So I'm finally out of a couple-month-long fog of depression. I've been looking around my life and realizing what a beautiful one I have! It's been great.
A few short notes on depression.
- I realized I was depressed as this was going on, and I didn't really care. It is usually true that Fully Sane Tamra can realize that Depressed Tamra needs help, but Depressed Tamra doesn't care.
- At one point I called an old friend and talked about how, even though I'd been planning on making a trip to her house, it wasn't going to happen any time soon. I told her how I didn't really want to go anywhere or do anything because I was just feeling so stressed about life. She said something that caught my attention: "And that's unusual for you, because you love to travel!" ... This is a hallmark of depression: Loss of interest in things you normally like to do. ... Did this immediately snap me out of my depression? No. But I recognized it.
- While I was stressed and there were life circumstances that I could blame my depression on, I take full responsibility for how I felt. Reacting poorly is one thing, but there was a choice I made along the way to check out. It was a survival tactic, I think: I can't handle this, so I'm just checking out emotionally. But I made a choice to not care about anything I valued in my life. This extended to EVERYTHING: family, marriage, home, work, dreams, hobbies, religion, God, and myself. It's almost like I was daring myself to see how close I could get to the edge without falling off the cliff. My report: That's a scary place to be.
Things have calmed down, the basement is done, things feel more stable, and it felt safe to come back. I still didn't immediately move back to Sanity, though, because ... because I didn't want to, I suppose. What finally snapped me back to goodness was looking around and noticing all the decay. It's like walking through a fixer-upper house and realizing that you either need to abandon it or start getting to work! I decided that I should get back to work. My life is great. I don't want to abandon it.
So, Happy New World to me! It's nice to be involved again.
