lessons learned

I read through the last few posts here. I realize that the imbalance that drove me to write this blog was driven by grief. My mental health issues are almost entirely the result of psychedelic drug use in my teenage and young adult years. I've long since quit, but I had years of mental instability afterward. After Peggy died, and the other thing happened, I experienced grief and depression. I confused this with a relapse of my schizophrenic like symptoms caused by the psychedelic drug use. There is some family history of mental illness, so I do have a genetic risk factor, and therefor a propensity for mental instability, but all in all, I'm fairly balanced and stable. Grief is powerful stuff. Depression is life threatening. I hope that I'm immune to it now, because I NEVER want to feel that way again. Compassion for sorrow I wish to feel every minute of every day, but not depression. When my next need to grieve comes along, I will embrace it, acknowledge it, feel it, talk about it, and do whatever else it takes to process it so it doesn't turn to depression.