Early every morning, I hear a lone mourning dove cooing outside my bedroom window. There’s something welcoming in the melancholy sound, but it’s also kind of heart breaking. Is she really in mourning?

I can’t figure out why I feel comfortable in that pain. I guess because it’s familiar. I wrap myself in a cloak of sadness and I can’t seem to take it off. I’m attached to it. Other times it’s excruciating. It’s lonely, scary and sad. There’s no escape.

Having clinical depression is a tough deal. Any mental illness is. We don’t want people to know, because we feel embarrassed, and there’s still a stigma attached. We try to hide it, and then we find ourselves isolated from everyone and everything. Then we get mad at ourselves for feeling so crappy. And then we think we’re simply unlovable.

Ugh. The vicious cycle.

I’ve spent most of my life unloving myself and thinking I’m unlovable. I often get down on myself for not loving myself or treating myself nicer.

And if I don’t love myself, who else could possibly love me? Down the rabbit hole…

But if we really stare into that hole, we’ll see that love is an inside job. For a long time I thought that if I had the perfect man, house and high-paying job everything would magically fall into place, and I’d love myself because I’d feel whole. I forgot that I’d have to take care of my well-being—mind, body and spirit—along the way.

I can say with 100 percent certainty that the answer does not lie in self-medicating with alcohol, prescription medications, shopping sprees and toxic relationships.

“It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self-love deficit.”
~ Eartha Kitt

Self-care is hard work, especially for people suffering from depression and other disorders. But we do what we need to do to survive and take care of ourselves.

I’d recommend talking to a therapist at least once a week, learning new coping skills using cognitive behavioral therapy, experimenting with meditation in a way that works for you, exercising at least five times a week, caring for an animal or doing yoga or anything that’s healthy and makes you feel good.

Do I do all these things all the time? No, but if I feel myself getting off balance, I try to make good on being good to myself. We might as well do the best we can while we’re on this earth.

Most people are doing the best they can, which brings me to point out that we need to stop beating ourselves up. I get seriously bummed at myself for not treating myself better. Stop! If I don’t like it, I try to change it. No need to dwell there in bummer-land.

Here are a few positive affirmations I repeat to myself when I forget. I’m sure you can relate:

You are enough.
You are lovable.
You are a good person.
You have courage.
You are stronger than you know.
You are not alone.
You are doing the best you can.

I know how hard it is to be brave and face this world head-on. The nuances of depression and how to manage it seem complicated and overwhelming. I keep trying. And sometimes I shake off the cloak of sadness, let the sunshine warm my shoulders, breathe in the air and listen to the mourning dove sing its sad song.

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Relephant Read:

5 Things Depression is Not.

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Author: Melissa Davidson

Editor: Toby Israel

Image: Pixabay // Matthew Wiebe/Unsplash

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