Going through the motions

I am just trying to live one day at a time, one minute, even as my mind keeps extending farther out into the days and weeks before me. Even the idea of little tasks and responsibilities fill me with panic. The only way to get through is by continually dragging myself back to right where I am in the moment, continually reassuring myself that I only need to think about the thing right in front of me. I just need to focus on that one thing. I guess that is the only way I am really hanging on right now. The more focused and present I can be, the less my panic. The problem is that it keeps sweeping over me in overwhelming waves. I am so ready for a solid shift back to feeling good, or even just ok all the time. Right now I truly value the minutes of ok. In times like these, I know it is good to go back to gratitude meditations. The trouble is, I am so overly fixated on the things that are not working, the worst possible outcomes. Sometimes these visions make me want to avoid even the things I should enjoy. Now I will try... I am grateful for the growing warmth and light of the early spring. I am grateful for my strength and generally good health. I am grateful for my friends, family and those I love. I am grateful for my home and creature comforts. I am grateful to be employed. I am grateful for my cats. I am grateful for yoga and moving arts. I am grateful that others do not judge me with the harshness I judge myself. Despite the darkness and the struggle, I believe I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful that right in this moment I am ok.

Decision Time

I promised myself just over a week ago that if my head-space did not get better within a week, I would reconsider going on anti-depressants. I made it halfway through Tuesday (even wrote a nice hopeful blog post), and then the depression and anxiety hit me like a load of bricks. I found myself talking aloud, praying (something I don't do), and basically begging God to take mercy on me and to take away the pain. "I can't live like this, I can't live like this," I chanted to the unsympathetic walls. I scared my cats with my tears and outburst but there was a voice in my mind whispering, "It doesn't have to be like this. There is help to be had." It took all my will power and determination, but I finally emailed my doctor to ask for anti-depressants again (Effexor). I even called the pharmacy. I spent the evening alternately yelling at myself and crying. I promised myself that I would stick by my decision and follow up on getting the meds first thing on Wednesday. I got up, felt lousy and still managed to call and email again. Dragged myself out of the house and to the dentist's office. While I was there I had to decide whether I was going to authorize them to do over $300.00 in dental work and order me a bite guard (for clenching my teeth, huge surprise there). The total bill was $736.00. I don't have that kind of money right now. I was pretty well ready to just lay down and give up, but that's not me, not the real me. So I pulled myself together and said, "Put it on a credit card and a prayer." I forgot to mention... Tuesday night when I emailed my doctor, I made the decision not to second-guess my choices. I made the decision to be really kind to myself. I made the decision to do whatever I needed to do just to deal with day-to-day life. I decided to put my well-being above all else until I can feel strong, happy and in charge again. I think this was the best decision I have made in a really long time. I also feel proud of myself for making the big decision to help myself by admitting my need for help and not shying away from the dental decision. I think I might have a new, new year's resolution: be decisive and feel good about my choices. Anyway, back to my story... So when I got out of the dentist's office I still had not heard from my doc. Five minutes later though, I checked my phone again and I had just missed his call. He had prescribed me the med and asked me to call him. I did. He was very kind and reassuring and promised we would talk again in the next few weeks. My neurologist also emailed to check on me. By the time I had picked up my med, I felt so good about myself for taking this very hard step, that I even drove all the way to Boulder to meet a friend and take a hike. Last night, I felt some of my darkness had lifted. Going on this med is hard. For me the physical adjustment is intense and I know it may take some time, but I am determined to stick with it, to really just live one day at a time because I know beneath the chemical cloud of sadness cast by my depression, I am a strong, tough fighter.

Just Breathe

I want to take a really deep breath that fills me completely. I want to follow that breath with another and then another, so that all my breathes are deep and steady. Right now, too many of my breathes are shallow. Not long after being diagnosed with MS, I was also diagnosed with Asthma, but the thing is, I never had asthma before... I only have asthma when I am anxious or depressed. It is more my reaction to stress, but it sucks to not fully breathe. I can tell when my mental state is not exactly as I want it to be, just by the quality of the breaths my body allows me to take. Despite my best resolves to just be, here and now, to be more than ok, I am still struggling. I want the struggle to just go away. It seems I am taking far more punches than I am throwing, but I also haven't thrown in the towel yet. There have been much harder times. I have my health and my freedom. I am safe and comfortable (even when my mind doesn't believe it). I said it before, and I will say it again, "I am not licked yet." I ask myself now: "How do I make this easier?" How do I remind myself that good days build on good days, that just a good now is more than enough? In another post, I mentioned breaks in the clouds-- how do I continue to find those breaks and then make them last? I know from experience that I can change my day, my reality, any minute, any second, but how do I do that when I have so many doubts? Lately, this blog has gone from "inspiring" to my own personal attempt to help myself. I guess I want it to be inspiring again. I have been psyching myself up lately. "Be fierce," I tell myself. I remind myself that I am tough. I remind myself that there are many things that make life good, and then I put my head down and push forward, getting up after each blow to fight again.

Illumination

I remember writing before about a dark night of the soul. Actually, I remember writing about many such nights. Last night I had what I might term, a light night of the soul. I went to bed early, planning to try to pick up a morning substitute teaching job, but I couldn't sleep. I took a little klonopin to help with sleep and to keep any anxiety that might pop up at bay. It could just have been the drug that relaxed me, but suddenly things seemed clear, easy. All my doubts and fear melted. Suddenly it was like, "I got this." The whole job hunt thing didn't seem so hard. I stopped worrying about what ifs. I got excited about the future a bit, and at least last night, I knew what I wanted, and it seemed simple. There were no obstacles in my way. I can work hard. If I teach, I know how to teach. I don't need to be afraid of what I end up with because I can do it, whatever it may be. I realized that while money and security are not the end all be all, they do help me to relax a bit. I spend way too much time worrying that I won't have, or won't get what I really need. When I look at this in the light of a new day, I may have missed the mark a bit, but some of the things I thought about last night were on point. No matter what I actually end up doing, I do want more security. I thought I really wanted to own and operate my moving arts business, but I think I might rather focus more on being a student. Sometimes I would rather just show up to learn and play. Right now I am imagining just working during the day, and then having most evenings to do with as I please. I realize that in my mind I have sort of glamorized this stuff, glossed over all the things that were really awful before. I am glad I am taking the time now to write about last night. It was beautiful, that temporary certainty that obliterated all the doubts that have been stalking my mind. When I look at some of last night's logic now, some of it seems rather flawed, but I took something from it too. I need that kind of certainty and confidence in myself all the time. When I believe in myself and allow myself to trust that things can and will work out, I feel good and any failures are just tiny set backs. Sometimes I doubt myself to the point where I am almost afraid to leave home or to take on any challenges. The truth is, most of the things I fear, I do just fine with. Last night I felt for a bit like everything was "solved." It's not, but somehow I still feel more hopeful and more confident today than I have in a while. I think I needed that short stretch of pure illumination.

I want to be in charge

By the time Sunday night rolled around, I was fed up, ready to give up, and ready to email my doctor for anti-depressants, but then I was again faced with the idea that I really have no reason to be unhappy. Well this realization can only take me two ways: my struggles are either purely chemical, or I just have a hard time remembering how to allow myself to be happy. At that point, I decided to fight my hardest to be in charge of this thing. Is it possible to just continually decide to be happy? I suspect it might be. I decided I just have to give it my best try. Yesterday was a pretty great success. Today through trial and error, I am at a minimum ok, maybe a bit better, but I can feel the crazy lurking underneath. I got myself out of the house not long after awakening today. This kept me from devolving in ways that I do not wish to devolve, but did not save me from indulging in some acts of crazy. My latest, and largest obsession, is job hunting for next year. It doesn't seem to matter how much I remind and reassure myself that I have time, it's early and I will find something, I still think about this problem every day almost the minute I open my eyes. I keep thinking that if I can just get this figured out, everything else will fall into place. I wish that were really the case. I just can't seem to relax about this issue for long, no matter how much time I spend reassuring myself. I made a deal with myself that on my free days I would send out two cover letters. Of course today, despite my generally better state of mind, I sent out four, and I feel an itch to do more. I have been getting replies from a few of my letters, but each of them has been to tell me that the position I am seeking has already been filled. I suspect I am spinning my wheels in many cases, applying for phantom posts... And even though I know this deep down, I can't seem to stop myself in the same futile process every day. The thing is that I know myself. I know my own compulsions. It is super-difficult to coax myself into down time. I kept telling myself yesterday that laying around with a novel is hardly wasting my life or ruining my chances of finding a job for August, but I must have done a poor job of convincing myself because when I considered such an option this morning, I felt that bubble of contentment I spent yesterday creating, starting to slip a bit, and I knew that if I didn't leave the house, I would slide down that sharp abyss of mind into a place of darkness. I believe that I may have the ability to control my state of mind, to be in charge of how I feel, but I wish it didn't feel like "work." Until Sunday night, I found myself fighting so hard against impending anxiety and depression that my head ached. The last couple days I am not fighting nearly as hard, but it is still there, closer to the surface than I want it to be. That is why anti-depressants remain a bit of a lure to me. I promised myself a week to try a commitment to happiness, so I am really trying...

Self-indulgence

I suppose the fact that I can take the time to sit in a coffee shop and update my blog is a form of self-indulgence. At the moment, I don't have internet at home and I keep feeling this need to update my blog. Sometimes I think the best way to fight the darkness that keeps trying to engulf my brain is to write. I am not sure if it really helps, but I have already realized the hard way that I can't just hole up in the house and hide from dealing with my life. Sometimes I find the hiding gives me temporary relief but ultimately, I think it makes me feel worse. Sometimes I just want to bury myself in bed, under the covers with my beautiful kitty beside me and just try to forget, forget the imperative to do, and worse the imperative to find something to worry about every day. It seems the moment that I have managed to put one worry to bed, another one finds a way to crop its ugly head. I try to fight them, but every day, something seems to emerge. I feel like these things will strangle me. I just want to go back to bed, but I know that if I do, in the end, I will feel worse. Each day I find that by somewhere between noon and five I feel good again and I can hardly remember what was plaguing me. The whole thing then just looks like a giant self-indulgence, but when I am in it, I am in it. I find my breath is shallow, I am filled with a nameless fear and I am not sure how to find relief. Later, I seem to start dragging out free, deep breath, after free deep breath, until I feel fine again and no one who sees me can even suspect that my day started so wrong. I keep trying to figure it out... How can I get my day to begin without sadness or fear? Why can't I feel as good at 7am as I usually do at 7pm? Every day I tell myself, "Tomorrow will be different" but then the next day arrives, and the cycle repeats itself. I am confused. Why is it that no matter how much I tell myself not to even let the ugly thoughts start, they just creep in and then settle down to quietly strangle me? And then, like right now, they are just gone and I am fine but almost afraid to go home, afraid they are waiting for me there... A seemingly illogical part of me of me keeps thinking, "If only x,y and z fall into place, I will just stop worrying and everything will be perfect," but that is the real crazy because I am looking at external things to solve some very internal issues. For years I have continued to try writing all this out, always hopeful that if I am just self-aware enough, I will resolve all things that bother me.

Not licked yet

Sometimes I just want to lay down and never get back up. I just want to succumb to the darkness obliterating my light, my reason but I am not ready to stop struggling. I am not ready to just give up. I might if I had never felt like this before... But I have known darker times, tougher days and still gone on to know happiness. I wrote the other day about a break in the clouds. I have more of those these days now than I ever have had before in times of anxiety and depression. I am watching myself, trying to decide how many days of anxiety and depression, days where I feel powerless and unmotivated that I can take before I just give in and email my doctor for an antidepressant. So I count the days, good versus bad, and I cling onto the little things that give me hope, the little things that bring relief and sometimes even happiness. Today I am winning the battle. I won it Thursday, fought a skirmish yesterday, and survived, and now I look forward to a good day today and tomorrow. I am not licked yet...

Life without antidepressants

I am not going to lie. I will not even sugar-coat the truth for mysel,f or anyone else bothering to read this. I remember now that life without antidepressants is hard. At the time of my diagnosis, I fought hard to avoid all meds. It took a year before I went on Copaxone, and another year before I finally committed to taking Effexor for depression and anxiety. I think the thing that finally brought me to the Effexor was my anxiety. I found myself absolutely incapable of being present. All I could focus on anymore is the stuff I thought I needed to do. I also felt guilty about not being able to shake off the bad feelings enough to even do the stuff I was worrying about. Being on antidepressants was like taking a two year vacation from worrying about anything for more than about five minutes. I learned to let go of my anxieties and to just enjoy and trust in the present. I found tools for coping with challenges, but with the help of Effexor, it was easy to use the tools. All the stuff that had previously gotten me down, just quit bothering me. I learned to worry less about what others thought, and to ignore my imaginary grand score-card in the sky. I stopped really being concerned about my ability to take care of stuff. I just trusted that I would take care of things effectively when I must. I did not waste any energy worrying about how and when I would take care of stuff. I even learned to feel better about just relaxing and hanging out. I was less driven by the nagging feeling that I must be forgetting something. Now, drug-free, I am looking at my world, my future and my mounting to do list, and I am not quite so confident. I am doubting myself more. I indulge in moments of "crazy" where I feel guilty about not running one more errand, or doing one more chore before I "reward" myself with a break. What the hell happened to all my positive momentum toward self-acceptance, happiness and actualization? I am glad I can still remember a bit of what life felt like on Effexor. It often helps me talk myself down from the crazy, but I admit to losing some sleep. I wake up in a sudden panic with ugly things in my mind, like competition or comparison of myself with others. And yet I know, down that path lies only bitterness and discontent. Lately I discover that I am again giving myself points or demerits on that imaginary score card and I hate it. Then I turn around and hate myself a bit. That too is a vicious cycle. Remembering life on the Effexor cloud is harder. Does this mean I will go back to the Effexor? Not just yet. I wanted to remember what it felt like to live life with out anything to block the "realness" of it. Now it's real, and sometimes it is hard, but I am not ready to give up on my current course yet. I really do believe I can do this!