Recovering from Depression Is Messy

Depression is a jerk. There, I said it. Recovering from depression is hard and can be an overwhelming process in itself. Once you’ve started to heal and make progress, there’s a mess to clean up. In some cases (my case), this mess can be quite literal and physical. In others, it can involve relationships, your career, and even your finances.

When you’re recovering from depression, you need to give yourself a lot of grace. When you’re well-on your way to getting your life back from the grip of this mental health struggle, you also need to give yourself grace. Here are ways in which recovering isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

You May Have Dropped a Lot of Balls

There is one thing depression is really good at – and that’s making people drop balls. Either through necessity, because things are just too much and in recovering from depression you need to let go of things, or depression caused you to lose track of what you needed to do by accident.

You might have a lot of apologies to make as you’re starting to feel better. Remember, it’s not your fault your brain was being a jerk (I’m saying this to myself as well). You might also have to reschedule appointments, send follow-up emails, and wade through an awful lot of things to figure out what you need to catch up on.

You Might Have a Messy Home

One of the things depression does is wear you out a lot. This may mean that it’s all you can do to work your job and come home, feed yourself, or even just take care of kids and their needs. This means that your house may get messy. It might get really messy. Give yourself grace.

This mess doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It says nothing about the kind of person you are, other than, perhaps, that you’ve had a rough go of things for a bit. I’m going to repeat that again, having a messy home does not mean you’re a bad person.

There are three resources I really like for cleaning up after depression – or really any time you’re struggling. First, Struggle Care and the book How to Keep House When You’re Drowning by KC Davis. The approach here is very much like what I’ve been saying – care tasks (and home upkeep is a care task) are morally neutral. She also encourages readers to give themselves lots of grace. The next resource is Unf*ck Your Habitat by Rachel Hoffman. Her 20-10 strategy to cleaning has been a good one. She has a great article on the depression & house cleaning cycle. Finally, I really like Clean Mama’s blog and routines for keeping up on the mess.

You May Slip Backwards When Recovering from Depression

Finally, know that there are times when you’ve been feeling pretty good that you might find yourself struggling again. I use lists. So many lists. One list and file I have on my computer and in my Notion notebook is things that are pick-me-ups. Complements people have said, images of thank you notes, and of course a huge stash of silly and ridiculous memes that make me chuckle.

It’s an important thing to have a “feel good” or pick-me-up kit handy – no matter who you are. What sorts of resources do you keep around to help you pick up if you’re having an off day?