Fighting Depression, And Winning

I have hereditary clinical depression.  I know my Father has it, as he has been hospitalized twice for it.  I lost my sister to suicide when she was 14 which led me to a lot of unprocessed grief that pops up now and then when triggered by certain situations.  My latest bout started when I lost a stone in one of my rings.  That's all it took.

Having clinical depression is like being dulled to what life can be.  A constant feeling of dread and negative thoughts.  I have learned that those thoughts are but a habit and can be changed to positive thinking that has drastically changed my ability to keep my depression attacks at bay.  I have no idea if other people who suffer depression have similar experiences, but this is mine.

It comes on like a virus.  It starts with dark thoughts.  Thoughts that I can't control.  They are dark and demeaning.  I say that Hateful Holly has come to torment me.  I fight her for days.  She says terrible things such as, "You aren't good enough.  Everyone in your life you have ever been close to has either lost their mind or died.  If you get close to anyone else, they will die too.  Or they will leave you. You are cursed!"  I know none of this to be true and I will audibly say, "Lies!  Not true!"  But it's years of things said by people I cared deeply that said very hurtful words to me that stay stored to come out precicely at these moments.  Some have apologized for those words, but they stay locked away until Hateful Holly pulls them out like an old suitcase of memories.

It usually takes 2 to 3 days to successfully be submerged in the worst of my symptoms.   Where I'm vomiting tears from my tear ducts and my entire heart and soul has the aches.  It feels precisely like the pain of when someone dies.  It's usually my sister who triggers my terrible days where I have to process this pain and grief to return to normal again.  I will sit in the dark and just let the tears flow.

This is all very exhausting.  I do not want to socialize at all.  I do not want to leave my house.  I want to sleep through this terrible time.  If I do get the energy to make a call to someone and they don't answer that is all I can muster and then I will continue to weep until I have fully recovered.

My last bout lasted over 2 weeks which is very prolonged.  It was due to a series of set backs that caused me to relapse back into the deepest of the grief.  Anything from being accused of ruining someone elses life (I get accused of that often because of a certain addict in my life so I should be used to it), or people who have jilted me, or at least my perception of being jilted and becoming confused at the strange signals people give when they get scared of intamacy.   Why is that my problem?  Or more importantly, why do I take it so personal?  Something to work on.

But I know that each time that Hateful Holly says, "Today is a good day to drive off a bridge." I know that I need to kick her ass and conquer her with positive affirmations.  Which always brings me back to being "normal" again.  But she is a terrible part of me that brings her virus whenever I get triggered.

I know I have to be careful with myself, take care of myself, rest easy, and recover.  And in the end I'm always ok.

As this relates to my PVNS, the first 2 surgeries I got the depression from feeling hopeless and helpless when recovering and being unable to walk.  So I not only got to suffer through recovering from the surgery but a bout of depression as well.  By the 3rd surgery,  I learned the best ways to be mobile and how to navigate around the time it would take me to return to all of my regular abilities.  I didn't get the depression.  Success!

My Me Time

In the past 2 years I lost over 20lbs and went from a size 8 to a size 4 within a year.
Many people who struggle with their weight want to know my secret.

My secret is my me time.
I have discovered I need at least 3 hours of my morning dedicated to myself and my health before I can ever begin to be ready for my day.  At least that is what I tell myself.  And it makes all the difference.

I start by getting up early every morning.  I take the first part of my day sipping coffee and watching the sunrise.  Meditating must happen first.  Then I run through a list of at least 10 affirmations and then a five minute yoga stretch.   I then make my way to the gym and ride a stationary bicycle for at least 25 minutes.  I push myself harder each time so I use a setting that simulates a varied terrain so that I'm clearing at least 6 miles of going up and down hills in that 25 minutes.  Or I might go swimming for that 25 minutes.  Swimming and the bicycle is all I feel ok with for that long.  Otherwise I could do an eliptical or even a low setting on a stair climber.  But I rarely use those because I feel that I could accidentally trigger my knee to swell up.  I'm not that daring.

I feel the need to keep my knee moving so that it doesn't degenerate faster over the years since I've already had 3 knee surguries and my PVNS could come back.  Currently I am pretending like I don't have it.  Like I never had it.  PVNS?  What's that?  Never heard of it.

Another trick is that when I get home from the gym I make a smoothie with Matcha in it.  That is my secret ingredient to keeping the weight off.  Also, not eating emotionally.   And definitely no eating after 8pm, especially no sugar. 

I'm determined to go through a sugar detox after December.  The fall is the worst time for sweets.  They are everywhere.

If I do not get my morning routine out of the way and have my dedicated me time to invest in my health, I just feel off.  But the work over time is obvious.  I'm just one of the lucky ones that doesn't really suffer from pain.  Or maybe I do but I'm used to it so I just pretend like it's not there.