Blooming again
I find myself starting to open up to life again. The joy that comes with longer days, sunlight, bare-feet (at least in the house), and growing seedlings. This pattern of seasonal depression is exhausting. I re-read my post from last spring, and I wonder - was this winter really that much worse than all the others? And maybe not, but it was harrowing. And here, on the other side of it, I am still overwhelmed, and trying not to be ashamed, of where my depression took me these past 7 months. After finishing my master's degree in sociology and my thesis on finding meaning in restorative justice work, I found myself inexplicably lost. I knew that it was not time to pursue a PhD (if there will be a time), but I did not know who or how to be in this post grad school space. My life lost meaning, lost vision, lost hope. I found anxiety - debilitating panic attacks. Feelings of worthlessness, of being a fraud, of failing to live into who I wanted to be in the world. My inner critic beat...