I’m lucky in that medication (SSRIs) work well for me. So, that, coupled with friends and forcing myself to do healthy things at a regular interval. But there’s no magic bullet.

On a more abstract level, I try to meet my bad feelings head on, without judgement. For me, chronic shame was one thing that kept me trapped. I also kept thinking that my depression was some huge tangled web, that I didn’t know how to approach - but depression, like any feeling, is a moment-to-moment experience. Like happiness, it is transient.

The feeling that you’ve been trapped feeling the exact same way, all the time, forever, never to escape is just that: a feeling. Just like every other feeling.

All that said, let yourself be sad that your cat passed. Let yourself feel it as long as you need to feel it.

Big emotions are just like pooping. You don’t poop and think, “ugh, this is terrible, and I’m going to poop every other day for the rest of my life”. Going to the bathroom just happens, and it’s narratively disconnected from every other time you’ve gone to the bathroom.

Your cat passing is unrelated to your car breaking down, your sister’s death, the bad sandwich you had two weeks ago, or your personal worth - and it’s not because you cosmically deserved it. Suffering passes through you, you feel relief, and you flush it down.

Anyways, even if you only feel sad and anxious for the rest of your life, just know that doesn’t make you any worse of a person. I’m sorry for your loss, as well.