Not like I've actually done all these things... hahahaha, you must be kidding! Just that I've realized that trying to do a post about each of these things is totally stalling out, so I'm wrapping the rest of them plus some updates into this post.
Here's what I've got left to talk about...
5. Get my finances in order
Eek. This one is the "I have no clue where to start" one. I think we're going to have to shelve this until summer. By then, a lot of things should be more clear. But as sort of a backup resolution... I'm keeping meticulous receipts. Usually it occurs to me when we finally do our taxes (as in, October 14th, the day before the extension runs out...) that I should have kept better records. It's too late for 2008, but let's start 2009 by being methodical and organized about this from Day One. (Then maybe I can get an accountant this year; it's hard to do that when you're piecing a lot of things together at the last second.)
6. Get some more social relationships into my isolated, pathetic life.
This one is hard, too. I'm honestly not sure how to do it. But maybe I could start by being less defensive and less tied in to being resentful about what people are not doing for me. Maybe instead of being eternally annoyed that my aunt forwards me junk all the time instead of sending me a real email, I could just tell her that. Maybe instead of resenting that my best friend doesn't call me, I could just call her. Maybe I could start by being a little braver and a little less protective of myself.
This is hard.
7. Go back to the gym.
This is hard, too. Not so much because it's intrinsically difficult, but because Michael is still not able to do this, and I feel bad leaving him home. He says, go. He says, I will come with you and watch, if you want. But he says this when he's feeling ok. When he's not, it's all really frustrating, and it's even more frustrating when you have to watch someone doing something that you want to be doing. So I don't know. But I think that somehow I have to do this.
I have to think about how to make this work. I will get back to this.
8. Get the house organized.
I did something about this. I hired someone to come help for about 2 hours every week. I think... hope anyway... that this will help a lot. Just having someone else to do a few things once a week will take a lot of pressure off of me.
I feel very guilty, on some level, about hiring someone to do something that I think that I should be doing myself. I still have a hard time realizing that I truly can't do everything. I still think that if I just work hard enough, I can... and that it's some sort of failure if I don't.
And some updates.
It looks like my insurance company is probably not going to approve the antidepressant that I was willing to take... since it's the one that my smart psychiatrist sister recommended... unless my doctor can work some magic. I don't think that's going to happen. So... I think I'm on my own with this. But maybe that's not such a bad thing, or at least I'm hoping I'll think so after I get done being irritated and upset; I think I was kind of hanging on to the idea that a magic pill would make me feel better (and in the process, I forgot all the reasons that I don't really want to work on this through medication).
But long-term solutions come better to me through thought and cognitive strategies than through medication, anyway.
I got my hip x-rayed and so far no one has told me that my leg is about to fall off, so I guess that's good, and I need to think physical therapy. Which will also get me back to the gym.
Oh, and I've discovered that an average day is about 3,000 steps for me, the magic of the pedometer (although I don't think it's perfectly accurate). So I need to be tripling my motion, essentially, if I've shooting for 10,000 steps. Some of that will come when the semester starts.
Ok, enough dull introspection and problems. It's time to figure out the solutions.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Resolution Days... Day1, Happiness
The trouble with resolutions is that you can't just make them, not if you really want them to happen. You have to have a plan, some way that you're going to put some structure in place to make sure that there's some chance that it will happen. Otherwise, it's not a resolution, it's a wish.
So I wrote down my eight resolutions, and now the question is, what can I do to make these things happen?
The first one, "work on happiness", is actually the hardest and most painful one. I was going to do it last. But it's probably the most important one... and so, well, let's be brave, I guess.
I have been, lately, just beyond unhappy. I have been crushingly, overwhelmingly sad in a way that I just don't know how to deal with (and I've had a lifetime of dealing with depression and so forth). It is becoming incapacitating. I get up every morning and spend two or three hours just getting to the point where I can do something besides cry. I think it's fair to say that this is not normal.
Michael says, well, what do you expect? Your mother died last summer. The process of grief takes time. And so on. But it's not that. I mean, it is that in a way... I miss my mother every day, and I am still filled with anger at the unfairness of it all. In some ways, it's hard for me to imagine that there will ever be a day when I say, "I'm over this now." Some losses you never get over. But I understand this. It's not my first loss. It's part of life. I can deal with it. If it were only this, I think I would be all right. But it's the proliferation of a thousand small things, not so much this one big thing.
It's been nearly a year since Michael has been really well and mobile. It's hard on him; it's hard on me, and it hasn't gotten easier. There's little to break up the endless medical problem after medical problem; we can hardly go anywhere, and when we have, it's most been a mistake. And I do everything. This is not a complaint... just a fact, and over the last year, nearly everything has become my responsibility, and it wears on me. I am afraid that these things will never get better... although I believe that they will.... and at the same time, I have to try to be the optimistic and encouraging one. And the weight of all of it... I don't know. I mean, I am not a complainer. But I have so little time to do anything that might make me feel better, and I'm so isolated, in a way, and the combination of all of it has, I think, tipped me into a kind of depression that's beyond anything I've experienced before.
And I have to do something about this. I've been trying to wait it out, but it's getting worse rather than better. So I think that this is taking me back to the place I've been trying to avoid, going back on antidepressants. Don't get me wrong here... I am not at all anti-medication; I was on them for years, and they are lifesavers for a lot of people. But let's just say that the end of my antidepressant experience was a lot worse than the beginning, and left me with considerable reluctance to try this again unless absolutely necessary. I haven't wanted to deal with the whole adjustment and side effects thing... and in some silly way, to whatever extent this is all about grief, I wanted to feel it, not have it numbed (even though I know that it's not the way that it works). As some bizarre sort of tribute, I suppose. And because I just think that I should be able to cope with everything in the universe.
But this is wrong. It's wrong partly because I keep telling Michael that he has to try medications that might help him even if he doesn't want to, so it's just flat-out hypocritical for me to be unwilling to do the same thing. And my state of mind affects him as well as me. I've started to call my doctor about this five or six times over the last few months... and every time I talk myself out of it. And that's the point of talking about it here, really, to make that commitment to actually doing that. Monday.
Things are not supposed to be like this. And so maybe if I could deal with the biochemical bits of it, maybe some of the other things that will help... the rest of my resolutions... will be possible.
So I wrote down my eight resolutions, and now the question is, what can I do to make these things happen?
The first one, "work on happiness", is actually the hardest and most painful one. I was going to do it last. But it's probably the most important one... and so, well, let's be brave, I guess.
I have been, lately, just beyond unhappy. I have been crushingly, overwhelmingly sad in a way that I just don't know how to deal with (and I've had a lifetime of dealing with depression and so forth). It is becoming incapacitating. I get up every morning and spend two or three hours just getting to the point where I can do something besides cry. I think it's fair to say that this is not normal.
Michael says, well, what do you expect? Your mother died last summer. The process of grief takes time. And so on. But it's not that. I mean, it is that in a way... I miss my mother every day, and I am still filled with anger at the unfairness of it all. In some ways, it's hard for me to imagine that there will ever be a day when I say, "I'm over this now." Some losses you never get over. But I understand this. It's not my first loss. It's part of life. I can deal with it. If it were only this, I think I would be all right. But it's the proliferation of a thousand small things, not so much this one big thing.
It's been nearly a year since Michael has been really well and mobile. It's hard on him; it's hard on me, and it hasn't gotten easier. There's little to break up the endless medical problem after medical problem; we can hardly go anywhere, and when we have, it's most been a mistake. And I do everything. This is not a complaint... just a fact, and over the last year, nearly everything has become my responsibility, and it wears on me. I am afraid that these things will never get better... although I believe that they will.... and at the same time, I have to try to be the optimistic and encouraging one. And the weight of all of it... I don't know. I mean, I am not a complainer. But I have so little time to do anything that might make me feel better, and I'm so isolated, in a way, and the combination of all of it has, I think, tipped me into a kind of depression that's beyond anything I've experienced before.
And I have to do something about this. I've been trying to wait it out, but it's getting worse rather than better. So I think that this is taking me back to the place I've been trying to avoid, going back on antidepressants. Don't get me wrong here... I am not at all anti-medication; I was on them for years, and they are lifesavers for a lot of people. But let's just say that the end of my antidepressant experience was a lot worse than the beginning, and left me with considerable reluctance to try this again unless absolutely necessary. I haven't wanted to deal with the whole adjustment and side effects thing... and in some silly way, to whatever extent this is all about grief, I wanted to feel it, not have it numbed (even though I know that it's not the way that it works). As some bizarre sort of tribute, I suppose. And because I just think that I should be able to cope with everything in the universe.
But this is wrong. It's wrong partly because I keep telling Michael that he has to try medications that might help him even if he doesn't want to, so it's just flat-out hypocritical for me to be unwilling to do the same thing. And my state of mind affects him as well as me. I've started to call my doctor about this five or six times over the last few months... and every time I talk myself out of it. And that's the point of talking about it here, really, to make that commitment to actually doing that. Monday.
Things are not supposed to be like this. And so maybe if I could deal with the biochemical bits of it, maybe some of the other things that will help... the rest of my resolutions... will be possible.
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