At this writing I'm in day nine or ten of a dysthymic episode, clinical depression. If it goes according to past patterns I can look forward to anywhere from one to eight more days.
One would suit me better. This isn't much fun, and there's not much I can do about it. I take St. John's Wort on a regular basis, which does help, but upping the dosage doesn't seem to do any good. I could go to the doctor, but antidepressant medications always require fine-tuning and a period of adjustment; by the time we had an effective dosage (and dealt with all the resultant side effects) I'd be snapped out of it anyway. I prefer to bull it through for now. It's only every year and a half that I deal with this.
But yeah, it's pretty bad. It's "mild" depression, but I'm still getting out of bed by strength of will and an awareness of honor and duty. I can distract myself for periods of time, but I'm still having frequent moments when there's a powerful sense of despondency. I'm falling back on my acting skills a lot; I'm behaving like a person who isn't depressed. Lots of my friends know about it but not everybody; I'm not ashamed of having depression but it always requires explanation and people tend to treat you funny. It's simpler not to broadcast it.
My family of course knows about it and it's tough to deal with. I may ask Adored Wife to do a post about living with a depressive.
My faith is intact--how I feel doesn't need to affect what I know, and it doesn't need to affect what I choose to do. And I know it's temporary, which helps a lot. And I know not to trust my feelings right now.
But man, this is exhausting. My sympathies and prayers for people who deal with much more severe and frequent depression than I do.
Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.
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