Today, for the first time in two weeks, I don’t feel oppressed by an undefinable, but still very powerful force. That force is Depression. I’ve had it – as far as I can tell – my whole life. Didn’t start dealing with it until I was 18. Didn’t make palpable steps toward battling it until the last two years.
So, why am I excited to write about it?
Because I can see my demonstrable progress and it’s awesome.
Duration: Two weeks sounds like a long time to be depressed and frankly it is a long time. But so far in 2017 this has been my longest stint of depression and I used to have 3-6 months at a time. If two weeks is my new definition of ‘long’ then I’m killing it!
Productivity: A huge part of how depression affects me involves my productivity. I remember going days without doing much of anything – sometimes that included showering. Depression fights me tooth and nail to stop doing anything other than Facebooking or Netflixing. These last two weeks I have gotten a decent amount of stuff done. And I know that because I track everything now.
Whether it’s health (eating & exercising), work (teaching, writing) or leisure (time with girlfriend, friends, movies) I have lists and charts that I keep daily. And I can look back at the last two weeks and see that my workouts and eating dipped a bit, but overall were still pretty good. I spent a lot of time with amazing friends, and I still managed to accomplish a number of work related tasks.
Coming Out of It: It’s always a weird eye opening experience to come out of a depressive episode. I don’t know if others experience it the same way or not, but for me it’s almost like I’ve been wearing a heavy blanket over my head. And today for whatever reason, the blanket is gone. I can stretch and look up and experience things more richly again.
The trouble is that in the past I would shed this metaphorical blanket and then realize that the last two weeks (or however long) was a depressive episode. And then I would remember that I’ve accomplished next to nothing in that time. I would look at everything on my to do list and understand that I am way behind on all of it. This would overwhelm me often shoot me back into depression.
If you ever feel depressed or anxious, you need to believe that it can get better. It takes a lot of work and the process will feel excruciatingly slow, but you can do it. And even though I will likely never be completely cured of depression I can make it happen less frequently and less intensely.
Thanks, y’all!
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