Rise and Shine Girl Blog

Sitting there counting it out on my hands I looked up at her and said, “ten months”. Then counting out ten months from the beginning of the last time, I landed on April. APRIL and there it was the beginning of March!  Why was I counting?  From the beginning of a depressive episode until the beginning of another is usually a ten month period.

My body then became a bit warm, a pit developed in my stomach and I wanted to scream, “No! This is the worst timing!”  Seriously though, has there ever been good timing?  I think not.

I started to focus on my breathing as I have learned over the many, many years of this that my breath will calm me down and assist me to focus, rather than going down that nasty and twisted anxious road.  My self-talk then entered the arena. “You have more tools in your toolbox this time.  Look at all you have learned since then.  What if…what if nothing happens in April?  You have your Friday peeps to help you.  Can the kids handle another round of this?  Crap, it is lacrosse season! I need to prepare!  I need to get all the tax crap to the accountant. If this lasts its usual length I will be in the hole for the entire house’s birthdays. Cole will be 16!  One day..One moment at a time. In a way you have been waiting for this moment to test out this med and know if it is working.  Um, hello, you should have known this would be coming again.  Well, if it comes again maybe it won’t be so bad.  My jeans have been a bit tight…well on the bright side they will become loose again.  What if…what if it is too much this time?”

I walked out of her office, my therapist’s office, in a daze wishing she hadn’t asked me, “So do you know the length of time from the beginning of one episode until the beginning of another?”

Within ten minutes I was in the car driving, listening to music, as listening to my usual news outlets only provided more doom and gloom. Then on to my next event of the day I went.  As the days continued on I tried my best to not focus on this particular therapy session.  I did my best to stay present and truly take it moment by moment.  During this time I became officially employed which I was grateful for, but also fearful.  What if I wasn’t capable in the coming weeks?  Back to the breathing I went.

Consistently when an opportunity arises I ask my self, “What if I say yes? What if it is too much and I need to pull back, step down…quit?”.  I hate this!  I just hate having to think this!  So, the way I combat it is to be fully transparent of the potential downfall that could happen.  I share my battle, not in full detail, but share that a period could occur where I may not be capable of the full follow through I typically give and there may be a time that the follow through just doesn’t exist.  The later statement is the most difficult thing to leave me lips.  Way more than sharing my story of depression.

So April begins.  Again, I’m focusing on my breath, meditation, reading books, watching Shameless on Netflix, yoga and most importantly focusing on every word that leaves my family’s lips as I know there could be a point soon where I may be checked out. I did my best not to have a “self-fulfilling prophecy” occur.  Then one day I noticed my thinking become a bit negative, my energy a bit lower, thoughts of looking forward to sleeping.  A bit of fear set in as I thought,”Your ten months are up!”

Over the next few weeks I had mornings struggling to get out of bed.  There were a few days once the house was quiet, after the morning rush, I laid on the sofa. I set my alarm to go off in an hour with plans to get up and be productive.  When the alarm sounded I turned it off and repeated the process every hour until the house became full with moving bodies again.  Then suddenly, relatively speaking, this all subsided.  I say relatively as in previous episodes the process lasted for a several months.  I questioned if this was “my episode” squashed by all the tools I had recently acquired including a new medication.  In a twisted sense I was waiting for my next episode as I wanted to see if the medicine would work.  The new medicine was given to me as the helping professionals in my life where questioning if I had been misdiagnosed.  Yes, that’s right, I may not have clinical depression after all!  Once the several weeks passed I knew “they” were correct and I knew I had been prescribed the right medicine.  It was during those moments I needed to start changing my thinking as to what the battle was I would face and continue to face for the days I am here.  As I type this I can see how I may come across as melodramatic.  But for me, it was dramatic, my thoughts and reality of my past were reviewed and scrutinized in my head.  Taking on a new diagnosis, perspective and planning strategies to help me manage became my next task as April rolled along.

But for this all to make sense I need to go back to my days at Wesley Woods.  Yes, where was I?  Oh, in that drab room with the forest wallpaper scene on the wall…

Rise & Shine