Its shallow. Full stop.

Hello, I will also suggest taking a 6-8 weeks break for a well deserved rest. I'm sure Doctors might prescribe some medication and may ask for frequent check ups probably every month to see the progress. It's good that you have realised the issue and had been to your doctor yourself.

Hope you feel good soon!

...in your opinion, which so far is somewhat dubious throughout the thread starting with advising to the OP to "get married". You can meet good expats and bad expats and you can meet good swiss and bad swiss. If you avoid the party lifestyle and instead focus on meaningful activity groups like hiking, biking skiing and board gaming then you can meet a lot of nice people, both expats and swiss, who you can build friendships with.

Most expats don't tend to build strong bonds and rather prefer to hop from flower to flower like a butterfly. Its all temporary, next year you are in the valley, then in Berlin, Barca...

My three best friends here are swiss (2 german, one french). And by friends I mean what I described above about emotional intimacy. I have zero friends amongst expats. Fun fact, I met and chatted to many more expats than swiss in my years here. They all but few just lacked the depth.

P.S. I think you are just pissed at me for mocking the brits :P

OP is in Zurich and even if not, you can often schedule therapists early or late if travelling is needed.

I suggest they try to send an email first since energy is at a premium with depression. A short email asking if the therapist is taking delegated patients (paid by insurance) for the type of therapy sought for in English. I would make a form letter and send out about ten.

There are many expats who want to liv in Switzerland long-term, you are just generalizing without putting much thought into things

Maybe you lack some qualities that attract people to you and didn't make many friends as a result? Stop blaming and labelling everyone else. There are many people who have expat friends bit no Swiss friends as they are notoriously tough nuts to crack, whereas expats are much more culturally open.

I hardly know any Brits... why are you so focused on Brits? I just think your posts in this thread are so far pretty low in good judgement.

Depression is something that is greatly affected by planning, meaning if you don't have goals or plans made for the future and there is nothing to wait for or work towards for, then everything may seem pointless and grey.

I would advise taking a break from the everyday activities and spend some time (days / weeks) reflecting on the past, what were you goals back then and what events made a difference to you.

You can use those insights to make some plans for the future goals. In ideal scenario you would have smaller weekly/monthly goals, and few grand ideas during the year which to strive for. Might be trying out some new things or travelling to somewhere exotic (aka out of comfort zone)

All that being said, the 'common' ideas suggested can also make your life a little bit more colorful:

- Getting a pet. It's a big responsibility, but well worth it. You can make an animals life great and it will provide you with attention and affection.

- Exercising more. It's scientifically proven that spending time outdoors or in a gym will boost your well-being. It's cliche, but proven.

In more severe cases there have been breakthroughs about using Psilocybin to treat depression. It's proven to be way more effective than usual medications (that all come with major side-effects) but I don't know the legality and availability of LSD/K/shrooms in Switzerland..

I am sincerely trying to give good advice to OP here, you may disagree with me, and its up to OP to take it into considaration or not. Your cheap attempts to provoke me on the other hand look strange, especially taking into account your excellent reputation on this forum.

Let's not turn someone's post about their depression into an argument, please.

We all have different opinions. And that's just the way it is and always will be.

OP, please don't get a pet or get married in order to cure your depression. That's about as useful as having more kids to save a dead marriage. There's good advice here about finding therapy, seeing a doctor that will make sure you don't suffer from an underlying condition, and perhaps joining a social group or finding the energy for exercise. There's also some really good clinics in Switzerland for convalescence in case things get really bad. There's no easy fix, if it were, there wouldn't be so many people going to therapy.

Planning: It is catch-22 with regard to planning, of course having positive plans helps, just when you are depressed........
LSD/: The time to take recreational drugs is when you are feeling great. If you can get accepted to take part in any of the clinical trials being done on hallucinogens as a treatment for depression then that is a different matter. Any medication/drug regime is best done with professional guidance.
Alcohol: Lots of people self medicate with alcohol - with bad depression the results are generally shit
Cannabis: CBD Ok, Weed treat with caution

@Medea, not sure why you think this particular post should have been deleted.

I found it funny, it's the type of advice my grandmother would have given, to anyone who did actually asked for or...not. lol

If LifeStrain is a male it's even funnier imho, or maybe it just shows we're not that different after all.

I don't know, maybe it's about cultural differences here....but I would not censor every innocuous post, however appropriate or not.

I agree, getting married is not the solution and not even that simple after all but trying to date, to go out more is quite OK. Of course coupled with other advice OP did get here.

"As I get older". What is your age now?

I guess you have some stories to tell.......

Yes my mother always used to say " get married and make an honest man of yourself". Still trying to work that one out

All too often I think we get flippant comments like this in threads where people are clearly struggling for whatever reason. Even a mod questioned it.

I'm not talking censoring every post, though I don't call that one innocuous as it could have upset the OP, but sometimes posters here need to think before posting in some threads. Or stay out of them completely.

Not everyone is the same!! Some people act first and think later. Stop putting everybody in the same box

I'm not, just saying some people who do act first might need to look at changing that habit in certain threads.

Well, you would be forgiven if you had mocked the ENGLISH!!!

I agree in principle, but tbh I haven't sensed that OP was upset. He/she even gave a brief explanation re. relationships.

As I also doubt that the other poster's intention was to deliberately hurt OP. Kind of misguided desire to help imho...