Week Nine: Where I am today?

Where I am today?

At this point in my life I am struggling to be happy.  I have had things happen in the last few weeks that have made me depressed and really put me in a bad spot. I'm currently trying to climb out of the hole that I am stuck in, that is making me depressed, and in search of happiness.  I am able to see the joy in getting married and looking forward to that event.  I am looking for ways to bring myself closer to the top of the hole that I've fallen in and using coping skills as a ladder to help me out of the hole.  Skills like Radical acceptance, opposite to emotion, meditation, identifying emotions and how they affect my behavior, and many more skills. 

Radical acceptance is accepting something as is, for what it is.  You don't have to like it but just accept that it is what it is.

Opposite to emotion is when you feel depressed and you don't feel like doing anything, getting up and doing something anyway.  This can help change your mood from a level of depression to a happier mood.  It doesn't always work but for the times it does it makes a big difference.

Meditation has really helped me.  I meditate using Progressive muscle relaxation and body scans.  Progressive muscle relaxation is when you start with your legs and work your way up your body tensing and relaxing certain muscle groups.  The body scan is where you lay down on your back and you focus on different body groups starting with your feet and moving up.  With this you don't tense and relax the muscles but are simply aware of the sensations that each group of body parts has.  

I also have been working on just identifying my emotions and how they affect my behavior.  For example, being agitated might make me more susceptible to lashing out verbally toward another person.  I have found this helpful in being able to identify why I behave the way I do sometimes.  

So with this being said, I am using lots of skills to help myself climb out of the hole of depression that I feel I am stuck in.  With a recent medication change I am finding that I am feeling better and less depressed because my mood is being stabilized by the medication.  However, medications alone won't do the trick.  It takes many skills and work to get out of a depressive state of mind and I am learning ways in which to reach out to people to gain support while going through this. I have also realized that I don't know what its like to be happy anymore because it's been a while since I have truly been happy.  I am trying to recapture the feeling of happiness and fill my life with things that make me feel good.  These include: spending time with my fiance and family, going out and taking walks, and just being around people.  

This is where I am today, at this very moment in time.  Eventually, I would like to be happy and be able to see life in a new light.