Not a lot to report today or yesterday, I'm in a sort of...I'm good, I guess. I mean I haven't had an outward panic attack or a scary dip into depression's worst pit. But I'm shaky, and I can feel that I'm one step in the wrong direction from despair. The trick is, I think, to push myself past the pulling desire to go back to my bed and tune out the world, and do the things I'm supposed to be doing: the exercise bike, the going outside for a walk, the phone calls with friends. When I do these things I feel better. So doing these things is key.
I can't help the negative thoughts. The only thing I can help is what I do with them when they come flitting through. The reason they're so troubling is they're automatic. If this book ("The Mindful Way Through Depression") is to be believed, I can learn to control my responses and tune in to more healthy ways of thinking.
Right now I'm thinking, it's only 7 o'clock and I have two whole more hours worth of Sunday to get through. I now recognize that when I think in terms of "get through" the day that I'm having trouble with the day and at 9 o'clock I can take my night time pills and with any luck tune out in about a half hour. See, sleeping is what I want right now, it's how I know I'm shaky. But overall it's been a decent day.
Here are the positives.
I got up. I prepared us breakfast (just Cheerios with banana). I got dressed. I looked up some recipes in one of my cookbooks (I can't seem to summon my former "cooking" brain without looking at recipes) and we walked to the market to buy ingredients. It was a lovely day and a nice walk. Back home I did 25 minutes on the exercise bike. I sat outside deep breathing on the porch for hours. I may have fallen asleep out there, I'm not sure. I prepared my pillbox for the week's medication. I washed a sinkful of dishes. I cooked up a healthy dinner.
So that's not a wasted day, but each thing (except for the relaxing on the porch) took a lot of energy. Like I have to pull myself forward to doing the thing, fighting gravity. It's possible that they're going to try me on Wellbutrin to get me some push of energy, but the problem is that it might make me jumpy like the day I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack. They say it does that for the first few days and then evens out. I don't look forward to that. However, it would be good to not have to view a sinkful of dishes as a giant, huge task that requires every ounce of my strength.
This is so hard. God bless and help everyone suffering from depression and anxiety, and I apologize to everyone I've ever thought "just snap out of it." I never understood. I didn't know. Nobody really understands what depression and anxiety are like until and unless you've lived through it, and for those people reaching out to me on Facebook and in my email, I'm so grateful. I'm getting so many understanding responses that I don't even know how to reply to them all. Just a beautiful sense of community is surrounding me and Joe in this time of need. Thank you. Thank you so much.
