Making progress

Slowly but surely, it comes together. My sleep patterns are improving. My efforts on that part are starting to show effect. And counselling yesterday helped to put some more of the ducks back into that proverbial row (although shouldn’t it be an arrow shape?)

We’ve been doing some work on mindfulness, staying in the present. We’ve also done some work on training the brain to push away those thoughts that just aren’t important or helpful right now, so you can get on with what needs to be done.

I got really good at pushing thoughts, worries, away so I could get on with work/housework/whatever needed to be done. But I’d then keep pushing away, pushing away. I didn’t feel anxious, so thought I wasn’t.

Then my sleep would be all over the shop as my poor subconscious struggled to deal with all the stuff I wasn’t facing during the day.

Being present doesn’t mean just pushing away – you have to acknowledge that those thoughts and feelings exist. And you have to make time to deal with them.

So a new part of my daily routine is to spend some time late in the afternoon allowing my worries, anxieties, excitements to come to the surface and dealing with them, there and then, so my brain can relax at night and I can get a proper night’s sleep.

Counselling and bad days

It’s only been twice, so it can’t really be called a trend, but…

Once again, the day after counselling, I woke up feeling like crap. Tired. Emotional.

The thing was, we had a bit of a break-through in counselling, and identified one of the things that’s been making life difficult for me – a mistaken belief that I shouldn’t be proud of myself or put myself out there because “you shouldn’t be up-yourself”. Also, we talked about the ‘real me’ I mentioned a couple of blog posts back and about how maybe the extremes of emotions weren’t real.

As my counsellor pointed out, and I concurred, the anti-depressants don’t stop you feeling those emotions. I’m still capable of getting excited, happy, anxious etc. But the thing is, those feelings don’t overwhelm me any more or get in the way of my life.

Her point was to think about the values that I want to live my life by. Is the treatment stopping me from living my life that way? That’s the benchmark by which to decide if it’s good or not.

Thursday, I just didn’t have the energy to fight the tiredness and so I didn’t. That was different to today, where I woke up probably feeling just as bad but was able to find the voice inside me that said ‘doesn’t matter, keep going, you’ll get through it’. Luckily, I’m in a position where I can just give up on those days and spend my time lounging around the house, watching television and reading. It must be truly heinous, to be feeling that way and have to keep going.

So my sleep patterns, which were getting better, have gone weird again. My brain goes at a million miles an hour and I wake up constantly through the night. So I think I have to be firm with myself again. I had started to let myself think about the story I’m working on – that was my traditional method, I’d finish writing in the morning, let it sit and then at night, think about what to do next so I’d wake up the next morning ready to work. But that seems to be stimulating my brain too much, so back to blanking out my mind and not letting it attach to any thoughts as I’m trying to sleep. We’ll see how it goes.

Another point – had my first drop of alcohol in five weeks last night. I put myself off it until the anti-depressants settled in – it seemed to me ridiculous to put a depressant in my system while my body was getting used to anti-depressants. Perhaps it is partly to blame for why I’m feeling a bit tired today. I’ll not have any tonight and see how I go.

A great week.

So after that bad day, things have really picked up. I don’t know if it’s the anti-depressants kicking in (it’s now four weeks – dr said would take six) or if it’s the fact I’ve started walking again (exercise really does work for me) but since last Saturday, I’ve been feeling pretty good.

My sleeping’s got better and I’ve not been as tired during the day. I’ve been able to think, and concentrate better, and so I’ve got a lot done. I managed to get a whole lot of publicity stuff done for Rogue Gadda AND I started a new novel and got 10,000 words written of it.

So all in all, I have to say things are looking up.

An interesting thing I have noted – the days seem to be taking longer to past. I don’t know if it’s the depression, or if it’s the mindfulness training the counsellor suggested, but I seem to find myself with time on my hands. I don’t particularly want to fill that time with things to do, but on the other hand I don’t like being bored either.

Will be interesting to see how that develops.

Just when you think you’re out of the woods…

The black dog drags you in again.

Had a bad day yesterday. My sleep patterns are still not back in sync and as a result, I fight through tiredness each day to do what I need to do.

Things had been getting better – I’d slept reasonably well Monday and Tuesday nights. Then Wednesday night was bad. I woke up Thursday morning and instantly my thoughts went dark. ‘I’m so over this. It’s never going to end. I’m going to feel like shit forever. I don’t think I can keep doing this’.

I sat down at my computer and tried to have a normal day, but the anger, the frustration was too great. So I gave up writing and focussed instead on getting the house clean. I did some reading. Spent some time in the sun. Had a quick visit with Dad.

My counsellor gave me some advice on re-setting my sleep habits and last night I worked through them. 8.30pm – turn on electric blanket. 9pm – have a shower. 9.30pm – have a mug of warm milk. 10pm – go to bed.

I lay in bed, feeling a bit uncomfortable with the artificiality of it all. But you know what – it worked. I was asleep inside half an hour and only woke up briefly a couple of times.

Do I feel fabulous today? No, still tired. But the mood is much better. And I was able to convince myself to get up and go for a walk – I’ve been struggling with that as the weather cooled.

It took months to get myself to the place where the depression hit. I can’t expect it to be fixed in a few days. I just have to trust that while I don’t always feel it, I’m doing the right things to make myself feel better and then one day, I will be.

The real me…

Things are going well. The anti-depressants have kicked in to the point that I’m feeling quite mellow. I’m still having issues with my sleep patterns and resultant tiredness, but I’ll have a chat to the doctor about that this afternoon when I go for a check-up.

On the weekend, a friend blogged about their own battle with depression and a recent fall back into the blackness. They talked about their concerns about being medicated and now wanting to lose who they really are.

It’s something that I related to. In the past, I had my gynaecologist come up with a different birth control because I didn’t like how the pill evened me out. Sure, not having the downs was good, but I lost the highs as well. An IUD solved that problem.

It is something that plays on my mind now that I’m on anti-depressants, because I’m also on the pill at the moment too (to deal with peri-menopause symptoms). I recognise that right now, I need the help – my brain is seriously out of whack – but I don’t want to lose ME.

Then someone commented on my friends blog and paraphrasing it went like this – a psychologist friend told them that actually, the unmedicated you probably isn’t the real you. After all, you’re on medication because your brain chemistry is fucked up, right?

It’s like a brain explosion. We all know that in bi-polar, the manic phase is as dangerous as the depression phase. I’m not bi-polar, I don’t get manic, but maybe the at time intense highs and lows I go through, which I’ve always associated with me being an ‘emotional’ person, aren’t healthy either.

Maybe once the anti-depressants get my brain chemistry under control, I’m going to find the ‘real’ me.

I’ll discuss it with the counsellor at my session on Wednesday and see what she thinks.

A bit of a catch-up

Let’s see how long Blogger stays up, shall we?

So, in the week since I last posted, I -

a) been adjusting to the anti-depressants. They’ve had an impact, but not a good one – at one point I said to a friend ‘this must be what pregnancy feels like – tummy off, head a bit spinny, tired, smell of meat turns you off…’ Dr said it would take a couple of weeks for the symptoms to subside as my brain chemistry adjusts. Luckily, most of it hasn’t been too bad – the nausea for example is just a background thing. My disturbed sleep patterns and the tiredness are another thing entirely

b) I went to a new counsellor. This one isn’t as interested in taking me through cognitive behavioural therapy – she sees that as not being the issue. Her belief is that I’m hooking into negative narratives and letting them disrupt my life. Her solution – mindfulness training. Being in the moment and learning to push thoughts aside so they don’t impact on what needs to be done. If something’s bad enough, it will come back to dealt with at the appropriate time and place. Often, the thoughts aren’t worth engaging with and so they can just float away. Will be interesting to see how it works out.

c) My sleep patterns are up the wazoo. It takes me hours to fall asleep (no matter how tired I am when I go to bed) and then I’m sleeping really late and upsetting the whole balance of the day. I need to make a good routine for going to sleep – sleep hygiene, the doctor called it. The other thing I’m doing is slowly moving my body back into my usual routine. I’ve been getting up around 11 – today it was 9. Over the next week, I’ll move it down until I’m back at my usual 7am wake-up. Hopefully that, combined with the routine at night, will get me back to my standard sleep of the dead for 8-9 hours.

Mood wise, things have been pretty good. I didn’t do as much work later in the week as I would have liked, but that’s done and no point obsessing over it. Gonna try to get back into regular work patterns this week.

Feeling almost–chipper.

It’s incredible, the impact taking action can have on your mood. I’ve woken up this morning a little tired, but otherwise feeling quite good.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor. I was actually a bit assertive in ensuring I got an appointment – something that I don’t normally do. The word ‘depression’ certainly gets the receptionists acting to find something for you.

Anyhoo – I’m now on anti-depressants. The latest downtown has made it clear that this is more than a one-off event and I’m happy to use medication – once I know that my body can’t fight off the problem itself. Some of the side-effects came into being pretty quickly, particularly some nausea. Doctor’s advice is to just put up with it, it will wear off in a couple of weeks as my brain starts to adjust to the new chemistry. As long as it’s not too bad, of course – if I get really sick, back to see her immediately. Otherwise, I’ve got an appointment in two weeks to check on my progress.

It’s gonna take six weeks for the drugs to start taking an affect – it’s going to be interesting to see what that is. The bad part of all this – I can’t drink until things have settled down. *sob*

I’m going to be on the anti-depressants for at least 18 months – in the doctor’s words, it generally takes a year to sort out what caused it in the first place, and then you get slowly weaned off until you’re back relying on your natural brain chemistry.

Talking of sorting out – I’ve decided to get a new counsellor. Although my first counsellor said and did some good stuff, there was also a sense of pushing their agenda and and trying to force a mutual relationship by doing things such as pushing the fact they were a writer too. And there was a general lack of – studied professionalism, I’ll call it. Not that I doubted their ability of credentials and I don’t want someone who’s all buttoned up and can’t relate, but the way things were being run were a little too relaxed for my comfort.

Yeah, I’m generally laid-back and I require a counsellor who is too – but I’m also driven and conscientious and I want to feel that from my counsellor as well.

This is a brand new person I’ve not met before, and I think it will be good to go back to the beginning and work things through now that I’m past the initial triggering event. So that’s on Wednesday.

So having seen the doctor and made the appointment with a new counsellor yesterday, I’m feeling like I’m taking control again. Add to that the fact that yesterday (despite problems with concentrating) was a good day work-wise and it’s no wonder I feel good today.

I’m going to take this day, run with it and do what I can, because who knows how long this will last.