The Depression Cloud... It Always Follows
Do you remember the commercials featuring a depressed drawn figure with a cloud and rain depicted overhead?
I sometimes feel like I'm trying to outrun or outwalk my depression and its cousin anxiety.
The lingering dark cloud of depression
Yes, there are days when I convince myself everything is starting to turn around and life is on the upswing. Maybe I have put the other stuff enough behind me and am moving on.
But then, like in the commercial, the dark cloud descends and I'm back in the depression fog of it all. Why does this happen? For me, it stems from everyday life incidents that may spark something and impact my mental health.
I start to think maybe I am not handling it as well as I thought or maybe I am not devoting enough time to trying to work on my emotional health.
When an incident triggers depression
Yesterday's happening involved a major car part falling from the bottom of my vehicle when I was on my way to 2 very important doctors' appointments.
As a leukemia patient with numerous comorbidity issues, I am often on route to various tests, medical appointments, bloodwork, scans, etc. As you imagine, it is difficult to obtain appointments in a timely manner and disappointing when that opportunity is lost because of circumstances beyond my control.
I feel like there are too many circumstances beyond my control.
Life has its obstacles
In this case, the result was sitting in an emergency lane for 90 minutes with hazard lights on waiting for the tow truck to arrive. Cars and other trucks continued to speed by during that time and it struck me that not one of them stopped, pulled over, asked if I needed help or even looked my way.
It is a big city, I get it, but it still left me feeling vulnerable, alone and even confused as to what I should do next. The tow truck came, I got a ride home and hundreds of dollars later, my car is back in the driveway, presumably ready to go. But yet, I hesitate to move on from the sadness with which it left me.
When a cloud of sadness sticks around
My emotions moved with me from every step in the process just like the cloud kept following the guy on TV wherever he went.
Meanwhile, I told myself I need a few days just working at my laptop, not going out, not speaking to anyone outside of the couple of sources I have to interview for work.
I do not know why I feel incapable of dealing with the outside world today. When things start inching past feelings of sadness to emotions with twinges of hopelessness, it is time to regroup.
How can I cope through rainy patches?
This depression thing has been going on for a long time and I have had to learn coping mechanisms to get through rough patches. While isolation is not the answer, sometimes it is my go-to move in response to incidents that hurt my mental health.
Is it because I think staying still will make depression stop following me and maybe, say, go bug someone else?
Isolation doesn't help
In my head, I know isolation is not good and, in fact, a common symptom of major depressive disorder.
Similarly is this feeling that these rough patches are never really gone and instead hiding behind blue skies ready to pop out when least expected. Do you ever feel that way too?
Reframing my perspective
For starters, I am trying to focus on the fact that this car part controls the steering system and things could have been a lot worse. I read about it and saw that I could have lost control of the car.
Secondly, I am glad that the problem had a relatively quick fix, (albeit a financial blow). Ditto, appointments can be re-scheduled even if it is annoying and inconvenient. Lastly, it happened and there is nothing I can do to change that.
So, in review, I did not lose control of the car or of myself.
Getting out from under a dark cloud
There are ways to get around the clouds if you look for them.
And I realize isolation is not the answer. For the goal of better mental health, acceptance there will be raindrops during this depression journey and walking on anyway is a better alternative.