Responsibility

You wake up severely depressed. You need to regain stability, recover. Again. Daily. You need to do (at least) something.

We can't (really) be held responsible for our depression, but we are responsible for not doing enough to recover from it.

How long does it take you to recover (each day)? What is that something you do? What doesn't help?

1 Depends on the day.
2 My hobbies and maintenance of things. Reading and writing here.
3 Letting mind and things into enthropy. Normal things people do also dont help me.

The last time I delt with the darkness I didn't do much about it, I let it drag me down into the maw of enteral darkness for over a year. I only sought help when it slid into a mixed episode which agitated me into movement.

I do understand the waking up with it, it's why I find it appealing to avoid sleep. But since my new cocktail and routine bedtime of midnight I've not woken up depressed.

What did I used to do in days gone by? Not schedule things for am, by 2pm I would come out of it no matter what I did or didn't do. No amount of caffeine helped( made me a jittery depressive)

I guess I didn't do enough it's meds that help me now.

What doesn't help is perpetuating the darkness by feeling responsible for it. You have to realize it is just a part of the illness.

Try to find a light point in your life and hold on tight.

Eventually you will emerge from the darkness.

find that one thing that propells you .. that reaches you .. that sparks you ... you know mine ... and I have needed it even last night ... what is it for you ... only you can find it ... I pray you do .... Tigger .

I don't know if we can do anything to chase the darkness away. I think that we can only tame it, learn to function at a basic level, but never control it.
Maybe acceptance is a part of taming it?

Sometimes recovery is just getting out of bed for another day.

I haven't had deep depression for a year. But yeah, moving through the depression is tough without support. Thankfully I have good professional help, along with my family.

In the past I didn't understand what was happening to me when depressed.....I had no idea what it was really ....why it was or how to help. Over the past few years I've educated myself on my illness and that has offered some clarity. I still don't fully understand it but I do know certain things about my pattern that makes things much worse. I stop eating and drinking.....I don't even need to use the restroom much since I don't eat or drink. I don't bath or clean myself....don't change clothing for sometimes weeks. Gross, I know but that's depression for me. I can't expect not eating, drinking or bathing to make me better.....it brings on other health problems. The best I can do when severely depressed is try my best to make sure I eat, drink, do some basic hygiene, rest, stay in close contact with my doctors, take my meds and ask for help when I recognize I need it.

I wake up in a good and hopeful mood each morning and my depression gets worse as the day goes on as I realize I can't perform anywhere near what I did before I became ill.

I only do what absolutely must be done because no one will save me from it. I do not recover. Putting aside how I feel about the term (can't stand it), it implies that somehow I've "gotten better" to be able to do x,y,z. NOT SO.

What (would) help: a little help, like a little something to eat maybe. Or that there are some clean dishes. Or clothes. Hell, anything. Everything counts since everything is monumental. But that is about as common as a unicorn pissing koolaid at the end of a double rainbow.

What doesn't help: not "allowing" the person needing help to get it.

I wrote more, but erased because it was very angry. It's hard to express some of the frustrations I have.

Guess the p.s. would be the title of the thread... Responsibility. Some of us have way more than our fair share of the weight if it. Which doesn't help me one iota to "recover" from anything.

This reminds me of this quote from some anonymous French girl,
"Passion is the sister of joy"
I read once that in Britain doctors will recommend self-help books before turning to antidepressants. A good one I read before is
The Mindful Way Through Depression.
I also just finished reading this book that I highly recommend entitled
Prisoners of our Thoughts.

It gets worse if you don't do anything to prevent it from getting worse which is just anything. It is possible. You have to do it from the start otherwise it becomes too difficult.

Telling yourself there's no way you'll ever recover doesn't help. It's fatalistic and irresponsible.

If you fail, you can't say it's impossible. Assume you just can't do it yet.

Just don't feel bad about failing or it'll make things worse, obviously. Treat it as an experiment. Objectively.