When people say "It gets better," when exactly does it get better?

[Darkover]

Whenever someone says they're depressed, there's always the replies "It gets better!" I've been thinking about that a lot lately, because when does it get better? I've been dealing with depression since I was about 18 years old, and now at almost 37, it's only ever gotten worse. I've been through four therapists, two kinds of antidepressants, so many different attempts at trying to get out there and have a life, so many attempts at trying to focus on my hobbies and learning new thinks and trying to be OK with be alone and living a life that's not going anywhere, so much effort at simply trying to bottle up and stamp down those negative, depressive feelings and emotions, and nothing has helped.
So when the hell am I supposed to look forward to it getting better? I've been dealing with all this for pushing 20 years, over two-thirds of my life. Does it get better in a month? A year? Ten years? How much longer do I have to spend feeling these feelings of worthlessness, insignificance, and loneliness? All I want is a smidgen of success, some friends, a social life, a significant other.
Do I just not deserve any sort of happiness?

 

[UKscotty]

Takes different times for different people I have found over the years.

Some of us are suicidal and depressed on and off, some are all the time and some fully recover.

Mental illnesses are just not well understood and there are not many effective treatments.

Society doesn't care and would happily just let us die if we are seen as not productive and a drain. Medical companies make too much pumping out useless pills and governments would rather just pretend to care but secretly do nothing about rising suicide rates.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Yeah I ask myself the same! "When does it get better?" That also depends largely on the personal circumstances whether it could really get "better" or not and if so the question is how it could get better.

"It gets better" is also a highly subjective feeling.

 

[Greyscale]

There is no specific time when it'll get better. People who use that phrase are essentially making a promise that cannot be kept, so essentially, they're flipping a coin.

Personally, I wouldn't take those people seriously because they lack a fundamental understanding of what it means to be depressed and how to recover from it.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Mental illnesses are just not well understood and there are not many effective treatments.

They're not understood and most of MH illness are a result of "unhappy" life circumstances that lead to MH issues. MH stuff isn't like getting sick from one day to the other day that's a long and slow process before symptoms are actually noticeable and when it comes to suicidal ideation a lot of things have gone wrong in the past months or even years.

 

[Oudenophobia]

Honestly? It's an empty platitude done as an act of virtue signalling, and sincerely nothing more. While it's possible that some people say it as a way of remaining optimistic in the face of adversity, or at least on your behalf, too few people actually realise that saying nothing is oftentimes better than cotributing honeyed words with nothing more than anecdotal evidence or statistics based on confirmation bias.

 

[Princess_Kitty]

I feel like when people say "it gets better" they're just saying that because they don't know what else to say. They don't know how to help, so they just say it because it seems like a good thing to say.

For me, it doesn't seem to get better. I've been depressed on and off so many times. There's been times when I've been "happy" but in reality I wasn't...only to end up being super depressed later on. So, yeah for me it only gets "better" to a limit.

But, it just depends entirely on each person and like @Praestat_Mori said circumstances. Everyone is different.

 

[Forever Sleep]

It should be: 'It can get better.' It's dumb to make guarantees to anyone in life. It's like saying- 'you will win the lottery if you play it.' I mean- you definitely won't win it if you don't play but- just playing doesn't guarantee winning!

Same with life I feel. You can't expect for anything to come to you. Job opportunities, friendships, relationships, hobbies- all of them require a great deal of effort to go out and find and then, sustain.

But sadly- there's simply no guarantee you will find them, or that they will last or that they will actually make you happy. It's all a process of trial and error. When nothing makes someone happy, or they're simply sick and tired of trying- I guess you get us!

 

[LaVieEnRose]

On the 32nd at 25:00 on the dot.

 

[Gonnerr]

It gets better when you die. When you stop feeling anything at all.
Thats 100% sure.

 

[FuneralCry]

I find it really absurd when people continue to repeat toxic positivity like that especially as we exist in this hellish world where there is no limit as to how much one can suffer. People wouldn't be repeating that if they ended up in a situation of way worse torment in the future which could happen at any time as after all we exist in this reality where chance so cruelly determines everything.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

For me, it'll get better once I'm dead. There's no way for me to get better whilst being alive unless if *maybe* (note: I said maybe, not absolutely) I get access to psychedelics or some other shit related to that. But that won't ever happen so death it is. Of course I don't know this for certain but, then again, neither do the ones saying "it'll get better" but I know myself and how I'm not a good fit to this world better than others so I'm more inclined to follow my judgment than theirs. My judgement does have some sort of logical reasoning to it but those who say "it gets better" has no logical reasoning to back that up

 

[mortuarymary]

June I tried to kill myself. Where I am sitting now I feel better. Probably the meds helping me along but it can get better but I can make no promises.
just take each day as it comes.

 

[Thanksforeverything]

I think the more pertinent question is, what does this "Better" imply? It's so different for everyone. For some it's their financial situation, for some it's their lack of connection with others and for some like me, it's the notion that no matter where you are in life, the struggle never stops. Anything you do just pushes you from one set of problems to the next one maybe with a momentary escape from that monotonous grind.

So, there aren't really any right or wrong answers to this. It's just different. Some people actually have goals and aspirations unlike me. Maybe for them things might get better if they achieve those, but I have no idea if that's true. For me, I'm afraid that things are never really going to get "Better", it's just whether or not I'm okay with maintaining the status quo.

 

[mortuarymary]

Who knows once dead you are better. Knowing my bloody luck, this curse will follow me to the afterlife.

 

[rozeske]

Most people including my self spend their lives thinking/hoping "it gets better", sadly it gets over before it gets better.

 

[girlsboysthems]

i dont know. im still waiting for these magical better times...

 

[drezteck83]

In reality for those of us who suffer it sometimes does but for others it doesn't even come close to getting better

 

[bugs_for_brains]

i hate that sentence because most of the ppl saying it have no idea what is actually at the root of your problem so they cant even tell if its true. And even if they do know this, they arent living in your body and your brain so they have no idea how or when it will get better

 

[LunarCharm]

I always hated being told that.
I think the turning point for me was when I had a teacher in school who suffered from depression, and when I opened up to him a little bit he didn't say it gets better.
he instead told me he's sorry I'm suffering. That's also when I learnt that depression actually deteriorates your brain.
recovered people (whom I envy) spout about "it gets better", people who've never been through depression spout about "it gets better".

 

[divinemistress36]

People saying this has made me want to ctb even more . I got told this so much over the years and it never did so I thought I did something wrong . For some of us it gets better when we die

 

[wait.what]

"It gets better" is the current update on "Don't worry your pretty little head about it." The old phrase unfairly singled out girls and young women as people whose inner lives were not to be taken seriously. The new one can be used to condescend to anyone, regardless of age or gender.

 

[Buh-bye!]

i dont know. im still waiting for these magical better times...

( yeet ) you never loved me mommmm, but i still needed ya ( woah ).

 

[26mmmm]

Whenever someone says they're depressed, there's always the replies "It gets better!" I've been thinking about that a lot lately, because when does it get better? I've been dealing with depression since I was about 18 years old, and now at almost 37, it's only ever gotten worse. I've been through four therapists, two kinds of antidepressants, so many different attempts at trying to get out there and have a life, so many attempts at trying to focus on my hobbies and learning new thinks and trying to be OK with be alone and living a life that's not going anywhere, so much effort at simply trying to bottle up and stamp down those negative, depressive feelings and emotions, and nothing has helped.
So when the hell am I supposed to look forward to it getting better? I've been dealing with all this for pushing 20 years, over two-thirds of my life. Does it get better in a month? A year? Ten years? How much longer do I have to spend feeling these feelings of worthlessness, insignificance, and loneliness? All I want is a smidgen of success, some friends, a social life, a significant other.
Do I just not deserve any sort of happiness?

Sometimes it's just about time, sometimes its about time but also actively making changes in your life.

Things definitely changed for me overtime, sometimes for the better.

I've tried so many things and have failed so much, which led me to the point of accepting suicide lately.

But, I've definitely learnt alot from my mistakes and I want to give life another shot now, maybe things would start getting better again.

So saying things could get better is definitely correct, I just don't agree that it always gets better. But I don't know about your situation, maybe you're missing something? Maybe theres something else you should be doing?

Personally whenever I thought I had it all figured out and was heading down a certain path to recovery, time passed and I realized I was doing it all wrong.

 

[cjs0712]

it's just a phrase they say to keep you alive. It's entirely up to you and the environment surrounding you that decides whether "it gets better" or not.

 

[TransientEternal]

When you're dead.