Planning to Ease Depression

                One thing that I have struggled with throughout my battle with depression is planning my days to ease the depression. Often, I wake up and find that depression creates a desire to run away from the day. It frequently makes me want to pull the blanket over my head and hide. I think many people who live with depression have similar experiences. Learning to cope with this has taken a lifetime of trial and error. I’ve done well at some points in my life and struggled at other points. 

                  Work can provide a distraction. For some people this is a positive. There were times when it was a positive for me. Unfortunately, it was often not a positive for me. At best it was a masking of my symptoms. That created a worsening of my depression that made life more difficult. Now, I am not able to work because of my cancer diagnosis. I am no longer able to mask my depression. I need to face it. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I do that now. I think it comes down to having a purpose to my days. I need to have a reason to get out of bed. I need to have a reason to tell the depression that it is not going to drag me down. Goal setting has helped with this. I’m not talking about formal goal setting. While that is important, too, I am just talking about giving myself a purpose for the day. It is more like a daily plan. 

                  The way I do this is before I go to bed at night, I think about what I need to do the next day and what I want to do. Often, my depression will tell me that I don’t want to do anything. In those moments I need to use my voice to talk back to my depression. I tell it that I must do something. I find that if I write down what I am going to do, I am more likely to do those things. I incorporate a couple different ways of doing this. There is the calendar on my phone. I keep appointments there. I include medical and personal appointments on my calendar. It gives those activities a concreteness and makes them seem more necessary. I also write things that I plan to do in the notes app on my phone. I include my writing time and trips to the grocery store or gas station in my notes. I also include things like household chores. I know that if I see it in writing the next day, I am more likely to do it. I also include things such as going for a walk. I am more likely to do it if I see it on my daily list. Having these things written down allows me to “show my depression that I have things to do.” For me it is important that I check off things as I do them. That allows me to look back at my day in the evening and see that I have accomplished something. I can say to my depression, “Look, I did something today even though I didn’t want me to.”

                  Some days I do better than others at keeping myself occupied. It is not a flawless process. Depression is a powerful illness and there are days when it overtakes me. It can prevent me from following my plan. When that happens, I try not to be too hard on myself. I try to remind myself that I am battling an illness, and I am not going to win every day. The important thing is that I try. It is also important to remember that planning alone is not enough. The treatment of depression requires therapy, medication, and other treatments. I have lived with depression most of my life. I know that just writing down a plan is not enough. However, it is a practice that plays a useful role when combined with following my treatment plan. 

In Thursday’s post I talked about getting the most out of therapy by doing the work necessary to make it successful. Planning our days is part of that work. There is no magical fix for depression and other mental illnesses. Therapy, medication, and non-traditional treatments are important, but they do not work in isolation. We must put in the work to heal. Planning my days is one way I put in the work I need to do.