life has a funny way of helping you out

Saturday, 08/18/18, 12:56pm

In the last few hours I've been thinking about expectations. Big expectations. Low expectations. Loads of expectations.

Each of us has some amount of expectations over our heads.

I don't think about it often enough, but I suppose I expect Nasser to work, to keep a job, to support our family, to provide healthcare so that I can be treated, to work because I feel unable to work.

I expect our kids to listen to us (at least some or most of the time. to be honest I suppose I expect it all the time and that's why I freak out everytime they don't listen). I expect our kids to help out in the house in certain ways- to set the table, to clear and clean the table especially when they make a mess, to clean up their toys when it's needed or I need it, to get themselves ready for school or for us going places, to do their homework, to eat what I feed them, to brush their teeth in the mornings and evenings, to take a shower when I tell them they really need it, to be nice to eachother and to us. Hmmm, I guess that's a lot of expectations.

I expect a lot of things out of myself. I expect to get myself to work out everyday. I expect for me to choose to eat healthy everyday, to stick to a plan to lose weight. I expect for myself to be strong for the people around me, and for myself. I expect to fight the depression. I expect myself to not let it trickle in, to control me. I expect to be capable, quickly, every time it hits, to fight, and to fight hard.

I expect a lot of more "normal" things as well. I expect to take care of my family, to keep a safe home, to provide support to my children and husband (emotionally, lovingly, as well as nutritionally, logistically, socially, and whatever). I expect to either work outside the home or to take on a lot of childcare in the home (or both).

I expect to try. really hard. I expect to try the things I know should could help me. I expect to work on integrating into my life things like regular exercise, healthy eating, mindfulness, practice in calming myself, reading, forgiving myself, dropping my bad thoughts into my bucket of soapy water (see previous post).

I have expected, going into each treatment over the years, that this would be the thing that worked. I expected to "get better" with electro-convulsive therapy. And I have, in particular in comparison to what I was going into it, but I think I expected more. I'm not sure what I expected/expect with every treatment. Maybe I expect(ed) that something out there will just make me miraculously 100% better. And I know that everyone deals with bad days, etc. I'm pretty sure the stuff I'm still experiencing are still within the depression spectrum. I was told recently that I'm "in remission". I'm still trying to figure out what that means. I guess by this definition, "if the disease is in remission, the disease has been controlled so that they are not as ill as they were", it would be valid. I suppose I need to modify my expectations. Depression/Bipolar II is a lifelong illness and can't be "cured" in the true sense, but only "remitted".

And I am not as ill as I was. And I am finding that other things are working more than they ever did (cognitive behavioral therapy for one, practicing strategies on my own, actively finding ways to improve my mood when it hits rather than ruminating, even if I start off ruminating). I guess I expected just wish I was cured, rather than remitted only.

I've been wondering how to "phase out" ECT. It's been every 4 weeks for a little while now, our appointment with the ECT doc this past Thursday was good, but it was much up to me. We came up with the options to either stop here and see how it goes (as has been an option for some time now) or to taper more slowly, getting myself to every 5 weeks, 6 weeks, up to 8 weeks, and stop there. Either way I plan to set reminders for myself to "check in" with my feelings, with how I'm doing. And I'll be setting up a doctor appointment to check in a few months after stopping to be sure I don't need a boost. I decided to set up the appointment for a treatment at about 5.5 weeks and I'll cancel if I'm feeling like that's the right decision. Tapering does feel a bit safer to me though.

I've been really judging myself when it comes to ECT lately. Maybe I had the expectation that I would be done sooner. Maybe it's this prejudice that I have against myself that I'm messed up because I still need ECT (maybe I have a prejudice against myself that I did mess up enough to need ECT in the first place). I do tend to feel like people are judging me when I mention treatment and it feels like they are thinking "wow, she's still doing that??". And of course, most, if not all, of this is in my head. But knowing that doesn't really help much.


I guess I need to remind myself that I'm in remission, not cured. If and when I need heftier treatment, be it ECT or something else, later on, whenever it is, in life, it is ok. It is and always will be a journey.


PS, here's what I've been working on a bit today, after starting to feel crappy. I'm currently calling it my "comfort book", which I may have mentioned in a previous post, but I've made some progress. These are all things/images/quotes/pictures that speak to me, provide me comfort and/or motivation.

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

Thursday, 05/17/18, 9:01am, 11:34am

Hey there. Can you believe it? I'm not waiting a month between blog posts this time. Hah. Not like I won't do that next time though. Don't adjust your expectations due to this. I guess I like being a little unpredictable. :)

So. I've been rather obsessed with music recently. I mean. Not like I haven't been obsessed with music most of my life. I mean. There's the whole blog post title thing, which if you haven't noticed, is almost always a song lyric. Some of them may be a bit less known, but some are easily recognizable. And going back in time, I joined my first choir some time in elementary school (can't quite remember how old I was since my memory sucks these days). I stayed with that choir through high school and it brought me so so many amazing experiences, learning, opportunities, and friends. Some highlights were tours to Niagara Falls, Canada/ Carnegie Hall, New York/ Canterbury Cathedral, England. I was in the high school choir, performed some fun extra things in the school variety shows, dabbled a bit in choirs during college including a church choir to get some weekly fix of singing. More recently, in the last few years, I joined the local Boulder Chorale which was so wonderful but I had to take a break this year due to treatment. I wasn't about to try and learn new songs which I wasn't going to remember week to week, heh. I was going to try and do a small bit with the choir this spring for a "May the Fourth" performance with the local symphony orchestra for the live music with Star Wars viewing. That plan went down in flames when I was too depressed the day of the first rehearsal to actually attend. Oi.

Anyway. I've enjoyed recently playing a lot of favorite music when I'm doing stuff around the house, taking showers, doing exercise like running and biking (unfortunately it doesn't work too well logistically to do it while swimming), driving in the car (especially with the windows down and making the music super super loud). Yesterday I decided to make a nice list of songs I love, and that I love to sing along with, for the purpose of "when I'm in a bad state". Because singing, especially singing along to stuff I totally love, is a good mood booster for me. So I now have a Google Sheet with a list of like 15 songs so far. I have lots more to add though. :) And then of course, making the list puts me in a better mood and encourages me to pull up some of those favorites.

Haha, and now, since writing the above, I've already added several more songs to the list (it will always be in progress I think), and I've revised the list to include a bunch of other self-helpy stuff. I keep coming up with different ways to "remind myself" of ways to get myself out of the hole and keep trying to place them in places/ways that I'll know to go to when I am in that state. I have post-its still on our bathroom mirror with reminders of my good qualities, I have my latest pages on the bedroom wall of good motivational quotes, I have these index cards that I "laminated" some time ago and put in my purse so I could pull them out when needed (and I've mostly not remembered they were there),

I have various piles in my room near our bed of lovely cards I've kept from wonderful people, I have books piled up near the bed of favorite ones and self-help ones, I've printed up pictures from various times and places and events in my life that make me happy, I now have a Google Keep list started filling up one of the screens on my phone for "inspiration", and I guess I now am trying to consolidate some of that into this new spreadsheet.

I decided yesterday that I wanted to put together a "photo album" to put some of this stuff in one place. I actually ordered off Amazon today one of those self-adhesive type photo albums so I can choose to put things however and wherever I want. So like putting in some of those wonderful cards, great pictures, printed motivational quote stuff, some of my written lists for myself, maybe even write/ draw/ etc on the pages myself, in general, things I'd like to be reminded of whenever I need it (whether I'm in a bad state or otherwise). It's something I can gain some nice accomplishment feeling out of just the process of putting it together, it's a nice consolidated and physical location of a lot of this stuff that I've really worked on and been saving over the past bunch of years, it's something I think will make, and is already making, me feel some amount of happiness and pride over.

Now, as I keep jumping topics (although that's probably rather typical with my blog posts anyway), I do want to jump back to my music discussion. An idea popped in my head during my therapy session this morning. She mentioned, when we were talking about my recent obsession of music and singing, about another client who mentioned how he has a guitar in his house that he used to play but never does now. It made me think of the keyboard we have up in our guest room. I took piano lessons way back in the day and for some time, as an adult, enjoyed playing a few favorites once in a while. But I haven't played in a really long time. And. I also own a guitar that I received as a gift a long time ago but have, unfortunately, still not learned. I have some newfound intentions to start getting on that keyboard sometimes, even just to practice my scales and chords, eventually trying to pick up some of those old favorites again. And, I'd like to finally learn the guitar. I have a good friend who is in a similar situation in owning a guitar that she hasn't learned. We've talked in the past about taking lessons together. It's time to figure that out, even if we only get it into the schedule for the fall or something.

And on another separate note. I want to share about a recent (maybe) sign that I'm improving. It's been in the discussions, for it seems forever, in therapy, with doctors, in books, with others around me, this idea that I need to work on changing those bad thoughts to something less self-blaming, less negative, etc. And, for like forever, I've heard about that need and, it's felt like, have not had any success with it whatsoever. I can think, when I'm doing well, all about how to make that work. But it's always seemed that when that state hits, I can't pull myself out of those "I'm a failure" type thoughts. I may move past that bad day or whatever, but it's never felt that the "I'm a failure" thought has changed. Well. In the past week or so, I've noticed sometimes in my bad internal thinking, some very slight change to that. I've had a few successes of having a thought like "I hate myself" and somehow, right after, thinking, "wait. no. I hate the depression". Or "I'm such a failure" and then, "no, the depression makes me feel like a failure". It hasn't necessarily pulled me out of the depressive state to have these thought changer things occur. But maybe it's helped keep me from going even further down? But just the fact that I've had some of these happen, I guess gives me some added strength and proof to that "hey, maybe I can fight". Clearly, it's given me hope enough to share about it with you all.

Alright, I need to wrap this up for today. As much as I feel like I could write on and on, this is probably long enough, and I have some yard work calling me. Because I want to save lunch for afterward and it's basically lunchtime already. But hey, I'm actually going to try and accomplish some yard work. That doesn't happen very often. I guess the forecast of rain all weekend is added incentive. I suppose I haven't mentioned, we had 3 DAYS IN A ROW of hail here. Seriously. I'll leave you today with some pictures from one of those days (like the day after from hailing the night before).

And, while I'm at it, a pic from before my bike ride last Thursday.

So long, you know, until next month or something.

I look at the world and I notice it's turning, while my guitar gently weeps, with every mistake we must surely be learning, still my guitar gently weeps

Saturday, 05/12/18, 11:06am

Well I guess I'm really becoming a once-a-month blogger. Ah well.

This last month has been decently good, emotionally/mentally speaking, and we keep spreading treatments out more and more. This stretch I'm currently in is 4 weeks. Man, what a difference from the once every week time (which I think lasted a bunch of months), and then of course the 3x a week. The doctor had said, post acute phase of 3x a week, that the maintenance phase would be 6-12 months. I think I'm gonna end up longer than 12 months anyway, though that's not a bad thing and nothing to be ashamed of, but I think that I never felt like once a week was really "maintenance". To me that was more like a second phase of the treatment that was still fairly "in the thick of it" treatment. Now, with the spreading treatments out more and more, feels more like "maintenance" to me. Eh, whatever. Labels aren't exactly important.

So despite the overall "better and better", those bad days, moments, weekends, weeks still hit, and seemingly just as hard. Yesterday and today, so far, have been down in the hole despite an exceptionally good week this week. I managed really well with more evening kid responsibility due to some later work stuff that Nasser had a few of the days. I handled fights/complaining/etc with kids with, what felt like, more patience than I used to. I kept feeling more and more proud of myself. And I got in the pool and did my first bike ride in a really long time. Maybe it was the high hopes of getting back into an exercise every day routine kind of thing, and then not feeling able to yesterday, that brought me down. And I know that thoughts around tomorrow have been feeling like a big trigger. So. Yes, tomorrow is Mother's Day or whatever. Which has some of its own expectations or something. But tomorrow is also the 2nd anniversary of Adam's death. (As my longer term readers may remember, Adam is Nasser's brother who suffered from schizophrenia and was hit by a train and died the night of Friday, May 13th, 2016). I'm not actually going to spend much time discussing Adam today, not because I don't want to, but more because I'm scared that doing so or doing too much of it will just bring me down further.

I suppose that every down period for me has a trigger(s), although originally when it hit yesterday, it kinda felt like the depression just crept in and took over without me realizing it was there until it was too late. I mean, I guess I shouldn't say "too late" because it's not like it's ever too late. I recover and get through these down periods. But during them, it almost always feels like I never, ever will. I turn to the thoughts of "I hate my life", "I'm never going to be better", "why do I even try?", "nobody cares about me", "I'm a failure", "I'll never succeed at anything in life ever again", "I should just give up", etc, etc. It's overwhelming, it makes me sob and sob, it makes me feel like all my lists of "things to do when the depression hits" won't actually help, it makes me crawl further and further into my hole without being able to see or recognize any way out.

But then there are those little, tiny things that maybe seem slightly better, like just barely show that maybe, just possibly, I'm fighting, you know, at least a little. So like, above, when I stopped myself in the "too late" statement. And last night, when Nasser was putting the boys to bed, I started feeling like it was taking him a long time. And I started going into the thoughts that maybe he was hanging out in their room longer because he didn't want to spend time with me. And maybe he doesn't really love me. But I had the brief thoughts of, "no, this is what the depression wants you to feel. this isn't actually real". And after thinking that last night, it didn't like pull me out of the depression, but I guess it was kind of a start. Nasser told me that just having those little thoughts that fight the depressed thoughts is HUGE. It may be baby steps, but it's in the right direction.

A couple weeks ago, when I was in a bad state for a few days, I printed up all these mental health stuff that I had found on Pinterest, of all places. I had made myself a board called "for me" and filled it with these little pictures with good motivational, mental health related quotes. Then with all my printouts, I put together a bunch to hang up in my bedroom. This was the end result, that I'm currently calling my "wall of strength".

To me, they are all wonderful in so many ways, and I so want to blow them all up in this blog for you to see. I have a couple though that I'm picking out to draw your attention to.

They all totally make me tear up and choke up and yet, all in a good way. Like they give me strength every time that I see them. I am trying, I am always trying, even when it feels like I'm not trying or that I'm going to fail. I keep taking those steps to move forward. And even if this fight will never really end, for as long as I live, I am always trying, I am always fighting for those good moments/ days/ weekends/ weeks/ months/ whatever. I am fighting for those I love, I am fighting for those with their own fights, I am fighting for those who have lost their fight and have gone on to whatever lies beyond, and I am fighting for life itself.

This year, we are doing more of a Mother's Day celebration for me today, rather than tomorrow. Nasser made chocolate, chocolate chip muffins this morning, per my request. And we're basically doing whatever I want today, even though the depression has made it hard for me to figure out if there is anything I do want. We are going to the pool this afternoon though, and I think lunch and dinner are all up to me. I wanted to make today a substitute Mother's Day in some regard because it felt really conflicting to try and figure out ways to honor Adam tomorrow and yet also do Mother's Day activities. And then I'm also working on removing my expectations of a "perfect" Mother's Day and the "perfect" way to honor Adam, etc. I need more accepting in my life and less expecting. But then, baby steps.

I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed, I'm lost but I'm hopeful, baby, what it all comes down to, is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine

Tuesday, 11/07/17, 10:10am, 12:52pm

Well, yesterday, and so far, today, have been a bit better than the last, well bunch of days. I had felt like I was stuck in this depressive rut for almost 2 weeks, but maybe (??) I'm coming out of it? I'm not gonna get my hopes up too much, cuz sometimes that causes a bigger crash downward, but I am going to hope a little. Yesterday I had several things go right: I succeeded in making butternut squash soup in the crockpot (booyah! cuz I haven't made dinner successfully in quite some time...), I biked to my friend's house and picked up food for us on my way over (hah, I spent quite a bit of time transferring the to go orders into some leak proof containers I had brought so that I could put them in my backpack. I think I lot of people at the restaurant were like "that biker weirdo", haha!), I enjoyed a really good lunch with my friend and got to have really good friend talking time and she let me let out a lot of the bad feelings from the past 2 weeks (such a good friend you guys, she just got out of the hospital end of last week after spending a week in it!), and then I biked home. The rest of the day I got a lot of "chill" time, both before and after the kids came home from school, but I think the combination of feeling really successful at several things plus getting some good exercise in plus friend time, was perfect.

This morning I was going to do a cycle/core fusion class at the Y, but didn't make it since Nasser and I still had to fill out our ballots this morning. I could have made it there late, but then we also got some snow (!!) last night so I would have been extra late with clearing off the car. Oh well.

I ended up doing a 20 minute "yoga for anxiety" video, which certainly didn't burn very many calories, but it was rejuvenating regardless. And I intend to do more of a workout later in the day if I can since I've got therapy at 11 this morning.

I want to share a couple quotes that have meant a lot to me recently...

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, 

this time more intelligently." 

-Henry Ford

"The moment that you feel, just possibly, 
you are walking down the street naked, 
exposing too much of your heart and your mind, 
and what exists on the inside, 
showing too much of yourself... That is the moment, 
you might be starting to get it right."
-Neil Gaiman

Both these quotes showed up at the end of my mindfulness practice with that app, Calm, on different days of the "7 Days of Calm." I am liking that app, although I haven't yet started the "21 Days of Calm," after having finished the 7 Days. I think that might help me get into the habit more of mindfulness every.single.day. Cuz I probably need that.

You know, today, it turns out, is my "blogiversary." I've now had this blog for 2 full years, and published 192 blog posts. Yikes. That seems like a lot of posts to me, but whatever. I think this blog has been huge for me in a lot of ways. It's given me a place to write, and pour out feelings, and reflect about things, and learn how to become more open about my mental illness. I didn't share the blog openly right away, it took some time. But I do kinda feel like that Neil Gaiman quote, I often feel like I am exposing too much of my heart and mind, and I do often wonder if it's the right thing or right thing for me at least to be doing. I like the validation I get from that quote. Cuz there's still this inner part of me that feels very strongly that it is the right thing to be doing. But it questions the blog, often.

So the other thing that I think helped my mood, was on Sunday night, Nasser reflecting over several recent things that I did, despite my foul mood. In my last blog post, I was feeling really crappy and yet forced myself to create some "hope statements", which isn't necessarily something I could have done pre-ECT. On Sunday, we were walking with my sister and her family to a restaurant across the street from our house. On the way, Nasser made a comment to me that I took a lot of offense to and felt really triggered by. I was talking with him really angrily and talked about going back home and skipping the meal with everyone. I was actually incredibly triggered (this is more a reflection on my depression than me, or Nasser) and felt super down, but I forced myself to go and actually enjoy the lunch and enjoy the discussion with my sister and brother-in-law and ended up helping myself more in the long run than had I ran off to go home. There were a few other things that Nasser brought up on Sunday night in this conversation and hearing all that made a big difference in my overall mood, I think.

When we're discussing medication changes and the possibility of a 2-3 ECT treatment burst, it's easy to feel lost in these feelings of, "I'm as depressed as I've ever been" and it's hard to see that despite the down times right now, I'm still doing better than before. I'm doing better than just a few months ago. And that's still huge, and that's still something to feel good about.

Ok, so, this next part I'm writing later, after therapy. My therapist got me talking today about some of the things that seem to motivate me, rather than focusing on the things that I feel should motivate me but haven't been. It helped to get a list started- we were able to come to a conclusion of at least 2 things. 1. I might need to plan in at least an hour every day of "relational" time, so like get together with a friend or spend time messaging with friends or even spending time on facebook catching up on friends or talk to a friend on the phone, etc. and 2. I might need to plan on one "project" a week- whether it's something around the house like getting together a pile of baby donation stuff or maybe working on ideas for our basement finish project. It was really helpful to start thinking about, like, what do I really need as a part of each day to feel good? Exercise each day probably needs to be the third item, but I'm having some trouble figuring out what "expectation" to set on that. I've been trying to exercise every day since meeting with my doctors on Thursday, and so far I've done it except for Sunday, and today I still need to (like I'm not really counting the yoga for anxiety from this morning since it was mostly laying on the yoga mat). I need to be careful about planning the exercise thing as an expectation because I tend to have a lot of issues when I don't "meet my expectation" and it all compounds into a horrid depressive state of feeling like a failure and yet the state makes me continue to not meet the expectation and it all gets worse and worse.

So like today. I'm a little demotivated with exercise since I didn't get it in this morning. This happens a lot when I don't accomplish it in the morning. Somehow the afternoon and evening are much less motivating times for me to exercise. I'm not really ready to exercise right now since I just ate lunch and feel too full still. But then, I don't really have much time to get the exercise in before I have to leave for an appointment at the gastroenterology place. Oi. I'm going to tell you about my appointment even if you don't want to hear about it. This afternoon I've got a hemorrhoid banding, my second of three of these. Sounds fun, right? I, unfortunately, but not, like, life threatening or anything, have hemorrhoids. We're currently treating the internal ones with this rubber band ligation procedure. Basically the doctor sticks a probe up my butt, sucks at the hemorrhoid, and puts a tiny rubber band around it. This cuts off the blood flow to the hemorrhoid and after a few days or so it falls off. But we can only do one at a time. So I have 3 separate treatment times for this, spaced out a few weeks apart. Anyway, my point was, I have one today, and I don't expect to be interested in exercising afterward... last time my butt hurt a fair bit.

Alright, I'm going to be done writing for today, since I don't feel like I have much else to say, and I could use some free time before this appointment. I do want to say, thank you to my readers, those of you who've stuck with me these 2 years, and even if this is the first post you're reading. You're all awesome.

no alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

Wednesday, 08/10/16, 8:53am

I'm a wreck. I was a bit of a wreck last night, and I'm a wreck this morning. I'm supposed to do a bunch of things today, including go to a therapy appointment, and all I want to do is crawl back in bed and sob until I become too exhausted to stay awake any longer. I want to hide from my life and responsibilities.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. It's been a long time since I've felt really productive or successful in my life, even with regards to the kids. Nasser mentioned this morning that maybe it makes sense to go back to working (although I felt the statement came across more judgy and frustrated with my depression) and that just triggered me into the feelings of I am a failure as a mom. His statements of you're not alone with my feelings then made me go into the if I'm not alone with these challenges in parenting, why am I the only one falling apart?

I feel like a failure at my life. And I can't seem to find the motivation to be better at my life and feel less like a failure.

Probably getting help from my sister today which should help, despite any further feelings of failure that I need to be saved today. Somehow I need to fight those feelings, but it's so hard to give in to outside help sometimes.

I'm not functioning too well on my own, this summer, maybe all year, or maybe since the depression first manifested. It's not clear whether or not the various medications I've been on actually do much. So we've decided to start considering other treatment options. Of course due to the nature of this illness, that requires discussing with all my doctors, figuring out what to do with the variable of the birth control medication that doesn't seem to be working anyway. It likely requires weaning off the medications I'm currently on, and trying out new ones, a process that I'm truly terrified of. It requires real vigilance on my part to track my moods and figure out whether or not I'm better when we change something.

As Nasser said last night, there's no good measure of how well an antidepressant works. It's all dependent on how the patient feels. God, mental illness sucks so much and the treatment is so incredibly complicated to figure out and needs to be even more personalized than it currently is. I have no idea if we'll get there in my lifetime, but sometimes I feel like my life depends upon it.

Please give me strength and patience and motivation today in your thoughts and prayers.

you walk a lonely road

Thursday, 07/28/16, 8:52am

I'm blogging again this morning, because apparently that's what I do when I feel this way.

I'm in a depressive rut again I think. I've been kinda almost there for the past several days, since returning from San Diego. Part of it is probably my period. My period which won't follow the birth control medication I'm on which is meant to help my mood. Maybe I should just get everything down there removed and take supplemental hormone in the right amount for me. Or maybe I should remove myself from all medications I'm currently on and find my actual baseline. Is it actually worse when I'm not on medication? I don't know.

I'm feeling frustrated with my treatment, I'm feeling frustrated with my illness.

I know that part of my mood has been that Nasser and I seem to keep having arguments/serious discussions. Discussions that have needed to happen, but have had a big impact on my mood. We both have some things we need to work on when talking to eachother. I, for one, do way way way too much of fighting unfair. I name call, I raise my voice, I bring up things from the past. Understandably, Nasser doesn't react well when I do that. He often gets defensive when we talk, which further escalates the situation.

I've been suggesting we go to some more marriage counseling. We have done this in the past and we did learn how to talk to eachother nicely and respectfully, but we don't always do that in real life. Nasser thinks we don't need more marriage counseling; we simply need to practice what we already know. As long as that works, I think we're ok.

The other thing about my depression is I tend to blow things out of proportion or take things way more seriously than they probably are. One fight (even if most of it is serious discussion where we are talking nicely to eachother) can make me feel like it's the end of our marriage. And I don't want that, I'm not choosing that.

I love Nasser. Despite our fights, despite things that we don't agree on, I love him. He is my partner. He is still the person I rely on the most. Although I'm starting to realize that I need to be more careful in how I treat him when I'm not doing well. I've hurt him a lot when I've been angry or depressed, and that in turn, hurts me.

We are starting to realize that Nasser needs a stronger support network himself. He can't keep handling my depression entirely on his own. And I suppose he doesn't, I do rely on friends and family, sometimes. And I have my therapy, and my psychiatrist, and my medication, and my various coping mechanisms.

The other big thing that's probably impacting my mood is I haven't really exercised much in awhile. This summer hasn't been great for that. Part of it was Adam's death, and dealing with grief, and dealing with worsened depression and lack of motivation due to that. Part of it has been the copious amounts of travel we've been doing. And part of it has been having both kids at home, I haven't really figured out how to fit it in.

I know that's not helping me though, and I got close to going for a run this morning, but I backed out. Again. Today, I'm going to try not to fixate on that and shame myself for not going. Because when I shame myself, I get more depressed, and that motivation gets worse and worse. Stupid depression.

Today I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know where my depression will take me, and I don't know if I can manage to ignore it and get together with family during the day today. Maybe I don't have to ignore it to be around people but I also don't want to sob at the park. I think the writing has helped though; maybe I just need to keep doing the right things for myself this morning and try desperately to make this a better day. Dear readers out there, wish for me strength and motivation. And virtual hugs.

you’re singing a song that’s been stuck in your head

Thursday, 06/02/16, 2:23, 4:27pm

I am blogging because Nasser thought it would be good for me. I don't want to blog. I want to drown myself in a Netflix show. But this is more productive for my mind and soul.

I'm still in a bit of a funk of depression today. Not quite in a hole or episode, but teetering. Or maybe sitting in a shallow hole with my feet hanging out but not solid on the ground. It's mild depression with this extra grief bit.

Today my psychiatric appointment was better than I expected. I was feeling anxious about that this morning, and of course a whole bunch of other things. I was anxious to tell my doctor about Adam, I was bringing the boys to my appointment so I was anxious about that.

It was fine. Although having the boys there wasn't easy, probably won't do that next time. But it was fine. Certainly not as emotionally draining as my therapy appointment, but still some.

I've felt very unmotivated lately. Our house is a mess, we still haven't finished unpacking, I haven't wanted to exercise or shower, I haven't wanted to cook, I haven't wanted to "adult". I feel like I should just be able to tap into some will, but I can't. It's like it's not there.

I don't really have more to say today. Will me some motivation, dear readers.