Surviving a Depressive Episode

Depressive episodes can be blindsiding and unpredictable, but our ability to survive them can become very predictable. Knowing we can and will survive the depressive episodes weakens the pull towards rock bottom and suicidal ideation. Raising the bottom on depressive episodes is a chain of actions with the first link being preparation. The time between depressive episodes provides us with the opportunity to prepare for the next episode. Sadly, once anyone has a depressive episode, it increases the likelihood that they will experience another episode exponentially. Armed with this knowledge, we can prepare before the next one hits.

When preparing to survive a depressive episode, it is about creating space between low mood and rock bottom. We are not going to get all the way back to happy, but we can avoid the darkest depths of depression. In the past, I have talked about preparing a self-care kit, and please check out my other blog post to learn about that. In this post, I want to talk about the mental and environmental safeguards we can put in place. Creating a patrician in the mind that allows your objective brain to talk to the emotional side of your brain raises the bottom by stopping the darker thoughts from taking hold. Giving your depression and objective mind a physical presence to imagine helps with this process because we can then imagine them in conversation.

There is something powerful about being able to put our depression in a chair and talk to it. It allows us the space to listen, consider, and then push back. If your depressive mind is saying that you will never be happy again, let your objective mind think of other descriptors and states that are not happy but positive. For example, I value being productive way more than I value being happy. What do you value that is not “happiness”? Look at the environment in your home, and what clues to your values do you have? I know, for me, my degrees mean a lot, and having them hanging on the wall reminds me of what I can do. What clues do you have in your environment that reflect back to you who you can be? If, when you look around, you don’t like what you see, then edit. Add and subtract the things that do not send a positive message. This is completely unrelated to having a clean house. This is about what the things in your home say about what matters to you. You have the ability for your home to have touch stones that can act as hand holds to keep you from hitting rock bottom. There is no better time than right now to put some of those touch stones in place.