It's Depression Mode. I'm John Moe. I am glad you're here.

Imagine a professional basketball team, an NBA team, usually has anywhere from 12 to 15 players in uniform, ready to play, even though only five players can

be in the game at any one time. The rest are reserves. They swap in when players get

tired out, need a break, certainly if there's an injury. The reserves are there so the

team can stay strong. Now imagine a team where only five guys show up to play.

Over the course of the game, they're going to wear down physically and psychologically probably.

Maybe there's a twisted ankle, meaning that player must either play ineffectively through pain

or go sit down, forcing the team to play a man short because

they have no reserves. So what happens to that team? Well, they get dunked on severely. They

lose big. They get blown out. They get crushed. Choose your expression. People with a mental disorder or even just people

struggling with a lot of mental stress are like that poor team. They lack reserves. They

don't have fresh energy when they need it. They don't have backups when faced with adversity.

And they tend to lose. If that's you, it's not your fault. It's not weakness.

You didn't make bad choices. You're just robbed as all. You don't have a bench.

Kelly Williams Brown is not a professional basketball player. She's a writer living in Salem,

Oregon, just south of Portland.

Kelly is the author of the book, Adulting and Popularizer of that term, meaning learning skills and doing things to make your adult life more functional and easier and more prosperous.

In her new book, Easy Crafts for the Insane, the functionality and ease of adult

life for Kelly breaks down, as Kelly breaks down. Relationships collapse, medical problems

emerge all over the place, and Kelly had been dealing with depression her whole life

at this point, so she doesn't have the

reserves to handle all of that. No one left on the bench. But she also comes up with kind of an

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