Today was not the right day for things to go wrong. It felt like fighting an uphill battle. Against giants. While armed with waterpistols.
I missed out on saying goodbye to a food friend by mere minutes. Then the taxi went to the wrong address. I lost money through carelessness. Got mad and tried to drink my feelings away. Turned up late to a dinner with friends. Yelled about my crap life in front of strangers. Got lost on the way home. The air conditioner broke down and it hot as hell.
Yeah it was a tough day. Made worse by the fact that I know it’s actually not that bad. Everything on the list is annoying, sure. But in the real world it’s recoverable. I know I’m durable. And I will survive. Which makes the guilt at feeling bad even worse.
How to beat it.
There’s no simple solution. When the monster wants me it comes and takes me. Repressing or refusing to acknowledge an episode – no matter how minor – just makes it worse.
So the best thing for me is to stand up (or at least sit a bit higher on my bed) and declare loudly (mumble into my pillow) “I am experiencing a bout of depression. It’s not me, I am not the cause. Anymore than I’m the cause of rainy weather. Bad things happen. But I will be smart about this and stay out of the rain as much as I can.”
I will fight the good fight. And it becomes a good fight when I stop fighting by taking the blame away from the circumstance.