I need some encouragement.

Yes, physical health is impotant. I have mine shecked regularly because of some chronic physical diseases.

That' s interesting. I was so anemic in July, I got transfused with 5 units of packed red blood cells inside of 2 weeks. I don't remember being anxious, but I probably didn't have the energy even for that. Now I've got a bunch of specialists following me.

Maybe you learned, as I did, that you have to manage your own care. I mean you've got to look at those lab results yourself . . . and every other test. Then make sure they're following up. I had asked for I/V iron in April. They said I didn't meet the criteria. So I ended up needing blood. I have a bleeding ulcer. Now I see a hematologist, who orders I/V iron very readily. You gotta push for what you need.

Back when severe anemia made me not want to clean my house, I thought it was depression. But I didn't feel despondent. I just didn't want to do anything. As you'll appreciate, a hemaglobin of 5.1 will make you very immobile.

@Rosi700 - I never doubted your good will. You are a most courteous person. I'm very happy you've found something that's helpful to you.

I'm very aware of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I attended classes on those modalities. Some people really have very foolish "automatic thoughts," which they need to constantly rebut.

When I took the class in it, my peers in the partial program would describe their reflexive thought, like: "I'm just stupid." or "Nothing ever works out for me." "I bet nobody will like me." It's nice, if you've got low hanging fruit like that, just begging to be challenged. That's really not the nature of my problem.

A research study was done to test the hypothesis that depressive people tend to have an unrealistically dismal view of life and the world around them. The test actually revealed that a lot of depressed people are more realistic than a lot of non-depressed people. Being unrealistically optimistic is actually good for one's mental health . . . to an extent.

Check your "ferritin" level. If it's below 50 (and your hemaglobin is ok ), you have non-anemic iron deficiency. That can make you depressed. Most doctors won't even care about low ferritin. That's why I'm now going to a hematologist.

Yeah being a pollyanna like me means i never actually change because i always think things will work out fine.

Yeah, that's what at least one study showed. Some say that "faith" gets them through life. I guess a sunny outlook is protective.

My car is at the shop now. It is looking like the problem is much less of a big deal than I had feared.

Sometimes life cuts you a break.

Thank you!



I don't think in those terms. I don't have "low hanging" fruits ... To me it is intellecually satisfying to go from the automatic thought and see if I can find the core belief (positive or negative) beneath it. What I like most is to think about if a thought is realistic or not. Is it realistic that my brother shall call me and wish me "Happy New Year"? He has not done that for years, so the answer is no. Well, then I don't have to feel depressed either. It is not my fault ... Either I overlook the situation and think about something else, or I call him myself. It is my choice. That is what complex use of CBT is about: To be more and more able to chose the best reaction to outer or inner stimuli.


For the time beieng I am having a set-back. What is fun about this is to think about what is the most realistic ways to drag myself up again? What do I know about myself that is good to use in this situation? CBT is more complex then thinking: "I am not good enough" or similar. The way of thinking that the CBT forms lay up to, becomes innate the more one repeats them. So changing thinking really does change feelings ...

You have probably other ways to tacle you depression and other ... Read that you probably have anemia. Good luck with your general health, Rose!

I know that! My GP have already schecked that. I am on iron pills.

I have a similar relationship with my brother. He hasn't spoken to me in ten years. I don't know where he is . . . or even if he's still alive. It's unlikely I will ever hear from him. He got angry with me for some stupid reason. I think of him every day and I mourn the loss of him from my life. I hope he's okay. That would probably only be true, if he were in a prison somewhere. That's where he is safest.

I don't get depressed over him anymore. I've had loads of time to adjust to the reality of what I can expect - that I won't hear from him. Once in a while, I shed some tears, thinking of him and the awful existance he experiences: alcoholic, drugged, in and out of jail, homeless, wandering, horribly alone and alienated, physically wasted. I cry once in a while because I love him. It's a sad feeling I get, but not depressing. I know what to expect, and I've adjusted to that reality.

With the sister I mentioned above, I don't know what to expect. She is erratic. At times, she's my best friend. I enjoy that while it lasts. Then, when she's drinking, everything can change. She can blow up at me and then distance herself. Maybe she doesn't call me for a year. Then, out of the blue, she calls and all is fine. A person she loves one day - she may hate the next . . . and vice versa. Sometimes I lose track of whether I'm in her white book, or her black book. It's crazy making. I like her too much to just stop having a relationship with her. She becomes genuinely confused and gets intensely angry when that's not called for. She has physically attacked people and gotten arrested for it. I'm exhausted trying to "manage" my relationship with her. Things between us had been very good for quite a spell. But, when I was sick this summer, things got crazy. A wine-fueled phone call started nice, but went off the rails. I did learn that trying to reason with an inebriated person is a fool's errand. Over recent months, it became apparent that I was on her black list. I've been very sad about that. It fed in to me getting depressed. Today I'm on her white list. She always self-justifies. She gets confused and she confuses me. DBT and CBT can't sort this out for me. It's a nauseating ride.

I am sorry to hear about your brother! My brother is okay. He is a busy man and forgets to call me. If I want contact with this busy man, I have to stand for it myself.

Your relationship with your sister seems very difficult. I understand that it can make you feel down from time to time.

CBT cannot help you to guess your sisters black or withe periods, but it can help you with how to relate to your own feelings when she turns her moods.

That is what CBT is about, to think rationally about the situations as they occur, to find new goals, when a goal is taken away by life's circumstances and so on. The main goal with CBT is to become one's own therapist, to build new paths in life. Sometimes that is difficult, other times it is fun.

I mentioned CBT to you, because it seems to me that your total life situation is difficult, alone after several years with a sick BF who died (and more), not easy access to doctors. CBT offers tools to build yourself out of this situation, to help you to find the necessary steps out of it... (I meant if you can find a free online program, a good book, an app or something).

Nobody says it is easy, but it is not impossible. Take your time to think about what is the best way for you to make your life meaningful again, after all you have been through... You decide if you want to use CBT or other methods... Before you decide, however, may be you ought to think about if the leader of the CBT course you once took, was really good at the methods, if he gave you the right or wrong view of the Methods.

If you go up to the link I gave when I first mentioned CBT as a possible way for you, and click at the "Download the Think CBT Workbook - A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Primer and CBT Self-help Guide", you will get an idea about how complex CBT can be. When you know more about that, you will know if these methods can be of help to you, or if you need to use other methods. (I am not pushing CBT on you. I only hope that you shall understand better how CBT can help people and that the methods are not an easy way, especially if you have to do them without a therapist. You may have other methods that you know help you. If so, that is fine ).

My own life has not been easy or isn't easy (I don't want to talk about it) I went to therapy (not CBT at that time) and mastered my life, job and all I wanted to master. Then out of the blue something happened and my whole life crashed. Pictorially one can look at the pictures from a bombed block in Ukraine. That's how my life looked like all of a sudden. All in pieces. Of course I could have cried out that these bricks are too heavy for me, and I did, but after a while I started to gather the bricks and puzzle them together again. No one has a guarantee that life will be easy. I take credit for not giving up and for being eager to find solutions...

I wish you well.

@Rosi700 - thanks for your reply. Applying my reasoning powers brings me to the following insight: We all need the warmth of satisfying human connection in our life. I have been depending on getting much of that warmth from a relationship that is basically me beating a dead horse. I have been hoping to satisfy my need for human contact that is supportive and caring by focusing heavily on a relationship where my efforts are proving futile. I've already invested much in trying to have a relationship with my sister. (Time, attention, money, general effort . . . trying to be good to her, her daughters and her grandchildren. A loving cousin of mine told me I was foolish to have gifted my sister with a large sum of money, saying: "She'ld never do that for you.", which I believed was probably true, but irrelevant because I am who I am, regardless of who my sister is.) Reason is telling me that you don't keep trying to draw from a well where your bucket keeps coming up empty. Reason is telling me that it would be wise to shift my focus onto building alternative relationships. I live in the heart of a good size city where lots of things go on that I could participate in. Reason tells me that I could invest my time and effort in that direction. While it's not automatic, it's reasonable to hope that I could build connections to others who might come to regard me in a positive way . . . and that might imbue my life with more of the human warmth that presently is lacking. Among other things, that can take a good deal of patience. But the sooner one starts . . . .

Rather than keep shedding bitter tears over what is understandably very disappointing, my attention could be turned toward investigating the huge array of options life offers to do different things. The mind can't really think about two things at the same time. Painful ruminations can be gradually crowded out by having one's attention absorbed elsewhere. Making that shift can be initially very hard, which is why people often stay rolling along in a rut that leads nowhere . . . as I have been doing.

Before strangers will seem the least bit interesting to me, I'll have to start to know them, which means showing up somewhere consistently for a while. It won't happen, while I stay home alone in my apartment, trying to mentally resurrect the ghosts of past relationships, which is what I now do with a lot of my time.

I know how to reason my way through to solutions of problems. I know that life offers options.

Thank you, @Rosi700, for taking the time to read my posts and contributing to my thread. That is very good of you.

The shop that has my car just spoke with me. There's a lot more wrong with my car than was discovered yesterday . . . and they suspect that further testing may uncover even more.

If the cost of making the car drivable climbs up to over $4000, I'll have to consider giving it up. Being without a car would change my life dramatically. It drastically would narrow down my options for how I can live my daily life.

I guess I'm lucky the car lasted as long as it did - over 20 years . . . . . especially that it lasted for 2 years after my boyfriend died, making that transition easier. Realistically, that luck was bound to run out. I've known that.

@Rose76 I am glad to hear that you have used your time to think about what you need and have come to the conclusion that you need to move forward.

I wish you well and hope you find the tools you need on your way (whatever approach they are connected to or if you make your tools yourself on the way)!

I have only one thing to add, in case there are any misunderstandings, since it is not only you and me reading here: CBT is not an approach to learn irrational people to think rationally. I don't want to be looked at that way, since I am a warm admirer of CBT. If there is something one really needs when using CBT, it is one's already capacity to think rationally.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...2TSkO5bRsWxu5q

The link above is to an article that presents - more articulately than I've been doing - a critique of CBT.

I started to write my own, but lost it when I went to find a link supportive of my view.

I am reminded of a quote from the works of Saint John Henry Newman, a theologian and philosopher. He said that it makes as much sense to try and argue someone into the faith as it does to try and torture them into it.

CBT attempts to correct cognitive distortions with the eventual aim of replacing maladaptive behavior. That is a laudable goal. I agree that CBT must recruit the client's already developed reasoning capabilities. But I feel CBT is an approach that puts way too much faith in the likelihood that one can reason one's way out of psychic distress.

I don't mean to over-simplify the modality. It requires that one reason one's way to more adaptive behavior. Then practicing that behavior reduces psychic distress. It sounds like a sensible strategy that is hard to argue with. That, however, won't stop me.

I'm afraid the theory behind CBT is just a little too pat for my taste.

You see, @Rosi700, I never came to the conclusion you thought I came to. I role-played for you the kind of thinking that I would engage in, were I a devote practitioner of CBT. Unfortunately, I failed to convince myself of a d@#n thing.

I'm old enough to remember when Transcendental Meditation was the Soup Du Jour for combatting dysphoria. More recently "Mindfulness" has been en vogue. CBT claims to be "evidence based," as a reliable road out of despondency. Zealots can assemble evidence to bolster any contention under the sun.

I personally have always used ‘a little bit of this’ ‘a little bit of that’ but never totally followed anything.

The one time I had therapy that was pretty much the model she followed with me, there was some CBT involved, but no work book, some suggested reading but nothing compulsory. It worked well with me, although I wasn’t in a very deep depression it must be said, but I did have some unhelpful thought patterns and needed to talk through a lot of stuff. In my case just having that right person there to listen and question was the key.

I think what works for some will work less well for others, it’s finding the best fit. That can change over time too.

@Discombobulated - thank you for your last post. I think just about any broadly accepted model of treatment will work for at least some clients. What I've read is that CBT does seem to work in the short term for quite a lot of people, but that the improvement does not seem to hold up long term. One analyst said that there are studies suggesting that CBT probably enjoys a placebo effect because clients undertake this therapy already persuaded that CBT is highly effective. That's due to how much good press is out there for CBT. CBT does genuinely teach some valid lessons about sound thinking. However, studies are showing that a shrinking percentage of people are responding to CBT because, supposedly, people are presently more psych-sophisticated and less in need of learning that that they have cognitive distortions. That principle has been circulating in the ether long enough that many have already integrated that concept. A new paradigm comes along and has it's heyday, whereby many find the latest insights it offers to be bracing and that seems empowering. Then time goes by and "the novelty wears off" so to speak. People find that an enhanced insight only takes you so far.

Mankind tends to believe that the more we know, the fewer problems we'll have. Yet humanity's problems don't seem to be shrinking, either on a micro or macro scale. Freud introduced profound new insights, for which he deserves to be regarded as a giant among thinkers. He believed tha8t the practical application of those insights - psychoanalysis - would relieve a great deal of suffering. Uncover a repressed youthful trauma, and you'll be less neurotic. For a while that idea was all the rage. Nowadays, not so much. Freud's legacy, I believe, is that we do better understand how a psyche becomes damaged. He was less successful in figuring out how to fix it. He made us smarter, but not necessarily better, which was his aim as a physician.

A description of CBT sounds compelling. Provision someone with certain tools, and they'll use them to reconstruct their dysfunctional approach to life . . . . . . or they won' t, and failure will be their own fault. It's all a matter of application. Ultimately, you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Do the work, and you'll improve.

The suffering client says I've been working on this all my life. Well, you just didn't have the right tools. I can't help but be skeptical.

I'm glad your mixed approach worked for you. I believe the following: Many who attribute their recovery to therapy would have recovered in any case. Their affliction ran its course.

That’s interesting about new therapies having a heyday through empowering and something I hadn’t thought of.

I’m not sure how much therapy helped me although it didn’t harm me, it took me so long to access it (waiting lists) I was past the worst part of things. In my case I did seem to come through a crisis alone/with self care, but I felt like therapy was useful in that I really needed someone to listen without prejudice if that makes sense (I love my family but some of them dump emotionally their stuff on me I guess that’s common). I was lucky I feel, she was a very light touch therapist. I wouldn’t say therapy is essential to recovery though.

Do you find writing your thoughts out here to be helpful? I find it interesting and enlightening to read them.

Thank you for your interest. Sharing ideas here brings some relief to my sense of aloneness. I think you are generous to call our discussion enlightening. You are a gracious listener, which is comforting. As you related about your own experience, simply being "listened to without prejudice" can be therapeutic.

Your sensitivity reminds me of a concept called "the therapeutic use of self." This is a clinical technique that I was taught in nursing school and that I used when I worked in the psych unit of a men's prison. On weekends, I was apt to be the only medical staff member available to have an initial encounter with a newly arrived, suicidal inmate. As often as not, this new patient would proclaim that he had no interest in discussing his situation with any member of the psych staff because nothing and nobody was going to be of any help to him, given what he saw as the hopelessness of his circumstances. I would explain that I was not qualified to offer any treatment but that I had some paperwork to fill out and would he mind if I sat in his cell to do that. The answer was never "no." I figured that, at the very least, the individual would be glad of some company, even if he seemed unreceptive to being interviewed. So I would sit on the floor like the prisoner and scribble away on my clipboard, just practicing my handwriting or making meaningless doodles, but looking like I was engaged in paperwork that had to be completed. I also would be providing a human presence to someone whom I guessed would prefer having that to being alone. I'ld ask non-intrusive questions like, "Do you remember what time you got here?" I was never told to "Get out."

It was my belief that this person didn't want to be put on the defensive, as to why he self-harmed or did whatever it was he did. So I'ld scribble and simply "be present" with him. Eventually I'ld explain that I was new to Corrections and was trying to learn what inmates experienced. I'ld ask if the facility he came from was a harsh environment, or about average, as these places go. That proved a great conversation starter. Generally the inmate was coming from a high security facility and was only too happy to decry what an oppressive hell-hole the place had seemed. This highly guarded, sullen person was suddenly a loquacious fountain of information. Now I had material on which to base a preliminary assessment. That's an example of the "therapeutic use of self." It is simply providing a distressed person with your presence and projecting no agenda, other than being receptive to what might get expressed. It doesn't mean sitting there inert and silently staring at the subject, awaiting their next move, which can appear threatening. That's why I scribbled.

I truly don't know what kind of help I could benefit from. It seems that, over many years, I've sampled pretty much everything that's out there, and what allowed me to move forward from a bad episode was always something I thought of on my own with no help from anyone.

Upon first meeting a therapist, I've usually been greeted with, "So, what can I do for you?" I generally want to reply that, "I'll be d@mned if I know. You tell me!" . . . though I don't actually say that.

I was intrigued by your saying that therapy hadn't harmed you, which seems a tacit recognition that harm can potentially be an outcome of therapy. That's very insightful and shows independence of thought. Coincidentally, I read today an article entitled "How CBT Harmed Me." The author stated that "CBT as a modality is based around gaslighting." Her claim is that CBT tends to reject the client's reported perceptions, which are denigrated as "cognitive distortions." She asserts that "CBT is built to be dismissive and invalidating." She allows that some clients probably are helped by CBT, which I expect is, indeed, true. But I found several articles saying that for depressive patients, only rather mild depression is likely to be alleviated by CBT.

I'm not mainly interested in excoriating anyone else's view that a given modality has proven beneficial to them. I gain nothing from doing that. But I won't silently accept being told that, if I failed to profit from a form of psychotherapy, then it's because I didn't do it right, or it was because I patronized incompetent therapists. I've been told both those things.

I think it depends on what a person is needful of. I suspect you found your "light touch therapist" empathetic and validating. You may have figured out how to get where you were going, but were glad of a companion along part of the way. That support wasn't indispensible, but it was nice.
Some clients are very consoled to find a source of affirmation. Some need to learn some disciplined habits off thought to escape the turmoil of their confusion. Some folks think best in the context of a dialogue with someone who helps keep them organized. I haven't found that I needed much help thinking through anything. My deficits lie elsewhere.

I have found writing this useful to me today. After telling my sister, two days ago, about my demoralized state of mind, topped off and aggravated by the recent stress of my car's major mechanical failure, I was terribly hurt that she didn't call me yesterday. I had told her explicitly that I have been depressed and was in need of some moral support. My big problem is that I'm socially isolated, which she knows about because she knows me. Asking like that for help from a family member is rare on my part. It feels kind of humiliating. To feel ignored after such a specific request for help feels kind of devastating. Writing this has calmed me down.

The collapse of a relationship that was very important can be one of the worst things to happen to a person. I've been in an awful lot of pain over it. Ten years ago, this happened with my brother, but that was not such a surprise. Also my boyfriend was still alive then, so I was not alone. Now he's gone, and I did not expect this new loss of another relationship - one of the very few that I have. It has felt almost emotionally unsurvivable, but I don't want to be destroyed by this. I don't believe there are any cognitive gymnastics that can enable me to escape going through a period of grieving. In 2020, my companion of 36 years died of cancer. In the immediate aftermath of that loss, I sometimes felt that I didn't want to live. Going on without him just felt too painful. I recovered from that, which kind of surprised me. I didn't get any special therapy to help me. It was just through the passage of time that healing simply came about. It's a mystery as to how that happens, but it does. I feel grief-stricken now, and I wish I could escape from it. Maybe grief will go away again, as it did two years ago.

Two years ago I went into a psych facility for an inpatient stay because I wanted to die. Besides my own gun, I inherited two more handguns from my boyfriend. I thought I couldn't endure my grief. I was much better when they discharged me. The bunch of meds they were giving me didn't help. The attention from the professionals at the hospital didn't help. I found that I felt reasonably okay, as long as I kept talking with my peers on the unit. What had made being at home seem intolerable was the aloneness. That's the worst thing in the world for someone recently bereaved. I had flown with his body to NYC, but had to return promptly, back to the desert Southwest, to attend to his affairs . . . like emptying out his apartment. In this area where we lived, we were 2000 miles away from either of our families. So I was alone. After I'ld been hospitalized, my two sisters stayed closely in touch by phone. That got me through. My goal has been to get back there to the Northeast for a nice visit. But, in 2020, there was COVID. Then, in 2021, I kept getting seriously physically sick. I'm finally recovered from the bleeding ulcers and thought we would have a great reunion in 2023. Then one of my sisters, in July, got disgruntled with me and ghosted me. So I'm reeling from that. Though we spoke two days ago, something is wrong, and she won't tell me what. I have to let go of that, or I'll go crazy.

So I looked to talk with peer-consumers, as I did in the psych hospital. It pills my mind back from CrazyLand. Thank you for your company, anyone who's had the patience to follow me this far. May your evening or morning be peaceful.

I want to believe that this state of mind I'm in is "episodic" and will not last forever. I need to believe that because this is making me wish my life would end. That probably sounds excessive and ridiculous. I do realize my story is getting old to listen to.

It does seem to have boiled down to me feeling snubbed by my sister. There are other sources of hurt going on, but they're not new. This feeling of being rejected by someone important to me is what really tipped me over, and I feel like I fell off a cliff. I've been in free fall.

Taking my pain pill two hours ago made me feel somewhat better. I wasn't even having any physical pain, but I took it for a mental lift. I can't do that too often because the pills have to last a month. If I run out ahead of schedule, then I risk having some withdrawal.

If I could just wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen, I'ld feel better. Might as well at least go try. I wish I could just vanish and not exist anymore.

Hi Rose,

I'm here too! The last few weeks look like they were very difficult for you. I hope your spirit has lifted a bit. What did you do before that has helped you when your mood gets low? When my mood gets low or my anxiety gets too high my ability to think goes out the window. Now I keep a list of helpful things on the refrigerator so it is handy for me to look at. I also keep a list in the bathroom. I can so relate to the car thing. I no longer drive so I cannot do things when I feel like it. My husband is here but that does not always work out. I have a therapist who comes to the house which might sound okay, but I do not feel free to talk because house is small and husband is here. I decided for my mental health it is okay to see her out of the house so my husband drives me to the local McD's and picks me up when I call. The most important thing is to get out of the house as often as I can. As you well know...home can be difficult if that is all one sees.

Try to remember what you did before that helped you. Try setting small daily goals and stick with it...write them down and check it off as you go. Small successes can lift your mood. Can you go for a short walk and get a few minutes of fresh air?

Familie's can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. There are seldom any easy answers for these relationships. I am one of nine. I do not have a relationship at all with one of my sisters. She is a very unhappy and genera!my negative person and I am not willing to have her be a part of my life because I don't need that in my life. I waz just in her orbit at the family Christmas but stayed away from her and enjoyed the rest of the family as best I could. As an example...she refused to be in the family pics. Sat by herself!I I have thought for years she has a personality disorder or at least borderline traits. The rest of my family. I try to meet them where they are and usually all goes pretty wel!

Also Rose I just thought how is your sleep. Chronic poor sleep really sinks a mood to. You are not alone!

Thanks, Deejay14. I'm sleeping too much. I wake up at night a lot. Mornings is when I have no energy and feel the most down. Sometimes, if I feel better in the evening, I'm afraid to go to sleep because - once I do - I'll lose the gains I made over the preceeding hours . . . and then morning will come, where I'll be way down in the trough and have to climb out all over again.

During the fall, I was doing pretty good. Over the two plus years after my boyfriend died, I put my broken self back together pretty well. The first four months were horrible. Then I knew I could put myself back together. And I did. Both my sisters wanted to fly out to help me for a bit. I told them I'ld be alright and, if I wasn't, I fly back to where they were. I was so impressed that they both offered. I decided that I wasn't as alone, as I had feared I was. They were just a phone call away. And they kept checking in with me. I started to thrive. Then, after 2 years, one of them ghosted me. I didn't even catch on for two months. By Nov. I was suspicious. By mid Dec. I absolutely knew. By New Years Day, it had been confirmed because there had been no holiday good wishes. By my birthday, it felt like my face was being rubbed in it.

My other sister sent presents and texts and called and sent cards. But I feel like I lost half my family. This has me in real grief. I don't think there's anyway you can "reason" your way out of grief. That's why CBT or DBT doesn't interest me. My problem is not "cognitive distortion." Back when I cheerfully believed I had two sisters I could count on, that was a cognitive distortion. That was a delusion I was happy believing. One of my sisters has a long track record of being unreliable, which is putting it nicely. Abusive might be more accurate. I just always cut her a lot of slack and made excuses for her. Now my rose-colored glasses are off, and I see how mean she really is. I was a lot happier when I was deluded. CBT says people make themselves miserable with unrealistically gloomy thoughts, which need to be challenged. That's not my problem. I'm sad over what I know is real. That's grief. I can't reason it away. Two things are needed: Time. I'm deeply wounded, and that won't heal quickly. Also, I need alternative support to replace what I've lost . . . to replace whom I've lost. That's very hard to go looking for in a depressed state of mind.

The thing to do now is to try and practice better mental hygiene. The specific, practical sugestions offered in the post immefiately above, and in posts further up, represent how to go about doing that.

It's just so hard to put one foot in front of the other. I sit in front of the TV because that makes me feel less alone. I did manage to wash the dishes. That made me feel a little better for a while. I should make a list and a schedule for how to get through tomorrow.

Going out is good. I did go outside to fill some of my empty bird feeders, and it felt good to do that. In the morning, birds will be close outside my kitchen window.

I must try to shower tomorrow. I don't know why I'm finding that so hard to do. Getting dressed in day clothes wouldn't be a bad idea either. There. I made a list.

I got my car back today, which was nice. I shopped for groceries, which were getting low. Food can be a great source of comfort. It's reassuring to know that my kitchen is well stocked again. I'll make a nice supper. There's nice snacks out there and some easy to heat frozen TV dinners. When depressed, I don't enjoy cooking from scratch. When not depressed, cooking has become enjoyable for me. I'm a novice in the kitchen because my boyfriend did most of our cooking. Then he got too sick for that, and I had to learn. Once I had to cook, I found it was a learnable skill. (I'ld love to take a cooking course.)

Writing here has helped me a lot. It calms my mind. I did just re-read the entire thread. It's filled with so many good ideas. Sometimes, when depressed, I forget a lot of good ideas. I will keep going back over the posts above to get ideas. And to feel encouraged.

Morning is the hardest time for me. This morning it's particularly bad. Not hearing from one of my sisters is devastating me. She's done this before, and it never got to me like this. I don't think we're ever going to make up, like we have in the past. I don't matter to her anymore.

I once saw a thing on facebook that someone posted. It was the following quote: "One of the bitterest pills I've had to swallow is to find I mean so little to those who mean so much to me."

It feels so awful.