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When evening falls so hard…

I feel as if I’ve just awoken from a bad dream. Well, not really. Not unless a nightmare can last almost three weeks. Had you asked me a month ago, I would have said that I used to have some problems with depression, a few years ago. Alas, it’s a lot less ‘used to’ as of the last three weeks. I’m relieved to say that I managed to ride it out (with a lot of help), and it seems at last to have passed. I’m fine, really. Life has color again. I feel my characteristic enthusiasm flowing through my veins. I want to paint. I want to write. I’m excited about homeschooling again. I even find delight in my daily tasks. Granted, I have a fairly ridiculous backlog of daily tasks to nail down, but now that I’ve come back to myself I’ll knock them off, no problem.

Having waded through all this, though, has left me inspired to take some time and space on here to open a discussion on coping with depression. Honestly, these days, it’s nearly pandemic, and yet we all struggle with it alone. Inexplicable sadness pervades even the sweetest (even the most ‘idyllic‘) lives from time to time. Odds are more of your friends are on antidepressents than you’d guess. I, myself, due to poor personal experience with them, choose to cope without medical assistance. Absolutely no one should read into my choice any judgement on choosing to take the meds when they are what you need. We all use what tools are right for us. In this entry, I wanted to share some of the tools that I have found helpful.

I try not to be alone. Being alone makes me feel alone. When I am depressed, I seem to lose the ability to feel in my heart that there are others in my life who love and care for me. Being alone around the house exacerbates this to a painful degree, and so I try not to be. It can be hard, of course, as most of us are tucked away into our various routines. I invite my mother-in-law over to play with the kids. Or, I hire one of the young women to come help with babysitting and chores for the day. My husband happens to work somewhere that allows telecommuting, and so I even get to have him around when I need it.

If I can’t bring someone in, and I can feel that I’m getting bad, I chisel the cement off my feet and get myself out. Even just dragging myself to the play area at the mall helps a little. Sure, we can all feel our most alone in the middle of a crowd, but it’s better than feeling alone and actually being alone.

I’ve also had to change how I think about a few things. My emotions, for instance, I’ve had to learn to draw a line between my actual feelings and the occasional biochemical misfire. If I’m miserable, but I cast around inside and I really have no reason to be, I’ve learned to tell myself that it’s not me that feels this way, that it’s just some rogue gland somewhere that’s dumped out too much chemical X which has thrown the whole chain of subsequent chemical reactions out of whack. Sure, it can be hard to discern between the real feelings and the skewed ones (especially when they are reactions to interactions with other people), but when I can, it helps a lot; it helps me distance myself from the intensity of the sadness.

I’ve also had to change how I think about others’ willingness to help. When I get down, I feel so heavy and so low to myself that I can’t imagine anyone else wanting to take on any part of that awful weight. I have come to realize that people, in general, and Latter-day Saints in particular, seem to take a great deal of natural joy in alleviating others’ suffering. It is, in fact, ok to ask for help, even when all the help you need is to sit on you front porch for three hours hanging out with your visiting teachers. People like to be there for someone. It does, in fact feel good. So, go ahead and ask; you’ll probably be surprised at the positive response you receive.

Finally, when I’m depressed I tend not to like myself very much, and so I tend not to take care of myself very much. Now, I’m not talking about manicures and hair-do’s and the like. I’m never one for much of that stuff. I’m talking much lower on Maslow’s scale than that. It’s amazing what a steady diet of good sleep can do for a mind. Sure, I do sometimes have to fall back on some otc help with that one. Another simple one is drinking enough water. It can totally feel like one more obligation on an overtaxed system. (The whole 8 glasses of water a day always seems nigh unto impossible for me.) It helps so much, though. Also, when I’m grungy on the outside, it only makes me feel all the grungier on the inside. So, getting a shower at least every other day becomes pretty important. Even when I feel like “it’s so not worth it,” fact is that it is.

In a moment of clarity, when I realize that I’m down or heading down, I try to take the chance to start a positive feedback cycle. Heaven knows it’s all too easy to fall into negative ones, but the positive one works just as well and can help build some upward momentum. I mentioned before how when I’m down I tend not to like myself very much. So, I make a point of making a gift to myself. Be it a gift of a good night’s sleep or a glass of water, when I take the time to do something nice for myself, I feel a kind of gratitude toward myself, which makes it even easier to do more nice things for myself. That gratitude quickly becomes the seeds of self-esteem for me. On top of that, there’s the positive effect of the gift itself. With a good night’s sleep, I wake up just a little easier; I save myself just that much more grief and struggle out of the day. With plenty of water, my kidneys are free to clean up my blood a little more. So, it’s a total win; it leaves me feeling better in body and mind.

So, there you have it; that’s my box of tricks. How do you deal?

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 29th, 2006 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Whisperings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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