This one is not full of pictures. Sorry.
I've been dealing with depression for the last three years. The last few months have been generally pretty good, though the fact I've been having a quieter period the last little while is sort of the perfect opportunity for the crazies to start working their way through my easy-to-misfire neurons anyway. I've never been on medication, and I've been pretty adamant about not doing it if I can avoid it. I'm not suggesting that in some cases, meds are necessary, but in my case, my depression is caused largely by a history of defeating thinking patterns, and medication would only serve to treat the symptoms, not so much the cause.
A few months of work with my therapist has helped greatly to develop better coping mechanisms for my triggers and I'm much more able to recognize when I'm having an episode and, in some cases of anxiety attacks, I'm able to talk myself off the ceiling. One of the things that has helped me in some cases is an attitude of gratitude. It sounds cliche, but humans are trained to focus on the negative. If you have 10 good things happen to you and one bad thing, you're most likely to focus on the negative. This was an evolutionary tactic our brains developed that made sense at the time when considering the worst case scenario meant you were far more likely to live another day rather than become a meal to a sabre-tooth tiger. At the time, however, we were only living for 30 years or so. Now, with the threat of sabre-toothed tigers at a minimum, technology has removed those types of environmental threats and medicinal and lifestyle changes have helped triple our life expectancy. Unless, of course, you are depressed or suffer from a lot of anxiety, the sorts of things that contribute to hypertension and poorer health.
I am by no means completely "cured" of my depression. It is something that I will likely have to be aware of and deal with for the rest of my life. But it's something I'm constantly working on. And an Attitude of Gratitude has been helping me.
I've been dealing with depression for the last three years. The last few months have been generally pretty good, though the fact I've been having a quieter period the last little while is sort of the perfect opportunity for the crazies to start working their way through my easy-to-misfire neurons anyway. I've never been on medication, and I've been pretty adamant about not doing it if I can avoid it. I'm not suggesting that in some cases, meds are necessary, but in my case, my depression is caused largely by a history of defeating thinking patterns, and medication would only serve to treat the symptoms, not so much the cause.
A few months of work with my therapist has helped greatly to develop better coping mechanisms for my triggers and I'm much more able to recognize when I'm having an episode and, in some cases of anxiety attacks, I'm able to talk myself off the ceiling. One of the things that has helped me in some cases is an attitude of gratitude. It sounds cliche, but humans are trained to focus on the negative. If you have 10 good things happen to you and one bad thing, you're most likely to focus on the negative. This was an evolutionary tactic our brains developed that made sense at the time when considering the worst case scenario meant you were far more likely to live another day rather than become a meal to a sabre-tooth tiger. At the time, however, we were only living for 30 years or so. Now, with the threat of sabre-toothed tigers at a minimum, technology has removed those types of environmental threats and medicinal and lifestyle changes have helped triple our life expectancy. Unless, of course, you are depressed or suffer from a lot of anxiety, the sorts of things that contribute to hypertension and poorer health.
I am by no means completely "cured" of my depression. It is something that I will likely have to be aware of and deal with for the rest of my life. But it's something I'm constantly working on. And an Attitude of Gratitude has been helping me.
Part of it involves becoming aware of moments that make you grateful. While I've not read the "Book of Awesome" I expect that was part of the author's intention. Starting with little things, such as the weather, or seeing a butterfly or being the one to tear off the cellophane on a new product. Again, it seems cliche, but taking those moments and holding onto them is a good way to start (seriously, you might think I'm full of shit, but I really do genuinely love it when I see butterflies around, possibly because it seems to infrequent).
I even started adding hashtags of #AttitudeOfGratitude to my tweets, or #Gratitude or #AoG when space wouldn't allow for the longer one. That helped to a greater degree because by doing it right as it happened, it forced me to hold on to that moment longer as I physically typed out the message. And like any small thing, when you start adding them up, they make for a bigger thing and then sometimes you get a whole day that looks pretty awesome all around.
So, backtracking a bit here.
Right after I finished photography school I went through a really rough patch, having a diploma now added to the degree I wasn't using and feeling not only like I had a severe case of arrested development but useless to people in general. It wasn't the stars aligned and I was hired as a casual employee for the Federal Government as a photographer and graphic designer (the latter of which I didn't realize I'd be doing until I was elbows deep into a 20'x8' display design for an upcoming trade fair). I'd met Mark, who would be my supervisor, a couple of times before, and my boss Ken only pretty much when I'd signed papers. But in my first full day when Mark took me into the studio where the computers were located and asked me if I knew how to do a particular function in a particular program and I was able to say "You bet I can! Plus, I'll show you a faster and easier way to do it!" That was one of the most validating moments of my life. Not to say I'm a wunderkind, and lots of people use this software, but it really is nice to be able to say "yes, these are skills that I learned in school including some that are better than what you've been used to already." A couple days later, when I met Mark's wife she commented that Mark was impressed with my work thus far and that he'd said "She's even teaching me some new stuff!"
The first couple of weeks I met my other colleagues, Dave, Wayne, Jamie and Dawn. Being rather shy, I didn't talk to them too much other that the usual pleasantries and basic answers to the question "How are you liking the job so far?"
A few weeks or a month into it was when I was first invited to "the adult table" for coffee. To that point, I'd usually have coffee on my own or not at all cause I was busy working away. But in the process of designing the 20'x8' display, which was a team effort with everyone involved, I guess I started to open up a little bit. I remember the first time Dave stuck his head around the corner and said "We're all going for coffee in about 10 minutes if you'd like to join us." My shy side cropping up, my instinct was to say "no, that's okay, I've got work to do." but I reminded myself that you get out of life what you put into it. So I decided I'd better say yes.
Coffee breaks turned into my favourite thing at work. Not that I didn't find the work I was doing to be challenging and fulfilling, but as I got to know the guys (Dawn frequently didn't come as she did her own thing) I realized that they were all a) good people, b) intelligent people, c) news junkies, d) inquisitive/engaging conversationalists and e) entertaining to boot.
Sadly, due to the current political temperature in the Federal Government, my position was eliminated. Me and several hundred others actually. I was sad to go, mostly just because of the guys (and, okay, the regular paycheque to do what I was trained to do), but in terms of having to deal with less bureaucratic bullshit? I was actually glad that I got out when I did. Because it turns out, having a "permanent" position means jack-shit in the government. Austerity measures and all that (You want to save some real cash? Maybe abolish the Senate! That'll give ya some extra coin!).
My last day, the gang took me out for a goodbye lunch at Golf's, which is a very fancy restaurant nearby. The best part of the lunch, however, was when Ken pulled a card from out of nowhere and gave a little speech about why he was going to miss me, my talents, my work ethic, my sense of humour and my subjects of conversation (some of which were here-to-fore unexplored territory to these all married people. They were fascinated by the stories of my foibles in the internet dating world). The group proceeded, one at a time, to go around the table and basically tell me how awesome I was for various reasons. It was the best. Day. Evar. Well, except that I was losing my job. But I commented to them about how I was very sad to leave them, but a was so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with them and grateful that they had been so kind and caring and were really genuinely appreciative of the work that I'd done for them. Never had I worked anywhere that they had made such a point to tell me, on a fairly regular basis, that I had done/was doing a good job and that they appreciated my efforts.
To this day, and I haven't worked with them regularly for over a year now, I still make a point to go for coffee with them on a regular basis. I try to make it out once a month anyway. I made it out before Ken retired, and today, they had a send-off for Wayne who is going to another job. I decided to pop by for the shin-dig. With a dozen or so people gathered, I knew about half of them there, enough that I was always able to be chatting with SOME one at SOME point. And I had a really good time. As did Wayne, I'm sure. Dave gave a touching speech and Wayne a touching rebuttal where he even named some of us to say how we had enhanced his life in many ways.
For a day that had already been pretty awesome from the start (I bought a new-to-me lens for a kick-ass price), I was very happy as I observed the guys, smiling, having some beer and thought to myself that while I miss the hell out of them, it's far better to miss them than to think that I might have never met them otherwise. If you've read this far, I hope you didn't just roll your eyes and think that was a pretty shallow and pedantic pay-off for the time you've put into reading this. But if you did? Screw you, this is more for me than anyone else, plus you totally missed the point of my attitude of gratitude talk. I've now been thinking of and writing for the last 25 minutes or so and holding on to what was really a great time with people that I adore. And while I'm sure Wayne will probably never see this, (and may not remember his comments about life-enhancing colleagues), I am grateful that I got to meet and know these guys and share in even a small part of their lives and mine. Would life be better if I could still see them everyday? Maybe. But maybe I'm just transitioning into another level where I will meet even more people that I'll come to love to work with.
There... I think I'm done musing for today. If you're still here, thanks for sticking with it.
I even started adding hashtags of #AttitudeOfGratitude to my tweets, or #Gratitude or #AoG when space wouldn't allow for the longer one. That helped to a greater degree because by doing it right as it happened, it forced me to hold on to that moment longer as I physically typed out the message. And like any small thing, when you start adding them up, they make for a bigger thing and then sometimes you get a whole day that looks pretty awesome all around.
So, backtracking a bit here.
Right after I finished photography school I went through a really rough patch, having a diploma now added to the degree I wasn't using and feeling not only like I had a severe case of arrested development but useless to people in general. It wasn't the stars aligned and I was hired as a casual employee for the Federal Government as a photographer and graphic designer (the latter of which I didn't realize I'd be doing until I was elbows deep into a 20'x8' display design for an upcoming trade fair). I'd met Mark, who would be my supervisor, a couple of times before, and my boss Ken only pretty much when I'd signed papers. But in my first full day when Mark took me into the studio where the computers were located and asked me if I knew how to do a particular function in a particular program and I was able to say "You bet I can! Plus, I'll show you a faster and easier way to do it!" That was one of the most validating moments of my life. Not to say I'm a wunderkind, and lots of people use this software, but it really is nice to be able to say "yes, these are skills that I learned in school including some that are better than what you've been used to already." A couple days later, when I met Mark's wife she commented that Mark was impressed with my work thus far and that he'd said "She's even teaching me some new stuff!"
The first couple of weeks I met my other colleagues, Dave, Wayne, Jamie and Dawn. Being rather shy, I didn't talk to them too much other that the usual pleasantries and basic answers to the question "How are you liking the job so far?"
A few weeks or a month into it was when I was first invited to "the adult table" for coffee. To that point, I'd usually have coffee on my own or not at all cause I was busy working away. But in the process of designing the 20'x8' display, which was a team effort with everyone involved, I guess I started to open up a little bit. I remember the first time Dave stuck his head around the corner and said "We're all going for coffee in about 10 minutes if you'd like to join us." My shy side cropping up, my instinct was to say "no, that's okay, I've got work to do." but I reminded myself that you get out of life what you put into it. So I decided I'd better say yes.
Coffee breaks turned into my favourite thing at work. Not that I didn't find the work I was doing to be challenging and fulfilling, but as I got to know the guys (Dawn frequently didn't come as she did her own thing) I realized that they were all a) good people, b) intelligent people, c) news junkies, d) inquisitive/engaging conversationalists and e) entertaining to boot.
Sadly, due to the current political temperature in the Federal Government, my position was eliminated. Me and several hundred others actually. I was sad to go, mostly just because of the guys (and, okay, the regular paycheque to do what I was trained to do), but in terms of having to deal with less bureaucratic bullshit? I was actually glad that I got out when I did. Because it turns out, having a "permanent" position means jack-shit in the government. Austerity measures and all that (You want to save some real cash? Maybe abolish the Senate! That'll give ya some extra coin!).
My last day, the gang took me out for a goodbye lunch at Golf's, which is a very fancy restaurant nearby. The best part of the lunch, however, was when Ken pulled a card from out of nowhere and gave a little speech about why he was going to miss me, my talents, my work ethic, my sense of humour and my subjects of conversation (some of which were here-to-fore unexplored territory to these all married people. They were fascinated by the stories of my foibles in the internet dating world). The group proceeded, one at a time, to go around the table and basically tell me how awesome I was for various reasons. It was the best. Day. Evar. Well, except that I was losing my job. But I commented to them about how I was very sad to leave them, but a was so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with them and grateful that they had been so kind and caring and were really genuinely appreciative of the work that I'd done for them. Never had I worked anywhere that they had made such a point to tell me, on a fairly regular basis, that I had done/was doing a good job and that they appreciated my efforts.
To this day, and I haven't worked with them regularly for over a year now, I still make a point to go for coffee with them on a regular basis. I try to make it out once a month anyway. I made it out before Ken retired, and today, they had a send-off for Wayne who is going to another job. I decided to pop by for the shin-dig. With a dozen or so people gathered, I knew about half of them there, enough that I was always able to be chatting with SOME one at SOME point. And I had a really good time. As did Wayne, I'm sure. Dave gave a touching speech and Wayne a touching rebuttal where he even named some of us to say how we had enhanced his life in many ways.
For a day that had already been pretty awesome from the start (I bought a new-to-me lens for a kick-ass price), I was very happy as I observed the guys, smiling, having some beer and thought to myself that while I miss the hell out of them, it's far better to miss them than to think that I might have never met them otherwise. If you've read this far, I hope you didn't just roll your eyes and think that was a pretty shallow and pedantic pay-off for the time you've put into reading this. But if you did? Screw you, this is more for me than anyone else, plus you totally missed the point of my attitude of gratitude talk. I've now been thinking of and writing for the last 25 minutes or so and holding on to what was really a great time with people that I adore. And while I'm sure Wayne will probably never see this, (and may not remember his comments about life-enhancing colleagues), I am grateful that I got to meet and know these guys and share in even a small part of their lives and mine. Would life be better if I could still see them everyday? Maybe. But maybe I'm just transitioning into another level where I will meet even more people that I'll come to love to work with.
There... I think I'm done musing for today. If you're still here, thanks for sticking with it.
My guys (in the corner) though Jamie and Mark were MIA at this point.
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