Category: depression
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Trust in the light
My confession. I wrote earlier this month about my resolutions for 2023 in general terms—such as get organized, speak up, eat healthier. Of course, I am violating the first rule of writing resolutions. These resolutions are too general. Not specific enough. However, I have been in a COVID fog since December 28. Now that I…
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Sometimes she is depressed
Jane Goodall has hope. She wrote a book called The Book of Hope, but, in an interview in the November 5, 2021, issue of The Week, Goodall admits that sometimes she is depressed. “I mean, you have to feel depressed,” she says. “But, then, there’s something that says there is still an awful lot left…
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Good medicine
I was feeling—as my mother would say—down in the dumps. The delta variant. The new abortion law in Texas—and the new Texas voting laws and gun laws. And, my husband’s ill health. However, I found good medicine. I talked to two good friends on the phone, and then I had lunch the next day with…
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Orange juice for the ear
“Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears,” the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks once said. “It is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.”
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One day at a time
“Health officials are warning that about a third of Americans are suffering from clinical anxiety and depression,” says William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week in the magazine’s June 5, 2020, issue. “To cope, we have to learn to tolerate great uncertainty, while having faith that scientists will find treatments and/or a vaccine, and this bizarre…
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A gloomy day
I woke up Sunday feeling gloomy. The gloom surrounded me as I faced another day of stay-in-place during this coronavirus crisis. The gloom lingered until I took my afternoon walk and saw a friendly neighbor and some spring flowers starting to bloom. “Where flowers bloom so does hope,” Lady Bird Johnson once said. –Joy
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I go to the sea again
In Moby Dick, Herman Melville wrote, “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses….then, I account it high time to get to the sea as soon as I can.” Some of us go to the…
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I could still be amazed
In his book The Frozen Leopard, Aaron Latham explains that it was a “rainy season” in his soul. Seeking a cure for his depression, Latham goes to Africa. There he watches a giraffe and writes, “I felt giddy and elated. Most of all, I was amazed to relearn an old lesson that I had all…
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What lies around the bend
My mother was always optimistic. But, my father was not always as optimistic Sometimes, like my father, I slip toward the dark side and see the glass as half-empty and cover myself with depression. And, then, sometimes, I can talk to myself and convince myself that it is so much more pleasant to follow my…
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Carry your own weather
I’m ready for summer. It has been rainy, cloudy, cool for days. Sometimes I let the weather affect my mood. And, sometimes, I let stormy relationships with the people around me depress me. “Carry your own weather,” advises Todd Davis in his book Get Better—15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work. I have…