The Switch

Today I had a day I will refer to as "The Pits." What's that mean? My alarm went off at 7:45am (which I don't remember) then again at 8am. I don't have full recollection, but I know somewhere around 8:30am(ish) I made the semi-conscious decision that I was staying home this morning. I emailed my boss with the usual excuse- "I'm sick" then went back to sleep. I got out of bed around 9:30am(ish?) and moved to the basement couch. After checking my email, I could tell I was going back to sleep. So, I set my alarm and did just that. This pattern continued until about 4pm. I remembered that I had my weekly Therapy apt at 6pm, so I called my Husband and asked if he could drive me since I felt too tired and too 'off' to be able to drive. Once I knew he was coming home at 5, I figured I should actually get up and change into presentable attire. Therapy helped, as usual. I really like my Therapist. I started feeling better and left feeling hopeful. I told my Husband I wanted to eat healthy as I had slipped into eating junk food the past few days which I believe was contributing to my negative state of mind. We found a new place where you can make your own salad which was quite delicious. After that, we decided to stop by my parent's place as they had my lunch bag from when I had left it there a week ago. I'm not sure exactly when 'The Switch' reactivated, but when we left I found myself feeling depressed again. I picked a fight on the way home as I often do when I feel crummy, which of course made me feel much worse. After sulking in my own depression for a good hour more, I got up and talked to my Husband about it. Mental illness is a daily struggle which I had forgotten about. You have to take care of yourself. Putting junk food into your body only increases the power of junk thoughts (aka depression). I had been fueling it for days, so no wonder it hit me like a 500lb of cement today and wouldn't let go for several hours. The important thing is to keep fighting. The good I will see from this is that on the way to Therapy I realized I needed to get back to journaling/blogging my experience. Not because I aim to be a role model, because I am a hot mess :). Instead, I aim to put my crap out there in case anyone else out there also feels like CRAP and maybe feels alone- I hope you read this and will know you're not alone. If you feel crazy, I know how you feel because I feel crazy too. The good news there is either we're both not really crazy, or we both are crazy but at least we know each other which is somewhat comforting in a strange way. I plan to keep moving forward, get my butt back to work tomorrow, and take my life back from today. Eating better will be a huge key to that, and drinking more water. I'm still on 60mg Cymbalta daily and it SUCKS that I still have days like today, but medicine is not the cure all. I need to do more myself and hold myself more accountable. Switching to Cymbalta wasn't easy for me but I'm glass I did make the change. I've now been on the medicine for over a month and can report that it is really helping my anxiety. I do have BAD constipation as a side effect, but that's the only real side effect I've noticed. I am trying to eat a lot more fiber in hopes of balancing that out more.