Bad days happen. Everybody has them. And recently, I had a few. There wasn’t anything big that bothered me, but a various things were getting to me over the course of a few days. It set me down a path of withdrawal from people, and some of them noticed it.

I’ve often said lately that I’m “in a good place.” And I really still am. My social life is good. My job is good. I’m healthy (as far as I know). I’ve told people that “there’s never been a better time to be me.” And yet, without warning, I was going down a mental health spiral. And that’s the thing about depression. It’s not a phase. It’s not being sad. It’s always there and can flare up at any time.

I’m not completely sure about what started my downturn. As I said, it was various things. I’ve had a lot on my mind. Some were good, some were not so good. My default way to process things is to focus on the not so good. Maybe I was doing that. I’m not always aware of it. Focusing on good stuff does take effort from me.

In a recent entry, I posted about being feeling alone even when in crowds. I was pretty sure that I would feel that way again over this past weekend. There were a few events that I was going to be at and quite frankly, I didn’t really feel like doing them. I didn’t think they would be good for me. But, they ended up being the exact opposite. I could chalk it up to lowered expectations, but I’ve had the “I don’t want to be here” feeling many times before and didn’t walk away glad that I was there.

I’m currently in a form of a weight loss program. Although, that’s a simplification of it. It’s more of program designed to coach my eating. I’ve only been doing it for a few weeks, and I’m very enthusiastic about the lessons that I’ve already learned from it. And the reason that I’m mentioning in this particular entry is that it’s been teaching me to modify how I do things. It’s about re-training my thinking. And I’ve been trying to do that in various aspects of my life.

I’ve said that my default is set to miserable. How did it get there? That’s a loaded question that I don’t know if I can easily answer. But, can I reset my default? Can I train myself to not automatically default to miserable? I’ve been very carefree over the past few years. I’ve been much more mentally healthy, or so I think. But, I’ve always wondered if it was real of if I was faking it. You see, that’s my default. I doubt my happiness. I doubt whether I deserve happiness. I question why people are happy. I don’t trust happiness.

I am aware that no situation is perfect. I know that I cannot control every aspect of my day. But, can I control how I think about things? Can I control how I process things? Can I control how I react? That’s something that I’m working on. It takes effort. Change is good. Progress is good. Change and progress are also scary. They can also cause me anxiety. Was my recent setback caused by anxiety over a change in eating habits? I’m going to try to not think about that too much right now, since going through that thought process may result in a spike in anxiety. Yes, that’s how it works for me.

Here’s what I do now about me right now. I am going through the process of changing things in my life. And it’s deliberate. It’s not just a concept. I’m trying to make improvements. Even with my little setback last week, I still feel that I’m in a good place. I never fully went to a dark mental place last week. I was very far from it. I was just slightly distant and slightly irritable. It took a few people to say a few things to me and I snapped out of it. I’m always afraid that I’ll snap right back into it, hence my discussion of default. But, my awareness of things may be what stops it from happening.

I always end the year with a recap entry about how my year went. There’s two months left in this year. I’m still on a good path. I know that I can do more to (attempt to) make sure that I stay on that path. I’m working on it. And I’m as optimistic as my miserable default lets me be.