There’s a lot to the saying depression is your past, anxiety is your future. Depression is the darkness, sadness brought on by what happened to you. Anxiety is about the chaos, fears of what might happen. I’m all too familiar with this. My fucked up parents, stuff that happened, mental models I learned and built, they are all contributing to my depression. I’m sad and powerless of not what is going on now, but what happened before. My social anxiety and general anxiety disorder make me think people will judge me, laugh at me, for just going outside or making a minor mistake a while back (a while meaning minutes, or decades ago) – people will laugh at me if I do something – they will laugh at me in my minutes, days to come – in my future. They will laugh, judge.
The past and future negatives impact my today. They impact my now. My today is = negative yesterday + negative tomorrow. It’s negative. Giving power, living with depression and anxiety is equalling to always living in a negative space. You deal with that with therapy and meds, absolutely. That’s what I’m doing. But even if you are not doing that. If you are with me, or just mildly feeling depressed, or overly depressed not knowing what to do – how to move forward. Here’s what you do. You put things down. You breathe. You take a minute, ideally more, but a minute will do.
You take a minute. You grab a drink. You take a walk. You look at funny memes. You take a minute. One minute. You enjoy that minute. For that minute. You focus on being fine. You are alive. You don’t let the things that went wrong haunt you or the worries of the future get you. You celebrate what’s good in your life. For one minute. Maybe it’s just that minute. Maybe it’s more. Maybe it’s that drink you can afford, a movie to watch, a game to play, friends you have or relationships or family or random people you interacted with, a job you have, and education you are working towards, a token a word an artifact you have to remind you of something good. You take a minute. You stay in that minute. You enjoy that minute. Anxiety, depression, worries will hit you later, you know they will. But you have that minute. That minute. That minute will ground you.
For me. For me it’s this minute. This moment in time. I’m a few glasses of prosecco down. I’m sitting on my balcony and the sun in shining. I have a drink in my hand. I know this week was tough in terms of work but it’s Friday. I will work tomorrow or Sunday. I will worry about the deadlines that exist next week. I have my worries and fears; rational and irrational. I have my anxiety. But now, at this moment; I have a drink, warm weather, and no deliverables for tomorrow. In this time, at this minute. I’m fine.
Take a minute. Forget the past. Don’t worry about the future. Take a minute. Think about yourself. Celebrate that minute. Celebrate what you are. What came before, what was before. What comes next, will be. But now, in this moment; you exist, you survive, you thrive. You can make a change. Take a minute, make a change. What will hit you, will hit you. But take a minute. Take a break. Take. A break. And then – make a change.
