Its just a mind thing

Depression: Its Just a Mind Thing

Anyone dealing with depression is always searching for a cure.  The right combination of meds.   There is no perfect combination of meds that will cure depression.  Medications can help with depression, but they are not a cure.  The cure is within our own minds.  Depression is a mind thing.  Chemicals within our brain, convince our conscious mind that we are depressed, and we believe it.  The good thing is that if our mind can be convinced that we are depressed, it can also believe that we are happy.  

I was told by a psych doctor one time that I needed to get out of bed and get back to life.  I ask her how  to do that and she told me to "fake it till I make it."  I didn't really understand that advice until years later.  If you want to be happy, be happy.  If your not happy at first, fake it.  When you fake it enough, your mind will begin to believe it.  Our minds change with repetition.  If you tell yourself you are happy everyday, even if you aren't, eventually you will start to be happy.  You have convinced your mind that it true.  If, you keep telling yourself you are depressed, you will always be depressed.  

I finally started to understand that happiness, just like depression, is a choice.  You have to decide what choice you want to make.   It sound simple, but it is not.  It is hard to fight against depression.  Part of that is because we become comfortable with our depression..  Life outside depression can be scary.  But it is life.  Depression is not  living.  The first thing to do is to take an inventory of what you have to be depressed about and what you have to be blessed about.   I had nothing to be depressed about.  This is when I decided I was not going to be depressed anymore.

I ask God to take away my depression, and I had faith that I was no longer depressed.  I don't know if God decided to cure me or to give me the strength to choose not to be depressed, but I am not depressed.  I am choosing to be happy.  I still have hard days where I can feel depression creeping  up, but I ignore it because I choose not to be depressed.  I am still dealing with getting out of my comfort zone and I have days that I hide at home, but I am not  depressed.  I also know that I will get stronger every day.  It is a mind game.  It is my not medication, it has not changed in over a year, it is God and me.  I am changing the way I think.  I am still taking my meds and I don't think anyone should stop taking medication, even when they are feeling better without talking to your doctor.   But If your not getting the results you want on meds, you need to do the rest of the work yourself.  Change your mind.  Choose to happy.  

Remember your going to have bad days, but choosing how to react to those days, is up to you.  We can't control the struggles but we can control how we react to them.  

I am not going to let depression win.  I am stronger then it.  With God, I am stronger then anything that comes my way. 

Going Down The Rabbit Hole

Going Down The Rabbit Hole

In  2008 my mom died.  It was December 30th  and my husband, daughter, my nephew, and I were coming back from snow skiing in New Mexico.  If I could pinpoint a time that I began my spiral down the rabbit hole, it was that day.  

I didn't cry, I took 4 Xanax and slept all the way home.  I  cried at the funeral.  I was sad.  But I didn't let go of my emotion easily.  To this day I have only been to her grave once.  I couldn't go to the grave and I couldn't feel what my heart was screaming to say.  How could I tell myself that the fear that I had when I was little, was still with me.  I was not going to tell myself that I was, at 39, a terrified orphan.  If I grieved her, I would have to except the fact that she left me alone.  She was gone.  So was I.

I let Depression and drugs carry me down the rabbit hole.  By 2010, I was gone completely.  There was not a glimmer of the person I used to be.  I was done.  

But God wasn't.  He came down that hole after me.  I didn't know Him anymore, but I heard his voice and I knew my life had changed forever.  He carried out of the hole.  It wasn't easy, or pretty, or fast, but together we climbed out. 

 I wasn't an orphan anymore.  

Life After Depression

Life After Depression

When I was in that deep dark hole of depression, all I prayed for was to get better.   I wanted to live a normal life again. After two years,  my prayer is working.  I am getting back to life.  The problem is, life has changed.  I've have changed.  I feel lost.  This life I so desperately craved for so long, is scary.  

While I was in my dark hole, life went on without me.  People left my life.  I left my career.  Even things that stayed the same, now feel foreign.  I have forgotten how to live life. 

I never want to go back into the dark hole again.  But I knew how to survive in that hole.  It is what I have known for two years.  Even though life was hell in the hole, I knew how to live it. 

I think that there is a part of me that doesn't want to let go of that hole.  In some crazy way, it has become a safety net that I am holding on to just in case this new life gets to hard.  

Sometimes I can hear it calling me.  The crazy, terrifying thing is, sometimes I want to listen.  

The Depression Roller Coaster

The Depression Roller Coaster

I have never liked riding roller coasters but with depression, I ride one often.  A good few days then a bad one.  I sometimes think I would rather not have the good days because it just makes the bad one that much harder.  When I was in my depression hole, I knew the next day would be bad just like the previous.  There wasn't any surprises.  Now that I am starting to have good days, When the bad day shows up, I feel a lot more let down.  I don't like waking up wondering what my day is going to be like.  I need to start following the steps again.  They will stop the ride.  I am ready to get off the roller coaster.