Anger and More

Yesterday my daughter was due to wake up for a dance class. I got up, got dressed and went to wake her. Got my coffee started and went to wake her again. Poured my coffee and went to wake her again. Now my younger daughter is awake and she is refusing to go. I had a talk with her about promises (promising her friend she'd be there as well as the instructor) and how rude it was to make me get up and refuse to go. She was still determined not to go.

I was ANGRY. No fair that I had to get up and now she is going back to sleep while I can't fall asleep again. Believe me, I tried. I am still a bit angry with her even now.

Later in the day I had to take the kids in for all of us to get our eyes checked. It was pretty much the only thing I got done all day. I also had to take two of my kids to get new glasses. At first I looked at the glasses shop in the same building as my eye doctor and nearly died when I got the total for my son...over $700!! I decided I needed to get out of that store and go to another glasses store. There the glasses for both of my kids was just over my $200 reimbursable amount. Much better.

Today my husband is here. We are helping a friend move this weekend and I had a lot of frustration at his slowness. He was trying to fix my washing machine, which is admirable, but I'd promised my friend that we'd be at her house at 10. It was nearly 1 before we made it. I was embarrassed. I ended up doing most of the inspection that my husband was supposed to be doing. In a way I was doing the other stuff because I didn't have the energy to actually help her move stuff. I didn't want to get up early, I didn't want to help her move, I didn't want to do anything.

But I did get up and go help. Hopefully I'll have more energy tomorrow so I can be a better help.

exercise part two

Yesterday's great start stumbled quickly. I ended up feeling tired and deciding to go back to sleep for awhile. BIG MISTAKE. That set the tone for the rest of the day. I did NOTHING at all. I was pretty mad at myself by the end of the day. I now know that after exercise I'd better not spend too much time on the computer because I'll fall down flat in no time at all. I have to work today, so I know I don't have time for a nap.

I did a few extra minutes on the treadmill today. No physical effects from yesterday's brief workout so that is good. I hope that this will become a habit rather quickly, though I do wonder what I'll do in the summer when the kids are sleeping in until the afternoon.

I spent some time yesterday looking at depression web sites. Some of them have message boards and I read some of the stuff on them. It helps some to know that I'm not alone, but seeing how bad some of them are, especially the kids, was really hard. I hate the cyclical aspect of depression. I'll have a good day and think "okay, it's over, now I can get on with my life." Then I'll have a day like yesterday. A lay in bed all day after two good days, kind of day. Then I start the negative self talk...

exercise

Today my kids had to start riding the school bus ten minutes earlier. I'd debated how I would handle that and finally decided that I wouldn't shower before getting them ready, Instead I'd dress in exercise clothes, get them off and then exercise before showering. I did that today. I set a goal of only five minutes on the treadmill because I knew I was out of shape. Boy was I ever! Those five minutes were hard. I'd thought I'd increase the time more quickly, but I think I'll be doing just those five minutes each day for the rest of the week. No wonder I'm so tired all the time.

Awakening

I'd started taking my antidepressants at half the dosage my doctor wanted me to take. Due to the fact that my insurance company won't cover anything having to do with mental health. I have been using Walgreen's prescription drug program, but they only give me half of the amount my doctor wants me to take. So, for about three weeks I took just one pill a day and didn't notice any difference. In fact I seemed to be sinking in deeper rather than getting any better.

About a week ago I decided that I'd had enough and I was going to take two pills and when the prescription runs out before I'm allowed to refill it...I'll figure something out then. Yesterday morning I woke up at 5 am and I immediately knew something was different. It was as if the fog was parting. I'm still very sleepy, but I'm not so foggy brained any more. Yesterday morning I tackled the four items I've had on a to do list since last week. I also found someone to start the process of cleaning up my yard (as long as the money holds out) and even started to clean the living room myself.

Today I had a meeting for work and I was alert for the entire two hours. I helped my friend pack up some boxes for her big move this weekend. Then my cough got a whole lot worse and I was exhausted. Even after that I managed to actually cook something for my children's dinner that involved ingredients and not just the instructions "turn oven to 450 degrees..."

Could there be a light house somewhere in this fog?

Yesterday I woke up at 11 but it took me until 12:30 to even get out of bed. Soooooo sleepy. Finally I got rolling and went to look at houses with a friend. First time I'd been out of the house in three days.

Today I woke up and felt a bit like the fog was parting. I'm still sleepy, but not emotionally tired, just physically tired. I think I'm going to try walking on the treadmill and see if that helps me wake up some more.

I'm hoping this small improvement is a sign that I'm on the way to normalcy.

Better Days

Today I got more accomplished. I got up and showered, though not until 2 in the afternoon. I did some laundry and a bit of cleaning. Not enough to make the house presentable, but enough so that I can function a tiny bit better. I made pumpkin muffins. Sad thing is that I have an amazing recipe that a friend gave me, but it was too much effort so I made the muffins from a mix. It was okay, my kids were happy to have something. I even made spaghetti for dinner. Better than I did yesterday.

I've been fighting the devils of revisited history. My mind often goes back into my past and sometimes I get visits from the Ghost of Every Stupid Thing I've Ever Done. Other times it is the Ghost of Every Time I Was Ever Left Out. This ghost like to go back really far, frequently visiting high school. High School was nearly 30 years ago, it is time to be way over anything that happened in those days. For Heaven's sake, I have a son in High School! In part I blame Facebook for this Ghost because I'm finding so many people from High School and before.

I let my youngest daughter watch Netflix movies on my laptop for many hours so I was unable to waste as much time on it today. I'm not sure if that was part of the reason I got more done today or if it was simply because I was so tired of just sitting.

My best friend is selling her house and she had a packing party at her house today. I begged off, knowing that my energy wasn't up to the task. I felt guilty, and I hope she understood. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go with her to look at homes and I'm hoping I'll get up and moving early enough. I don't want to keep letting her down.

I'm doubling the prescription of antidepressants that my doctor gave to me. I'm hoping that I'll get better results in a week or so. Please Lord, I need to dig out of this pit because I can't keep living like this.

A nothing day

Today my middle daughter was the only one who had to go to school. I got up and threw some clothes on and got her off to school. Then I came back into the house, got back into my pajamas and went back to bed. I slept until noon.

I spent the rest of the day in bed, on the computer. Doing nothing. I didn't fix any meals for the kids. I managed to fold one load of laundry, but that was it. I can't believe I got nothing done today. I never even took a shower. My kids watched TV all day. I have the first two seasons of "Charmed" on DVD and my daughters wanted to watch it. I'd resisted letting them watch the show because there is way too much casual sex, skimpy clothes, loose morals, not to mention witchcraft. But today I was so tired and worn out that I was simply relieved that they were busy all day and left me alone. Way to go mom. I'm managing to hit new lows every day.

My son said "Well you are sick!" Which is in part true, I'm still coughing. But I'm not really sick. I'm depressed. How do you explain that to a teenager?

I hope that tomorrow I manage to do more. I had a dream that keeps haunting me. There was a rattlesnake in a lighting fixture over my bed. My mom shot it for me and it dropped onto my bed. I covered it with a sheet and decided to do something about it later. The entire day passed and I finally decided to dispose of the dead snake so I could go to bed. But it wasn't dead and it bit me. I knew that if I had dealt with it right away that it would have been too stunned to hurt me, but my own procrastination had caused me to leave it so that I was bitten and might be dying.

A powerful dream that doesn't need much work to interpret.

Sickness,Depression, Fatigue or Laziness?

Today I got up at 6 am as usual to get the kids off to school. Afterward I spent several hours doing some computer stuff, part of it was for work, the rest wasted on FaceBook. By 10 am I was so sleepy I didn't think I would be safe to drive to work. Finally by 11 I succumbed and went to sleep, sleeping until 2 pm.

It is now 10:30, and I could easily fall back to sleep again right now. I'm not sure why I'm so tired all the time. Over a month ago I caught a virus that caused a slight fever, sore throat, stuffy nose, and cough. It is the cough that gets to me. Every winter when I get a cough and that darn thing sticks around forever. I've now been coughing for over six weeks. When I have a really bad coughing fit I'm exhausted, so is that why I'm so tired?

I also suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and living in the Northwest isn't the best environment for me. (I should've moved to Arizona.) This causes me to be depressed in the wintertime. I can also be depressed in the summer, it is just worse in the winter. Depression causes me to be tired all the time, to want to sleep all the time and to let my house become a disaster.

Also because of being sick and the cough and the depression I haven't been getting any exercise. This could be another reason for my fatigue. However, I find myself too tired to even think of getting some exercise.

What to do? I'm too tired to do anything but sleep, and all of this sleeping isn't helping. I know that if I actually got some stuff done, like cleaning the house and getting some exercise then I'd feel better, but it seems like a Herculean task.

First Entry

So I join the blogosphere. Will anyone read this, will anyone care? Will I simply end up one of the millions of hopeless people who drone on and on, ignored by the masses? Who knows?

I write because I have to. Without the outlet of writing I think I would go insane. How could I function without the narration of my life? I filled out diaries as a child and teen. I even occasionally added to one or another during my adult life, but mainly found that tedious and difficult...mainly because diaries are easy to loose. I write to remember, to understand and to make my own mark on history.

I titled this Cries From the Pit because of my difficulties with depression. It is winter and I'm always worse in the winter. Usually about this time of the year I feel like I'm in a deep pit and still digging farther down. I saw the first blooms on my Forsythia today...there is hope that spring is in my future.

This year I sank to the lowest level in my depression in a very very long time. I have allowed my house to become a disaster. I hide in my room and tap away at my keyboard as if I don't have children or a husband. I barely manage to make meals and get the kids off to school or into bed at night. I've been sick for over a month...I'm not sure if the depression has made that worse or if the messy house has.

For the last week I've been so frustrated with the mess in my house. It is so completely out of control that I have no idea where to start. I've been following www.Flylady.net for years, and while I haven't managed to internalize much...I finally told myself today to go out and do 15 minutes of work. I did, and including filling the dishwasher, rebooting, folding and putting away a load of laundry I actually ended up doing 30 minutes. Not that you'd notice. But there was an improvement and I'm going to try to keep doing that each day. Who knows, maybe even twice a day.

I need a goal...something to motivate me...hmmmm...I'm going to California at the end of March and I need someone to come to my house to feed the cats so I'd better have most of the house presentable for this person to see! There, a goal.