My ever-growing friend requested I share my adapted format haiku with you.

Alone as I am.

I watch the sunset.

Thinking of your smile.

Best wishes.

Denying past experiences or parts of yourself can be stagnant. A part of you keeps returning to those things because you haven’t accepted them. It is sad to say good bye to those things, because they were a part of you, and so you might want to keep them that way or want to avoid things changing. Those parts of you and experiences will have always been a part of you, and experienced.

Wanting to change yourself, does not mean denying yourself. Wanting to accept yourself, does not mean that you will want to keep everything the same. Wanting to accept yourself, and change, works.

(And for those who get the joke, it’s Berlioz. Everybody wants to be a cat…)

At any point, you could invest, and fix it. You have ideas and options. You have resources.

If you refrain from doing everything you can to handle your situation, that makes you irresponsible.

Progress is…

That’s not it though, because progress is not an illusion, it’s just that you keep letting your bar rise with each time you get better, you can’t just jump into everything after you’ve healed a tiny bit, you have to let yourself fully heal before you start stressing the wound, otherwise it will keep re-opening and you’ll end up having trouble again.

It is important that when you are doing better, you don’t let your expectations of yourself rise too much. Just because you have healed somewhat does not mean that you are cured, and that all of a sudden you can do everything you do when you are not depressed. If you try to do everything too quickly, then it makes sense that you will end up being overwhelmed and becoming depressed again.  You have to make sure to set your base zero, and then gradually measure your progress from there.

So you know how sometimes when your “condition” takes a swing for the better or worse, that makes your interest in certain activities wax or wane. Depending on the activity that can be pretty convenient, or inconvenient. Addictions can get worse or better. And passions or hobbies can become more or less fascinating.

As the author of this blog I’ve been doing my best to maintain my voice despite the fact that my depression has overall been improving. It’s an in-between with me, since I found my behavior is pretty weird even when I’m not depressed. At one point I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and so there’s always the possibility that when I’m not depressed I’m something else. And yet, when I’m something else I feel about the same as when I’m just “myself.”

So then, where do you draw the line anyway? If I feel lazy, unproductive, and happy, am I demotivated, anhedonic, and yet not miserable? If I get agitated because I’m experiencing emotional duress due to external circumstances, is that mania? What about if I find a topic I really enjoy and spend all my time studying it for a while? If one clinician thinks that certain symptoms are a clear sign of a negative status, and another thinks they’re a clear sign of being “better,” what’s a mental health conditioner to do?

All I know is, that for a while now I’ve felt like I was bullshitting more than usual when writing this blog. I’ll re-read my posts and find them to be preachy, or self-righteous, or even more terrifying, I sound like a genuine motivational speaker. I love rainbows, and kittens, as much as the next depressive that hates on rainbows and kittens, but secretly can’t help every once in a while being struck by their delicate magnificence. And yet, that’s not really what this whole blog has been about for me, and I want to make sure I stay true to what I started out with.

Jokes. I’m just bored with this shit and need a break since I’m too social to get the posts right. Social means amazing. Right. Amazing.

So really not much has changed, because I’ll probably still write things every once in a while. And really, who cares about me anyway? This blog genuinely is meant to be random shit for readers to maybe get some of their own ideas from, so keeping me in the background has been pretty clean. But it’s my voice. And for now. I’ll be speaking a little more privately.