Sometimes I awaken from a deep depressive(or hypomanic) slumber only to find my world in flames or completely burned to the ground.

Most recently, I entered into a very long depressive "slumber" that lasted virtually three years -- from summer 2014 until summer 2017. And now here I am looking around after having awakened to see my most important relationships completely asunder and those bridges not only burned but demolished to the point of being nonexistent; and basically finding myself having to nearly(i.e. figuratively) start from scratch, nil, zero to (re)build my life.

How many times have I done this -- started from "zero"? I know at least once(possibly twice) and it took an extreme amount of work to not only rebuild but exceed. Here I am in a similar position: starting over. I've lost the last years of my youth to this disease, of which I consider to be biomedical rather than biopsychosocial. I was 25-26 years old. Now I'm 33. I can think of only one to 1.5 years spread between 25/26 to 33 that were good; the vast majority of those were when I was 28.

But(!) I'm starting yet again at zero and it's so daunting because I can't help but to see my future filled with innumerable moments where I'm starting from zero after I've put in months and effing years of blood, sweat, and tears toward my endeavors -- only to know that I'll have to start from zero again.

Cheers to the perpetual start-over.