It's Official.

[tablesaw]

I'm depressed.

I have been for a while, and I haven't acknowledged it.

I finally realized it a few days ago, when I was feeling bad, and I thought, "I haven't felt this behind the eight ball since college." Then it occurred to me that college was the .

While there have been a lot of various stressors, none of them have really been important. That is, there's been nothing coming up against me that I actually couldn't do if I set down to do it. I just couldn't get started on it, and I let days and weeks slip by me as I tried to hide myself.

I think the biggest problem was that I stopped my "medication." When my therapist took me off Prozac and sent me on my way, his last prescription was to keep getting daily exercise. And I was reasonably good about that for a while. But a few weeks ago, my schedule got disrupted, and I got tired, and I just started letting it slide. I can't do that any more.

My gut instinct is to try to work my way back up myself and hope that nobody noticed. But I've gone down that route before, and it is a route of stupid. I mean, I do want to try to work myself back up to normal on my own, going back to exercising and buckling down. But I know from experience that I while I need to do the work myself, I also need people to keep a lazy eye on my to keep me on track.

And depression is always tied to shame for me, so I figured that getting this stuff out in the open all at once would be better than keeping secrets.

This weekend has been an example. I was paralyzed for a while, unable to do the work I needed to do. Then I forced myself to start working, and it was painful. And then I started getting good headway. Then I started feeling good again. So I'm taking advantage of this moment to get things started on the journal again.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled Christmas season.

Comments

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

Wanna be long-distance exercise buddies? I've let my own daily run slide since not long after my move, and I could use a friendly query every so often to keep me honest.

[shapermc.livejournal.com]

Best of luck man. You could always just try to do the excercise training in Wii Sports... it may not feel enough like "excercise" but be good for you and get you back in the spirits of things. It will also give you a reason to play Wii Sports! Boxing is really good.

Anyways, seriously, I had some pretty bad depression for a while. You can get over it, worry not.

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

hey, it's good that you're still moving -- I know I struggle lots when depressed. As for exercise, it's a heck of a lot easier for me to keep on it when I'm on medication than not (is there a barrier to consulting a psychiatrist again?), and also easier to do if you have an exercise buddy or immediate reward upon getting to the gym (like seeing a group of friends there or if you're just having fun with the exercise itself. I hear Dance-Dance-Revolution is great exercise...)

[ojouchan.livejournal.com]

I am going to go snuggle you. Then we are going to pick up a Christmas tree. *snuggle*

[isquiesque.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear this... hope that you're able to find help through friends and such, and that perhaps part of it is 'merely' seasonal affective disorder and that it will start to let up on you once we start heading toward spring. I think the recommendations of DDR/Wii sports are good places to start moving again. You'll be in my thoughts.