Hi solitude,

I echo much of what has been said here. I am in a downturn myself at the moment and I am just setting my stall out to deal with it.

IMHO if we can get some strategies together to focus on it can help. I'm not saying that we can make ourselves feel better (I'm definitely not one of the 'pull your socks up' brigade) just that I have found I can still achieve something when I'm feeling bad. My daughter calls it coping 'packhorse style'.

My strategies are - no commitments, sleep, exercise, little or no alcohol, a practical project of some kind. It's a bit of a hairshirt approach, but if I'm feeling bad anyway I may as well do something practical, just going through the motions.

That's what I do anyway, but it's different for all of us, and the intensity is different.

Hope you'll stick around, PC is a good place to be when we are in a crisis; that's how I came here.

Good thoughts, M