Good Evening Captain, May I ask, how does one deal with depression? (You don't need to answer if you don't want to no pressure)
He’d been staring at the letter so long now his eyes had began to strain. Rubbing them, he took a breath and pulled out his quill out of it’s ink-pot.
Good Evening, Master Dragon,
Apologies for the delay in this letter’s arrival; I confess the question was heavy on my heart when I first opened your letter, for it was one intimate in my immediate circumstances. Life had become Remarkably Melancholic. Ergo, quite painful to exist in. Life’s conditions had become wearisome to bear and had myself considering just how much of this venture I wanted to invest more of my time in.
I wanted to reply to this message in a genuine heart; one that had passed through the storm of depression and come out to tell the tale rather than give some false platitudes about the whole affair.
I also wish to acknowledge the multitude of kinds of depression; some of loss, of grief, of the nature of one’s being, and of the circumstances one is enduring. I don’t know what you or others will struggle with; I can only speak andectollly upon my own natural condition and how I have managed it.
I suppose then I should begin this with a list of how I was able to make it out these dark shadows of the heart.
1. Persistence. This is not the same as patience; patience ask you to wait out a storm. Persistence has you walk through it. I have found that in all forms of depression, persisting in an act of living - in the behaviors, habits, and motions of existence that are or once were genuine to you - to be the fundamental in this adventure.
Simply put, even if you just choosing to breathe and breathe again, you are overcoming depression’s foul grip.
2. All depression, it seems to myself, stems from a disconnect from the emotion of happiness and the current stage of life that one is upon. If finding yourself unhappy, an immediate, grounding technique can be found in asking if you what you lack is truly important to your life, why it’s so valuable in your first place to have, and if such a thing you are immediately lacking - this item that will grant you happiness - is actually in your power to posses.
3. Do not fear depression so much as to let it dictate your every mood. Yes, act upon your fear to avoid it, to partake in the activities that keep the foul shadow at bay, and yet know it is not wholly unnatural or destructive to you. It can serve as a light post to greater issues that affect you.
If you have survived depression once before or are still alive despite it’s current shadow over your heart, then you are all right and meant to live.
Know that winter is apart of our lives, as is summer. Embrace your sadness as an extension of you, and do not put on a happy mask in the hopes of saving harm to others or yourself. If you are to wear a mask, then please consider the next lesson.
4. Seek to move. In the vein of persistence, create a wise and healthy distance between what will invite the shadow over your life and seek to continue or find ways to exist; create art, dance, sing, exercise, go for walks through nature or places of beauty. Join company of friends and loved ones.
This may or will not remove the shadow’s presence, but it will create a space in your heart for light to dwell as well.
5. In all things, finally, seek to listen to your self and your needs. Educate yourself on your condition and how it can be managed. Make a practice of writing or talking to yourself about how you feel. Listen and read what you say. Reflect on it, and begin to pay attention to what you are pay attention to; your needs and wants, your expressions of fear and hope. This can work as just as well with partner as yourself.
I have enclosed all the wisdom I can consider at this point to have to you, Master Dragon, and wish you luck in your journeys in this world. Much of this work is unattractive, but remember that this - and yourself by extension - are not a finished work but a dance in motion. Do not rue the dance for it’s length, but instead find joy in the process of this world and in the processes that make up your soul.
Your friend in this Sea of Shadows and Light,
James Bartholomew Hook
Captain of the Jolly Roger.
