As most of you know, recently I had a detour in my Depression Recovery. I went back to once a week counseling sessions and we had to assess whether or not I needed a higher dose of my medications.

It has been a rather stressful time for me. At times I could emotionally handle what has been going on really well, and at other times I felt as if I was coming unglued around the edges. Logically, I could tell myself what I was going through was a normal part of the Depression Recovery process, but on a more emotional level it was depressing and kind of made me mad. How dare my depression try and fight back when I have done so much work to manage it?  Part of me was convinced that this detour was going to cause me to take many steps back in my Depression Recovery.

Then something happened…

What happened was that nothing happened.  I did not come all the way unglued.  I did not have suicidal thoughts.  I did not lose total control of my thinking and my emotions.  I did not end up back in a psychiatric hospital.  Nothing happened.  Nothing.

hmmm….Wow!  All the things that I thought might happen if/when I had a detour did not.  In some ways it was sort of a let down.  I had put so much into anticipating how all these bad things would happen if I ever had a detour (what I considered a set back), and yet they did not.  It was as if the comedian forgot the punch line of the joke.  I felt as if I had been left hanging, because nothing happened.

This week, during a counseling session, I discovered something had happened.  What happened is that I learned that I could have a bad day, even a few bad days, and it did not have to mean that something was going wrong with my Depression Recovery.

My plan now is to simply enjoy the scenery, to quit anticipating the bad stuff, and see what else I can learn from this detour I am on.  Sometimes we learn more when we take the scenic route rather than always taking the shortest road to our destination.