My immediate problem is that I'm staying in bed too much. When I'm not in bed, I'm in my recliner. After recovering, I started catching up on housework. I tackled a mountain of laundry and got it all done. Now, in this current episode of depression, I don't even wash a dish. My apartment is messy, which makes me feel worse. If I would just get up tomorrow and start tidying the place, I would soon feel much better. I tell myself that each night. Then morning comes, and I stay in bed. All I want to do is read and eat.

I don't want tomorrow to be like today. Maybe, if I get some encouragement on this thread, I can act different tomorrow: start with the dishes, get out of my nightgown into some daytime clothes . . . go outside and refill my bird feeders. I love seeing the birds just outside my bedroom and kitchen windows.

Once I get started, I usually surprise myself with how much I get done. It's making that first stretch to climb out of the rut that is so hard. My health has been restored. I don't feel sick. If I could just get okay mentally tomorrow morning. I know I would feel better.

I wish there was a 12 step program for chronic depressives . . . like how alcoholics have AA. I would go to a meeting every day. Non-depressives don't know how it is to be in this quicksand. Everyone has been in it on occasion. That's nothing like chronically recurring depression. People like to say, "You do this to yourself. I could get depressed about plenty of things, but I don't let myself." That's the stigma - that you choose to be down in the dumps. So you learn not to share how you feel. I haven't even brushed my teeth in two days.