A lot of what passes for depression these days is nothing more than a body saying it needs work.

Trying to follow your own advice is never easy. The warning to a friend not to make the same mistakes you have, only to make them again yourself; the promising you'll live every minute like there won't be another chance, and then you let that chance walk right by.

So here I sit asking myself how I manage to feel happy and confident and brave and at the first opportunity of being able to demonstrate that I crumble like a Jenga tower with no blocks on the inside. 

Not only do I feel a sense of letting myself down for missing an opportunity, I feel down because I've now made a first impression that is not consistent with who I am. Not sure I can recover from that one, but I guess now I gotta give it a damn good shot.

Some people say that depression feels like a black curtain of despair coming down over their lives. Many people feel like they have no energy and can't concentrate. Others feel irritable all the time for no apparent reason.  I feel weak and vulnerable.  I have no energy. I feel that black curtain. I opened myself up too much today to one person who I thought would have responded in a better way. The result is that I feel damaged and depressed. I vowed to experience everything, to try new things, to not say no. Not all of things are going to be favorable all of the time to everyone.  But to feel violated a second time is damaging.

I feel flat, drained, worthless. How do you come back from that? What little breath of fresh air is required, what experience, what moment in time to make me come back from those feelings of guilt and shame? Where do you look to find the positives, when you're not even sure whether its safe enough to open your eyes and look around?

My body is need of some work - mental, physical, emotional. Its on a roller-coaster of emotion and experience and joy and hurt and pain and elation. Its my "vessel" for carrying around my thought and feelings and for showing the world who I am. I need to be happy with it so I am working out the physical aspects, but how exactly do you tackle the mental elements when every time you feel so good you suffer a set back that makes you feel vulnerable and shattered again. 

I want to cry, I want to expel the negativity and wake up tomorrow and start again. I want that confidence back. That feeling that I can conquer the world or that I can just make someone smile. I want someone to make me smile, not just my mouth, my whole body. I want to laugh again. I want to laugh from the inside out and cleanse my body of this vulnerability and shame and feel safe and empowered.

I don't believe someone else can do that for me. I need to do that for myself. Anyone who waits for someone else to bring them back from that feeling can sink so much further while they are waiting. I'm not going to wait. I'm going to pull myself through the sludge and give my body the work it needs to get back on track.

Once I've filled that void for myself I want to do it for someone else. I want to empower others to get on track and bring them selves back from that feeling of helplessness. Thankfully a lot of what passes for depression these days is nothing more than the body needing a little work.