Off the Wagon

idola303

Go ahead- ask me how I'm doing.

Okay, actually, right NOW I can tell you I'm doing okay...but the last couple of weeks, and, in particular, last week, were horrible. Really horrible. As you may or may not have been able to predict from my last post, Thanksgiving took me down. Hard. I ended up staying at my parent's house with the girls, while my son stayed with his dad for the entire week. We shared the "holiday" with my parents, their best friends ( a couple in their 60's who are neither awful nor inspirational- just pretty much as middle of the road not very interesting retirees...she loves her flowers and he loves his golf), my brother and his wife (who are usually okay and pretty awesome people, but they've been trying to get pregnant now for almost a year and in that time their fun level has decreased significantly. They walk into a room and you can FEEL their unhappiness. I'm sure they love to hang out with overly fertile me.) My mother "scheduled" dinner for 6:30 (WTF??? Who eats THANKSGIVING then??? On any given normal day my kids eat at 5...sigh....) My husband was not there, thanks to work (he'd better get that damn bonus...) and overall I was not happy.

I could go on, as I always could, but basically I was bored and started drinking, by myself, at noon and then went to bed as soon as I could after the guests left.

I've talked about triggers in past posts, well, this particular visit hit on almost all of them- and some additional ones to boot. Walk into a room with ALL of your demons and have to stay there for a week, hell, anyone could get depressed.

In addition to all of the triggers going off and bringing me down, I had nothing to combat them because I  kind of let up on the meditation. Why? Sheer laziness. I've said before that depression has a lot to do with re-training your brain. Well, I don't do anything half-ass...so when I told myself that I was going to start this training, I didn't start by doing a mile every other day, as I would if I were a runner. No. I went for the whole marathon...and after the initial high wore off, I found myself very, very tired of having to TRY each day.

The thing that makes me want to kick myself is that IT WAS ALL WORKING: the meditating, the positive thinking, the projecting/imagining positive outcomes (a la Silva Method), the canceling of negative thoughts- it really worked! I had jobs pouring in, the kids were being good, my husband and I were connecting on new levels, money stuff was working out- all of it- and then BOOM! I had to burn myself out and just stop.

And that's where I downspiraled. I won't go into it (no. no suicidal thoughts, but I was pretty evil to everyone) but it definitely happened. My husband sat me down and gave it to me straight: he said- "FIGURE THIS OUT. The difference in you is night and day. You haven't been meditating and you're miserable. You need to either set time away, every day, to meditate, or you need to go back on antidepressants, or you need to leave."

Well, I'd been waiting for that "go back on antidepressants" line for some time...but really, now that I think about it, I think I taunted him into saying that. I think that I have been so terrified since day one that he, of all people, would say that to me, that I kept picking at it until it happened. And really, it wasn't that bad. He told me that he would take care of the kids in the morning, do their lunches, get them dressed- everything- as long as I took a half an hour to meditate, and that we would start with that.

So that's what I've been doing.

A couple of other things worth mention: I went back home after his "talking to" and ordered my old Thorne Research MTHF...thinking that maybe, just maybe, the Metabolic Maintenance brand wasn't working as effectively. Also, I ordered this stuff called SAM-e...and I'm taking 400mg a day. Anyone heard of it? A new client of mine is, incidentally, a therapist for depression and anxiety (I am doing her social media...keeping up her FB page, her linked in site, publishing her bio, etc. Specifically, I'm doing her new book called The Infertility Workbook, where she uses a holistic approach to fertility.) Anyway, we got to talking about what we "take" (because she's a depressive too- most therapists are, it seems) and she recommended the SAM-e. When I have time I'll research and post- I promise!

**** side note- she's my client so I, of course, can't use her, but to those of you who might need a therapist, go to www.barbarablitzer.com (her website). She does sessions via telephone and skype in addition to her offices around here, and she says she works on a sliding scale, payment wise. I have no idea how she is as a therapist and I get zero money from recommending her, but I thought I'd put that out there*****

Last, it seems I am not the only one who was "off the wagon"...I've mentioned that my son's dad isn't the most dependable of people. Well, it turns out that even though I give him the folic acid to give to my son when he's there, he doesn't. So, I had my lil' guy returned to me after a week and all I can say is that he was just as bad off as I was...but in his particular old way: angry, crying, out of control at times. So moody. I'm furious at his dad, but I can't really dwell on that. All I can do is get him back on the folic acid, which is what I've done, and he's much, much better.

Okay, did I cover everything??

No, of course not. But I refer you to the latest quote on the left column about how it is easier to be at war than it is to be at peace. Of course, I am relating this to our internal struggles with depression. The thing about this disease is that we CAN'T succumb to it: it's a lose/lose situation. Being at constant war with ourselves is easy (because that's what we've grown used to doing) but exhausting. Allowing that depression IN is easy, but it, too, is exhausting. Being depressed is no way to be. It's just going to take much more training on my part to remember that. Old habits die hard. I've just got to break free instead of jumping off.