The Pit of Depression

Here’s the thing about depression: it is sneaky!  It starts with sleeping in a day, then skipping dishes after dinner, and soon you’re sleeping 15 hours a day and crying more than you should when you’re awake.

I do approximately 7 hours of recovery and therapy related events a week, not including the time I spend on doing work for those events outside of the actual events, like homework for group therapy.

That included individual therapy, group therapy, SMART meetings, DBT classes, community groups, and online recovery meetings.

Despite all of that, I’ve been in a funk.  I didn’t even really notice, and when my husband pointed it out, I felt defeated.  I’m doing all of this work, taking all of these meds, and I still am having issues?!?!

Well, time to buck up again and just push forward.  I’m going to make a game plan with my therapist, because my ideas aren’t working anymore.  I am not going to let my brain disease win.  I refuse.  My life is too awesome to give up on.  Even though I may not believe it all of the time, I am worth it, too.

 

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The Right Path

Happiness is doing the right thing in the right way.  I don’t know who said that, but something close to it is written on the white board in my group therapy room.

Suddenly, I am making the right choices in life; staying sober, confronting my mental illnesses, and making choices that won’t hurt those around me.  I’m talking to my family again (love it!), am waiting on a phone call that could change my life, just booked a Walt Disney trip, and my daughter got into the gifted program.

Life is going in the right direction.  I am on the right path, and it feels amazing!

Also, llamas are all of a sudden popular.  Heck yes!  No llama drama here!

Socks and Brownies

I know, it has been awhile.

I’ve honestly been in a crazy rut.  I do awesome on the weekends, and then crash hardcore during the week.  Consequently, my apartment is a mess and I’m sleeping too much.

Depression is lovely.

On a brighter note….wait, I don’t think I have one.  Right now, being in my head sucks.  I’ll live, I always do, but I need to find my strength and motivation and get shit done.

Tomorrow I am doing some work for the Rally for Recovery that I’ve been slacking off on.  That should boost me a bit.  It is something that I am passionate about and I will be with a couple pretty awesome chicks.

Any non-judgy people wanna help me clean?  Lol.  I’ll pay you in brownies and let you keep any socks you find (unless it is my narwhal sock, I’ve been looking for that for forever!)

Snapshot of Depression

This is what depression looks like:

A messy house

A mom almost crying because she wants to be more for her daughter

A feeling of complete and utter worthlessness

Body aches from not sleeping well

An urge to drink just to get some motivation

Almost crying when putting chicken in the slow cooker because it was alive at some point

A to do list sitting, unused

Feeling overwhelmed at the idea of even moving at all, let alone doing something productive

Wanting to skip going to the pool, despite already promising daughter you’d go

Wanting to cry, but not being able to let go enough to actually cry.

Exhaustion.  Total and utter exhaustion.

Now this obviously doesn’t cover everything that depression can do, but it is a list of what it is to be depressed in a moment.  And this is unique to me, every one is different and has different symptoms and severity of symptoms.

Right now, I’m honestly jealous of my cats.  I want to curl up in a ball, also, and sleep all day.  Unfortunately, I need to find a way to buck up for my daughter and my life.

Back to Adulting

I spent yesterday with Ty at a mall buying a Little Mermaid outfit and some geek tshirts. It was a lot of peopling, but I managed to get through it and enjoy my day.  We were kidless and got to stroll without complaints of boredom every 5 minutes.  It was amazing.  Then, we won $200 on pull tabs at the MIL’s.  So, we went shopping more. lol

Then today, we had to go to the laundromat.  I honestly considered going nudist for a second as I dripped sweat in the un-air-conditioned laundromat.

I’m sore, but I now have an awesome Little Mermaid purse and a bunch of Torrid shirts.  Heck yes!

Now I am stuck making dinner and folding clothes.  What a down spiral.

And part of being back to adulting is working on therapy homework.  It actually challenges me.  This is the first time I’ve ever really been tested by therapy. Normally I rock at therapy and suck at life.   Lately, though, it has been the opposite.  I’m not bad at therapy now, but I am not a shining star like I normally am.  And I have been rocking at life.  Even though my motivation is low, I have a basic plan set for Whimzy for summer, I’ve been working out, I’ve been sober, and I’m learning to love myself for who I am not who I am supposed to be.  It is amazing to feel this way.

 

Gah! Desperate Measures

So, I haven’t lost any weight doing moderation.  Granted, I suck at it, but still….

I’m going to try the Ketogenic diet, I think.  No more donuts or noodles.  I’m not sure how my mental health will survive.

If I lose weight, though, my heart rate might go down, which might mean that I have less anxiety.  That is a lot of mights, but it is worth the try.

So, today I shall eat all of the carbs before I have to give them up tomorrow.

The Beginning of the End

I just put my mom into a Hospice program.

I know it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the end, but I can see a decline in her.  She’s lost a lot of weight and won’t eat.

I think I am handling things well.  I handled the appointment with the Hospice nurse in an educated way, I didn’t break down when I got home, and the extent of my wallowing was allowing myself some junk food and noodles.

I know this is going to suck.  Hardcore.  I signed up for this, though.  Literally, I signed papers that put me in charge of this.  I need to be able to make decisions based on logic, and not straight emotion.

So far, so good…

Now that I’ve had a bath, am in comfy pj’s, and my hands have stopped shaking, I am able to type and tell you why today sucked so hard.

I mean, I did get a space turtle, but I’m skipping ahead.

We planned a day to play hooky with my daughter and go down to Chicago to the Museum of Science and Industry.  It was supposed to be fun.  I love science. Hands on science is even better!

Oh, but the people.  The crushing waves of people.  Most of them weren’t even adults.  Lines of children in matching colors and adults herding them around to the plethora of bright lights and flashing buttons.

My anxiety skyrocketing.  Hard to breathe, heart pounding, fear rolling through me like a tsunami.  No immediate danger, but it felt like the train I rode down there was barreling towards me while I was tied to the rails like a damsel in a bad western.

But there was no train, just the kids and the science.

I wanted to enjoy it.  I really did.  I wanted to push all the buttons and share my love of science with my daughter.

I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

To try to make myself feel better, I bought a 50% off space turtle.  It didn’t work.  I spent the entire train ride home curled up to my husband and wanting to apologize over and over for not loving family time and being able to be the mom and wife that I should have been.

I’m “safe” at home now, but the lingering exhaustion is making me want to go to bed early.   I probably will.

Dodging trains and finding space turtles is exhausting.

Moving

I am moving. Not always forward, but I seem to be moving forward in the overall picture.

It is hard.  It is difficult. I am re-learning how to live life.   I have a new therapist, a new group therapy, a Recovery coach, and I am regularly attending SMART meetings.  I am also putting myself in to the recovery community around me by being a committee member on a Rally for Recovery event.  I’m a public relations officer.  Fancy, right?

By moving, I’m also moving away from things.  Some things are obvious, like alcohol and mental instability.  Some things are not; like people, places, and certain ways that I thought.

I’m not okay with all of that.  Certain thoughts and behaviors are comfortable.  Changing them is uncomfortable.  Why would I want to do that?  I can be a better, more stable person by changing.  I am choosing to move out of my comfort zone.

GAH! I get anxious when I’m away from home for more than a couple hours and I am trying to completely move out of the space in my head that I feel comfortable in.

What is out there?  Show me pics and help me reach out!

Rejection, Cognitive Distortions, and Moving Forward

Well, I didn’t get into Rutger’s.  I am super disappointed and there is a war going on in my head to stay healthy while dealing with the rejection.  On one hand, I feel this is a personal rejection, like they rejected me on a personal level, me as a person.

This is called a cognitive distortion, specifically, personalization.  Personalization is, as psych central defines it, “is where a person believes that everything others say and do is some sort of direct, personal reaction to the person”.  (For the full article, visit here! It is an excellent article on psych central that explains 15 common cognitive distortions.)

I could go into wise mind, but I am going to just keep it simple.   I need to make my emotions, feeling personally rejected, and my logic, that it is not personal and I still have more options, align together.  It is difficult, and it is something that I struggle with quite a bit.

So I am going to move forward.   I plan on applying to more schools within a month or 2, but for right now I am going to focus on the Rally for Recovery (check out the FB page right here!) and finding a more fulfilling job.  I just set up 2 interviews for jobs that will bring me closer to my career goals.

Even if this sucks, I can deal with it without self-destructing.  I am getting better.  It is good news, disguised as bad news.