Monday, 09/04/17, 10:20am, 1:12pm, 7:37pm
Oh boy. This Labor Day weekend has not been what I had expected it to be. Depression happened instead, and it's done a lot of, just, taking over. Deep breaths haven't really helped. Reading, watching shows, getting what seemed like an awesome amount of sleep last night, have all helped for brief periods of time, but then the depression has still continually taken back over. I'd hoped that the depression was going to be limited to just Saturday, and I was going to get the rest of my weekend back, but it didn't happen.
My older child, RG, was kinda upset yesterday about the way we were going to try and get outside for a bike ride, but it necessitated all of us to get out there since I couldn't be left alone and the kids wanted Daddy to be out there with them. RG said, "I hate that you have to do this treatment. I hate it." And although, truly, I agree with what he was saying, hearing him say it crushed me. Omygosh, it literally crushed me. I hate so much how much this ECT treatment and my depression is affecting my children. It's completely awful. I hope, so much, that the treatment will make me better, will make me a better mom, someday, but I don't know that is will. I really don't. It's not a guarantee, by any means.
Do you know, dear readers, I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this in the blog, although maybe I have; you know, the whole short term memory loss and state dependent memory thing have seriously affected me greatly. I feel like my memory of the last, well, several years is iffy. It's definitely not all there, and I really hope it gets better when this treatment ends. It's... tough. Anyway, for a somewhat long while now, I've been cutting down on alcohol, because, well, it is a depressant. But I'd been noticing, on a personal level, that it had been triggering me, fairly regularly. So, our friends' wedding in September of last year turned out to be the last time I've drank. I haven't, at all, since then, and haven't looked back. It's been, well, I have to count it because I haven't before, honestly, a good 11 months, I suppose almost 12 months. And yes, I now remember we're into September already, so really, I didn't actually have to count it, haha. But honestly, that's how my brain is right now, that's how hard thinking is with electro-convulsive therapy. I mean, think about it, I'm having seizures somewhat regularly, so I suppose that makes sense, hah.
You know, since writing the first two paragraphs, we spent a decent amount of time outside, all four of us. We went to the park, I really just sat under the gazebo, hanging out, while Nasser played catch with the boys. Then Nasser joined me, we listened to music on the portable speaker Nasser brought, while the kids played at the park and did some hide-and-seek. Then, after RG requested we go to the Y pool, we made some more concrete plans for grilling for lunch and then heading to the pool, and honestly, after all that, I feel a bit better. I'm not sure if it's the spending time outside, or walking across the street to buy some buns for grilling, or planning to get some laps in at the pool, or realizing how long I've been alcohol-free, but whatever it is, it's helping. So yay. For real.
Nasser reminded me recently that the CPAP that I'm now using for sleep treatment takes on average 2 weeks to treat the sleep deprivation. And I'm only like a week in at this point. So it could still get quite a bit better. And, at least right now, for the last week-ish, I've been on my period, which seriously affects my mood as well. So that could be part of the reason for the depression the last few days. And well, I'm sure I'm not, at any point, going to be totally cured or anything and the depression won't be totally under control of my medication, etc. I'll still have downs, forever. I probably just have to accept that.
Ok, well, I'm going to try and let the little bit of feeling better that happened keep working, so not more talking about the depression right now. Going to get ready for some swimming, because I really do love that, and that will likely help even more, and I'm just going to try.
Alright, I wasn't expecting to write more today, but then I didn't come up with a song lyric to title my post with and so it didn't get published before we headed to the pool, along with some friends from our neighborhood which was nice, and then went to bbq dinner with the half of my family that was in town. The rest of the day was decent, and I felt decently well at everything, but now I'm not as well. I guess I'm probably mostly just tired out at this point. I feel a little exhausted emotionally speaking. It's exhausting, emotionally, when your emotions aren't 100% but then you spend a lot of time around people. And, you know, in public places, you're kinda expected to hold it together and all that. So there's like this level of "faking it" or whatever. I mean, I still enjoyed being at the pool, I enjoyed getting some laps in, I enjoyed talking with my friend, I enjoyed playing in the pool with the kiddos, I enjoyed having dinner with everybody, I enjoyed talking with all the family. It's just, this depression thing manages to bring me down despite whatever else, and doing a lot of great things doesn't dictate what my mood is. I'll keep trying tomorrow, and then then Wednesday is treatment, so that should help, you know, other than the horrible headaches I'll have the day of, cause, you know, seizure, of course.
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