Maybe I'm too quick to dismiss this whole Seasonal Affective Disorder thing. The weekend was sunny and I felt better. I've also cranked the light box up to x-tra high, and leave it on for an hour or so. I don't feel so bad. I think I'm at about 65%. And then there was a news item on the national news about how doctors are seeing a big increase in people with low moods this fall, when the east coast has had one of the most overcast fall seasons in almost 60 years.
I'm tired of the guilt, of the shame of feeling like I'm doing something wrong. To HELL with it. Now I have to try and live that out, and stop slinking around with my tail shoved under my butt. I wish humans did still have tails. But only involuntary ones that wagged or sagged in true response to one's feelings. I keep up a good front when I'm not so low I have to take to my bed. Unfortunately, it's mostly a front.
Thank god the food is ok. I've not been going to any meetings, I've just felt too low, too vulnerable, yet I fear that this is going to catch up with me. But my support group doesn't feel like a support group any more. My disease is using it against me. I can't go to them for support, I feel like as an "old-timer" I think I have to be the support, and I don't feel up to it. I've got to change something here.
11.12.06
9.12.06
Revelations, I Think...
I've been depressed for the last couple of months. The weather here has been horrible and grey. Oh for a nice white snowfall! I gave in to the opinions of my therapist and GP and finally bought one of those light boxes, and I've been taking my vitamin D faithfully, along with an antidepressant, but it doesn't seem to be taking. It's not just the weather, this has been a problem off and on for me since early adulthood. I believe that my long and torturous history with the food is also linked to this mental turmoil. Researchers have long theorized that substance abuse may be an attempt to self medicate mental illness.
Mental illness. The term just sends a chill up my spine. It sounds so final, so damning. But actually, if I can look at mental illness as something chronic but treatable, like, say, diabetes, it can remove that whole layer of shame and guilt.
I've been looking at my manifestations of depression. Often it consists of staying in bed for long periods because I feel so overwhelmed by the everyday world. But I am starting to wonder if it isn't so much a depressive mood as a reaction to extreme anxiety. When I wake up in the morning, I have a thousand thoughts coursing through my brain, and if there are too many, I just hit a threshold where I feel I have to shut down. It's almost as if a fuse blows. My tortured brain decides it's hopeless, I give up, and retreat from the world.
My father suffered from terrible anxiety. It was obvious in his case: He trembled, he would talk in his sleep, if you happened to touch him (ours was not a physically demonstrative family) he would practically jump out of his skin. And, oh yes, he was also an alcoholic.
Of course, I grew up vowing never to be like him. But I now see that what he did with booze, I did with food. And although I try to come across as a relaxed, fun, funky chick, I am really quite tense inside. Social situations are tough. I come home from choir rehearsals fantasizing about mowing my way through a big bag of kettle cooked chips. But I hide it well. Joking and laughing and trying to be Ms. Social butterfly. And I'm an artist.
But it's a ruse. I'm full of anxiety, I need long periods away from people, and I haven't been in the studio for ages. I worry, I worry, I worry. The social anxiety is the worst. I worry about what people think of me, and I get into these toxic situations where I throw my own mind out the window and get overwhelmingly occupied with what the other person wants or needs. Most of this happens automatically, without me being conscious of it. Habit? Probably at least partly. Growing up in a fucked-up family, a kid gets pretty good at sussing out what they need to do to appease the family members who are acting out. Unfortunately, I grew up with a warped idea of how relationships work.
So, on with the therapy, but I think it's time to talk to the doc again, maybe get a referral to a psychiatrist. I want to investigate some different medication options.
Mental illness. The term just sends a chill up my spine. It sounds so final, so damning. But actually, if I can look at mental illness as something chronic but treatable, like, say, diabetes, it can remove that whole layer of shame and guilt.
I've been looking at my manifestations of depression. Often it consists of staying in bed for long periods because I feel so overwhelmed by the everyday world. But I am starting to wonder if it isn't so much a depressive mood as a reaction to extreme anxiety. When I wake up in the morning, I have a thousand thoughts coursing through my brain, and if there are too many, I just hit a threshold where I feel I have to shut down. It's almost as if a fuse blows. My tortured brain decides it's hopeless, I give up, and retreat from the world.
My father suffered from terrible anxiety. It was obvious in his case: He trembled, he would talk in his sleep, if you happened to touch him (ours was not a physically demonstrative family) he would practically jump out of his skin. And, oh yes, he was also an alcoholic.
Of course, I grew up vowing never to be like him. But I now see that what he did with booze, I did with food. And although I try to come across as a relaxed, fun, funky chick, I am really quite tense inside. Social situations are tough. I come home from choir rehearsals fantasizing about mowing my way through a big bag of kettle cooked chips. But I hide it well. Joking and laughing and trying to be Ms. Social butterfly. And I'm an artist.
But it's a ruse. I'm full of anxiety, I need long periods away from people, and I haven't been in the studio for ages. I worry, I worry, I worry. The social anxiety is the worst. I worry about what people think of me, and I get into these toxic situations where I throw my own mind out the window and get overwhelmingly occupied with what the other person wants or needs. Most of this happens automatically, without me being conscious of it. Habit? Probably at least partly. Growing up in a fucked-up family, a kid gets pretty good at sussing out what they need to do to appease the family members who are acting out. Unfortunately, I grew up with a warped idea of how relationships work.
So, on with the therapy, but I think it's time to talk to the doc again, maybe get a referral to a psychiatrist. I want to investigate some different medication options.
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