You don't merely choose to be positive, and then wait for some "miraculous" response that actually makes you happy. And I personally don't see the point of trying hard to enjoy an activity you used to enjoy genuinely, just to make yourself "normal" again. That's like forcing yourself to be positive.

The point is to act. I believe that one should act not in accordance to what one is tempted/inclined to, but rather to what promotes life.

I had basically the same reaction from my teachers when I was cripplingly depressed in middle school. I told them they were doing the equivalent of telling a person with a broken leg to "just don't have a broken leg". Mental illness is difficult for people without it to understand. I took medicine and went to therapy, but things didn't really get better until I went to a better school and found a better therapist.