Even though there were some rough days, I kept at the very least my nose above water, but mostly I kept breathing and flowing through the feelings of depression that inevitably are part of this season. I had a small, but what turned out to be an effective plan. The plan was to take things easy, but to keep moving. It's so easy for me to develop "to do" lists that require being in high gear to accomplish. Then when depression hits, I become paralysed and can't do a thing. This year, I kept the list much shorter.
When I'm depressed, it's not all that apparent to the people around me, but I go days without really doing anything which only makes me more anquished. It can take a huge effort of will to just accomplish those couple of things a day, but if I don't do those things, I wind up feeling even worse. Adding shame to depression is miserable. Just the simple fact that I made it through the holidays, though, helps me lift out of this particular bout.
I'm also inspired to make a plan for the New Year as well! I've never been one for New Years' resolutions, but the success of the Holiday plan can very well be applied to the coming year. The bottom line is that I feel better when I accomplish some basic things. I'm certainly not saying that I think the cure for depression for everyone is "keeping busy", and that's not even what I'm saying for myself! What I have found for myself is that there are some basic things that make me feel more stable.
Developing the plan: Apply the basics of Quality Management to my personal life! For crying out loud - this is what I do for a living, but I'm flailing around in my own life without using the tools that I know can work! How obvious is this, huh? lol
Documenting the plan: I figure that a notebook, just like I would use at work (duh) will be good - typed even, mainly because I'm to the point where I type much faster than handwriting. Maybe I'll even blog the journey (with the ulterior motive that I need to design a good format for documenting a work project online - one of my goals is to drag at least my department into the new millennium!)
Stay tuned for more! lol
