A day at a time

I never know, from one day to the next, how I will feel. Heck, I don't know from one hour to the next how I'm going to feel. One day, I am on top of the world. I have energy, I'm full of life and plans and future and I think I'm healed. Next day, back down and getting up in the morning is an effort.

I've spent most of the summer as a zombie but now I am actually staying awake for about seven hours a day, which is a vast improvement. I walk the dog on the forest every morning, no excuses. It's an effort sometimes, but the fresh air and movement must be doing me good.

And I try to write at least a side of foolscap every day. Some days, I do two or three and am still pleased with them twenty four hours later. Other days, I struggle to fill one side and when I read it back it's rubbish. But I AM doing it.

It helps that I have three projects lined up, so I feel them calling to me and that means procrastination makes me feel guilty. One of those projects actually has a deadline, so that should be a help too.

As a Christian, I felt extremely guilty when I entered this depression. Part of me was thinking, "you believe in God, you should trust in Him and not get upset and worried. Give it to Him." It felt like I was somehow letting the side down.

But then I remembered the utter despair Jesus felt in Gethsemane and on the cross and I realised, if He felt the blackness descending, then it was nothing to be ashamed of. And that realisation is one step towards recovery.

I also remind myself daily that this took a long time to hit. There were many factors, over a long period of time, that led me to this place. If it takes you several years to dig a hole, you won't fill it in in one day.

Patience.

I may not get everything done I would wish to get done each day. But each day, I get a little nearer to being the me I used to be.

I just have to learn patience and take it one day at a time.