Depression Getaway

We have a growth chart like this on a wall in our home. The grandchildren love to look at it and get measured and see how far they have come. A really fun day was when I was measuring the 6, 5 and 4 year old grandchildren, and my daughter who just had a new baby came running up the stairs to hold the limp little one to the wall while we added her to the chart. It was a happy moment for all of us since my daughter had given up hoping to ever have more children and now here she was!

Measuring progress can be an encouraging exercise for those of us who are challenged with depression too. I am sharing my personal progress with you this week. Read the rest of this entry »

We have been chatting for the last two weeks about good memories and recalling them in lots of detail so you can use some of that detail to comfort you, and to create some more good times for yourself, despite your depression.

I confessed to you that I am not really good at recalling in detail. I have confessed that I tend to over generalize and I shared some theories about why that is not such a good thing.

One of the things I don’t do very much in this blog is share my personal journey, especially the bad stuff. I prefer not to go into all of that negative stuff in great detail. I like to consider this an uplifting blog and I don’t find reviewing my actual depression uplifting. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to be an avid gardener. Oh the joy of going out to my big vegetable garden and observing my progress! I tried all sorts of new seeds every year. It was a happy hobby for me. I like to think of some of the strategies that I employ for depression as seeds in a garden. Some seeds take root and do well. Some don’t.

This week I am bringing readers up-to-date on my own progress with depression. In Part One I shared some of the details of the first ten years, things that worked, things that didn’t. In Part Two I shared about my diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder and how that affects me. Read the rest of this entry »