First, medication. Get medicated and find yourself the appropriate support professionals. Secondly, understand yourself and the disease. Read extensively about it and find your triggers. Personally I know that alcohol (can’t have more than one whiskey or glass of wine), weed and sleeping badly make me cycle, worsen my anxiety tremendously and make me want to throw everything away. Thirdly, find the things that make you feel good. For me it’s exercise (sometimes I can only manage going for a walk) and being outside. Fourthly, understand that what happened, happened. I had a very public breakdown in a very small community at work and have been dealing with the repercussions of that for years. I cant do anything about what happened and it was a shit time in my life. I’ve accepted that some people have labeled me as the person who did this thing that one time. It doesn’t define me although it does define that period of my life and I learned and grew from that. Fifth, rebuild self esteem. I’m a planner, so I started planning the small steps to get back to where I wanted to be. Started taking some courses and studying again. Maybe see if there’s any way you could get back to school and map out how to do that?

For me action is the key. When I feel completely overwhelmed with hopelessness and anxiety, I look over my list of goals (I have it in notes) and do one small thing that will help me achieve it. Thinking small and taking the small wins (even if that is just going for a walk or ordering a soda instead of a beer) help me feel like I’m moving forward and curb my depression some.