The Storm Has Passed….

Recently, I stumbled and fell a bit, and my readers were there to pick me up. (Thank you.) I have yet to respond to the influx of encouraging words in the comments to my previous post “..I Have Officially Hit Rock Bottom,” because I want to be in a good frame of mind when interacting with you.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll skip the details, but I majorly screwed up a short time ago. Nothing legal or irreparable, but I basically cost myself a LOT of time, money, anguish, and sanity. I was submerged into an extremely dark place where I realized my predicament was no one’s fault but my own, and I was unable to forgive myself and move on.

With my husband traveling frequently for work, I’m alone a lot. For those few weeks, I couldn’t get out of bed on most days, and when I did I would walk around like a zombie with a feeling of insistence that I couldn’t identify. I felt anxious like I should be doing something, but I didn’t know what to do. I stopped doing the laundry and cleaning the house, I hardly ate, and when I did cry it was heart wrenching.

My husband supported me and let it run its course, but after weeks of not having his wife, he rightfully grew frustrated with the condition of things. He brought a few things to my attention that had been bothering him, and the embarrassment I put on myself for letting him down was enough for me to deep clean the entire house for the rest of the evening. Though the intervention happened rather abruptly and forced me to hit rock bottom, it was also the first step in me coming out of the darkness.

But there was one day when it really happened. The Day it Happened may sound familiar as it is the post I wrote about discovering my favorite masturbation toy. I suppose you could say I have many “days something happened” because I tend to have a lot of epiphanies. Smoking marijuana opens my mind and allows me to make connections I may not have seen otherwise. I think a lot when I smoke, so suddenly I’ll have an “Aha!” moment when I correlate things in my life, and this was one of them.

I was driving around in my Mustang with the top down, I had a fantastic EDM playlist on, the sun was shining on my face, and the warm breeze ruffled my hair. For no real reason at all, I just felt giddy. I felt a little burst in my chest, and I’m pretty sure it’s the feeling kids get just before they start squealing. There was no event, there was no one with me, it was just me on the open road in gorgeous weather, and I was actually able to think positively. I’m pretty sure this is how “normal” people feel when they wake up every day.    

With every bad episode of depression I’ve had, the only way I’ve gotten out of it was to make the choice to help myself. As much as we’re told to “just get over it,” we’re unable to do so unless we put forth some effort on our own. Like almost all of our issues in life, things had to work out eventually, so I tried to find things that I’m thankful for about my new situation on that drive.

Because I have experience with depression and the extent to which it can reach, I knew the whole time I was severely depressed that it was only temporary. I think one of the flaws that people with depression have is they allow themselves to be convinced that there is no way out. We have all gotten through every single situation we’ve been exposed to, and we somehow found the way to do it. We have to find a lifesaver to cling to that will lift us out of the depression, and hold onto it with our teeth like a vicious dog. That day, the sun on my face was my lifesaver, and I clung to it until it pulled me out of the water I was drowning in.

I naturally have an extremely difficult time forgiving myself and letting go of regret, so I imagine it’s going to take me some time to completely move on. We all make mistakes, and even I have to remember that, but it’s up to us to take control of our mental health and not allow it to control us. Go for a drive, volunteer, do a good deed, take a walk in nature (nature is an extremely powerful healer!), just do something to distract yourself and fight your demons. We can do this.

Update: Shortly after posting this, I found an amazing representation of depression posted by Grace. You can see her full story here.

What do you do to break out of depression?