Exhausting

I feel like it’s exhausting to be me.  Having to think about everything, rethink, think again.  What’s going on?  I can’t get anywhere.  Depression check.  Anxiety check.  Did I exercise enough?  Am I eating right?  Did I get enough sleep?  Yes?  Then why am I still tired?  Why do I still feel crappy even though I am doing everything right?  (socializing…being creative…doing everything I need to do at work…setting and achieving goals…eating enough fruits and vegetables…)

People I deal with at work tell me how hard it is to live with a chronic illness.  And, yes, it is.  But I think, gee, if only I had a little magic monitor that I could check my depression/anxiety/repetitive negative thinking with four times a day like a blood sugar level and give myself an appropriate injection of happiness, of satisfaction, of whatever it is that other people have that I don’t have.  Just like a diabetic pancreas that doesn’t make insulin, my brain is just not…making…happy.

 

Yoga

Saw the doc yesterday, he increased my Zoloft dose and then insinuated that my job might be depressing in and of itself (he’s sort of intimately acquainted with my workplace).  I told him I like it enough and the things he thought would be stressful about it, are some of the things I like about it.  I can’t imagine that working anywhere else would be better. 

Sometimes I tell people that if I wanted to make people happy at work, I would work at the ice cream store instead of (workplace) but people can get bitchy at the ice cream store too so whatevs.

Anyway, I decided that I really need some yoga in my life.  I started craving a yoga class.  I never went to one before, but I saw it on Sex and the City.  Of course, I thought getting a pedicure with my friend would be like SATC too, and it was not wonderful at all.  But the yoga class I went to last night was way better.  I kept thinking, “Puedo hacerlo!”  which is probably unZenlike, but I didn’t hurt myself, even with all the downward dogging.  It was great.  I feel great today too.  I can’t wait to go again.

 

Jack is totally anti-yoga, he never wanted me to go before even though I knew it would be good for me, because of the weird Eastern-religion aspect of it.  I guess I don’t understand why it should be that way, why couldn’t it be just a lot of stretching, and the class I went to wasn’t really too much like that, which I was happy to report back to the skeptic at home.  He said, “That’s what you think.”  I’ll take what I want from it and leave the rest.

 

SAD lights

I was going to get one of those light boxes for seasonal affective disorder (SAD) but the only local place that seems to stock it charges $250.  I’ve seen the same thing online for less, but I don’t order things online, so I just put off getting it.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  Anyway, now it’s at the point where not only are the days much shorter, but it’s been cloudy almost every day as well.  Really, not a good combination.

 

I had the brilliant (HA!) idea to purchase, instead, one of those “full spectrum” lights marketed to crafters, which I am, and which cost much less- $59.99 on sale at the big-box craft store.   It’s supposed to be the closest thing to natural light (even though it’s a fluorescent bulb; it’s counterintuitive). I thought, I’ll put it by the bed, turn it on when my alarm goes off, and it will be like beautiful morning sunshine pouring in like in one of those fake decorating magazines!    OK, well, it puts off kind of an off-putting cool light.  Not really super-appealing.  Neither my conscious nor my sub-conscious mind is fooled.

 

This morning Jack- who loves those curly fluorescent bulbs and has replaced every fixture with them- was getting ready and I saw a nice golden light radiating from his closet.  I thought, you hypocrite!  “What kind of bulb do you have in there?” I mumbled (I don’t have to work until 11 today).  He was kind of embarrassed.  “There are two.  The regular kind.”  Maybe that’s the secret?  Just regular, old, electricity-wasting round incandescent bulbs.  What an idea.  (Get it?  Idea?  Like, you know, the light bulb lit up over my head in the graphic novel of my life.)

 

Crafting like crazy!

It’s cold here already.  Not just cool, cold!  We had our first frost the night before last.  I got out my winter coat, gloves, and hats.  Yikes!

 

It’s time for knitting and crochet.  I finished a crocheted cardigan (very cute, BTW) and started designing a new pattern.  It’s very repetitive knitting, in the round, just how I like it, in a fluffy warm yarn that someone gave me for free (even better!).   I’m actually writing down the pattern as I’m working it, something I’ve never done before, so that it could be replicated by me or someone else, should they choose to do so.  I always appreciate it when people share how they’ve done something.  It’s time I did the same!

 

The repetitive nature of certain crafts seems to increase the amount of serotonin floating about in the brain, per certain theories, and I am banking on that.  That seems to be why a lot of Northern knitting (Shetland lace patterns in repetitions of seven stitches, for example, or Nordic Fair Isle patterns) is the way it is.  I see the same thing happen with certain crochet stitches too.  The particulars of these repetitions do have an anxiolytic effect.  Try it.

 

My brain feels bigger.

I have had this weird frontal headache for the past couple days, just enough to be nagging and annoying and make it a little difficult to read.  I can’t help but thinking that if there is more serotonin floating around in there, wouldn’t it need more space?  It only seems logical.  Anyway, it’s a funny sensation.  I’m having second thoughts.  Why would I take pills that change my brain chemistry?  (Cue the “uh oh!” music.  You know what I’m talking about.  “Dun dun DUN!”)

 

Help is on the way! Or, the Placebo Effect

This morning, I woke up early, while it was still dark, and realized that the troops are on the way!  I know help is coming.  It was a really cool feeling.  It was like, I already feel better, because I know I am going to feel better.  That was a really neat feeling.

 

Today

Ok, so I feel the same today, except more tired.  I weaned myself off coffee, and that was awesome!  (That’s old news.)  So, I started the Zoloft yesterday, and you’re not supposed to drink alcohol at all while on it.  I weighed the pros and cons.  Happy only when drinking beer, or happy pretty much most of the time?  I never used to drink at all, so it seemed pretty clear to me.

 

I went by my dad’s last night.  He still thinks I am 12 years old.  Whatever, I am used to it, it works out.  He can’t get a change to stick in his head.  So, I could tell him one hundred times that I no longer drink coffee, and he will still offer it to me.  Anyway, he was making fancy martinis last night, with this raspberry liqueur, and I wanted one, but I said no, and really driving home on those dark country roads would be best unliquored anyhow.  So he made a pot of coffee for me instead and I drank it (yes, all of it, and it was good).  Except for not being able to sleep.

 

Jack and I have sort of a running joke now, where he says, “I don’t know you anymore!” because obviously I am a totally different person now that I have taken a couple doses of psychotropic meds.  I guess it is not funny in print, sorry.  At least I can check off “Used humor to deal with stress” on my weekly log.  It’s one of those corporate things- yeah, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.  I’ve been able to check off few days for “exercise 30 minutes” but the “humor” one is in the bag.  In the bag!  (The prize- I mean, except for self stress awareness and reduction blah blah blah is probably a cheap tote bag or something, but I’m still a sucker.)