{"id":7137,"date":"2013-04-18T06:39:32","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T10:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/?p=7137"},"modified":"2013-03-21T15:45:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T19:45:36","slug":"therapy-notes-forecast-some-backsliding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/04\/therapy-notes-forecast-some-backsliding.html","title":{"rendered":"Therapy Notes: Forecast Some Backsliding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From my therapy notebook:<\/em><\/p>\n

The path to mental health is an uneven process: for every two steps forward, you move one and a half back. But if you know this before you start walking, you\u2019ll be less tempted to throw up your arms at the first relapse and say \u201cto hell with it!\u201d<\/p>\n

My psychiatrist had to remind me of this lesson every session for about a year, until I reached a stable place.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d march into her office cheerful one week\u2014ecstatic to be working again and laughing with my kids–and then, boom! It felt like I was as depressed and anxious as I was back in the psych ward.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It just felt that way since it happened after two weeks of feeling good, in the same way that 50 degrees feels like summer in January and winter in June.
\nIn one session, Dr. Smith drew a zigzag line to illustrate the typical path of recovery to help me understand that I wasn\u2019t pedaling in reverse. I was merely getting comfortable as a driver, and that recovering from severe depression, or making any kind of progress towards good health, is never perfectly symmetrical.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of freeimagelive.com
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From my therapy notebook: The path to mental health is an uneven process: for every two steps forward, you move one and a half back. But if you know this before you start walking, you\u2019ll be less tempted to throw up your arms at the first relapse and say \u201cto hell with it!\u201d My psychiatrist…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nTherapy Notes: Forecast Some Backsliding - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/04\/therapy-notes-forecast-some-backsliding.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Therapy Notes: Forecast Some Backsliding - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From my therapy notebook: The path to mental health is an uneven process: for every two steps forward, you move one and a half back. 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