Friday, May 21, 2021

Reflections on Depression

I feel pretty confident in saying I am no longer depressed. Since quarantine began, I have gone from doing good to doing fine, then to doing okay. After I stopped feeling okay I was feeling a bit off, but nothing I couldn't blame on the pandemic we were currently experiencing and as a country, pretty much failing and becoming more and more divided. So I wasn't great, but it was also understandable.

Then I fell into my "I'm not depressed, but I also wouldn't say I'm not 'not depressed". There were a few months of struggling as I tried to figure out my future, where I wanted to work, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be when this was all over. And I struggled.

As soon as I admitted to myself that I was depressed, things got both easier and harder. There was a certain detachment I could fall back on if I kept telling myself this was just a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, a pandemic afflicted world, a confusing future-- all the very valid reasons one could feel a bit off. 

But I wasn't just a bit off. I was depressed. And now, from the other side, I'm writing to try and figure out where to go next.