I came out of a depressive cycle today.🌪
It lasted for about a week.
Although I’m tracking them, I can’t find any consistency to when they happen, so maybe it’s not a timing issue but a trigger issue. Or maybe that’s a bunch of nothing and it’s something else entirely.
Thing is, I have no idea.
It’s all still a work in progress. 🤷‍♂️
The difference for me now is that the time spent in the cycle is different.
In years gone buy, it would have crushed me. I would have called off the day, days or week even and life would have halted. At least, my life would have.
Everything else continues to move, of course. And in that is a tough lesson:
Depression is not an excuse to miss timelines.
Depression is not an excuse to leave someone hanging.
And depression is not an excuse to not take care of your shit. 🛑
Depression is a reason for anyone who is not you and a reason doesn’t ever receive the same amount of empathy that the beholder may expect.
So how do we get through?
For me, it’s honesty:
Im lucky enough that depression doesn’t necessarily impact my ability to do my job well. I actually get fired up from the energy that my clients bring and it helps alleviate some of that pain when we’re in the moment.
But what it does impact is my ability to get things done when I’m starring at my computer by myself.
Focus is done. Drive is non existent and confidence in my ability goes bye-bye. đź‘‹
I didn’t want to do the work, but I did.
I wasn’t sure if it sucked or not but upon its delivery, I sent it with a note mentioning how I was feeling and my perception was off and would appreciate a clean edit. Turns out it didn’t suck at all, but I needed that validation because I couldn’t see it myself.
Point is, if you do the work, the empathy will come with it. If you don’t do the work, you’re just letting people down.
And that has a gnarly outcome in terms of getting back into a positive mental state.
No sales pitch with this post. Just a rant about depression. If you need to rant or need an ear, hit me up. It’s a hell of a lot easier to conquer depression with a community around you. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️