Common sense says that when you’re in a hole, you should stop digging, but one of the hardest challenges of depression is the pervasive negativity  which is part of it.  For a depressed person, it is the most natural thing to feel pessimistic and to react negatively; and what’s worse, to have one’s mind dominated by obsessive iterations of sad, hurt, and bitter thoughts.  Negative thoughts reinforce the unhappy mood, and mood worsens dangerously as thought and mood spiral down together. How much of this can I experience before I do some real damage?

 So I’m trying to undig my hole.  I try to stay reality-based, referencing the world outside my head for information more objective than my own feelings and treacherous thoughts.  And this is a challenge for a person who’s become increasingly introverted with age. 

Some people fighting depression can remind themselves of the good things in their lives, of their accomplishments or meaningful  relationships. Since  my life has been a series of disappointments and failures, I  can’t do this:  I have no accomplishments, I’m unemployed  and nearly unemployable, and my few relationships are frustrating and  unsatisfying. I can will myself to experience gratitude, but it is pretty thin stuff, and fleeting.  Part of the hell of depression is that I can no longer feel love.  (But I've always believed that real love is more of an activity than a feeling, anyway.  Ergo, I should probably structure some kind of activity into my life that will reinforce love.  Realistically speaking, I have no idea what that means, yet.)

 My situation feels both existentially and emotionally bleak.  Yet I am determined that I will spend this next New Year confronting my life-long existential dilemma while battling this damned foul mood which has been eating me alive.

 One kind person has suggested that I develop a spiritual life.  She’s lucky to have that ability:  a spiritual life is real solace and strength for many people.  But as I said, I try to stay reality-based, so I left spirituality behind decades ago after extended, close observation revealed no correlation between the physical world and the language employed by religious or spiritual people.

 Instead, I’m making a few small plans, getting out my depression workbook, looking in the paper for an activity that could get me out of the house and that I might even, faintly, enjoy.  Already today feels better than it did this morning.