The Return: Slipping Back Into Depression

I’ve slipped a bit, lately.

After months of relative peace, a return.

First, it was the sadness.  I feel it when I wake up, eat my lunch, drive home from work, and hit the hay at night.  While its intensity varies, it’s always there coloring my days.

My good sense of humor caught the last bus. A bone-wearying fatigue settles in as I withdraw from activities involving people.

I go into hibernation.  I reserve my limited supply of energy for the essential things: work, a limited amount of outside commitments that can’t be avoided or rescheduled, my wife and daughter, a few clients, and filling up my truck with gas.

Life becomes pared down. It loses its sense of richness.  This as a painful, the absence of joy. My sense of hope is sketchy because I don’t know how long the dreariness is going to last.

Is it a weekend visitor? Or, has it signed on for a month-to-month lease?

I use the skills and tools I’ve harnessed over the years to cope with it. More or less, they work: the depression doesn’t last as long and isn’t as deep. I count that as a success. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I head it off at the pass and it doesn’t take hold.

But when I slip back into the tar pit of depression, I find myself thinking over and over again: how am I going to get out of this?  I sense a loss of control.  Depression is behind the wheel and I’m along for the ride.

But there’s a happy ending. Because my depression always comes to an end.  And yours will, too.

By Daniel T. Lukasik

 

 

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1 thought on “The Return: Slipping Back Into Depression

  1. I just wanted to say that I am always trying to find a post or blog about depression or mental illness that I can relate to. Your blog is the closest I’ve ever come to identifying with someone about depression. I hope that you continue to write or decide to reach out to me at mlzubik@gmail.com. I also really want to reach out to people through writing, but I also have social anxiety as well as depression, which isn’t an excuse, but unfortunately adds to my inability to reach out to other writers and people.

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