When I sat down to write my blog this week, what came to mind is that I’ve been having trouble mood-wise lately – depressed mood, low energy, anxiety – and how this seems to go against what we commonly associate with the beginning of a new year. But I have to live life, even when I'm depressed.

One of depression's main symptoms is feeling alone, like no one in the world could possibly understand your situation, your pain, or your experience. You feel cut off from other people, like there's a glass wall between you and the rest of the world. The feeling of being alone can can make you want to isolate yourself from friends, family, and other people who care about us. Isolation feeds depression.

Lately I've been caught in a trap of worrying about everything I need to do, instead of simply doing the things I need to do. This causes a big increase in my depression symptoms. I look around my apartment and the whole place is a giant mess. Dirty dishes lie everywhere, pretty much every piece of clothing I own needs to be washed, and instead of dust bunnies lying on my floor I have what my mom calls "dust wolves." Instead of just gathering up my dirty dishes,  I lie down on my couch. I start thinking in negative spirals, about how I mess up everything in my life. I think about all the times I've failed at things, and my self-doubt starts building. I can't even keep a one bedroom apartment clean! How am I ever going to have a house one day?

National Suicide Prevention Week stirs up a lot of emotion in me. I rarely involve myself in suicide awareness activities, most of which occur annually this week in early September. Depression is something I am eager to talk about with anyone but I'm not ready to share my suicide stories or hear others' suicide stories in a public venue yet.

My depression is really making me struggle with the daily task of living right now. I can't keep going the way I have in the past few years. I hate my life; I'm completely broke and in debt and I feel like all of my relationships are crumbling. Sometimes I sit back and look at my life and think, "Is this really it for me? Is depression going to define and imprison me for the rest of my life?" I know it's pretty common for someone in the late twenties to question where their life is going, but I feel like I have extra questions than the average person who say, isn't diagnosed with depression.

Recently I found myself feeling depressed. As is usually the case, there were different triggers involved. Some were hormonal as I was pre-menstrual. Others were personal as my parents are in the process of splitting up and it’s been an emotional time for all involved. Like so many, I was also surprised and hit hard by the suicide of Robin Williams. Add in my wonky brain chemistry, and I was off to the depression races.

My depression recovery often feels like it isn't going forward at all. I feel like my emotions go all over the map, up, down, sideways, backwards, and then forwards again. Some days my depression feels better than the day before, but other days it feels worse than I did the day before. Even in the span of one day, I can go from feeling pretty okay about things to feeling like I want to throw in the towel. It's so confusing and frustrating.

This past week, I was struck by how much of a role food cravings play in the dance of my moods. When tired, stressed or feeling low, I consistently found myself reaching for sweets to get through. Cookies, cake, or pudding: it didn’t matter, so long as carbohydrates were involved. I didn’t want to keep eating in such an unhealthy way. Yet despite my best intentions, I returned again and again to the very foods I had forsworn just hours earlier. Then I would get frustrated and beat myself up for breaking my promise. After sinking to polishing off a dinner of pretzels and double chocolate chip cookies one night, I tried to sit in awareness of my chaotic, depression feelings. The question came to mind: What are you feeding?

Chronic pain is part of my depression, and it's making me feel so very uncomfortable tonight. I have several health problems that stem from having depression and their symptoms are often more debilitating than depression is on its own. Some come from the stress of having depression, others are a side-effect of my antidepressants. Overcoming my pain is complex, and it often feels like this never ending cycle of chronic pain, depression and pills.

If you’re familiar with depression, you’re familiar with black and white thinking, or thinking in absolutes such as, “I can’t do anything right.” I find that even when I am not in a depressed state, noticing black or white thinking can be one of the first signs that my mood is starting to wobble. I’ve learned that with mood, I’d rather address a slightly low mood from the get-go than wait until I have to dig myself out of a deeper depression. And the key with addressing black and white thinking is to move from black and white to gray. Black and white is limited. Gray embraces the range of possibilities.