Isn't It All Right to Stay in Bed Once a Week If you are Depleted?

This is a continuation of correspondence from Sunday August 8

Dear A.B.

I'm not sure exactly how your classmate felt, but to me it did feel like "survival of the fittest" type response, that if I don't get my act together, I won't ever get out of depression and "make" it in life - that life is a tough place -- which was quite frightening when you find yourself often debilitated somehow by this chemical imbalance and struggling to make the switches work.

Every depression and symptoms are different, some can function and be productive on the surface like you seem to do ( marriage, family, career ), and some , like me, just don’t have the strength to fight the forces of depression to even have a life outside of depression --at the moment. But as your professor said, "And that can change.". And that was very powerful to hear.

What I’m finding that my energy level gets depleted with keeping active, attempts at brainswitching, that maybe once a week, I just need to stay in bed and do nothing. The more I push myself, which I do currently have to do, the more fatigue : physical and mental gets to me. Is this okay to relax In bed - although inactivity does breed negative thoughts. Y__________

Dear Y_______

It is my personal opinion that if you get a good night's sleep then you should get up and get going when morning comes and stick to some regular schedule of morning chores like making your bed, doing some exercises, getting groomed and dressed for the day, and bringing some order to your environment, etc.

If you don't feel real peppy, you can move slowly through the day and cut yourself some slack as to what you actually accomplish. But "taking to one's bed" can become a place to hide from oneself and what is really going on, and can become a bad habit. It's better to live as normal a life as possible, in step with the rest of humanity, and this doesn't usually include staying in bed once a week. A. B. Curtiss

Dear A.B.

It makes a lot of sense that it does become a bad habit, and that it's important to go along with the rest of society/humanity. Thank you always for your precious time and advice of wisdom.

With infinite gratitude, Y_______