Necessary Software Updates

After a valiant effort to keep my head above water this past week, I can feel myself slipping. I have to get serious now about actively keeping myself out of a depressive state.

I go there so easily. It’s my mind’s default setting. I have had to rig up some intense software to run a relatively content mood on the bullshit hardware that is my brain. I have to run my exercise program, or everything else goes to shit. I have to reboot my stay-focused-on-what-you-can-control mindset at least every hour. And I’m force quitting my, “everything’s horrible and hopeless, this is literally the end” self-talk constantly. I’ve even reinstalled my 15-minute-day-meditation commitment, because I know I need to up my self-care software game.

I’ve been quite impressed by the “recognizing and staving off panic attacks” update that was evidently part of my latest operating system upgrade. I guess I have learned something in the past ten years.

But even as I remain vigilant about self-care, and engage in the behaviors I know can help me stay out of a serious depression, I can feel myself slipping. The reality is just so awful, I can’t get out from under the weight of it.

I know part of the problem is keeping abreast of the latest news. The more I read about Pence and Bannon and what hateful excuses for human beings they are, the deeper I sink. The more I hear about the police state that will have to be created to deport 2-3 million undocumented immigrants, the harder I cry. It’s all bad. Every single piece of it.

Part of me thinks I should take a play out of my husband’s book and stick my head in the sand. Maybe in a few weeks I will be in a more stable place and can process this all without spiraling downward.

But then I argue that I have to stay informed. Ignorance never helped anybody.

I really don’t know what to do. I’ve contemplated instituting a one-article a day rule. Or maybe even subscribing to The Week again, so I will get the most important information in compact articles delivered on Frirday. Would that be a good compromise?

Maybe I can write myself some new software, to process all these hopeless feelings of despair, without falling into a serious depression.

I’m not really sure how to do it. I suppose it’s something we’re all figuring out right now. I’m just worried that if I don’t figure it out soon, I’ll end up slipping so far into that pit of depression and despair that I’ll wake up one day to the black crash-screen of death, and that no software update will be able to reboot me.