I haven't written anything in a while now because I have been hit with a large wave of depression. It's hard to write about this stuff while you're in it and so easy to forget the details when you're out of it again. I'm going to try my best to write about it though.
It came on very gradually, almost insipidly, possibly triggered by several small events and disappointments in my life which I failed to notice that I had started struggling with and suppressing the feelings of. It snowballed with me not feeding myself properly and ceasing all exercise, making me feel even worse. I felt a deep lethargy which may have been caused by the depression or the poor eating habits - most likely a bit of both. These lethargic feelings lead me to doing less around the house and made me withdraw from activities in general which left me feeling overwhelmed by my everyday chores and my life felt lonely and lacking in any fun or relaxation. My days became a pattern of desperately waiting for my toddler's bedtime and then spending the evening simply waiting until it was my bedtime. By the time, after a fairly long decline that the death of my Grandmother came about, I was so numbed by depression that I didn't really feel much. This made me feel very guilty - she was a wonderful, kind woman who was a big part of my childhood, how dare I not feel anything? It was only when my depression started to lift a few weeks later that I started to feel the natural grief feelings I had been expecting.
I admit that I had naively thought that I was immune to depression with ACT at my side, but I'm now realising that life just isn't that simple and that I still need to practice more. ACT may not have made me immune to this bout of depression but it has freed me from its clutches for the majority of the time compared to the years of near constant depression I have experienced in the past. I believe the ACT tools helped to keep this depression from reaching the dangerous depths of precious bouts, though I was still surprised by how deep this one went.
The main difference between this depression and previous ones is that I noticed what was happening to me, at least once I had identified that I was depressed. I consciously made the effort to notice the thoughts and feelings I experienced from moment to moment and this may have helped me to start the process of bringing myself out of the depression. I noticed the urge to suppress my feelings with my old avoidance strategy of eating chocolate. Particularly notable was that I was conscious of the fact that this bout of depression was only temporary and that I would come out of the other side eventually. This contrasts with my old way of thinking that things will never change and I'll feel this way forever. I believe that my use of ACT lead to these changes in my experience of depression.
Getting out of this depression took a combination of several factors - accepting where I was, forcing myself to prepare and eat sensible foods, limiting the times I ate comfort foods, taking advantage of any moment the lethargy lifted and facing some of the thoughts and feelings I had been hiding from, not all at once and with kindness towards myself. I also talked to my husband about the thing I was most stuck with, which helped me to untangle the thoughts going through my head. This process took several weeks with some days going better than others. I am now back to normal again and grateful to be feeling better with some extra knowledge about myself.
