Depression showed up in many ways in my life. My management of these dark moods has become part of my lifetime discipline. Long-term sadness may be something deeper and more serious. Learn how to take charge of your depressive or manic cycles with mindfulness and a good support team.
Here are a few of my latest posts about managing my moods. Your results may vary. But, here’s the answer: keep going, depression comes in waves, you just have to keep moving forward, back into the positive things in your life. Sometimes it takes someone else to help you see the good in your life.
I have written mostly about my experience of depression after divorce. But I had depressive tendencies before I was married. And I still struggle with depressive episodes from time to time. Often triggered by a traumatic event, like a job loss or a relationship coming apart, being sad can become more of a personality trait if depression is not nipped in the bud.
Mindfulness is my answer to depression and my own depressive thoughts. It is critical for each of us to learn our depressive patterns, triggers, and solutions. What can I do when I’m starting to feel the dark slippery slope of depression?
Depression aside, the most powerful work we can do on ourselves is to get straight with our family of origin. It may take a lifetime, and you may not be able to fully rid yourself of the unhealthy influence, but you've got to keep trying.
Losing my consuming relationship was critical to finding this loneliness and then finding the way to reach out to people who cared about me. Even if I didn't really understand how they cared about me, I could not deny his check-in on Facebook.
I just choose to stay conscious. I hope that I am facing my issues head-on rather than trying to escape from them or block them out. I have issues. But I'd rather face them sober.
I do recover. I am conscious of when I'm avoiding. I still do it, but I'm doing it less. And I'm learning to take the uncomfortable feelings or worry by the horns and looking the damn bull in the eye and saying, "To hell with you, fear, I'm going in!"
I was showing myself that I was emerging from one of the longest depressions I've been in as an adult. For me, creativity and brain health go hand in hand. So I'm happy to be back, still working, but on the upswing.
So, if you're single, go ahead and put your best foot forward and get out there. Getting to a relationship may take months, so you might as well start exploring the field. And if you see the 10% as potentials then you begin to get hopeful that there "might" be someone out there for you.
My most recent bouts of depression were triggered by my divorce, but it's a lifelong journey for me. I can drink. I can stop drinking. But I'm not sure how good I am at getting sad and not turning on the sadness fire hose at the first sign of things going off.
As I was catastrophizing in the last few months, one of the things I was soooo sad about was losing her, losing this wonderful relationship. She gave no indication that she was leaving.