I did manage to climb out of the pit. What a relief! I was so afraid I was going to be stuck down there for a while. Once I started on the backload of dishes, my mojo started coming back. Just now I've been going through a bag of unopened mail. This lets me regain some semblance of self-respect.

I know I'll probably always have depressive episodes. I accept that. What I fear is getting stuck down in one for too long. I also fear having them occur too frequently. So I'm fairly okay now. I just need to maintain that for a spell. Then life becomes manageable.