What Depressed People Need to Hear

You know what doctors forget to say to people who are trying to recover from mental illness? They ALWAYS say: "Increase your exercise/activities/healthy food intake". They forget: "You may feel worse at first or even for a while. If you're lucky you may feel immediately better. But at the very least you will feel DIFFERENT from how you feel now". "You'll feel better" sounds like a lie, partly because you can't remember what "better" feels like. You will for sure feel sweaty, your muscles will possibly feel tired or sore, and you might feel more irritable as you move around in your neighbourhood surrounded by all the people who have no idea/don't care how shitty you are feeling. This isn't a reason not to do it, but leaving out the possible "argh!" part of what happens when you force yourself out of your apartment leaves the person with the illness feeling like the healthcare professional just doesn't get it. Feeling better in the exercise/doing stuff/eating well process will probably happen but health care professionals seem to want to draw a straight line where changing a behaviour automatically leads to a good result. I want to grab some of them and shake them, hard. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.