Expectations versus Reality

I guess I expected something better.

I had three days of fantastic, and then on Thursday, everything was horrible, and that lasted until later last night. So, for sure, my new meds are not gong to magically make my life full of rainbows and unicorns.

^{That’s me in the corner, coming home from the hospital.}

I was hoping for the best. I guess I’m optimistic like that. I wanted the beatific vision of psychiatric wellness, right here in my own home. I guess that’s being a bit presumptuous, no?

For sure, I know that things are better physically. No more nausea, and that’s a big one. I always get a bunch of nausea with new psych meds, and I haven’t had a lick. That’s great, and completely unexpected. And I just feel, well…better. It’s hard to describe. Before, during the worst of most recent depression, it was just sort of a low level malaise. I wasn’t really sick, but I sure didn’t feel well. I do know it was definitely related to the depression, because that’s the only thing that’s changed recently. So, in that area, things are indeed much better.

But, when my mood tanked last Thursday, it really sent me into a tailspin. I cancelled my therapy appointment on Friday and I rescheduled (four weeks out is the closest appointment, ugh). That’s not good, but nothing can be done about it now. I should definitely have gone. I doubt I’ve been that miserable, and may not be again, when an appointment occurs, and it would’ve been good for my therapist to see it. But someone, I was only thinking about putting on a happy face and making a good first impression. Stupid. I’m not going on a first date. I’m going to therapy. Therapy isn’t supposed to be about covering up reality. Derp.

^{Therapy. You’re doing it wrong.}

I’m really full of myself that way. Not smart. And I wanted to throw some blame around, too, as if that was going to help anything. I did the whole internal litany of how I wanted someone to help me, that nobody cared, that I needed someone to drive me, that I would have to shower first, that I was too upset, that nothing good would come of this, that I was too tired, that I hate all the things.

^{Leveling up on the hatred.}

I really just didn’t want to go, and it’s a simple as that.

Stupid ladled over a bowl of steaming hot stupid. Not helpful. In.The.Least.

Anyhow, I basically jumped off the pier of smart mental health wellness into the lake of negative habits that inevitably lead to another round of depression. Avoiding therapy was just one step down the pier. There was also showering, not getting dressed, not brushing my increasingly disgusting hair. I wore the same clothes for four days.

I didn’t go to choir practice or church.

^{Would you like some fresh-ground stupid on your stupidness?}

Because my daughter was out of town, I was living off whatever food I could rustle up from the cupboards, which are nearly empty anyway. (I had gone grocery shopping just before I checked into the hospital, so by the time I got home, almost everything was spoiled. Triple ugh.) Think spoonfuls of peanut butter and toast. Lots of toast. I spent almost the last of my monthly disability check on bad drive-up selections at fast-food places (you can’t really call them restaurants). Unhelpful. But what else was to be done? FYI: This is a definite problem with a lot of depressed folk who live alone.

Idiotically, I listened to the near-constant barrage of negative self-talk that my brain spews forth like an unceasing spring.

• “What makes you think you’re worth it?”
• “Nothing works out for you anyway. Did you think this would be different?”
• ”Why does God hate me?”
• ”Why would God allow this?”
• ” Why am I being punished?”
• ”My life has no meaning.”

  And the eternal broken record of:

• ”I want to die.”

^{Need this button in my brain.}

I also spent WAY too much time on Facebook getting involved in meaningless arguments I could never possibly win with trolls who seemed to pop up with an uncanny regularity. That was probably the single worst thing I could have done. I really am beginning to think that Facebook might be a huge trigger for my Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and its “bad thoughts”. I didn’t have any bad thoughts about cutting myself or blood the entire time I was in the hospital and for a couple of days afterwards. But during those four days of Hell, those negative images were rampant. Expecting that I’m going to find validation on an impersonal medium like Facebook is definitely not matching up with reality.

^{It was about this intelligible.}

I had desperately hoped that, now that my menstrual cycle had begun (TMI, maybe, but it’s important to the plot here), that things would, again, magically get totally better. They did get some better. I managed to put on different clothes, yank my hair in a ponytail to sort of disguise the nastiness, and go with my now-home daughter to the grocery to get some real food. Just doing that was a really good start.

Monday was better. I washed my hair. I got dressed. I can’t begin to tell you what a difference this made. I got dressed. I made a spicy turkey chili and put it in the crockpot. I deliberately avoided stupidness on Facebook. I went with my daughter over to my niece’s house and we all watched Outlander. I guess sweaty men in kilts is a pretty effective booster for anti-depressant meds. Everything was getting much better.

^{Need I say more?}

I decided that there was no point in waiting for a good mood to overtake me and provide motivation. I would have to motivate myself. I final ly hit that “stop” button and told myself that even if today was even a wee bit better, it would be worth it.

And here I am, 954 words later.