No notes on your strategies, except something I recently read about exercise. It's good to keep it novel so it's not a real boring drag. One tip I read is even if you're only exercising for a short period, you should try to do every other session outside. That could be a 20 minute brisk walk or jog, or this time of year in Vermont: snowshoe. And I know the research is mixed on cold plunges, but I find them to be a very potent mental reset. I don't do them more than 2-3 times a week but they definitely put things into stark perspective.
Great one! I really appreciate strategies that actually help vs. normalizing depression. I have been dealing with both financial anxiety and the recent death of my father, and it's a fight not to get drawn under into depression. These strategies are great. Thank you.
Seems like you’re targeting the right stuff. (And I enjoyed your footnote game 🤣)
I’ve never seen a more sophisticated examination of the reactions to tragedy (particularly resentment) than in the Book of Job. It reads like a pageant play (which you may well know). But, while it seems sophisticated to me, I wonder if any of Job’s dialog would ring any bells with your own experiences in the trenches?
I’m going to prattle on, here, about it because it’s on my mind… but Job has his own chorus to contend with in dialogue. These remind me of little sub-systems that are a part of Job- his wife and his closest allies - but who all vouch for one suboptimal course or another.
And Job navigates every one of these so that by the end, it’s just him crying out “But WHY, God??” And the answer seems to be, (my very accurate paraphrase, here): “Put your big boy pants on, then stand up and let’s just see who’s the biggest! You’ve got work to do!”
I've struggled with depressive episodes periodically ever since I was a teen. These are all great coping strategies; I employ most of them myself.
One more that I would add is getting outside every day. I used to get seasonal affective depression every winter, until I got a dog. At the end of my first winter as a dog owner, I was shocked to realize I had not gotten depressed the way I normally do in January/February. Then I realized it was because my dog needed to be walked every single day, not matter what the weather - and that exposure to sunlight, even on an overcast crappy cold day, significantly lifted my mood as well as helped regulate my circadian rhythms (I'm one of those ADHD people who always had trouble with sleeping at night).
I hope you feel better soon, Holly. I'm so sorry about your friend - your post about him was beautiful and he sounded like a wonderful person.
I haven't read up on depression, so I don't know if all other articles are as boring as you portray them, but I can only imagine what it's like to write about depression attempting to "normalize" it. It seems to me some people might try to get others to be just as depressed as they are - "misery loves company," right?
But your article has great tips to help people who want to help themselves. That's the sort of thing I like to see more of, so I'm grateful for that.
I like your thought, "I need my energy to help myself get through this, not resent myself for it happening in the first place.”
I have started to view depressing thoughts and feelings as trapped emotions that I'm just letting come up to the surface so I can let them go.
I continue to think that we are not our feelings or thoughts. Feelings are guides, so we know more about what matters to us and can make different choices based on that information. Thoughts can be just echoes of past abuse repeated, but we don't have to agree with them. We can question them and reject them.
I'm glad to hear you have techniques that keep you from drowning and it's always nice to pass those techniques on to the rest of the world through writing.
Thank you for this. I struggle with depression around trauma anniversaries and, the older I've gotten, the more of those get added into the year. Jan. & Feb. are particularly hard months, and I have 2 toddlers so I have to keep my head above water. I don't want it to be normalized for me. I want to heal to the point where those demon choruses don't even bother trying to show up. But I'm not there yet so I am going to try some of your suggestions. One thing that helps me is music. When I am fighting these battles I even struggle with and doubt prayer. But I have some staple songs that do some of my thinking and speaking for me. One of those is "Shine Like it Does" by INXS. I just let that song speak, pray, etc. for me and it never fails to bring some comfort. I don't know what the experience of listening to music is like for you so the suggestion may be useless. But if you do enjoy it, you might really love the song and it might also be comforting for you.
Previously, I had believed that I was not quite yet ready to share such a personal poem in spite of it being somewhat old. But this post has inspired me to share it publicly.
un-dAmMED
There is a room,
A very distant room,
A room within my mind,
A room of hidden things.
Fearfully I open the door.
I light a candle for myself,
for illumination, for vision.
There are many large walls
and uncountable corners.
The wall are like dams.
Every corner a crevice.
Dams to forbid darkness.
Each crevice hides the light.
Alone, in a far away corner,
a small, frightened boy lies
curled up and trembling.
I move closer. Who is he?
I vigorously rub the sleep
from my mind’s blind eyes.
And then….I see….he is me.
I desperately struggle
to hold back the tears,
but I find no strength to
contain the whelming flow.
I am much too full of a
great emptiness within.
I hear hate-filled voices in
my head whispering loudly,
“Your name is LOST ONE
……UN-PERSON……OTHER
…….LONELY….…UNLOVED
…….ONLY…….LESS THAN.
Your name is AUTISM.”
Depreciations reverberate
in my mind’s echo chamber,
over ! and over ! again !
weakening the walls ! !
bursting the dams ! ! !
A deluge engulfs my soul.
My footing not steadied,
my path a slippery slope,
I’m pulled down and under
as current raging drags me
toward a perilous precipice,
down to a deep depression,
a certain curtain of doom.
But a voice is calling to me,
muffled by drowning waters,
“Reach out, take my hand.”
Frozen by fear, motionless,
then moving, I trust, I obey.
Saved ! I rise and stand.
I stand against the night
and the new day is born.
Warm light embraces me
as the atmosphere and I
share our inspiration and
I join celestial voices to
proclaim my natal song.
“My name is FOUND……
RAISED UP…..LOVED ONE
…..…CHILD OF GOD.…....
FRIEND……..NEEDED……..
BROTHER..……VALUABLE
……….MY NAME IS…..…..
PERSON WITH AUTISM.“
— R.G. Hannaford
This poem contains autobiographical, life-changing truths which have certain parallels to each other and are meshed together as one within the poem. First about my salvation from sin and death. And secondly my salvation from ignorance about my Autism into a journey of discovery about who I am and who I am intended to be.
Also, there is a juxtaposition of stanzas such that there are alternately six and seven lines to a stanza. This can be seen as a tug-of-war between me choosing the way of sinful man, represented by the number six, and alternately choosing to submit to God within the process of sanctification, represented by the number of completeness or wholeness; seven. And finally at the end of the poem there are two consecutive 7 line stanzas to indicate the fact that I, along with all Gods children, will be perfected on the last day.
No notes on your strategies, except something I recently read about exercise. It's good to keep it novel so it's not a real boring drag. One tip I read is even if you're only exercising for a short period, you should try to do every other session outside. That could be a 20 minute brisk walk or jog, or this time of year in Vermont: snowshoe. And I know the research is mixed on cold plunges, but I find them to be a very potent mental reset. I don't do them more than 2-3 times a week but they definitely put things into stark perspective.
Be strong. Stay strong. Fight the Good Fight. I'd bet that you would make one heck of Texas Hold 'Em Poker Player.
Great one! I really appreciate strategies that actually help vs. normalizing depression. I have been dealing with both financial anxiety and the recent death of my father, and it's a fight not to get drawn under into depression. These strategies are great. Thank you.
Seems like you’re targeting the right stuff. (And I enjoyed your footnote game 🤣)
I’ve never seen a more sophisticated examination of the reactions to tragedy (particularly resentment) than in the Book of Job. It reads like a pageant play (which you may well know). But, while it seems sophisticated to me, I wonder if any of Job’s dialog would ring any bells with your own experiences in the trenches?
I’m going to prattle on, here, about it because it’s on my mind… but Job has his own chorus to contend with in dialogue. These remind me of little sub-systems that are a part of Job- his wife and his closest allies - but who all vouch for one suboptimal course or another.
And Job navigates every one of these so that by the end, it’s just him crying out “But WHY, God??” And the answer seems to be, (my very accurate paraphrase, here): “Put your big boy pants on, then stand up and let’s just see who’s the biggest! You’ve got work to do!”
I shouldn't be relieved that you made up a cited statistic, but it has been hinted that demons demand grim, and draw back from light-hearted whimsy.
I've struggled with depressive episodes periodically ever since I was a teen. These are all great coping strategies; I employ most of them myself.
One more that I would add is getting outside every day. I used to get seasonal affective depression every winter, until I got a dog. At the end of my first winter as a dog owner, I was shocked to realize I had not gotten depressed the way I normally do in January/February. Then I realized it was because my dog needed to be walked every single day, not matter what the weather - and that exposure to sunlight, even on an overcast crappy cold day, significantly lifted my mood as well as helped regulate my circadian rhythms (I'm one of those ADHD people who always had trouble with sleeping at night).
I hope you feel better soon, Holly. I'm so sorry about your friend - your post about him was beautiful and he sounded like a wonderful person.
I haven't read up on depression, so I don't know if all other articles are as boring as you portray them, but I can only imagine what it's like to write about depression attempting to "normalize" it. It seems to me some people might try to get others to be just as depressed as they are - "misery loves company," right?
But your article has great tips to help people who want to help themselves. That's the sort of thing I like to see more of, so I'm grateful for that.
I like your thought, "I need my energy to help myself get through this, not resent myself for it happening in the first place.”
I have started to view depressing thoughts and feelings as trapped emotions that I'm just letting come up to the surface so I can let them go.
I continue to think that we are not our feelings or thoughts. Feelings are guides, so we know more about what matters to us and can make different choices based on that information. Thoughts can be just echoes of past abuse repeated, but we don't have to agree with them. We can question them and reject them.
I'm glad to hear you have techniques that keep you from drowning and it's always nice to pass those techniques on to the rest of the world through writing.
Thank you for this. I struggle with depression around trauma anniversaries and, the older I've gotten, the more of those get added into the year. Jan. & Feb. are particularly hard months, and I have 2 toddlers so I have to keep my head above water. I don't want it to be normalized for me. I want to heal to the point where those demon choruses don't even bother trying to show up. But I'm not there yet so I am going to try some of your suggestions. One thing that helps me is music. When I am fighting these battles I even struggle with and doubt prayer. But I have some staple songs that do some of my thinking and speaking for me. One of those is "Shine Like it Does" by INXS. I just let that song speak, pray, etc. for me and it never fails to bring some comfort. I don't know what the experience of listening to music is like for you so the suggestion may be useless. But if you do enjoy it, you might really love the song and it might also be comforting for you.
Previously, I had believed that I was not quite yet ready to share such a personal poem in spite of it being somewhat old. But this post has inspired me to share it publicly.
un-dAmMED
There is a room,
A very distant room,
A room within my mind,
A room of hidden things.
Fearfully I open the door.
I light a candle for myself,
for illumination, for vision.
There are many large walls
and uncountable corners.
The wall are like dams.
Every corner a crevice.
Dams to forbid darkness.
Each crevice hides the light.
Alone, in a far away corner,
a small, frightened boy lies
curled up and trembling.
I move closer. Who is he?
I vigorously rub the sleep
from my mind’s blind eyes.
And then….I see….he is me.
I desperately struggle
to hold back the tears,
but I find no strength to
contain the whelming flow.
I am much too full of a
great emptiness within.
I hear hate-filled voices in
my head whispering loudly,
“Your name is LOST ONE
……UN-PERSON……OTHER
…….LONELY….…UNLOVED
…….ONLY…….LESS THAN.
Your name is AUTISM.”
Depreciations reverberate
in my mind’s echo chamber,
over ! and over ! again !
weakening the walls ! !
bursting the dams ! ! !
A deluge engulfs my soul.
My footing not steadied,
my path a slippery slope,
I’m pulled down and under
as current raging drags me
toward a perilous precipice,
down to a deep depression,
a certain curtain of doom.
But a voice is calling to me,
muffled by drowning waters,
“Reach out, take my hand.”
Frozen by fear, motionless,
then moving, I trust, I obey.
Saved ! I rise and stand.
I stand against the night
and the new day is born.
Warm light embraces me
as the atmosphere and I
share our inspiration and
I join celestial voices to
proclaim my natal song.
“My name is FOUND……
RAISED UP…..LOVED ONE
…..…CHILD OF GOD.…....
FRIEND……..NEEDED……..
BROTHER..……VALUABLE
……….MY NAME IS…..…..
PERSON WITH AUTISM.“
— R.G. Hannaford
This poem contains autobiographical, life-changing truths which have certain parallels to each other and are meshed together as one within the poem. First about my salvation from sin and death. And secondly my salvation from ignorance about my Autism into a journey of discovery about who I am and who I am intended to be.
Also, there is a juxtaposition of stanzas such that there are alternately six and seven lines to a stanza. This can be seen as a tug-of-war between me choosing the way of sinful man, represented by the number six, and alternately choosing to submit to God within the process of sanctification, represented by the number of completeness or wholeness; seven. And finally at the end of the poem there are two consecutive 7 line stanzas to indicate the fact that I, along with all Gods children, will be perfected on the last day.
Thank you for sharing this. Very thought provoking.