Hindsight

Its been awhile since I wrote.

In part, its because my last post was so intense, it brought up a lot of raw emotion.

But if I’m being honest with myself, its also in part because I was sunk in a bout of depression again.

I feel better now, but I knew I wasn’t myself. So here I am, after a few months of struggle, blessed with the ability to look back and say “that’s not me”.

So as an exercise in self-awareness, lets recap all the red flags I ignored. The things I knew weren’t “me”.

1. I stopped doing the things I enjoyed – like writing.

2. I fell behind on housework

3. Over-procrastinated my work work.

4. I craved energy, and in turn, was drinking excess amounts of caffeine (like double shots of espresso at 2pm)

5. I changed my nighttime routine – instead of putting the baby down and enjoying a show or game with my husband or watching something to unwind, I was going straight to bed… mostly before 8:30.

Those are just the big red flags for me, I’m sure there’s more if you asked my husband.

Let’s take it another step, how did I get there?

1. At the end of August, I had a few psychotic symptoms resurface after a few months strong on a new medication. I think I can trace this onset psychosis to mainly intense stress. Nevertheless, I felt defeated, I felt ashamed, I felt like a failure.

2. At the beginning of September, my doctors changed my medication to alleviate the psychosis. As a person who struggles with change, and with the concept of medicine, this caused me a lot of anxiety.

3. The med change was hard on my body, physically, the adjusting period took a few weeks and my body was TIRED. I felt like I couldn’t keep up with day-to-day activities.

4. On top of being tired, I started to get busy at work. I wasn’t so stressed about the actual work though. This time I began to stress about my own levels of stress. I’d say to myself, “if you don’t stay on top of this, the psychosis will come back, and then you’ll have to restart new meds AGAIN and then if those don’t work….” I’d start to spiral in negative thought. I was constantly anxious.

5. I became so anxious; I was literally making myself sick. Every afternoon around 2 or 3 when I’d feel like I’d accomplished a lot of my to-do lists, the ball of anxiety in my stomach would sneak up and tell me it wasn’t ever enough. Despite my best efforts, by early evening I’d be throwing up lunch, and neglecting dinner. This went on for about a week.

6. I was blaming myself. My therapist, Whitney, pointed out to me that instead of saying to myself, “these things are happening” I was saying, “these things are happening BECAUSE I am an insane person” or “BECAUSE I am not enough”. I was quick to jump the gun and point the finger at myself.

In our final exercise of self-awareness, I like to reflect on what helped me snap back.

The answer, this time, is short - The stomach bug. While I wish this reflection could be something profound and helpful, the honest answer is that I caught a nasty stomach bug. However, I do think a couple really important things happened during the 5 days I miserably fought this bug.

1. I was forced to stop. Forced to “lean into” the way depression makes me feel. Coupled over in stomach pain, I had no other option but to call in sick, temporarily drop my responsibilities and let my husband take care of the house and our child and just *lay* in bed for a few days.

2. FOMO (fear of missing out). While I was laid up in bed, I could hear my son playing outside the bedroom window or giggling in the living room, and I felt so sad that I wasn’t there playing too. It made me really look forward to filling dump trucks full of dirt or going on walks again – or even just sitting with him at dinner while he says/does funny things. I couldn’t wait to get back to mommin’.

3. I was in pain. Intense pain. A pain so fierce that reflecting on that pain made me grateful to have an otherwise healthy body.

4. I COULDN’T take the blame for this. There was nothing I could have done to prevent myself from getting the bug. This forced me to realize that not everything is my own fault. Things don’t happen to me *because* of anything… sometimes, things just happen. Good or bad, they just happen.

While it super-sucked and I don’t recommend trying to get a stomach bug to cure depression, I do think that this bug forced me to mentally reset. It put into perspective the things I love about life, and I lost interest in the “what-ifs” I’d been exerting so much mental energy on. I instead began to use that energy to plan out “when I feel better…” activities.

As it turns out, I have a lot of things to look forward to, and a lot of things in my daily life that I LOVE doing. I needed the miserability of the bug to help spin all those things back into a positive light.

This is a process my therapist and I used during the height of my depression and sometimes still circle back to as necessary, and it’s become my favorite tool. After an episode of depression, or psychosis, or anxiety or any other big mood change ask yourself 3 questions. What changed? What happened that made you feel that way? And What helped you feel yourself again?

I feel in control when I can reflect in this way. As the old saying goes - “The only doing better is knowing better” . When you begin to unravel and know more about yourself, you grow. There is so much strength and empowerment in self-awareness.

Soaking up the little moments I could during the nasty stomach bug