It’s now 10 days since I wrenched my back. That’s about how long the recovery took last time, and it feels as if I’m tracking very much like that time.
I don’t recall if I returned to my back maintenance yoga as early in that recovery as I have in this one, so I don’t know if my present efforts are helping, hindering or neutral to my recovery.
What I do know is there are two major difference between the recovery time last time, and this.
Last time when I was trying to recover from back pain, I was spiralling into one of the deepest depressions of my life. This time, I hurt myself in the late stages of exiting a depressive spiral.
I think this is key.
One thing I do, and have always done, that helps me with depression is exercise. I felt the depression pulling at me while I was on bed rest, and starting to exercise again helps both the back recovery, and with the depression.
The other big difference from last time is that I have eight more months of self examination, of contemplating the roots of my depression, and how to control it.
That, and an increasing desire to fundamentally change my life, along with a plan for how to do so.
My approach is the incremental development of habits necessary for that change. I’ve developed four new good habits this year, and the back recovery has made me determined to add back maintenance to the list.
The depression has become omnipresent; it’s always there, pulling me down.
The only way I’m going to survive it is through transforming my life, and the habits I’m developing for doing so also include the habits I need to hold the depression at bay.
