up and down, and in the end it's only round and round and round

Friday, 07/29/16, 9:31am

I'm doing better than I was yesterday and the day before. I did get a short run in yesterday afternoon while the boys were on their bikes. Might be aiming for that again today. Maybe we'll have a dance party with some 80's music too. Those things help me.

Yesterday, despite having a really successful afternoon with the boys (with the aforesaid running/biking as well as some mini-pool time), I was never fully recovered. OK, I have to take a second to share some pictures and videos of the afternoon.

I relaxed in a camping chair, with some cold water, while the boys set up a water slide

Still wasn't perfectly easy to function, but I was trying my damnedest

We had to make some repairs prior to filling up the pool, as well as during. 

As of this morning, the pool is still about halfway full so I guess we did a good job!

They had fun, and that helped my mood more than anything else. It was fun, it was enriching fun, which maybe Minecraft is in its own way. Nasser recently found some data showing that video games, where they require creativity and imagination, are more enriching to children than television shows. (I would normally now link to the article explaining this, because I think backing up what you say is very important, however, I can't find that exact study at the moment. Will post in comments if I ever come across it.) I'm finding that there really are a lot of benefits to video games, in both what I read as well as what I see in my kids. They play Minecraft together, cooperatively. They learn to play cooperatively in larger groups when they play Minecraft with friends and family. They often play with Nasser, which I think is a key benefit. It is time spent together, they talk most of the time about what they're doing and strategies, and Nasser can help guide them to keep it beneficial.

And it's not like they spend all their time playing video games. They are often playing, however, when I'm blogging. Or showering. This summer, I've allowed it more than I would like to in the long term. However, 1. it is summer and I do believe that enjoyment of the summer is important. 2. Their uncle died at the beginning of the summer. We're still dealing with that and recovering from it. I don't feel that I need to justify myself further. And I'm not really justifying to you, the reader. Perhaps to some extent. But I'm also justifying to myself. Because I carry a lot of guilt and shame over the amount of screen time they get sometimes.

Being in a depressive episode, like I was yesterday, I definitely allow more screens. Because I want to hide upstairs and not have the kids try to find me and demand things from me. I don't want them seeing me when I'm sobbing over the thoughts that are going through my head.

Yesterday I put out a slight plea to facebook for some love. Just a little "can I have some virtual hugs today?" kind of thing. Many many of my friends and family responded with love. It was nice and it was something that helped yesterday. It didn't make me totally recovered, other people really don't have that affect when I'm truly depressed, but it helped. I said the other day that I felt like I was in a deep hole and couldn't see which way was up. It was like that most of the day yesterday.

Honestly, I had one big goal yesterday, and that was keeping the suicidal, totally hopeless and helpless thoughts away. I succeeded, without the need for Nasser coming home or someone coming over and taking over care for the kids. Because, yeah, some days, those thoughts are right below the surface, and if I'm not careful, they will consume me. I don't write this to scare anyone, and I hope it doesn't (please remember right now I'm doing rather well and not depressed in any way). I write it to share what I think is actually somewhat common with major depression. Maybe? For me, it's not that uncommon, to at least fall into the hopeless thoughts, for when I'm in a depressive episode. It's not how I feel all the time, and I do think that I have more good, happy moments in my life, than depressed.

I am starting up some mood tracking again. I think that I unofficially do it with the blog, since I'm often writing and I often write about my mood. :) But I wanted something where I could easily graph the results and get an idea of the overall trend. It's something I plan to show my doctor once I have some data to say, do we still think I'm doing the right things or am I worse than we thought? I've only tracked a handful of times, although I did track several times yesterday. The entry for today is just about the opposite of yesterday's.

We're keeping today fairly low key again. Although we might make a trip to Target for some groceries, as well as some shopping with some gift cards the boys received for their birthdays.

Lots of love to all my readers. I hope today is fine for you, as I hope it will be for me.