Friday Five; Depression

Let's talk about depression.

A conversation with a friend got me thinking about what has changed -- what I have changed -- since my twenties, when my mental health was very bad.

Of course, in my twenties it was a lot harder to talk about mental health, and there was no easily-accessible forum in which to discuss it.
( five methods that have improved my mental health and its impact on my life )

TL;DR?
JUST SAY NO. Say no to medication that makes you feel worse; to demands on your time or energy that are likely to exhaust your resources without benefit to yourself; to self-criticism and self-loathing; to frantically keeping up with the outside world when it exhausts and infuriates and upsets you; to anyone who dismisses or condemns your experience of your illness; to 'should' and 'shouldn't'; to depression itself (and / or other mental health issues) for telling you lies about yourself and your world.

2017/10: Doc -- Mary Doria Russell

2017/10: Doc -- Mary Doria Russell

Belle Wright undoubtedly believed that his courtesy to Johnnie Sanders and China Joe stemmed from an admirable democratic conviction that they were every bit as good as he was. In reality, he thought himself no better than they: a significant distinction. It was not a surfeit of brotherly love that informed John Henry Holliday's egalitarianism. It was an acute awareness of the depths of disgrace into which he himself had fallen. [loc. 3214]

Mary Doria Russell, author of one of my very favourite SF novels (The Sparrow) and a number of other books that I have enjoyed and / or admired, has turned her attention to the Western. Sort of.( not significantly spoilery )