Being There
My biggest regret about my hiatus from LJ is that several of my LJ friends have been experiencing depression from various causes and to various degrees. I don't have any delusions about being able to make everything alright for everybody anytime, although that would be a handy miracle to be able to pull out of one's back pocket. I've been absorbed in dealing with my own challenges and anxieties. However, that's a lame excuse because most people have difficulties. An important ability to develop is to know when one's negative emotions have become self-reinforcing and to know how to break that cycle. Perhaps, those are two separate abilities. It is possible to know that one is caught in a feedback loop of negative emotion and still not have any idea how to stop it. One thing I understand is that there is no panacea. Differing personalities combine with differing situations to make each instance of being depressed unique, even though the mental state we find ourselves in is a common experience. This makes it difficult to offer help, because it's difficult for anyone else to know exactly what to do. But, something else I understand is that this state of mind will pass, although the tendency when one is in that state is to think that it will never end. Circumstances change; personalities change. Not even mountains and lakes last forever. A state of mind is far less permanent, and what the mind does to itself, the mind can also undo.