What is the best book to help one work through depression and anxiety?
anything by lovecraft
Fromm's The Art Of Loving
Becker's The Denial Of Death
Ulysses
Crime and Punishment
Kierkegaard
Notes from the underground
The CBT Workbook - Dr Fitzgerald
>>8474876
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius genuinely got me out of depression.
>>8474876
The Alchemist
>>8474876
Seneca - Letters
>>8474907
>solve your real world neuroses by replacing them with existential terror
No
>>8475023
You're probably memeing, but unironically this. Proper CBT is often pretty effective if you work with a doctor, and even just doing the workbook will give you some interesting thoughts to chew on.
Aristotle's Nico Ethics
It's truly a perfect ethical system, if you want to become a better man and live a happy life than it's a straight out how-to guide.
>>8474876
A Clockwork Orange (Burgess), The Road (McCarthy), and Ubik (Dick) both helped as well. Reading something very, very depressing is usually a good way for me to laugh at the world.
>>8475389
I read some study about how people felt the happiest after depressing movies, and the saddest after comedy.
I assume it's because of how we see things in terms of our lives. A sort of relative comparison.
Personally, I felt the happiest after Le Feu Follet, and saddest after Naked Mile American Pie. (Sexual frustration is a factor of course since I'm a virgin loser who is wasting his attractiveness and young years)
Meditation by Marcus, Steppenwolf, and generally Dostoevsky are good suggestions to OP
>>8474876
There isn't one. Seek counselling.
>>8474876
The Myth of Sisyphus for suicide
i have heard good things about "healing the shame that binds you" but maybe you werent looking for a self-help book
>>8475763
just read this last week, can confirm
The Power of Habit
thank me later
>>8475774
this looks useful
>>8474876
Wherever you end up on here, read 'em.
>>8476425
this is so naive. its creator mustn't be very knowledgeable.
>>8474920
>crime and punishment
>reading it while depressed
good idea if you're trying to kill yourself. The book made me anxious and guilty while reading
>>8476585
The Catcher in the Rye.
The Evangelion of literature.
The Book Thief
A story of the ages telling the uplifting tale of a small child and her quest to gain knowledge and entertainment from the captivating pages of the books she steals.
>>8476604
where is the upvote button
>>8474876
None
Do some exercise, eat vegetables and fruit, take a lot of water and get some fresh air
>>8476739
I already do all that, and I also meditate and play guitar after work.
>>8476746
You need to get out of your room, Op. Find some people to talk with. It's hard but that's the only way.
>>8476788
I try but my inability to connect just makes me more depressed. Sorry if I'm sounding whiny.
>>8474876
"The bell jar" by Sylvia Plath.
You will get a lot of feels from it. It will make you feel less alone.
bump for more nice ones, I've already gotten Letters from a Stoic, the Habit book, and a couple more.
>>8477852
Absolutely Tao Te Ching (sometimes Daodejing), and if it speaks to you, then The Book of Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) is great as well. If you're getting a physical copy, the Penguin version has a good introductory foreword by the translator IMO.
You could also look into Epicurus. Seneca often quotes him as well, though he is not an Epicurean.
>>8475774
I couldn't read through this book because the whole book was just a bunch of needlessly long stories illustrating very simple ideas. Like he spends multiple chapters on one fucking model picture with 3 arrows. Just give me the science behind it and tell me how to apply it in my every day life.
>>8474876
memes aside, Infinite Jest and Trainspotting were big helps when my depression was at it's worst.
>>8479221
how so?
>>8474876
>>8479580
Unironically Infinite Jest
It'l teach you all about Commitment™, Hanging In There™ and Giving In™
>>8474876
Oscar wildes "The picture of Dorian Gray"
>>8475195
The alchemist is so good. It really touches on some interesting philosophies, and theological ideas as well. It's even inspiring at times.
Siddhartha
Anna Karenina
Oblomov
>>8476425
That's not what books are for.
The Holy Bible
>>8480319
Retard
>>8480322
I know we're all supposed to be edgy atheists and shit, but quite honestly, a running shitton of people have found all kinds of solace in religion.
Just don't pick one that'll have you blowing yourself up.
>>8480336
I was being sincere when I said to read the bible
>>8480346
Ah, well, it is 4chan, so odds were against it being sincere. My apologies.
>>8480351
I'm just kidding.
>>8480315
Edgy.jpg
>>8474876
The odessey
It's a classic that almost everyone knows and people think greek culture is overated but it's really amazing.
If you can find a good one with simpler grammer then I'd think anyone can enjoy it.
>>8481134
she was a 10/10. those timecop nudes
Maybe you need some Russell Edson. Intuitive Journey, if you can find it. Or The Tunnel, if you can't.
The metamorphosis if you wanna get more depressed.
Unironically read this thread...
Beyond eating healthy and exercise, nothing useful. I'd add:
Book of Job if you want to level
A Walk to Remember (yep) if you want to cry and then feel better
House of Leaves if you want to feel worse
Everything else listed here will make you feel worse.
>>8475774
I've had that book on my shelf staring at me for the better part of 2 years. Worth a read?
>>8479206
Thank you, everyone keeps telling me what a wonderful book it is but all I see is a elongated Internet article
>>8480103
Trains are you best friend
>>8474876
read a kid's book.
not one of those shitty ones, but one with the spectacular illustrations and poetry.
just sit down with a few of those and read them. you'll feel a little better
>>8475168
this. it helped me keep my depression under control.
>>8475023
cbt is for stoic cucks
>>8474876
You'll want to push so far through depression that you come out the other side into a kind of sea of disillusion.
I recommend Stirner, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Reading the Anglo-Saxon poems can help. Above all else, avoid Kierkegaard.
Books that have helped me:
>Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and other Stoic works
>Notes from Underground
>Steppenwolf
>Siddhartha
Good, but I prefer Steppenwolf
>The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
>Feeling Good by David D. Burns
>Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane
Only a quarter of the way through it, but it's gone over some good ways to ease anxieties
>The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Good for anxiety if you can look past all the new age hippie nonsense
>Models by Mark Manson
This one is a bit more embarrassing for me to mention, but I'd be lying if I said it hasn't helped me become a little more confident and at ease with who I am.
None of these mean shit, though, if you don't put some real thought and effort into them.
>>8476836
Anon, I feel you and I inderstand where you're coming from. But its not actually difficult to make friends and then enjoy being with them. Its all in your head. Just force yourself to hang out with people, even if you don't want to, and before you know it you'll be having a good time. I also find it difficult to socialize with new people, but if I just get up and go to a party or something, I usually manage to have fun. Invite some acquantices out for a beer or something. Making friends is really hard to start doing, but not actually hard to do.
>>8474920
I finished ulysses, am reading crime and punishment, and learning about kierkegaard on the side. Can confirm that this is good recovery post-camus, as I'm pretty situated into life now.
>>8474876
Depends.
Is it depression-depression? As in, actual bipolarity? No book can help you with that, take your fucking meds.
Is it more like ennui? This guy is right in that case >>8482554 , except I'd skip Stirner and Nietzsche and just jump on 'Hauer. The former two, while certainly somewhat pragmatic, still give you some motivation that will not really help - yeah, we should strive for the übermensch, but we'll never get there, so if you're already down, knowing you'll never be Kal El will just keep you down. 'Hauer, on the other hand, is a fatalist. The pessimist par excellence. and if you get to terms with said fatalism, with such levels of pessimism, you'll reach pic related.
After 'Hauer, I'd recommend some buddhism. Bhikkhu Bodhi's work is pretty good.
>>8475372
what is steppenwolf's message?
>>8485033
Kill those who cuck you
>>8484941
Wait, what's up with Camus? I thought Camus' absurdism was basically an elaborate wording of the general line of thought about the meaning of life these days. It wasn't depressing at all imo.
Accept that there's no inherent meaning to life, rebel against it, find the meaning of your life (which is obv. not the inherent meaning of life, claiming otherwise would be refusing to face the absurd). Did I misinterpret it?