It’s a disease after all. It can’t exactly be the enemy, because it is a part of me. Trying to understand how to frame my relationship with depression has been complicated. Not only is it a disease, but it is also a mental health issue. That makes it nowhere near as straight forward as cancer….
Category: What depression has cost me
People thought I was dead
That is a very sobering thought. Six weeks after getting out of the hospital, I finally contacted my mentor. He had been checking the obituaries. And while I had stayed in touch with another person for over two years, I feel off the grid last summer and stopped responding to her emails. I had the…
With depression in full bloom, I was a mess last year.
I guess in many ways I still am. I am learning how to live with depression after avoiding facing it for over 43+ years. I had a whole system in place to protect myself from the truth. I lived through at least four major episodes before winding up in the hospital a year ago. That…
Is sheltering in place the answer?
A global pandemic makes my depression seem like small potatoes. I have fought this for over 43 years, and the last bout finally landed me in the hospital. Yet, depression and I have not parted ways. We still share the same space. My cranium is its cranium, my frontal cortex is its frontal cortex. It’s…
And just like that, it is gone!
Auto-recovery is an urban legend. Well, at least for me today it is. Having finished a page and a half of my latest blog post, I pissed off my laptop somehow and Word closed. Historically, when I re-open Word, there is a list of auto-recovery documents on the left side of the screen. From there,…
I was nervous about switching therapists
It turns out, my insurance is not covering my former therapy visits. $874 is quite a chunk to swallow when you think that, at worst, you are responsible for a $15 co-pay. I know, it is my responsibility to follow up on my insurance. I sign the papers that say I will be the responsible…
7 reasons I’m tired of being tired
Five months of mostly cloudy. My mind is not clear and crisp on most days. And for the first hour or two after I finally get up, my mind is the foggiest. I am yawning, even though I have been in bed for over 8 hours. If that translated into 8 hours of sleep, my…
Not all advice is good advice
Still worrying about getting out of bed in the morning, I did what most people do these days. No, I did not seek out a professional in the field and make an appointment, “that’s so last year.” I picked up my phone and Googled the answer. I found many helpful articles, but I also found…
Can I consistently feel better?
I just want to be better than I am now. Not great, magnificent, or even “damn fine”, just better. This whole depression thing is tiring me out. Every day, I am reminded of what I have lost. The things that could have been popping up at the oddest of times, ruining the beginnings of being…
Depression isn’t always depressing.
Or is it depression can be depressing? How about, depression is depressing? I want to believe the first one. In fact, I have been struggling with this for the past few days. Why am I so negative? Why am I seeing the bad, not the good, the challenge, not the reward? This whole idea is…
