December 6 - Overhauls
Well, out of the blue I was inspired to make more graphics changes here and there on the site, it seems like in many ways it's constantly evolving. Sometimes I worry that it's the only thing in my life that is right now. Though Wolfe did mention, as I made sarcastic jokes on the bus today, that my sense of humor (dark at least) seems to be coming back a bit.
I know I do need to make some major overhauls in other areas of my life, but depression does not fuel a lot of motivation. It's particularly hard when you know what things you need to do in order to help you get better, but you feel as if it's not possible for you to do them. Even if they are very simple little things really. One of my biggest challenges is just drinking enough fluids, sometimes I'll go the day without drinking anything. I also have a lot of problems with nausea, to the point where I've been physically ill once or twice a week for the last few weeks. I've always had a digestive system that expresses itself when I have stress, anxiety, and/or depression. I've had horrible irritable bowel syndrome in the past, and in some ways I'm glad just to be feeling sick as a dog off and on right now instead of in terrible pain. So I eat completely inconsistently now, I go for long periods with nothing, not even water, everything makes me nauseous, and then I'll over eat in one sitting, often late at night, when the combination of hunger and a lull in tummy problems gives me the break. It goes with my totally inconsistent sleep cycle.
It's hard when the illness you have is seen as primarily of the mind, though the warped brain chemistry effects my entire being. It's hard not to feel guilty. Especially when you have the training, and you know -all- the right things to do. I know I need to meditate, I know I need to go for long walks and get more exercise and more oxygen, I know I need to eat healthier foods, stay hydrated, and focus on the positive. There are so many little things, I know I could and should do. I know I should go back to see my therapist. The reality, is it's a good week if I've remembered to simply take my medication once a day, and walk my friends dog that I'm caring for once around the block daily.
I do have an appointment next week to go to the mood clinic at the University Hospital, they are very very good there, especially at assessment and then recommending appropriate courses of treatment. I'm hoping that going there will help to get me back on track a bit.
It's hard when your loved ones want you to give your best effort, and keep on encouraging you to do so, and the little that you are doing, is, is your best effort.
That's difficult to do, because there is a lot of shame, in trying to explain the pathetic challenges you've met that day, that have gone un-noticed. You can't really make a concerned partner worried about your well being, who is trying to encourage you to drink a glass of water and get some sleep, to feel better by saying "Are you kidding! I'm having a great night, you should be proud of me, after pondering suicide and it's implications for four hours, I decided to eat two pieces of chicken, half a dozen cookies and then come to bed at 6am".
I feel like some of the people around me are at the "Hey, are you still depressed?" stage, when I'm still firmly in the wakeup in the morning and think "Hey, I'm still alive - so far so good".
I'm painfully aware, of how much more a challenging person I am to be around now, that I don't pull much of my weight in terms of keeping the household together in any way - the dishes and dirty clothes I leave in my wake, as I migrate between the computer desk, the couch, and the bed. Days where preparing a meal for myself and/or others, seems ridiculously impossible to someone who can't muster the energy or motivation to pour themselves a glass of water. Then, there are other days, where somehow I manage, a little 'normal' spell seems to wash over me, I have a shower, put on clean clothes, tidy the house, load the dishwasher, and cook something I crave. Two hours later I might find myself in bed crying for the next three hours.
I can't blame other people for occasionally having a 'well just think positive' or 'just stop being so pathetic!' attitude towards me, because I do it to myself. The little voice in my head, that says 'why are you doing this to yourself, when are you going to get better, when are you going to stop this ridiculous torture'? Isn't it supposed to get better? It has to get better. Then I think of the people who battle with depression and suicide all of their lives, the unlucky ones who don't get much better, or repeatedly crash. The sense of fear and desperation that hits me then... I can't explain.
There is a piece of me inside that is wailing, keening, screaming, that I want my life back. There is another piece inside of me, that says, after several suicide attempts, after a depression like this, after being this low... there's no going back. No, you will never get your old life back. I may stop being depressed, I may regain a more normal level of functioning and emotional stability, but the pain, the guilt, the suffering I've experienced, and caused others, through my depression, the shadow of that darkness, will stay with me. This darkness has stained me, even if I leave it, I feel I'll forever carry it's taint. I won't ever forget, what it feels like to be so close to death, to die and come back again, and still be the living dead. To be full of pain, desperation, hurt, anger, and to have it move in you. To have this cancer of the mind, cancer of the spirit, that is not only potentially deadly, with all it's miserable symptoms, but makes you feel as if you're guilty and responsible for all it's elements.
Maybe I've begun to grieve my depression, grieve the loss of having once had a depression free life, a kind of loss of a certain level of security, innocence, happiness, that can't be regained. Maybe grieving, oddly enough, will be part of starting to climb back up to a lighter place.
XO
Kattclix here to vote for my journal please
Recommended this week - Eye Candy Photography. Photographer Rayce offers free galleries of gothic babes. A small but well done totally free art photography site. Easy to navigate, clean well laid out site. With small but creative photo galleries, of alternative beauties.
Come on.... just a little something, money for tea? for Christmas dinner? for toilet paper? for shaving cream? for a puppy? for oranges? for tampons? for paper? for Mr. Noodle? hooked on phonics lessons? for anti-depressants?