So, two days ago, I was having a really hard time.  I was very down.

But, a really great thing happened.

I have been ranting in therapy (and I go a few times a week, so she must really be tired of hearing this) about how I can be depressed and anxious at the same time.  It seems to me to be an impossible state.  Opposing forces at work at the same time on the same being.  I would say that it’s impossible, and yet I feel it so often.

But, two days ago, I felt it start.  I felt the actual beginning of anxiety during a depressed state.  It was just a touch of anger at first.  Here I am, depressed again, hiding in the bedroom crying.  And a finger of anger touched my shoulder.  Lightly, barely noticeable.  But, barely noticeably means a little noticeable, and this time I caught it in the act.

I couldn’t stop it.  But I saw it.  For the very first time, I saw anxiety creep in during a depression.

I call it a really great thing, because part of dealing with this swirling mass of mental illness is noticing the start of the different moods.  And I did it.  And for me, seeing the start of this state that has been making me nuts for, literally, years, was HUGE!

I asked my therapist to write down and remember this moment.  I know that I will forget.  A couple weeks, months or even (sadly) days from now I will forget that I finally understood.  Actually, scratch that.  I’ll remember that I understood, I just won’t remember how.