10/30/15

It's been an interesting past few weeks. Almost two weeks ago I woke up on a Saturday morning and didn't feel 100% (depression wise). I figured, it's just a bad day, I will feel better tomorrow. Sunday came around and I did not feel any better. Nothing had changed to bring this on, my medication didn't change, nothing was different so I couldn't figure out why I felt like that. By the end of Sacrament meeting I felt even worse, on my 0% being rock bottom and 100% being perfect, I felt like I was at 20%. Before Sunday School I went into the bathroom and cried, I felt so miserable. I didn't want to be at church, I just wanted to go home, go to sleep and just shut the world out. I pulled myself back together and went into class.

I kept having these thought in the days leading up to my appointment with Grace. I started questioning how well things were going with her. I even mentioned this to Brad and he said, "I thought things were going really well?". I kept thinking things like- things are going nowhere, it wasn't helping at all, maybe I should just give up on trying counseling for the depression all together, no one can really help me. I just now figured out why I was having these thought, the depression. It is crazy how it makes everything negative, dark, and hopeless. In reality I don't feel like that at all. 

So often I feel like I can mask the depression. Even if I'm at rock bottom, I try my hardest not to show it. I'm sure most people in my life can't even tell the difference. To prove my irrational thoughts  were wrong I kept thinking, I need Grace to see the difference in me. I told myself I'm not going to mask this right now. I need to face this. When I was seeing Joy over the summer I noticed that when I was in that deep depression I was much more timid and it is a lot harder to get me to open up. I was definitely feeling that way today. 

Yesterday Em's best friend's mom asked if I could watch her son. I told her I could, after all she said she would done around 12. That left 40 minutes until I needed to take Em to school, Brax to the sitter and then off to Grace's. As it passed 12:10 I was starting to feel more and more anxious.  I have crazy/extreme anxiety about being late. The closer and closer it got to 12:30 I grew more and more anxious. I started pacing around the living room. My stomach started churning. Then my alarm went off to remind me it was time to take Em to school. At this point I was in a full blown anxiety attack! My heart was racing and I was so sick to my stomach I thought I was going to throw up. All I could think was, I'm going to be late to drop Em off at school, then I'll be late dropping Brax off to be baby-sat and worse of all, I will be late to my appointment with Grace. I kept trying to remind myself that it wasn't the end of the world if I was late. That didn't work at all! I thought for sure I was going to lose my mind waiting for her to show up. I didn't have her cell phone number so I couldn't get ahold of her to find out what was going on. I even went through all our Facebook messages to see if she ever gave it to me, no. It got to the point that in 4 minutes I would actually be late for everything and she  finally got there! You'd think her getting there to pick her son up would stop my anxiety attack, nope. It wasn't until I sitting in the lobby waiting for my appointment, with 3 minutes to spare, that I started feeling better! 

I mentioned before I went in there trying for once not to mask the depression. One of the first things Grace said was I wasn't acting like myself and asked what was going on. I told her about how bad the depression has been and how I've been stuck there in this deep depression.

I don't even know where to start or how to describe how things went.

I realized that the thoughts I had a few days ago were the complete opposite of I really feel. Stupid depression!

As I was leaving Grace said something that reminded me of Sister Parker, it made me smile. At the same time I thought, "I haven't had to 'fight' anything since I moved out!" I was in this constant battle to not give in to the abuse. It could have been easy for me to stop fighting it, start believing everything he said and not let it hurt anymore. Fighting so much inner turmoil and negativity can be exhausting! I know it is going to be worth it and that I will be able to fight it.

Grace asked how I have handled the depression in the past. It was easy, I let it take over! I didn't fight it, then again when you aren't acknowledging it, it is hard to fight it. When we owned our house the depression was at it's worse. I slept all day, when I was awake I spent all my time either watching tv, playing on the Wii or on the computer, I withdrew from everyone and had a hard time believing the future could get better.

On my way home and as I waited for Brax at the baby-sitter's (she had to go get her son and didn't get back to her house until an hour later!)  I listened to 3 songs over and over again. They summed up how I was feeling and what I needed to remind myself. Even when you're broken, Try and Fight Song.

We've had this thick fog on the edge of town the past few days. Maybe it is because the fog reminded me of how I had been feeling over the past few weeks, but I was loving it. On my way to pick up Brax I went home and grabbed my camera. Once Em was out of school we went up where the fog was thicker to take pictures.