Mental Health Moment #11: 15 Ways to Keep Depression Away Now That Spring is Here

05/14/2021 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

Image credit: Ryan Searle on Unsplash Welcome to MHM #11! Mental Health Moments are shorter posts that include tips and suggestions for getting through your day without letting your depression get you down. I tend to be a bit wordy in my regular posts; MHMs are my attempt to be a little more palatable for those who don’t want to read longer posts. And now, onto the show! Spring has sprung and we’re on our way to a nice-looking…

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My Year in Review – Plus, What’s Up For 2019

01/06/2019 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

So, I haven’t written much in the last two months, and I wanted to let you know that I’m okay. Exhaustion has crept back into my daily life, which means that I’m too tired to write (I often go take a nap instead). Hell, sometimes, I’m too tired to feed the cats! (But I do – no cat goes hungry in this household.) Despite some rough patches, 2018 was a pretty decent year. Even Christmas wasn’t too stressful this year,…

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I Don’t Really Want to Die: A Birthday Eve Story

12/10/2018 Laura Becker Comments 2 comments

Photo by Leti Kugler on Unsplash So I turned 50 a couple weeks ago. 🙂 I’ve been looking forward to it since my birthday last year. Who doesn’t want to be fifty and fabulous, right? LOL I had a good day, and that’s saying a lot. I woke up at seven thirty, had my coffee, checked my Facebook feed for some birthday lovin’, and settled in. I spent all day in my jammie bottoms and my favorite ratty t-shirt. Comfort personified! But…

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MHM #5: Tips on Getting Better Sleep

11/11/2018 Laura Becker Comments 6 comments

Photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇭🇨🇦 on Unsplash Sleep and I have a long, sordid history. If you have depression, you know how important (and messed up) sleep can be. I think it’s ironic that one of the signs of depression is either a lack of sleep or sleeping too much, but there it is. I know that when I don’t get enough sleep, I get really cranky and irritable, I’m more likely to fly off the handle, and I’m more vulnerable to…

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Cue the Fatigue!

09/25/2018 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

Several years ago, I went through about five years of fatigue that, it turned out, had no medical cause. I finally decided it was all about the stress. I made some changes, felt better, and life went on. Well, here I am again. For the last month or so, I have felt that same almost-debilitating level of fatigue, and again I attribute it to stress. WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ME? Oh, all kinds of things! Chief among them? I am…

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A Moment of Peace

08/14/2018 Laura Becker Comments 2 comments

I had a revelation last week. When I get depressed, I feel a hole in my heart, an emptiness. And when I feel anxious, I feel tingly – in a bad way – in the same place. But one day last week, I was sitting on the balcony, minding my own business, when I noticed the absence of the hole and the tinglies. I felt “full.” And it was awesome. It was peace, it was serenity, it was contentment –…

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Self-Care is Not a Dirty Word

07/03/2018 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself first. At least, that’s what I believe. For instance, I’ve been sick with pneumonia for the last two and a half weeks, which accounts for the lack of posts lately. It’s hard to even breathe and hold a conversation, much less focus on writing. I went to Urgent Care two weeks ago, where I received prescriptions for a Z-Pack, Prednisone, and cough syrup with codeine. And,…

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Depression and Fatigue

06/26/2018 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

One of the biggest symptoms of depression for me is fatigue. And I don’t mean fatigue in the usual way. I mean, we all feel exhausted every now and then. What I’m talking about is extreme, chronic fatigue. The kind where you go to the doctor repeatedly and they do all kinds of tests on you to see what’s going on – and find nothing out of the ordinary. The kind that prevents you from participating in social activities or…

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When Life Imitates a Rollercoaster

08/17/2017 Laura Becker Comments 0 Comment

This week, the rollercoaster of life came to visit me. Five days ago, I found out that my dearest friend, the woman who has helped me the most in my sobriety and in my life, has lung cancer. My heart almost stopped when she told me. This woman (I’ll call her LG) means the world to me. She has stuck with me through relapses, life’s circumstance, poor decisions on my part, and more, and has never, ever judged me for…

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Depression Warrior

On Surviving Depression

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