Depression has pretty much swallowed me whole for the past month or so. I had been making lots of progress on the depression front through the past year, and even just two months ago I was in relatively good shape with my pain levels (relatively) low/stable and my depression concomitantly low to match.

However, depression is a stubborn beast and it managed to slip through some unknown crack in my defenses. The drop was swift and left my stomach in my throat and when I managed to get my feet back under me I found that a whole month had slipped by without me having any awareness of it.

The good news (to the degree that there is any good news in this) is that some of the progress I made over the past year stuck with me–a prominant feature of my depression in the past was suicidal ideation and that was noticably absent this past month.

The bad news (of course there is bad news) is that it did not last. Two days ago I had something like an anxiety attack and my defenses gave way and the suicidal ideation returned in full force. It has since faded a bit, but it is discouraging to have lost that last bit of progress. Three days ago I felt like I had been stranded with no wind while sailing in uncharted waters. Now at least I’m in familiar territory.