Study 2005- benefits from writing

I just read an article that says their health and physical benefits from writing.
15 to 20 minutes of writing 3 to 5 times over the course of the four month study was enough to make a difference
Turns out that writing can make physical wounds heal faster as well

It was serendipitous to read the study today.

I have struggled mightily this past week with the darkness and the deepening of my depression and if writing will help in anyway then I must do this to give myself all possible advantage in my battle against this debilitating illness.

So the pledge is to write something every day

There I have said
I have written it
I will do it
Onward.
M

One more day down

Thank the Universe for Friends.
A phone call this evening has helped me purge some of this poison in my mind.
The vultures of depression have stopped relentlessly circling my brain so I'm hoping
That a few words here may pave the way for some true sleep tonite.
It has been a struggle this evening and I'm brewing a whopper of a headache.
Gonna do my yoga and Elaine Petrone's breathing techniques.
G'nite

The darkness has descended and hope is in short supply

The depression I battle always deepens as the darkness grows.
I am doing lite therapy and working at regular exercise and good nutrition
And it still feels like the walls of my life are coated in vaseline and I am inexorably
Sliding down into the abyss.
It is an almost physical pain my psyche hurts so much.
The belief that this will end is being rubbed out.
It has become hard to remember what is possible when the pain and darkness is not so complete.
It frightens me to lose track of that because the hopelessness imprisons my mind and feeds the worthlessness to the point where life is not worth living.
I am banking on the fact that getting the poison out of me and on the page may help me to sleep tonite and tackle another day.
I find myself singing I will survive and hearing Donna Summers voice in a very faint refrain in the back of my brain
G'nite
God Bless

A puzzle-Hmmm, I posted on Discerning Dish, my lapsed book blog and I hope it's not lost in the ether

Ugh, been a while since I posted.

This morning an author I have recently discovered and read everything she has written posted on Twitter a link to her new book.

I felt a buzz of inspiration when I clicked the link and it was for reviewers.

I felt it was a sign to resurrect my book blog and take a step towards higher functioning.

It has been particularly difficult winter, my depression is compounded by the darkness, and I was grieving the loss of my Best Friend, Lori.

I have a cousin I love dearly and her daughter was struggling this winter and hit a wall.
I invited her to my home to love and support her.

I was hoping her seeing me live my coping strategies would be incentive to incorporate some of them into her life to help her out of crisis.
my cousin's Hubby decided to send all of of us to Maui for 2 weeks of sunshine and warm weather to assist our healing and recovery.

I've been back a week and feel much improved.

The first buzz of inspiration to do something productive was this morning and Hope Ramsay's tweet.
My iPad was out of juice and I worried my post was lost.

WoooHooo it just loaded.
Thank You Universe.
Here I Go.
hugs

Courage Comes in All Colours

I haven't written anything in a verra long time.

I am inspired to write today because Alesia Holliday
(Alyssa Day), an Author I have loved to read for years,
Shared that she has struggled with depression her whole life.

She has recently shared this with family and close friends and today shared with the world via her blog- alyssaday.blogspot.com

I was overcome with emotion when I read her post because I too have struggled with depression my whole life.

My whole world came crashing down on me, 13 years ago.
In retrospect I am able to see that being assaulted 2 years before the big Crash and the PTSD I struggled with over the course of those 2 years buckled the buttresses of defense I had spent a lifetime erecting.

My Masks were so very good. Perfected really.

I lost it all.  My Job, My so called friends, My Whole Life as I knew it and without it and the identity I had built I did not want to live
.
The depression had spent a lifetime teaching me that I was not good enuf.
I had spent a lifetime trying harder at everything to compensate for that deficit.
I was the Avis Rent a Car of Life.  Their slogan was 'we try harder'.

I had been seeing a psychiatrist to deal with the devastating effects of the assault and concurrent PTSD for 2 years.
I was a Registered Nurse, and I was removed from work as unfit to perform my duties,also accused of theft of time for not keeping time sheets accurately and accessing banked overtime without the proper authorization.
It was an Earthquake with a Tsunami that completely erased the person I was.

I spent a month in a psychiatric ward learning how to not wanna be dead.
For a nurse who had spent a lifetime teaching people the tools to recover from
emotional and physical traumas I was beyond humiliated.
Way Beyond.
Dead in My Soul Beyond.
Everything completely Shut Down.
A Blessing from the Universe it turns out.
Without the complete shut down I would be dead.
It was a lousy, painful, ugly existence, but it was an existence.

Over the next weeks I will excavate these last 13 years and prepare myself for what comes next.
Whatever it may be.
I read a quote on Saturday from Jonathan Safran Froer

You Cannot Protect Yourself From Sadness
Without Protecting Yourself From Happiness.

That quote unlocked something inside me and I had an overwhelming sense of destiny flood thru me.
These words were for me.
 I was still living but I was not alive.
I was using exercise and nutrition to cope with the depression and it would keep everything in a kind of balance where I didn't want to commit suicide but I also felt I could not suffer any sadness or I wouldn't survive.

Turns Out We Survive an awful lot of sadness and loss.
In the past year I have lost My Mother and My Best Friend Lori.

Crushing Losses, butttt I'm still here.

Winter's always a bigger struggle because the darkness amplifies the depression and I am basically reduced to minute to minute survival, and on a good day, day to day.

Buuuttt I'm still here.

Sooo I do not know what comes next, but I know something does.

I know I want to Honour My Friend/Angel Lori by finding a new way to live.

By not protecting myself from Sadness, with the faint glimmer that some
Happiness my sneak through the darkness if I do not actively reinforce the shields
of Protection.

Sooo Life, I'mmma Coming for you..

Alesia, this one is for you.
Bless You for being the first ray of hope to sneak past my shields.

Thank You Universe for bringing me Alesia's Books to soothe me during my struggle.

Yours in Pursuit of Balance
Mar