Where is my love?

by Suzanne
(Calgary)

A typical day in my depression: I wake up thinking, "Great - another day" *sarcasm...* Then I proceed to stumble through the day attempting to find joy in anything. I work hard to ignore the fact I don't enjoy my beautiful house, beautiful kids and awesome husband the way I used to. I catch myself constantly trying to wonder, "How can I fix this problem?" and that keeps me inside my struggle instead of outside, IN life, where I know joy must reside - if only I could stop wondering, worrying, being ungrateful, feeling anxious, etc etc etc. I know after a year of this nightmare that trying to figure out how I can fix the problem is not the answer. I know after a year that in spite of the fact I want to give up trying and just sink into the black hole that the answer is not IN the black hole. The answer to getting out of this is NOT in letting myself go, it's not in dwelling on the fact that I can't seem to get past a high of only a very neutral state of mind to a state of JOY. It is extremely difficult to accept that right now, the best I seem to be able to do is to keep myself from slipping into the black hole of extreme depressed feelings which can take a week or more to recover from. And when I do recover from the black hole after hard work pulling myself out of it, it is only to a feeling that is so far below where I want to be, that that in itself is depressing. But I CAN'T ALLOW MYSELF the luxury of thinking about that, because then hello black hole! I don't have a lot of answers to how to end this nightmare, but what I DO know is how NOT to end it - and that is to allow myself to fall down and down and down into the pit which is so hard to get out of. I have recently worked at paying attention to exactly what I do that makes me feel really shitty, and also to what makes me feel just a bit better - I feel just a bit better when I plan my day instead of floating through it without accomplishing anything. I feel better when I can answer my husband when he asks me at 3 pm what is for dinner, instead of getting defensive and snapping "I don't know, I haven't had a chance to think about that yet". I feel a bit better when I actually take time in the morning to look good which in turn gets those 2nd glances from guys as opposed to blending in with all the other frazzled moms. I feel a bit better when I can say to myself, "At least I accomplished what I set out to do today. At least I worked out to improve my physical health. At least I have been drinking a lot of water which is improving my skin." Even if I don't feel MUCH better emotionally, at least I can feel tiny bits better from time to time and I hope over time that these tiny bits will band together to form a glorious WHOLE - one of confidence, calmness, PEACE, love and joy. I just want to be calm and feel my love for my family and my appreciation for my life again. Not a whole lot to ask...is it?