A friend recently asked me if I could help him understand the change for the better I’ve experienced in the last couple of years. At the same time, a reader here asked if I could elaborate on what I mean by taking charge or putting myself at the center of my own recovery – an […]
depression
Is There Comfort in Depression?
The question continues to puzzle me: How did I get over depression? That deep change began about 18 months ago, and it’s been a year since I knew for sure that something fundamental had shifted. The nemesis wasn’t after me anymore. In fact, I couldn’t find that thing anywhere near me. After so many temporary […]
Are You Still You When Your Partner Is Depressed?
Over and over, I find online stories about the transformation of a loving partner, most often a man, into a depressed stranger. As I’ve often written here, I have been that stranger. I’ve told several stories about what happened during that time in my life and what I’ve tried to learn from my own depressed […]
Talking Honestly about Depression
I’ve always had trouble talking honestly about depression, in therapy or out. Even though much of its influence is gone, this remnant of depression is still holding on. I was always able to report the latest news to a therapist – I’m down at level 2 instead of up at level 8 (or whatever […]
Recovery from Depression’s Words
The words went up like walls, and I stepped inside to stay. I paced around in that confinement and after a while got to know the enclosure well. I liked its stillness and the sense of limits and order. Around me I read the names for mental things and emotions that I owned. They explained […]
Lost in Place, Finding Home
Simple things can overwhelm, turn me upside down, submerge who I am in a great wave. I was turned over once as a kid, swimming at a beach near LA, the ocean churning and huge. I tried to jump into a breaker and ride it in, but the surge tossed me up in its gritty […]
