I felt depressed today, so I cleaned my toilet. There’s nothing better for depression than cleaning your toilet, scrubbing your sink, unclogging the hair from your shower drain, and scouring the pink mould from your tiles.
I’m not being facetious. If you’re depressed do these things. They will help. Clean your bathroom. Shower. Put on fresh clothes. Eat a piece of fruit. Walk somewhere.
It might make you feel better. And if not at least you’ll have a clean bathroom, smell nice, etc.
Depression, I find, twists about your ankles, creeps up your legs, makes its way to your throat, where it swirls down into your soul. Sometimes the basic act of doing something worthwhile, however mundane, when you start to feel those first coiling tendrils moving up your feet can be a radical act in fighting the disease.
Of course, the trick is in making yourself do these things when you're already beginning to feel depressed and they’re the last things you want to do. As to that, I have no real answers. Don't do it enough times, and suffer the consequences, that you eventually start to see how silly that course is, perhaps. Notice how when you let the depression climb up you it lays you out flat, turns everything to dirt, ruins you for days. Watch this happen, time and time again, until finally you're just bored of it. Start to get curious about what's actually going on inside you, be mindful of the actual size and shape and weight and emotional valence of depression, as it comes on, and get better at noticing the inciting incidents, and their repercussions.
And then stand up, walk yourself to your bathroom, and get scrubbing.
It will help.
......
Music: Mainland by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - jangly indie rock with melodic vocals and a languid, shifting weightlessness. Nice.
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