but she wants to be sure, 'cause you know sometimes words have two meanings

Friday, 10/27/17, 8:50am, 10:33am, 11:26am (hah, again, my birthday time- 11/26)

Today's not the best day, depression-wise. It started last night, with a conversation with Nasser about my therapy appointment yesterday and how I'm doing lately, generally. He's had, well, a different view/opinion of my mental health of late than I have. We both certainly acknowledge that I'm doing much, much better than I was for the last year, mostly since Adam died. But he was saying, compared to two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, he doesn't know that I'm any, well, happier per say.

Three years ago, four years ago, "ish" because you know my memory completely fails me now, I was biking to work every day. I was doing triathlons, various running races, I was much more active.

I told Nasser last night that I'm having trouble getting back into my active state because I'm currently so out of shape. When I do exercise, I feel like crap, at least during. I sweat, a ton, it's hard to breathe, and I want to and often do quit early. And then I beat myself up for "failing". And I can't seem to get past all this, to exercise really regularly again, in order to get back into shape. I have no interest in dieting to lose some weight, which would probably make exercising easier too. And I don't know what the underlying problem is. Nasser thinks I'm not doing as well as I should be, which means maybe we need to talk with my psychiatrist(s) more about medications, and there's this whole genetic testing we recently found out about which can be used to better understand interactions with medications. We even have a test kit, given to us by the ECT doctor, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Today I'm feeling like the depression is all-consuming. Most days I can function pretty well and get stuff done or at least poke around on the internet, passing time. But I might not be "happy" because a lot of the activities that make me happy have been really difficult- exercise and reading books to name a couple (I can't figure out if my brain is simply cognitively not there yet or if I haven't had the motivation to read, neither reason makes me feel too good). My lack of memory has made things difficult, in many ways. I just picked up a book from a series that I really enjoyed not too long ago- the Wings of Fire series- and it pained me to recognize some things, like characters' names, but not remember the majority of it. And I get it, there have been plenty of jokes, that I've made as well, about how I can read/watch things "again for the first time". After awhile, that doesn't feel too comforting anymore. And it certainly doesn't feel comforting when it's in the context of (not) remembering previous events with friends and family. It's just... depressing.

This morning, so far, I've been laying on the couch a lot, under a comfy blanket, mostly watching The Princess Bride, a good comfort movie for me. 

And maybe the fact that I do remember the whole movie (I can't even begin to count the number of times I've watched this movie across the entirety of my life) is comforting to me as well. Finding something I remember kinda helps. Yesterday morning I found myself rereading old emails between Nasser and me, before we started dating. I didn't remember all of it, but it was extremely comforting and gave me a lot of sentimental feelings. It was nice.

I'm feeling a little bit better since writing the beginning couple of paragraphs, which is a good sign. I washed/wet my hair in the sink so that it's a little less bedhead, I brushed my teeth, I had another cup of coffee with a nice chocolate biscotti, and I'm getting to some exciting parts of my movie.

"Have fun storming the castle!"

"Think it'll work?"

"It would take a miracle"

"Good-BYE!"

Oh, another thing I did, was start a 7-day mindfulness exercise in this app on my phone- "Calm". I think it's a fairly popular mental health/mindfulness/meditation app that's out there. There's a 21-day practice in there too, but I figure if I like the 7-day one first, I'll try out the next one. Maybe this will be a good practice I can do on my own to improve my, well, everything. There were several things my therapist gave me yesterday in my appointment to work on, and I think this app will help with some of them. 

There was another thing we talked about in my appointment that I did attempt to put into practice last night during that difficult conversation with Nasser. We talked about my ease into the thought "I want to die", almost like it's a habit. When I get super depressed, this thought does come up rather often, rather easily. My therapist suggested I try and start challenging these thoughts. To try and recognize, in the moment, that this thought doesn't actually mean I want to die, but that I'm looking for an escape from how I feel in that current moment. 

Last night, I was fighting an incredibly strong urge to sob at one point and had these overwhelming "I want to die" thoughts. And I was able to remember what my therapist said and I did what she said. And I felt slightly better. What she said worked. It at least stalled or stopped the "I want to die" feelings even if it didn't totally avoid the tears. Of course, hopefully the more I practice this, the easier it will get.

This week has been difficult for a few reasons, other than the stuff from last night and today. Tuesday I started going through my closet and emptying out the things that no longer fit. My increased weight has made a lot of my clothes too small. This doesn't help my depression by any means. (Of course my therapist yesterday reminded me that doing this wouldn't put most people into a good mood). I was super productive Tuesday and Wednesday with this task of taking out the clothes that don't fit, which I think will help in the long run to not constantly be looking at these too-small clothes and feel horrible about it every single day when I'm trying to find something to wear. And the productivity helped me feel good about myself in a different way. In the same way that completing a bunch of laundry yesterday made me feel good about myself. Doing tasks around the house, getting started and making progress on house projects has made me feel better in the last few days, and it did (prior to last night and this morning) make me feel like I'm on the mend. 

Maybe I need to be careful about expecting too much, too quickly. Maybe getting to that regular working out and in shape state is just going to take lots of time, and expecting myself to work out everyday isn't yet a reasonable expectation. I am still more active than I was during much of ECT, and I'm getting better at these cycling classes, even if I do, on average, only go once a week. We already made plans for me to be able to go tomorrow. And maybe treatment every 2 weeks is still too much for my brain for reading books. Maybe I need them a little more spread out to cognitively handle it. And maybe that's a little worse than what's average/normal for most ECT patients, but I should discuss it with the doctor before deciding that it means something's wrong with me.

And it's not that Nasser thinks I have things "wrong with me." He's trying to make sure we get to the best possible outcome with my treatment(s), including all the medications I'm on. I think I really took it personally last night, thinking I'm failing because I'm not as happy as he'd like to see me, compared to times that he has seen me really happy in the past.

With my movie over now, and having moved on to Pandora and my "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" station...

... I'm feeling more... reflective and understanding and willing to see room for improvement rather than failure. My underlying mood affects that willingness a lot. And sometimes it takes a lot of work to change that mood, sometimes it takes hours and hours. But it's good to be thankful that it doesn't take days or weeks like it has in the past.

As a final side note, I did some Halloween decorating yesterday, after having previously decided I'd skip it this year. The kids liked it and enjoyed helping decorate more.