Ohhhhhhh................ I don't feel right. Not ill, just not right.
I think it's the time of year. I suffer from S.A.D you see, and I am trying very hard to get through this winter without my anti depressants. I'm doing all the things I should be: Got my "light box" on when I'm sat in the house on the PC, I'm going to the gym to get my body going (yes, I actually went today!), I'm eating properly (I'm doing Weight Watchers, so I don't have much choice about that) and I'm trying to get plenty of sleep.
But that's where the lifestyle changes fall down. Sleep. I know that one of the best ways to combat the symtoms of S.A.D. is to keep a regular sleep pattern, but that's difficult whent eh depression forms it self in such a way that it keeps you up at night stressing about things you don't need to stress at.
What doesn't help, is that I have been so stressed and depressed and wound up so much this year. That's largely down to the hassles at MM which caused me to jack the place in as a full time job; it was making me feel as depressed as I get in the dead of winter, so it was time to move on, so I did.
Now with the change of season I am feeling pretty low again. Not all the time, but often enough through the day for me to really notice it. I don't really want to be popping pills all winter, and even though I am finding it hard to sleep at night, I REALLY don't want to go down the sleeping pill route again. Hopefully it wont get that bad.
THINGS THAT WILL CHEER ME UP THIS SEASON:
- Loosing more weight with weight watchers, and hopefully shedding another stone before X-Mas
- My business doing well enough for me to be able to afford all the expence I have to face between now and New Year (like Yorkie's Birthday, Dad's 60th, Step Bro Antoni's birthday - all in October, the MOT on my car in Nov, oh, and X-Mas it self!!)
- Getting some quality time with my feller, which even though we live together and have no children, seems to be a very difficult thing to achive!)
- Another fight with Yorkie
- Not having enough money for the things I have a responsibility to pay for
- Getting FAT
- Not being able to sleep!
- ENDLESS grey, cold, wet days (can't avoid those though)
My depression affects me badly when it hits, and it's a self perpetuating thing too. I get depressed, so I don't want to go out or see any one. If I don't go out, I don't get any natural light, I don't socilize with people, I don't excersie, I don't see the doc.... All these things make the depression worse, which in turn makes the results worse, which then makes the depression worse again.... You get the idea! At my worst point, I didn't leave the house or speak to anyone other than Yorkie for over 6 weeks, and only him becasue he wasliving with me. We ended up having a huge argument over it, and he pratically dragged me to the docs kicking and screaming. The doc gave me the sleepers and the anti depressants, and after a weeks good sleep, and a couple of week on the pills I was well enough to leave the house to go to college a couple of days a week, and to see people a bit. And i started to get a bit better becasue of it.
The idea now is to recognise the problems, and tackle them before thay happen. I know that I get like this between Sept & Feb each year, so now that's it's almost October, I really should get my pills incase I get really bad again. I'll have to pay for them, but that's a small price to pay when you consider the alternative. I'll try to avoid taking them - hence the light box and going to the gym to get the right chemicals flowing through my body - and I have to make sure I get out of the house during day light hours, even if it's only for a short while, EVERY DAY.
Now that I work from home, I have the very real danger of letting my illness get the better of me. It would be very easy to get slack and do nothing but stay in bed, or play computer games in the dark all day, shutting out the whole world. After all, who's going to get on my back about it? No one will fire me, or repremand me for not doing the work. So I have all the more reason to make sure I do something about it.
How do I avoid this then?
Simple. Yorkie can't drive, but he works out of town, doing 10 days of every 14 at work, and 4 days off. So I drive him to work every morning and pick him up every night. That means I'm out of the house twice a day. Until it gets well into winter, that means I'm in the daylight twice a day. AND once I'm out of the house, I am more inclined to do something while I'm out. I would hardly ever go out if it was just for me.
Once I'm out I might as well:
- Take my order to the post office every day (not sundays) - this means I am in a social setting as I used to work at the post office and always have a little natter, and I am walking about out side for a short time, DAYLIGHT!
- Go to the gym. I drive past, and I do pay a monthly membership, it would be foolish NOT to call in, even if it's only for an hour. That's social again, and I'm working out, so the right chemicals are released AND I'm helping myself loose weight!
- Go to my weight watchers meeting on Saturdays - only I'll have a couple of hours to kill in the meantime, so I park up, do some shopping, call into MM and do some work, have a natter with the staff, call into the Library and see Gemma. That's social, and advantagus to my weight loss!
- See a friend. I can't stand being on my own... In summer it's not too bad, especially since I am working from home now so I don't get board, but I really don't like it. So once I'm out - or before I pick Yorkie up - there's no harm in calling in to see a friend, or arranging a lunch out if I can afford it.
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