Thought Management.

There is a button on my laptop I have recently discovered. It wasn't a fun discovery, and I'm still not sure which button it is. About once a night, I let go of my little optical mouse. It has a retractable cord which means that when I let go of it, it goes scurrying across my keyboard with just enough downward force to find the mystery button. When the mystery button is pressed, it sends my computer into hibernation mode. My screen goes dark within 2 seconds.

All things considered, hibernation mode isn't the worst thing that could happen. All I have to do is press the power button for a second and my computer boots back up and none of my work is lost.

There's another button somewhere in the same area, however, that causes whatever screen I'm working on to minimize and my cursor to hide. That placement of that mystery button is unknown, as well. I don't like that button very well. It bothers me, because I have to do a little recovery work to get things back to normal.

Sometimes, I feel like my brain is like that. One of the things the Lord and I are working on is managing my thoughts.

With my free-radical hormones that I have, at times, it's nearly impossible to do. This week has been an easier time of it for me. Any woman who has severe hormone fluctuations will tell you that, in order to avoid the abyss of depression, it's a game of strict thought management. Almost like you have to put "triggers" in a jail and focus on something, anything else.

For me, I try to make my outlet prayer. Or, I have by my bed a depression journal. It's where I write out, in a prayer format, the symptoms and fears that I have. It's where I give those up to God. Writing has always worked better for me than verbalizing. Verbalizing seems so ... ungraspable, so temporary. If I write it out, it formalizes it. It also allows me to track how I'm doing.

The other thing that I write in my depression journal, when I'm not depressed, are my blessings. The things that make my heart swell with hope and joy. I write positive things about myself, things that I know about myself yet easily forget when I am depressed. I include Bible verses that I've come across during my devotions, writing out those verses with the positive things really helps them stick. It is those positive things that I read if I can't write.

This week, I've been writing the blessings and positives out. The Lord and I, we're doing okay this week.

Thank you, Lord.