Bounce, bounce, bounce

With the amazing resiliance of the young, Julie is bouncing back from this week's downturn.  Already, the ultra-depressed state of Wednesday that had her begging to be readmitted to hospital, is fading rapidly from her memory.  Yet another reason, if another was needed, why you have to be careful not to get too caught up in someone else's depression.

Depression often plays tricks with your perception of time.  I can remember from my own experience that if you have recurring depression, every time you hit rock bottom, you reconnect with all the previous times you hit the floor.  From that position, life just looks like a grim sequence of failures, and you cannot remember - or believe - that there were ever times when you felt better.  On Wednesday, Julie was serious when she said that her low state had persisted for weeks or months.  All the good times that happened in the week before - the afternoon in the spa or shopping with her friends - these were examples of how well she "faked it".  From her perspective at that moment, it was just not possible that she had actually felt happiness.

By Thursday morning, she was already beginning the climb out of the depression.  Rhiannon came over for a couple of hours, and by the time we went back to see Dr Clyde, the improvement in her mood was visible in Julie's face and the set of her shoulders.  She was feeling so much better, that she was happy to take part in a timeline exercise, where we charted the ups and downs of her mood, not just over the past few weeks, but right back over the last couple of years.  We plotted it out on the whiteboard - a long straggling landscape that looked like a cross-section through the Grand Canyon, with the long stretch in the hospital forming the depths of the canyon.  It was not meant to be an objective view of Julie's situation - it was her own view of it, with every point on the line carefully established with her.  The very fact that it was possible for her to chart anything above the floor of the canyon at all showed how much progress she had made since Wednesday.  Exactly where we are now - whether we have begun the arduous climb up the far wall of the canyon, or are still negotiating our way carefully around the rocks on the valley floor - will no doubt become clear one day.

We have been careful to take it easy since Thursday, treating Julie almost as if she were recovering from flu.  Already she is beginning to suggest new things to do - projects she might start, places she would like to visit.  Life starts again.  By next week, it is probably only the bandage on her arm that will remind Julie where she has been this week.  Which is probably just as it should be.