Brains are fickle. Yesterday I woke at seven o’clock, which unfortunately meant that I was on schedule for a panic attack by ten. I’ve been going to an intensive day treatment program at one of the local hospitals last week, extending into this one, to help get a handle on the recurrence of depression symptoms that have flooded back into my life again. It seems to be helping but something about having a strict structure  to follow throughout the day always has. Structure is something I need to find a way to implement when I am no longer in this program and back at home full time. My program therapist says I’ve been doing to much that is focused on my disease and not enough that focuses on me and what I want out of life. He might have a point.

Lately the program has shifted me back onto an early morning schedule where I am waking by six or seven o’clock every morning and thoroughly exhausted by the time nine PM rolls around. I like being up early though, my head feels clearer for a few hours in the early morning. I tend to feel a little more hopeful about the day earlier on than I do as time progresses. As long as I don’t lie around in bed for too long after I wake up, that is. Staying in bed makes me not want to get up, makes the weight of my blankets feel too comforting and safely warm. I just want to curl up in my nest of pillows and stuffed animals and never put my feet over the edge. But I like the early mornings, with the window open just a sliver so I can feel the cool air and hear the birds now that it is really spring even if my allergies might prefer it be closed.

I’m gradually starting to claw my way out of this pit that I’ve fallen into. I feel like I’m stuck there less permanently now, at least. Everything I drew the past weeks was a figure dangling over a cliff with a monster or flames licking up from beneath, which I guess goes a long way to showing my lack of optimism with my situation. Things feel less dire at the moment, which is a start. I ate a salad for lunch. It’s always a good sign when I start asking for green things again. The challenge now is not getting ahead of myself and not falling behind: not getting so caught up in feeling better that I forget that this is a process and not getting so caught up in feeling better that I through structure out the window because I think I don’t need it anymore. It’s about balance, this game. It’s slow and steady and there isn’t any finish line. It’s just a balance.