(Alffe) thanks for this -- in my confusion, I was not seeing that there may be a different path than back down the deep, dark hole. After 5-6 days of highly unusual energy, optimism, engaging in "normal" activities of leaving the house, going to the store, talking with people on the 'phone and face-to-face (ack!), I was hit with the thought that this entire period may be a fluke, a manic phase. If so, that means my normal must be just down the road.

Yesterday I went to see the dearest lady, a friend of my parents, a beacon of light and love from my small childhood church, the mother I would have chosen -- she said that she was so happy to see me leaving my house, looking healthy, happy. She had come by to see me several times over the months, but I didn't hear her knock -- even if I had, I wouldn't have gone to the door.

Building that solid wall to keep everyone out is a defense mechanism that is destructive and feeds my depression. Isolation can't be healthy. Not seeing another soul for weeks-on-end serves no good, constructive purpose, does it?

I am going to try to find another path, a different street, so that if this current "euphoria" is indeed the mania that is so difficult to not embrace, I perhaps can not return to the same, familiar darkness but rather find some new direction that may be more balanced. Forgive my grammar -- one thought ignites another.

BUT -- awareness may be an essential key. And I do not want to go back "there."

from my *heart,
reyn