Strong versus Weak

When I left my last counselling session last week H said she would post out a few chapters of a book for me to read; Depressive Illness The curse of the strong by Dr Tim Cantopher.

It arrived yesterday.

I read it and cried my way through it. It made so much sense, it could have been written about me, and it made me feel a bit better that what I am feeling, other people do too in this illness. Even seeing it as an illness is a new thing for me. I can't help it, can't control it but can do things to help myself.

What I didn't appreciate is that Clinical Depression is a physical illness and it is a deficiency of two chemicals and they are linked by a circuit; the limbic system.
The most common trigger of depression is stress and it nearly always happens to one type of person. Some of these personality characteristics are strength, reliability, strong conscience, strong sense of responsibility, sensitivity, vulnerable to criticism, and self -esteem dependant on the evaluation of others.

He goes on to say that it isn't surprising when you consider that depressive illness is a physical condition. Give a set of stresses to someone who is weak, cynical or lazy and he will quickly give up, so he will never get stressed enough to get ill. A strong person, on the other hand, will react to these pressures by trying to overcome them.
A bit of a generalised statement there I think, that won't apply to everybody.

Reading a list of symptoms; loss of sleep, appetite, energy, enthusiasm, concentration, memory, confidence, self- esteem, enjoyment, feelings and hope and feeling worse in the morning, that is me.

One chapter is titled' What to do when you get ill'. He writes that you must give up the struggle; it's a waste of time. You can't achieve much because your concentration, energy and judgement are at an all-time low. So stop.
Sleep requirement in clinical depression is reduced and sleeping during the day will be subtracted from the hours you are likely to sleep at night. The early hours of the morning is when you tend to wake when depressed.
Maybe that is where I am going wrong; I am sleeping in the afternoon but by then it is so hard to keep myself awake.
The average person in a depressive episode has no more that 10-15mins of available energy for anything at all demanding. Again I can relate to that, it takes me all my time to get up off the sofa to do the simplest thing.

The point to hold onto according to Dr Cantopher is that you are wrong in thinking you are weak, and that you should be ashamed to have contracted this illness. You have got it because you are too strong.
I don't agree with that but that is part of the problem.

I have ordered the book and am looking forward to reading the other chapters.

A better sleep last night; I got around 5hours. I was awake at 7.15am, it took to 1pm to work myself up to a shower. In those 6 hours I have tried to put dishes away and clear the clothes horse. After my shower I was physically and mentally exhausted and my legs felt so tired and heavy, I needed to lie down.
I had a goal today; I needed to post a letter. Eventually at 3pm I got out to the post box and wandered down the hill to the harbour for a short walk.