On a roll...

Been back on meds a little more regular of late, and it seems to be helping... again. As time goes by it becomes a little more clear how meds help and how they don't. It's a tricky thing to try and entangle, the physiological from the psychological. They like to feed off of each other.

If I've learned anything, I've learned to get back on my feet a lot faster. I wonder how this will affect me down the road. I wonder how much my depression will effect me. It will always be a factor, but how much of one? It seems less of one now, or at least less often a factor. The lows aren't as low. I can't stop them from coming but I can lessen them. How much will I be able to lessen them tomorrow, I wonder. At least now I know what I'm dealing with. It's still hard for me to think of all the years I knew something was wrong, but not what, or why... Or how to deal with it. I see in retrospect I was often doing exactly opposite of what I should have. How many of the worlds problems could be solved if we simply knew how?

But for now I'm doing good. Been so much to deal with this year, I feel like a buoy... Down, but never out. Just bobbing along.

Depression Strikes Back...
Just as I get up I get smacked down again. And so it goes. I can't blame this last spell all on depression. It's been a rough year so far. Very rough. Car troubles. Health troubles. Overworking myself troubles.

In a great sign of well-being, for the first quarter of this year I worked 40+ hours/week. And I could handle it. Actually enjoyed it. That's new for me. Since then I've been averaging 40/week, some weeks more, some weeks less. So I guess internally I've been doing pretty well, it's external that's a wreck.

Most all of my problems of late have either been with myself or with situations, not people. Haven't been having people problems, which is a good thing. The family's been getting along great, and has been a great boost to me when I'm feeling beat down. They say that children are a lot of work, and they are, but in my experience I've gotten far more out of my relationships with my children than I've given up. I've always thought that children owed their parents a great debt, and while that's true it seems to me I owe my children just as much as they owe me.

A lot of problems associated with depression have been strikingly absent of late, and I'm forced to conclude that these last 6 months of drudgery are just that. Drudgery. Yes, it's depressing. But I imagine anyone would have been depressed by the circumstances I found myself in. I don't think this depression was internalized... it was the world around me that was out of synch, not so much me. Given the option, I'd take the external depression rather than the internal ones I'm so used to.