Early on in my recovery process I  started forming expectations for what I wanted out of my medications, my counselor, my psychiatrist, my family and myself.  My family and friends started forming expectations as well.  I would go to counseling once a week, take my medications and I would “get over” the depression and anxiety really fast.  My husband expected the woman he married to come back.  My daughter expected me to be the mother she missed.   Other family members expected me to have no set backs and be back to my “normal” self in no time flat. After all I am an intelligent woman, it should be “easy” for me to do.  I would get back to my “old self” and take on the world.  The reality is that most of those expectations were unrealistic 

I fully expected the medications to work like a magic bullet and go to work immediately to take care of my depression and anxiety.  I was very disappointed to discover that they just did not work that way. Instead, what happened is that after only two weeks on the first set of medications, I had some problems and had to start on a different set.  Those lasted for less than a week, and I had to start taking something else.  The end result of those is after almost two months they quit working and I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Talk about a harsh reality check. 

With going to a counselor once a week, I expected to be able to better utilize the tools she is teaching me and have better control over my depression and anxiety by now.  Instead, there are days where I feel overwhelmed by anxiety or depression or both and no matter how hard I try I just cannot put into practice the things I have learned from her.  In fact, I fully expected to not have any more bad days by now.  I have been so disappointed.  Once again the reality did not meet my expectations.  I was not happy when I figured out that recovering from depression is not easy, and it does not happen overnight, or in a few weeks or months and that there was no magic pill to make me better immediately. 

I am sure I have disappointed some of my family members.  I know that they all had such high hopes for me to go back to being the person I was before the depression took such a firm hold of my life.  That person is gone forever, some where inside me is a new person who is a combination of who I used to be and who I am now.  Some were very disappointed when I was admitted into the psychiatric hospital.  I believe that they felt that at this point in my recovery that I should have better control over myself, actions, and my emotions.   It really hurt me that because of the unrealistic expectations they had, they were disappointed in me. 

What I have learned from this, is that unrealistic expectations can leave me disappointed, sad, frustrated and angry.  They set me or someone else up for failure sooner or later.  They are impossible to obtain.  I discovered that I apply unrealistic expectations to many more situations than just my recovery.  I also discovered that I form unrealistic expectations  about other people. 

That saying, “Just take one day at a time” is a good one.  If I can put it into practice and only deal with the things in front of me at the time, I believe I can put an end to creating unrealistic expectations.  If I can put an end to creating unrealistic expectations, there will be less opportunities for me to experience, disappointment, sadness, anger, and frustration.  That in itself should help with my depression and anxiety.