I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on how far I’ve come since this time last year. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with an alcoholic, and I went into a severe depression. I totally stopped taking care of myself, I was sad ALL the time, I didn’t care about any of my goals/hobbies, and I avoided everyone. And when I couldn’t avoid them, I was irritable.

My negativity now is only a vestige of what I was going through then, and I really have come a long way. It’s actually been less than two months since I finally broke away from him. For a couple of weeks, I was thinking about him all the time. But now I don’t think about him at all. It doesn’t even make me anxious when people ask me about him anymore; I just say, “I broke up with him because he was bad for me.” (I was so embarrassed to say that at first because of how much I had previously blown off everyone for him.)

And the problem is, I am trying to recover without any kind of therapy or medication, and it’s been such a short time. I like to think that in general setbacks don’t bother me as much as most people. But getting a whole bunch of responsibilities and annoyances at once while you’re recovering from major depression can feel catastrophic. I should be congratulating myself for working on myself and my goals, keeping myself healthy, and being sociable sometimes and pleasant to others a good deal of the time. But instead I kick myself for not doing more, and for snapping at people sometimes. I am really proud of myself, and I always think that when people do bad things but you can tell they are working on themselves, you should forgive them. So I’m going to do the same thing for myself.