Fight depression? Or wallow in it?

 Giving up, Keeping Going  5 Responses »
Feb 282010
 
No Gravatar

Written January 25, 2010: There is no doubt in my mind–my depressed mind–that sometimes there is nothing more delicious and luxurious than wallowing in depression. Give in to it! Curl up under a “blankie” and do nothing but watch TV, play on the computer, read, and eat, all day long. Call it a mental health day, if you will. Sometimes that makes it easier to pick up and carry on. Sometimes. Then there are the days that go WAY past the kind of depression you can “treat” with a mental health day. It’s dark. The sun doesn’t shine because it’s probably winter. And even if it did shine, you’ve spent every minute of that time at work and unable to spend any time in it. Dark when you leave for work and dark when you get home. And not only is it dark outside, but it’s dark inside too. Inside my head. Inside my heart. Inside my soul. Giving in to that kind of depression is dangerous. We’re not talking wallowing on the couch for a day here, either. The only thing to do with that kind of depression is to FIGHT. Fight for your life. Fight for your health. Fight for your right to turn the figurative lights back on, even if the sun isn’t coming out any time soon. Because the alternative is to hide until spring. And that’s not helping anything. So fight!

Fight it how? For me, it means calling on my buddies from BCB. They never let me down. They helped me forulate a plan to deal with the dark cloud following me around. They gave me the encouragement to fight my way out of this one more time. Why does it get so bad sometimes? The depression and lack of sun make everything else worse. And current job difficulties make me want to eat my way through the bakery, snack, and ice cream aisles of the grocery store. And because I don’t give in to that urge as much or as often as part of me would like to, the monster won’t be soothed.

I’m not sure what all this means for me right now. I suffer from depression. I have all my adult life. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, but it’s always there. And sometimes I need to fight it for all I’m worth. It’s inter-twined with my eating and food choices, and with my activity level. And when those things are not working properly, neither am I.

I have to know when it’s ok to wallow. And when it’s not ok, I have to fight like hell to stay in the game. That is the only way to get where I want to go!

Edited on February 28, 2010: I was just thinking about how depression has taken over my life. It seems to inhabit every corner of it these days. I came here to work out some things by blogging, and had completely forgotten that this draft was sitting here. I re-read it, and can see that it really has taken over my life lately. And looking back, I can see that during some of the worst moments of my life, I was wrapped in a layer of it. The more I think about it, the more I see that there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with the pieces of my life, but I’m living that life through the lens of depression. My marriage could have turned out differently. I might not have quit my last job if it wasn’t for the depression haze. All kinds of things…

The circumstances of my new job are kinda sucky lately. The depression makes me want to just quit. Never mind that I’m single and only just barely supporting myself. I want OUT. I could make it work more easily if it wasn’t looking so bleak because of where my head is at. But there I am, just wishing I didn’t have to go to work. I joked with my mom earlier that I’d rather have two days off for a colonoscopy than go to work. Now there’s something really wrong with that… Just increased the Prozac, so we’ll give it a week or two. Then it’s time to call the doctor again if it doesn’t help. I’m SO tired of losing big chunks of my life to this beast–not to mention what it does to my weight and self-esteem.

I guess I’m in wallow mode right now. I’m sick with whatever crap is going around, and that’s left me without any fight. But I’m afraid if I give in and stay in bed, it will cost me my job. So I have to find whatever “oomph” I have left, and make it work for me.

 Posted by Gracie at 7:26 pm  Tagged with:

Paying Attention

 Health, Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Jan 272010
 
No Gravatar

A mildly depressive personality is the flip side of some great blessings in life. I don’t want to stop being creative or visionary. Therefore, I have to put up with the fact that sometimes my mood will dip below “fed up” and into a place that I’d rather not be.

I’m also very very lucky that the dips rarely last more than a few days and I can wake up one morning feeling absolutely fine. Today I feel almost absolutely fine. Don’t know why and I don’t want to put too much energy into figuring it out. Generally, life is exactly as it was yesterday and the day before so I’ll accept the brighter day as a gift and get on with it.

The one thing I do want to talk about is weight and depression. Many people (ie doctors) feel that weight loss is a “normal” sign of depression. Well let me tell you (and them), sometimes it’s the opposite.

As soon as I start sleeping nine hours a night and finding that simply I must feel full all the time, I know it’s time to pay attention, pull back, draw in and take the pressure off – whatever that pressure is at the time.

There was a time when I’d have said that weight gain is a symptom of depression but now I realise that it’s a result of not paying attention when things are sliding. Usually, when I start feeling low, I don’t go near a scale or give a thought to what or how much I’m eating. The result is that I am thrown way off the healthy and sane path and right onto the crazyiness of the gaining and losing pendulum. hmmmmm.

Of course, depression is only one of many many life situations that have caused that in my life. So what’s going to be different this time, now that I refuse to get on the pendulum? I guess, no matter how I’m feeling, I’ve got to figure out how to get of the house, walk to do errands, eat to full but not crazy full. I may not be able to lose weight during a darker time but I can do everything in my power not to make weight gain a “symptom of depression”.

This is different. Thinking new thoughts is like trying on a style of clothes that you’ve seen in the shops but thought could never work for you. I’ve just tired on something and I think it fits.

I’ll walk around in it for a while and see how it goes.

PS/Edit

I realised I felt brighter even before I stepped on the scale and saw the loss. So maybe there’s a connection between water retention and depression? :)

 Posted by Millie at 3:38 am  Tagged with:

Two Minds

 Health, Thoughts on the Process  1 Response »
Jan 252010
 
No Gravatar

Well.
It turns out that feeling a bit depressed is, in fact, the same as being a bit depressed.

What a bizarre day I had yesterday.

I spent all day with my brain in two places at once.  Sane brain was thinking about all the things I could be doing to take care of myself in a positive way.  Crazy brain was demanding that food be stuffed down in the largest quantities and at the fastest speed possible.

Two brains – and one certainly out-shouted the other.

But why?  If I don’t ask that question and come up with a good answer, I will stumble into that kind of day again.

So why?

  • It was the first anniversary of my dad’s death and I was alone all day.  The people I needed most were, at absolutely no fault of their own, in time zones eight hours either side of me.
  • In the bigger picture of life, I am living in the wrong place.  Frustratingly, I love what I do here and I love so much about living here – but my heart is somewhere else and I need to figure out how to deal with that emotionally.  Being able to live on two continents is a huge privilege.  But the way it works in practice means that, no matter where I am, I’m missing someone or something significant. That gaping hole is perfect for filling with food.

So….the question isn’t really “Why?” but “What am I going to do about the gaping hole?”

Answer:  Trust – Love – Pray – Move – Look outward rather than inward…..maybe I’m not in the place for that one.

But what I really want to do is make plans.  I’m a person who hates the unresolved.  I like solutions, answers – knowing where I’m going next.  This is one time in my life where every solution raises more unresolved issues and that makes me stressed in the biggest possible way.

So I’ve established that life is not what I want it to be – but every time I start thinking like that, I have a chorus of positive voices in my head singing out the good things in my life.  There are so many that I can’t see how I can feel low – that’s what makes me think that “feeling depressed” may include an element of “being depressed”.

OK – I’m going to leave it there.  I’m ok.  Really.  I live with this “edge of reason” stuff all the time and I always get through it and come out feeling just fine, thanks.

For today I’m going to eat little, drink lots and get some stuff done around the house.  There is nothing in life that isn’t made a little better by having a clean and orderly house.  Laundry first.

Thanks for listening.

Oh – last thought:  there is nothing in life that can’t be made a little worse by eating till you feel sick.  Amen and out.

 Posted by Millie at 5:16 am  Tagged with:
© 2011 Talking It Off Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

Talking It Off is using WP-Gravatar