After reading wish i felt best but I don’t-this time with passion, my friend had the nerve to give a gentle nudge and use my words against me.
…some things that could bring happiness and joy to you. what fills your tank, that helps you from not feeling drained…
that got me to thinking; what brings me joy? what fills my tank? what keeps me from feeling drained? quite the questions to ponder.
i use to have answers; hiking, biking, walking, quilting, photography. these and many other things use to feed me. the joy and energy I derived from these helped me to not feel so empty and eventually to refill my tank and put depression behind me.
something has happened this cycle, something cruel; i’ve tried each and everyone of these and more and nothing has even budged the needle of wellness. depression drains. with an empty tank, it becomes easier to slip into depression. continued draining with nothing to refill the tank leads to an empty tank.
depression drains and if nothing refills the tank, depression continues to exude its malevolent power. with a small trickle, at best, refilling the tank, the tank refills slowly or just stays empty. the empty tank represents a lack of joy and/or fulfillment suggests a longer journey out of depression. with a slow refill, because of the minuscule refill rate also points to a longer journey out of depression.
i face a challenge, a challenge like never before. a challenge to find things that will bring me joy. it will likely be something new, something that i have thought of before. all my stand by’s haven’t seemed to do anything. it will be a time of discovery and challenge while to searching and hopefully finding my fuel source or sources at fill my tank, bring me joy, and keeps me from feeling down.
and you, what feeds you? what brings you joy? what fills your tank? what have you done when your joy fuels seemingly evaporates? have you lost your fulfillment juice? if so, what did you have to do to refill your tank?
facing off with the big d 
I am careful not to “feed” the black dog. I make a conscious effort to filter out the negative feed: the news, dark books, movies and tv shows. Sometimes it’s just accepting the waiting with an empty tank – and not pushing so hard. It’s a difficult and delicate balance. If you don’t have enough energy for a hike – stroll to the mail box, sit in the sun. Little things count.
thanks for your input. it gives me something to think about. i am guilty in this cycle of looking for the singular silver bullet to take the beast down. taking into account what you said, maybe i can be can be more accepting of the empty tank and be on the lookout for a bunch of silver pellets. that would be a definite paradigm switch for me, but something i have to take to heart. what i am doing isn’t working; something else would be worth a try. it can not have much worse results than i currently have.
Helping others, karoke, exercise and sometimes when in b the right frame of mind for it cleaning and doing things with my kids.
more reminders to do little stuff that i don’t do enough of. thanks.
Those are great questions and for me, playing piano and writing music helps.
I know when a week goes by without playing on the keyboard, I don’t feel as emotionally good as weeks when I can play even if it’s just a little.
During the month of June, I’m going to try to play a little every day and record what I play and out of all that playing, hopefully I’ll get another piano album or two, or even three, depending for how long I’m able to play each day.
I may post the results on my blog as well, we’ll see.
ah, a little bit of ticklin’ the ivories. that is great that you have your piano to turn to.
music played a part in my early life. i played tenor sax from elementary school to early high school. I believe playing feed me some but i think i played mostly out of requirement.
my brains and hand don’t have a good line of communication. that affects everything form keyboarding (i’ve not learned to touch type), to music keyboarding (i struggle at such classics as mary had a little lamb and twinkle twinkle little star) and tenor sax( i never learned to barely keep my fingers on the keys. my fingers would always fly off the keys. that made it hard to be ready for the next note.
When depression hits me hard, it’s usually accompanied by a lot of crying. So I tend to be exhausted and sleep a lot. Which is ok because it recharges my battery. I also watch anything that makes me laugh. Sitcoms, funny movies, comedy specials etc. It varies from year to year. My parents got me into watching these british comedies on PBS n BBC. There are some hilarious ones. Oh n reading helps me escape n get out of my own head for a while. Spending relaxed time with my little nieces and nephew help too. Sometimes even just a Haagen Daz ice cream bar can help lol.
It is scary when the things that usually work don’t. That usually meant I needed to tweak my meds. Oh and the best trick my Mom gave me? HUGS. I am so serious that a long strong hug helps. If I’m alone she taught me to close my eyes tight, put my arms around myself n picture her hugging me for 1 minute. Try it, I swear it helps! ♡