On March 4, 2021, I published my first Thursday post titled “How I’m Fighting Depression.” I explained how 4 things were helping me to beat depression. They were:

1. Write
2. Exercise
3. Meditate
4. Affirmations

Six months later, I have barely been able to keep up with these daily practices. Lots have happened that contributed to the derailment. But you know what? Aside from some catastrophic accident, I could have been doing these practices. Even if I only spent 10 minutes on each of these, it still sums up to less than 1 hour. To say that I didn’t have time would be a lie. So if I had the time to do them and knew that these practices were healthy for me, why would I not follow them? I reasoned that I was lazy, a procrastinator, it wasn’t helping. Excuses.

After some thought, I believe there are two reasons why I haven’t been able to keep up.

1. I am comfortable being depressed.
2. I’m trying to do too much.

The body gives off a lot of signals for us to understand what it wants/needs. A basic example would be touching something hot. If we drink really hot coffee, we burn our mouths and our mind tells us that this is way too damn hot and what the hell were you thinking by putting this scalding liquid into our mouth?! So we learn to not do it again, or at least, drink carefully next time.

I believe depression is another type of signal, just like if something is too hot. But it feels that depression builds over time. We’re able to adapt and we are just comfortable with what is happening. Our state has become depressed, but we accept it. I believe this happens because it’s our amazing ability to cope with whatever comes our way. It can work for us and unfortunately, also against us.

So from years of negative thinking and becoming acquainted with negativity and depression, I’ve just accepted that this is my life. Is it really comfortable? It’s not uncomfortable all the time. I’ve become numb enough, but still, I can feel that this is the wrong cycle to be in.

Part of me is screaming everyday begging to change. But I’ve associated so much with depression, that even if I wanted to change, the other part of me does not want to because it’s all I know. It’s almost as if I’m afraid to not be depressed.

The part of me that wants to change, wants to change so quickly that it wants to do everything. So whenever I hear about something that could make me not depressed, I immediately read up on it hoping that this will be the thing that changes me. “This new practice will change my life,” I tell myself. I wrote articles about methods to get out of this depressed state. But months later, everything’s the same.

The reason why none of them worked is because by trying to do them all, I did not do any of them. I kept reprioritizing what was important day by day, week over week. By doing so, I’ve successfully prioritized nothing. And surprise, nothing has changed.

So what to do from here?

Begin again and commit. Be present, even just for 10 minutes, for each practice. Start small and celebrate each win. Mark it as a success. Remember what it feels like to be not depressed. It will feel foreign, not welcome, an intruder. It will be different and only over time will it become familiar. Just like how depression slowly became normal, our minds can build a new normal. So let’s begin again.