Hello Angeal
That's the question that baffles us all. Why do we 'fall over' so easily when it appears we have everything going for us. I don't know if this is what happens but it seems to me that we wean off a drug and have a space when everything is going well. Somehow we need our bodies to manufacture the chemical or whatever that has helped us and it takes a while for the body to respond. Almost as if we are waiting for that external help to kick in and when it doesn't because we have stopped taking the meds, the body goes into panic mode. Sometimes we get back to square one and sometimes not.
I have no medical knowledge about this but this how I think it works. I believe I have had depression for many years, probably since teenage, but it was never recognised and certainly not by me, so when I had major upsets the depression kicked in big time. Maybe my body never fully developed the antidote, so to speak, for depression and I staggered along with minor depression thinking this was normal. I just don't know. Except that my current ADs help me in a way nothing in the past has done.
It's good to know you have your safety nets in place. I worked with my GP to set up all of these things and when I became more under the weather because of something that happened about five months ago, she reminded me what we had worked out. I was pleased with myself that I was doing some of these things, almost as a reflex action, which shows I was learning to manage my self care.
I think the other thing I have learned is that it takes a short time to get swamped but much longer to get up again. Doesn't seem fair does it? It's also a heads up to keep doing the self care stuff which we can easily, or I can easily let slip.
Try not to beat yourself up. It's a natural thing to do I know, but it's not a character flaw, just life getting in the way of living.
Mary
