Sometimes, even a single sentence or thought can make us feel depressed.  Suddenly we’re reminded of some black incident in our past, and it can seem like we’re going through the same awful process another time around.  Even a totally inoccuous thing can set us off at times; sometimes even the realisation that we feel that way about something can get us back into the rut again.

I find one way to deal with that is to try and separate the trigger from the memories.  There’s always some difference between this time and last time, even if it’s just that we’re older and wiser and remember the pain from before.  I try to think about the difference between the two events and focus on why it might be different this time.  That recently helped me realise that even though my partner said something that made me depressed, that she wasn’t doing it to depress me.  I still felt depressed, but now it was my own feelings that I was dealing with rather than feeling like someone else was weighing me down.  Then I could reflect that in fact she meant to try and encourage and support me, even though she might have approached it the wrong way just then.

By seeing the differences between what had gone before and what was happening now, I could reorient my thinking slightly so I didn’t have to go down the same path.