So, I had meant for this week's post to be on expressive arts therapy (ExA). I had a nice post half written, before making a mistake due to unfamiliarity with how this Squarespace thing works. All of that lovely post went poof, irretrievably evaporating into the land of things not properly saved. I'm not in the mood to rewrite it right now.
Instead, I want to write about where I'm at emotionally right now. The past few weeks have been odd on that front. On one hand, I've gotten quite a bit done - I put together this website, for one. I did a lot of painting, up until last Friday. I had my artwork on display and for sale at an event for The Lions We Are on Saturday (I sold one, too!). I've gone to class at Valkyrie (Valkyrie Western Martial Arts Assembly - more on this in another post) at least once a week. I continue to pick away at my thesis. I've gone to a weekly ExA workshop. That all sounds pretty good, right?
On the other hand, I've felt my mood and energy slowly but surely getting lower. It's a pattern that I'm very familiar with. Day by day, week by week, it's been getting just a little bit harder to start things, to finish things, to get out the door, to get out of bed. The negative self-talk is getting louder. It's not too bad yet - once I get started at Valkyrie, at the ExA group, at painting then I can generally relax and enjoy myself. The negative commentary goes away for a while. But as I told my therapist yesterday, it's reached the point that I can't continue to pretend to ignore it. I'm at a point that has taken years to learn to recognize, when I know I'm heading into depression but could still turn it around with relative ease. Key word there: relative.
I'm at the point where I still enjoy doing things, once I can get myself to do them. Doing something I enjoy will even make feel better for a while after finishing the activity. Intellectually I know this. Emotionally, I'm tired, I feel terrible about myself, and I'm sure that it's not worth the effort. Even though I know that doing the thing (go to class, paint, leave the house, do the laundry) will make me feel better, it is getting increasingly difficult to get myself to do it. Add to this the knowledge that not doing these things will just make me feel worse, and the sense that they "should" be easy to do. This brings a large serving of guilt for every time that I don't manage to do the thing, feeding the voice telling me how useless and pathetic I am, that I deserve to feel terrible if I'm too lazy/stupid to do the thing that I know will make me feel better. All of this circles and cycles and spirals, making it very difficult to dig myself out before getting deeper, even while knowing it will only get harder the deeper I get.
This time around, I'm particularly annoyed about the whole thing. Last year was an extremely difficult one. This January I finally felt like I'd gotten free of it, partly due to the addition of a new (extremely expensive) medication. In fact, at first this new med gave me so much energy to go with my boosted mood that we (my partner, my therapist and I) were concerned that it might send me into full-blown mania. While concerning, it was still wonderful to feel so good, and to be so productive. After a month or so though, it seemed that my body had adjusted, leaving with me feeling good and having a reasonable amount of energy. Now though I think my body has continued to adapt and become accustomed to that medication, and is taking me back to where I was before starting it. I know that one of my next steps needs to be going back to the doctor to discuss changing dosages and/or medications again. Intellectually, I know that this is the smart, proactive, self-caring thing to do. Emotionally, it feels like admitting defeat.
I have various coping mechanisms that I've worked out over the years. If I can make going doing something into a commitment to someone else, I'm much more likely to do it. I set things up so that I only leave the house once a day, even if it means I'm out of the house for hours at a time. For instance, I'll usually bring my workout clothes with my to my therapy appointment so that I can go from there directly to Valkyrie, even if I'll have an hour or two to kill until class time. I reward myself (usually with food) for doing even small things - going to Valkyrie can mean that I get to get sushi from the grocery store on my way home; going to the walk-in clinic to talk about meds means I get treat myself to lunch; If I'm doing laundry I'm allowed to watch crappy tv in the middle of the day without feeling bad about it. I try (with varying success) to stick to a schedule - it's easier to do something if it's an ingrained habit. If things have gotten worse and I need to communicate something to someone (usually my partner) but can't bring myself to say it then I'll write it in a text or email instead. I work hard to find a balance between not committing to doing too much while still making sure that I get out and socialize. I focus on small steps and concrete goals. I constantly work to counter and question the negative self-talk with a more compassionate commentary.
None of this is easy, none of this fixes things, but it all helps. I hope that this blog also becomes one of the things that helps. I have committed to you, reader, to write a post a week, something that is achievable without being overwhelming. It will allow me to express some of the things that I find so difficult to say but find both important and therapeutic to say. Talking about thing here may also help me to act on them in the rest of my life - for instance, I'm hoping that having written about needing to go to the doctor will help me follow through with actually going. With any luck, I'll have been to the clinic by the time this is actually posted.
Here's hoping that this blog makes my life and yours at least a little bit better.