Putting on your own oxygen mask first...

... or Why I shouldn't feel guilty about things not done.

But I do.  I was away for 2 weeks for ordination and the Methodist Conference, I came back tired and allowed myself a gentle week, then things blew up - important things that I needed to focus on. And so the routine visits, important but not urgent, were set aside. Then it was Holiday Club week - filling my time with prep and action.  But that was last week, this week was supposed to be about catching up with people, it is Friday and I have just about managed to look after myself.

My depression has bitten back - partly a reaction to some stresses, partly because in the midst of that I foolishly missed my meds for a few days, and now experiencing the chemical dip.

It is a bit like flood watch on a sunny day - a strange feeling event in the town a couple of weeks ago when we were waiting to see if the previous weather, and pressures from upstream would overflow the riverbank, and yet it was a gloriously sunny dry day when the sandbags and defences were going up. It felt incongruous, and yet was entirely logical.

The same is true of my moods this week, I feel guilty because there isn't much to feel stressed or hassled about this week, but the effects of previous weeks still flow down the line.  I feel guilty because those I need to visit have more cause to feel low than I do, and because it is not just this week, but that more than a month has passed without catching up with people that I was already overdue seeing.

I feel guilty because in my low mood I am afraid that I am going to drift into my fear of visiting, my fear of inadequacy. I have done some out and about stuff, and had the film show at one church yesterday - only the fixed expectation got me there, this afternoon I have another plus a planned baptism visit to a family afterwards.  Again my mood and instinct is to go hide under the duvet, my brain is fidgety and the wider world feels too big and scary.