The Ten Faces of Recovery

Recently I became cognizant of a certain degree of recovery from mental illness on my part. My most recent depressive episode was a week ago when I called in sick to my volunteer job. Apart from that I've been in mostly good spirits lately. I think the reason for what I suspect might well be a significant amount of recovery from the doldrums of alternating between emotional highs and lows is tenfold:

1. Having friends: Max, Main, John Newell. In the past few months I've developed a friendship with Max, brother of my close friend Constance. My friend Main calls me from time to time, and more rarely I visit him at the flea market where he works on weekends, selling perfume. I spent a weekend with my childhood friend John Newell in June, after not seeing him for over 40 years.
2. My close friend Constance used to be homeless and lived in shelters, but not long ago she moved into permanent subsidized housing, and recently it became apparent that it's likely she will be able to hang onto that housing, despite her behavioural issues.
3. I was worried that my cleaning lady quit, and I told my brother, who suggested that I call her. I did so and got no answer, but she returned my call the same evening, and she hasn't quit after all (that was 2.5 weeks ago).
4. I sent an email to a former co-worker named Robin, saying that I had feelings for her, but she did not reciprocate. That was about a month ago and I'm over the disappointment of her lack of reciprocation.
5. I sent an email to Diane, one of my students at my volunteer job where I'm a computer tutor. I am developing a website for her, and I asked her if she wanted to go the museum with me, but she didn't reply. That was 10 days ago, and 3 days after I sent the email was when I called in sick, due to the disappointment of not receiving a reply. Now I'm over that disappointment.
6. I decided to follow my doctor's advice and start exercising, by going for brisk 30-minute walks every day. So far I've done that 3 days in a row, but skipped it today.
7. I decided to follow the other part of my doctor's advice, to eat more fruits and vegetables. I vowed to buy apples, bananas, and stuff to make salad every 8 to 12 days. Today I bought 3 apples and 4 bananas, but haven't eaten any of them yet.
8. I decided to follow my dental hygienist's advice to floss my teeth regularly. So far I've only flossed them once, 3 days ago, but I intend to do that every other day. Today I bought a flosser that looks like a toothbrush with no brush but a hole in the tip that holds a disposable U-shaped plastic thing with a string of dental floss connecting the tops of the U.
9. I made some rough calculations that seemed to indicate that the money I inherited from my mother's estate would last well into old age, even if my future earned income is zero. Prior to that I was worried I'd have to eventually either seek employment as a computer programmer or start a successful dot-com to avoid outliving my money. Realizing that my math was shaky, I created a spreadsheet which validated my rough calculations. Five days ago I met with my financial advisor, who confirmed that my spreadsheet assumptions were valid.
10. Most importantly, after making my spreadsheet I decided to go ahead with 2 software projects: an image collection manager and the implementation of a new programming language I designed called Lyvathon. Just the other day I decided to merge those 2 projects into a single project: an image collection manager that lets you also create websites, and Lyvathon is the server-side language used to create dynamic, advanced websites (not all of the websites created by my users make use of Lyvathon).

I probably won't send that email I referred to in an earlier post, with the subject line: "Mental illness: a thing of the past". By Friday I should be finished developing Diane's website, so I can work on Lyvathon.org this weekend. Now I'm going to have an evening snack of 2 slices of processed cheese. Life goes on; no more depression for me, or at least a lot less of it, thanks to the above 10 reasons for my recovery.