After you have been through a depression, you are changed forever. You know just how bad you can feel and how hopeless and unimportant life may appear. You have gotten help either through talk therapy, antidepressants, a combination of both, or more dramatic measures. Your pessimistic, self critical thoughts are getting less and you are beginning to take stock of your life, where you have been and where you are going. You are trying to cope better with the stresses in your life and evaluating which of them could be taken away.

You have considered what you expect out of yourself, others, and life in general. Most of us sooner or later come to the conclusion that things have to change in order for us to stay better. Relationships and work situations have to be looked at closely. Change has to happen for your recovery to work.

Even though old routines and habits have seemed comfortable to us in the past, they obviously did not work for us. If you were having relationship problems before the depression, you probably still have them. If you hated your job before, you probably still don't like it now. If you did not like where you lived, how you lived, and who you hung out with, that's still in your face.

No matter how bad things are, it is very difficult to change. Let's use the example of someone having had a heart attack. It may be found that the person's lifestyle has played a big part in the development of this illness. The heart patient gets treatment, perhaps surgery, and then is given guides as to better lifestyle choices. I know all about this because when my husband had his triple bypass and went through rehab I learned that we would have to change our eating habits and make sure my husband was getting the right kind of exercise. Our way of life was changing and it was difficult at first to get used to this. But this was a fact of life and we had to face it.

On the other hand, we knew people who had bypass surgery and went right back to their old eating and drinking habits. Within 2 years they were having serious problems again.

They were smoking, eating lots of fatty foods, overdoing it in the alcohol department, and not getting enough exercise. They were also complaining that they were having serious symptoms again.