Ups and downs

One of the worst things about the process of recovering from depression (apart from realising what a total idiot you’ve been, and how much your illness has affected the people you love, your career, your social life…) is the fact that it makes you question everything.

I haven’t felt that brilliant today. I’m not sure why. I’m tired. I’ve got a post-counselling hangover (of the emotional kind, not alcohol related). It’s been grey and rainy and the children have not been at their most amenable. To put it mildly. But I’ve felt generally a bit flat, tearful, heavy.

And it makes me panic.

It makes me think, what if I’m not getting better after all?

What if this has been a temporary respite, and by the time I go to bed tonight, I feel as bad as I did before?

What if this crushing weight, this monster, this bleakness is never actually going to leave me?

I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I *know* I am getting better. Despite being less than chirpy today, I have given my bedroom a thorough spring clean, read to my daughter, dropped a friend’s son home from school, cooked pizza and cakes from scratch. I couldn’t have done any of these things even a month ago.

But depression makes me think, what if? Always, always, what if?

This is what I need to tackle. I need to accept that even the happiest, most carefree of people will have down days. I need to accept that I will be irritable and morose at times, but that I can be irritable and morose without being depressed. I need to accept that actually, there are good reasons why I haven’t felt at my best today, and that most people would be somewhat gloomy after a day of rain, housework and stroppy kids.

I need to remember that refusing to allow myself to have feelings is, quite probably, at the root of everything I have been through lately. I need to let myself have those feelings – normal feelings, that everyone experiences. I need to accept them, recognise the reasons for them, and not panic that they are indicative of a slide right back to where I started from.

I am human. I can feel. I can be grumpy, I can be cross, I can cry. I can do all those things because of and in spite of depression. But depression doesn’t have to define me.

I won’t let it.