Self-Diagnostic 2

I’ve written about going off of my anti-depressant and how I tend to get summer seasonal depression, so I thought I’d do another self-check to see how I’m handling all of this opposite-of-thrills-and-pills, and then write about it because that’s what this blog is for.

Short answer: I’m doing okay.

Longer answer: I woke up last Friday feeling exhausted, groggy, cranky. I’d gone to bed at a decent hour the night before, and I slept well through the night, but I was having a hard time waking up and was feeling petulant about having to wake up at all. I’d been feeling that way all week, waking up feeling sleepy and grumpy (and probably dopey, too), wanting to go to sleep almost as soon as I got home from work. But on Friday morning, I felt this sudden out-of-body, looking-at-myself-from-the-outside experience and I thought, “Oh, duh! I’m depressed!” Then I wondered if I should call my doctor and ask to go back on the ol’ Celexa. But unlike in the past, I can recognize that this is depression, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as it has in the past when I’ve been unmedicated, I’m still on my mood stabilizer, I have a psychological toolkit to deal with it, and I know it won’t last.

Seeing it, identifying it, and viewing it as a relatively small thing that I can handle made me feel strong, stronger than the depression itself. I’ve usually felt overwhelmed by it (and I still feel overwhelmed by my anxiety more often than not), so it’s pretty fucking great to feel…if not underwhelmed, at least, um, whelmed. Take that, depression!

In other self-care news: I still haven’t found regular exercise that I’ve been able to get myself to do, but seeing as how I’m dealing with a medication change and my least favorite season, I’m not beating myself up about it (too much). I installed the Google Fit app on my phone, set-up a daily goal of 30 minutes of walking exercise, and have hit that goal at least one day a week just by working a typical day at the library. I’m aiming to level up to hitting that 30 minute goal more often by walking around more during the day, but that probably won’t happen until the weather gets cooler.

But even a little progress is progress, and I’m happy with that.