Last night, as I was doing my bedtime routine, I realized that I had left my allergy medicine on the dresser. My dresser, in my bedroom, it not 15 feet away from my bathroom sink. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll skip it and take them starting tomorrow.”
And that is depression.
Allergy meds are a small, easy act that make my life measurably better. In that moment, the act of walking across the bedroom, opening a new package (with a seal!), and bringing the meds back to the bathroom to take seemed insurmountable.
Often people think that depression is sadness or grief or even darkness. And maybe sometimes it is that things, but for me, most of the time, it is a sense of being utterly overwhelmed by the things I need to do to function.
Between my bathroom sink and the pill bottle on my dresser was an unmade bed, a pile of toys my daughter had left in our room, and two baskets of laundry that need to be put away. I couldn’t face any of it.
I’m on an upswing though. In the moment, I was able to recognize that this was depression talking and talk back. I walked across the bedroom and took the allergy med. It took me less than a minute.
Such a small thing, but it left me feeling empowered enough to do the next small thing. And the next. This is a fight that leaves me tired a lot. I often feel lazy and slow and like I’m failing. My need for order drives my husband crazy and it makes me feel like a bad mother so often, when I can’t let my daughter just play (the toys in my bedroom literally make me want to cry).
But every small victory makes the next victory more likely. And I am learning what I need – sunlight, an organized space, sleep, routine, and yes, my anti-depressants – to make each victory a little more likely.
Overflow 