Cool Shit Journal

I do not do well with "gratitude journals." I do not particularly value gratitude as an emotion and when people discuss the importance of gratitude with me it ends up making me feel guilty. I'm not particularly grateful to be alive, I don't feel gratitude for the way that I've survived the things that I've survived; I feel bitter and prickly and grumpy.

However, the purpose of a "gratitude journal" isn't exclusively to consider what things you might be grateful for, it is to break the pattern of negative thinking that is characteristic of depression. The purpose of this kind of journal isn't to write a list of the people or things you want to thank, it is to get you to think about the things in your life that aren't pure dogshit.

But when you're deeply, deeply depressed it can be painful to think about gratitude, or to think about things that are good in your life. Maybe nothing feels good. Maybe you feel guilty about the fact that nothing feels good when you should be "grateful" for your circumstances.

So fuck it. Don't do that. Don't try to journal or think that way if it's not going to help you.

What it is

In spite of that, it is a good thing for depressed people to have a record of when things don't suck. Your depression brain is going to tell you that everything sucks all the time, and sometimes it's nice to have proof that actually some stuff doesn't suck.

So make a cool shit journal.

It's not a journal of things that are good or that are going well or that you are grateful for, it's a journal of cool shit.

• You saw a movie you liked. Cool shit journal.

• There was a nice sunset. Cool shit journal.

• A band you liked a decade ago is putting together a reunion tour. Cool shit journal.

• You had a good sandwich. Cool shit journal.

It doesn't even have to be a journal. It can be a notes app in your phone, it can be a pinboard, it can be a stack of post-its on your desk.

Why it Works

This is an extremely low-pressure positive thinking activity. You don't have to think good things about the world or yourself or other people. You don't have to have deep and meaningful feelings about stuff. You can just write it down when you see or experience cool shit.

This technique is really more about training yourself to pay attention to things that aren't miserable. The contents of the journal don't really matter (though they can be handy to flip through when you're having a depressive episode and everything feels like garbage), what matters is that you get into the habit of noticing cool shit. When you're really, really far down into depression you're in such a miserable place that you have to train yourself just to remember that there are some things that aren't awful because your depression brain only wants to remember the awful stuff.

So if you see something cool, write it down. I'm glad you got to see it. And I hope that someday you're glad you got to see it too.