Shower Thoughts with Shelly

PROTECTED CONTENT

If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.

Lost your password?

Username and Password Help

Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.

← Back

 You’re worth the effort

“I hate it. I take my meds, I do what I’m supposed to, but depression is still just awful, and it drags me down. I want to be happy, but it’s hard to be.”

Depression is awful. Depression feels impossible sometimes. It feels like you’re driving in a jeep in the rain with the top off, but slowly and in a speed trap, with weights tied to both of your arms while a strange old man that can’t hear you keeps barking nonsensical orders and statements from the passenger seat. Depression is heavy, it’s frustrating, and it often doesn’t even make any sense.

Depression is unfair. It’s so often something you can feel, but can’t touch. Or that you can touch, but not see. Like you’re trying to find your way around in a cave. You get glimpses out of the darkness from odd places, but you can’t ever quite figure out how to get to the light. Or the light keeps moving, and you just can’t catch it before it does, no matter how hard you try.

Depression, though, is something worth fighting. It’s worth fighting back against all the awful and destructive ways that depression can drag you down. It’s worth pulling yourself out of bed to go for a walk in the sunshine so you can harness the positive effects of the sun AND the exercise. It’s worth talking to your health professionals about what options you might have, or what your best course of action is for fighting against it.

Depression is worth talking about. It’s worth the discussions. The stigma of it is rough to deal with, but suffering through it alone or in silence is not necessary. There are options and ways to deal with it. There are people who can help, processes that can be tried, and theories that can be tested. So many alternatives to try that are better than sitting in it and just being miserable.

You’re not alone. You’re not a weirdo. You’re not a burden, and you’re not a lost cause. You’re a person. You have an imbalance, or maybe some bad habits that are reducing your health quality. But no matter how awful, unfair, impossible, unworthy, or deeply sad you might feel… you’re worth the effort to fight back.