"oh, have you tried more sunshine?", "try taking vitamin D, it's probably just a seasonal affective disorder", "just sleep well, eat well, drink well, don't do anything else and you're good to go"
How about just go see some damn doctors first, and who knows if they'll find something off with your thyroid, if they can't do anything but diagnose a severe depression, if your super-healthy-diet-2.0 is lacking in something and it's in your blind spot, etc.
This trend of lifestyle coaches telling obvious things is getting on my nerves quite frankly. I've drank your 3 liters of water per day, I've taken your vitamin D supplements in the winter, I've done the five kinds of fruit and veggies per day, I've done the low to no carb diets, I've done full years of thorough tracking on myfitnesspal, I've done the running frequently and lifting often. I've followed proper sleep habits that didn't budge even on weekends in order to retain a rhythm. I've gone on walks. And so on.
What I haven't done is get proper help with people who knew what the hell they were talking about, because everybody else was trying to be a damn doctor and telling me that the lemon in their hot water in the morning is probably the difference between my messed up self and their stable life. Proper treatments made the difference between life and death. Thanks everybody else..
Doctors are too expensive and there are too many gaps in social safety nets that allow some people to access medical care who otherwise couldn't. Sometimes people who can access medical care have had bad experiences with doctors. I think most people who go to woo, life coach hell, and different medical traditions were driven there by terrible doctors or desperation.
And I was too. But I wasn't taken out of that hell by the lifestyle coaches, I was taken out of that hell when "good" (knowledgeable and empathetic and available) doctors, who do exist, brought their actual knowledge and experience to my problem. After about 20 excruciating years.
The point is, you don't know if you have a small cut or a fracture. While the bandaid can help the lesser problem, you're going to have a very bad time if you let people advise you to just put bandaids on your fracture.
I'm not saying people shouldn't apply at all general tips, but people need to realize that it should mandatorily come with "and go seek professional help if your suffering is increasing or if it is hard to bear, no matter how long it takes". It should be encouraged, because people who are suffering from various kinds of issues like depression or bpd are likely already not wanting to go due to both psychological factors (anhedonia, anxiety disorders about what they'll find or how their finances affect them, self-abandonment) AND the state of their lives.
High-functioning depression? well there can be a degree of delusion to operate well enough ("It's not that bad" until you flip out). Or not functioning at all? then your income is likely lower than if you were feeling well, thus the financial stress and lack of access to convenient solutions for medical support. And then you just read people saying how they went from couch to being a CEO because they wake up at 5 every day and drink lots of water.. well cool for you, but if you were lucky that it wasn't a fracture that doesn't change the lack of diagnosis of MY thing!
Me too, but when I forget to drink water, I feel awful and my mental/physical wellbeing tend to spiral. An easy thing to forget when I'm depressed and focusing on anything but my own existence.
Compared to "depressed? Just make nutrition an even taller barrier with an extra heap of guilt if you soft-fail!", it's at least benign, and beneficial for me
