Here's a strange, but welcome discovery..... my handwriting is back! I noticed when I was going through The Great Depression that my handwriting changed. I have never heard of anyone else having this happen, nor have I tried to find out. But it definitely happened to me. And I know it was directly related to depression. At first I thought it might just be due to my hand being a little shaky. But I realized the letters that had changed were uniformly the same. Particularly my letter S. Instead of the usual swirly S I used to make, they became more like Z. Consistently, as I've gone through ups and downs with depression, my handwriting has returned to normal during ups and returned to abnormal during downs. So..... I'm just reporting that my "real" handwriting has returned. I noticed it a day or so ago. I'll see if it stays that way.

I'm aching these days. My neck and shoulders mostly. I know that's a symptom of depression as I've had these aches before. But the good news is that I had an emotionally disturbing issue come up and I handled it without second-guessing (my OCD demon) my every word. I am thinking more clearly now, even when faced with difficult issues. :-)

NBD/BD: I heard an elementary teacher say that he often handles difficulties with his students by saying something is NBD or BD. NBD means No Big Deal. BD, of course, means Big Deal. So, I'm just throwing that out there as I've had that kind of rattle through my head now and then since I heard it. It's kind of helpful to sort things out sometimes as NBD and BD. Sometimes I even tell myself to give something that seems like a BD at the time the rest of the day and then decide if it is still a BD. Surprisingly, it often gets sorted to the NBD file.