Little Changes Add Up

My depression tells me that I have no power to change my life, that things (my thoughts/employment/job/career/finances/relationships) will always be the way they are, which is unsatisfactory,  and there is nothing that I can do about it, so I may as well die. 

That was a year ago, and things are starting to look better... in small ways that seem oh-so-huge when compared with the bleak, black future depression likes to lay before me.

A year ago, or maybe just eight or nine months ago, I hated my life.  I couldn't imagine how I was ever going to have a profession again, or even a job where I could just make money.  I could hardly do anything at all.  Taking a shower was an insurmountable task.

Ever so slowly, with medication and therapy, I started making little changes that I can see now have built upon themselves and given me the strength to make bigger (albeit still smallish) changes.  I was amazed to have the insight the other day that I do have the power to make changes.  I have a long way to go and I'm going to need a lot of help getting there, but change is happening.

I think it started with helping my friend with her one-year-old baby.  Her husband got a good paying job (hard to do these days) on the road six weeks out of eight.  She needed a hand, and something told me that helping her out would help me out of the house.  And it did.

Through her, I heard about a small room for rent.  Something told me that room could be my office, and if I had an office to go to, I would start writing again.  At first I just worked on the office, painting it and furnishing it.  That got me moving, too.  Once it was ready, I decided to write this blog, which has the double bonus of getting me to put words in print and keeping me focused on my recovery.

Then I decided that I needed a job in the neighborhood of my office to give me some money to pay for it as well as structure that will get me there every weekday.  To my amazement, I think I have a job now.  After two years of not working.  It's a part time job in the neighborhood.  It took me two days to write a resume and cover letter, but I did it.

So here I am now - probably (not yet definitely) employed and writing.  All of those little changes are adding up.  Now if I can just apply this theory to exercising.