Things I Know About Depression

It's Friday which means it's time to link up with MC at The Miss Cinders for Things I Know - because we do all know something !!  Today I am also linking in with FYBF over at With Some Grace.

I am going through menopause (just in case you have been living under a rock and are new to my blog !!!) - and it hasn't been pretty !  In fact, it's been bloody awful.  But, hey, it's the luck of the draw - some people go through some cr*p, some people don't even know they have been through it and some people go through hell for a few years !  I think I fall into the category of  'going through some cr*p' - it could have been better but I figure, it probably could have been a sh*t load worse as well !

After putting on about 25kgs in 5 months, my hormone doctor (aka as Maxine the cartoon character although really known as Maura) who had not put me on the anti-depressants in the first place, said that they may be responsible for my weight gain.  I asked to come off them and she gave me a schedule to follow to come off them at the right rate.  I did this.  And 5 weeks after coming off them I have put on another 5 kgs.  So, after being off the anti-depressants for 5 weeks, having cut out sugar, wheat and dairy, I am still putting on weight - go figure !

Yes, I am not exercising as much as I was - pretty much because I am struggling with my knees and all the extra weight I am carrying so I have been working on the Guns, Buns and Abs Challenge each day.  I am now on day 11 and still going strong although, the last 10 squats and 5 leg lifts nearly killed me tonight.

So, back to what I know - stopping the anti-depressants has not helped my weight.  BUT, I have felt great.  In fact, apart from 2 or 3 days during the past 5 weeks, I have felt better than I did when I was taking the anti-depressants. So, in my mind, I am doing well.  I am off the anti-depressants.  I feel great.  I'm doing well.  Not so fast.  There was one day last week when I spent more of the day hiding behind my computer screens crying than I spent actually producing any work.  OK - that is one bad day - everyone has a bad day.

Fast forward to this week.  On Wednesday, the lady that I work with, told me that I had been too quiet and no fun in the office.  Yes, I had been busy trying to reconcile a stupid tax account - and, when I had balanced it, worked out that the entry I have to process, will balance this account but put another tax account out - oh great !  Today, I was driving to work listening to the news on the radio - and crying !  Why ? I have absolutely no idea.  I just felt like I had to cry.  I held it together most of the day at work but did think that maybe I should see if I could get an appointment with Maxine because I haven't seen her for a while.

Got there and had to wait forever because she was running late - as most drs do !!  But when I went in to see her, she asked how I was and I just burst into tears.  Feeling like I huge sook, I said "I'm fine thank you" and she just laughed and passed me a tissue !  I told her how well I had been but that I had had one day of crying last week and just didn't feel that flash today.  I told her I wasn't depressed. I didn't feel like I couldn't cope. I didn't want to curl up in a ball and let the world pass me by.  She told me that just because I didn't feel like that didn't mean I wasn't depressed.  It just meant that I wasn't on the really bad end of being depressed.  She told me not to be ashamed of it. I told her that I wasn't.  I told her that I had been feeling really really good except for the couple of days of being weepy.

She said that I seemed to her to be very fragile and she is worried that if we don't do something to help smooth things over, I may land up feeling like I did want to curl up in a ball and let the world pass me by.  She has prescribed a different anti-depressant for me - one which she assures me will not put on weight.  And, she has recommended that I see a dietician because clearly there is something that is not working for me if I am basically eating a paleo diet and still putting on weight.

I called A when I left there to tell him what she had said - I'm not sure how much of the conversation he could actually follow because I was sobbing and coughing and gulping during the whole conversation.  Honestly, that man deserves a medal for putting up with me.  I asked him if he would rather stay in Townsville tomorrow instead of coming home if I was going to be like this.  He replied with his stock standard - For better, for worse, we are together.  And then said that maybe he was just banking brownie points in case he ever gets depressed.  I had to laugh - he is the last person I would imagine would ever suffer from depression !!!  He is all for me dealing with my health issues and getting them sorted out before I worry about my weight - I figure that my weight is such a big part of my life, it's hard for me to put it to one side and just say I will get back to it later.

While the number on the scale isn't the thing that dictates my life, you'd have to be completely blind not to notice that my clothes are getting smaller and my butt/legs/arms/stomach are getting bigger.  I have tried to find jeans in bigger sizes - I cannot find any comfortable ones anywhere.  Tonight I found two short sleeve tops at Katie's and one 3/4 sleeve light jacket at Target.  But jeans - none to be found.  Not even a pair at Katie's in their 'flatten your tummy, lift your butt, hide your muffin top' range. I left that shop with tears running down my face.  Thank goodness for late night shopping so it was dark and nobody could see me !!!!

I know that I will get through this because I have the most amazing support system.  A is my absolute rock.   I haven't said much to K about it because she is starting up her studies again and I know is a little anxious about that - once she has settled into them I will talk to her about it.  My on-line friends are just fantastic. I know that I only have to put something on twitter and I will have a reply pretty soon from someone offering support - even if it is only a comment on twitter that makes me laugh.  I truly am very blessed.  So , with that thought of support and understanding, I will continue to tackle this b*itch called menopause and try not to make everyone's life too miserable !!

On a brighter note, I know that :
- A will be home later today - YAY !
- my brother turns 50 on 17th July - how did he get to be so old ?
- I turn 48 on 21st July - how did I get to be so old ?
- we are going to see Pink on 22nd July - can't wait for this - her last concert was amazing !
- we are going on holiday to Tasmania on 12th August - hope I have enough warm clothing !
- we don't have to go back to work until 2nd September - unless we win Lotto, in which case I won't be going back to work !

Have the best day !!!

Why not link in with Miss Cinders

with what you do know ?
Or with FYBF over at With Some Grace ?



TFTD :  You are not what you have done.  You are what you have overcome.

 

Things I Know

YAY - today is Friday (just in case you weren't sure !!!) which means it is (a) time to link up with the easiest linky of the week with Miss Cinders because, as you all know, we all know sh*t and (b) this afternoon I am off to Townsville to spend the weekend with A.  Unfortunately, things are not going to well with the sites they are building and so he may land up having to spend more time working than he planned but at least I will get to spend some time with him.

I will try to get around to reading as many of the posts linked up before I go but if you don't see a comment from me, never feat, I will catch up next week.

In totally randomness, this is what I know :

- I know that I received a LOVELY surprise when I got home from work this aftenoon.  There was a package in the post box for me.  I opened it and it was a set of soy melts - sweet pea and vanilla.  It was from Ann at Help!! I'm Stuck!!.  What absolutely blew me away was the fact that it was only earlier on this week that I took two of my burners out and put them in the lounge and have been burning melts in the evenings while I have been sitting here watching TV and crocheting.  And, it was only the other night that I looked and thought to myself that I am going to have to go and buy some more melts because these two are nearly finished !  So, not only was it exactly what I needed, but, vanilla is my most favourite fragrance.  Who says that the universe (a) does not provide and (b) work in mysterious ways ???????

- I know that I am embarrassed to be Australian when I see how the politicians have been behaving and treating each other recently.  While they may not like each other or agree with their ideal's or policies, common courtesy and respect cost exactly the same as bad manners and disrespect - absolutely NOTHING - so why choose to have bad manners and be disrespectful of your fellow human beings ?  I just don't get it.  I know that it's not only politicians who treat others like this - a lot of every day Joe Smiths do as well (it's just that the politicans are more in the spot light and likely to be seen to be doing (what I call) the 'wrong' thing i.t.o. how they treat others.  It's the same with telling lies and breaking promises - I don't get why people do this.

- I know that I started a spreadsheet for keeping track of the squats that I was doing every day.  It started on Day 1 with 60 and increased by 10 every day until Day 30 when I would be doing 350 squats - a total of 6,150 squats in 30 days.  Sadly, I managed Day 1 and Day 2 - the grand total of 130, which is 130 more than I would have done, but sadly I stopped after Day 2 because my legs were so sore and I was battling to walk up and down the stairs at work.  Rhianna from A Parenting Life has sent me the spreadshee that she is using so as soon as I have a chance to look at it I will see if maybe it is a more realistic program and change over, starting next week after I get home from Townsville.

- I know that I (try to) send out a Thought For The Day most week days.  If you would like to be included in this list, let me have your e-mail address and I will include you.  I hide all addresses when I send this out so your address isn't seen by any friends you haven't met yet a.k.a. strangers.  I also do not sell your e-mail information to any marketing companies !!!

- I know (or at least I am almost 100% sure) that the doctor misdiagnosed me as having depression when she prescibed the anti-depressants.  I was suffering from anxiety - not depression.  So when I went back and said I was still suffering and she doubled the dose - it still didn't help - because these particular anti-depressants were never going to help with anxiety attacks.  It has taken me a very long time to come off them but I have been off them for about 2 weeks now and I feel f.a.n.t.a.s.t.i.c. - I can't remember how long it has been since I have felt this good.  Clearly, they were not helping me but rather making me feel worse.  I feel so much happier now that I am off them completely.  Now I am to work on what I can do about my weight because, although my outlook on life is happy, I am still really struggling to look at my body and love it.  I know that it looks like it does because of the medication but that really doesn't make it any easier to love it.  If only it wasn't this hard to do.

- I know that K and I went to see Slava's Snow Show last night and really enjoyed it.  We left home just after 5pm because we were expecting to hit traffic due to Origin being played at the same time - there was heaps of traffic up to Springwood and, at times it was a total car park, even though there was no accident or reason for it, go figure, and got up to Brisbane in time to have a bite to eat before taking our place on the balcony at the Lyric Theatre.  We both laughed heaps - it was great.  Our only regret was not getting tickets down on the ground floor as there was heaps of interaction with the audience who were down there.  But it was still very entertaining.  If you get a chance to go and see it I would strongly suggest you go.

- I know that I had asked A and K not to tell me the score of Origin if they knew what it was because I wanted to get home and watch it without knowing the end result.  But, when we got into the car, K said she had looked up the score and did I want to know - I uuhmed and aaahed for a while and then, very tentatively said, yes OK.  And she looked at me with a deadpan face and said 14-0.  Well my heart sank - I knew that this was a do or die game from Queensland and I didn't want it to be a die game.  Then she broke into the biggest grin and said "To us" !! Little bugger !!!!!  Anyway, the second half had just started and so we landed up listening to it the whole way home - screaming and shouting when things got close or when it sounded like the ref had got it wrong - as you do !!!!  She was not going to stay at home but go straight to the house where she is house sitting - but we got home and she walked into the loungeroom, let Alfie and Rosie in and turned to me and said "Do you mind if I stay tonight ?"  Of course I didn't mind so we both put our PJ"s on and settled down on the couch to watch Origin, which, by that time, we knew we had won.  I'm not so sure I would have sat down to watch it if we had lost !!!!!!

- I know that planning a holiday when you don't live together is a little difficult - no matter how many phone calls you make, there is always something you forget to check and have to make another phone call to confirm !!  But the up side now is that I have booked our flights, car hire and insurance - so just let anyone try to stop us from going !!!  We are going to Tasmania from 12th - 28th August.  Now I need to get working on finding us some accommodation ! (And, if there is anyone out there who has some suggestions to make - please feel free to let me know if there are things you would recommend we do / see / go to or places we should (or shouldn't) stay.)  Very loosely - we land in Launceston - spend the night there - drive through to Cradle Mountain for a night - through to Strahan for two nights with a cruise on the Gordon River - then down to Hobart for 4-6 nights - going to Salamanca Markets, Port Arthur, Bruny Island, then up to Freycinet for a night and up the east coast for a night - back to Launceston - then down through the middle of Tasmania to Bothwell before going back up to Launceston and home.

Thank you again to Miss Cinders for a great linky for a Friday (actually it's a great linky for any day of the week but Friday is an especially good day because that means it is nearly time for the weekend !!!)

What do you know today ?

If you know something, have you linked up ?

If you haven't, how come ?

It isn't too late to link in you know.

TFTD : As long as you're breathing it's never too late to do something meaningful. (Ain't that the truth ?)

Welcome To My Pity Party

Welcome to my pity party - please feel free to leave at any time !!!!  I do try to post entries that are up beat but tonight I feel like I need to keep a record of where I am at now so that I can look back and realise just how far I have come - because I know I will get out of this funk.  I know that I will get back to being who I know I am - and it isn't the anxiety ridden, over whelmed, irritable, sooki lala witch that I seem to be more often than not lately. 

I don't want to be blaming menopause for everything but right now it is all that I can put this down to.  A suggested I embrace menopause instead of fighting it - he nearly got a black eye for that comment !!!  Who the hell would want to embrace the symptoms I described here (and these aren't even all the symptoms !!!) ?  But I have since calmed down a little and realised that maybe he is onto something there.  Maybe if I embrace it and welcome the changes, they will hurry up and leave (I can always hope can't I ?).

The reason for wanting to document this is because after K was born I suffered with PND.  It was ugly.  It was 20 years ago and nobody talked about it.  Nobody mentioned the "D" word.  I was embarrassed because I was supposed to be the super wife, super mom, super worker, super daughter and I was in the psychiatric ward of a hospital on a daily drip talking to a psychiatrist.  The sad (or maybe not so sad bit) is that I can't really remember what it was like.  I remember lying in bed with I don't know how many other people in the ward, thinking that they were looney's and why was I here ?  I remember A and my folks bringing K in to see me and us being allowed to sit in an empty private ward so I could play with her.  I remember how, every morning, they would soak my hand in a tub of hot water before putting the drip in and how cold the drip was.  If I remember correctly, they did this for a couple of hours every morning.  I can't remember how long I stayed in hospital.  I don't know how long I was off work for because I went back to work when K was 4 weeks old and I know that it was some time after that before the depression hit got the better of me.  I do remember A telling work that I was in hospital for testing for hayfever - heaven forbid we should mention that bloody "D" word to anyone.  I am positive that everyone at work knew.  We just didn't want to admit it to ourselves because we were supposed to be the perfect little family.  I wish I could remember more about it so I would know if that was where I am heading now or whether it is not as bad as that.

I know that right now work is over whelming.  I have 6 companies that I am trying to close for year end.  Tomorrow is 19 days into the new financial year and I still don't have the budgets for all the  companies finalised.  I know that on 8th August, I will leave work in time to get to the hair dresser at 6pm and I will not go back until 27th August which effectively means that I have to get July month end finished in record time - a doable task in a normal month but made so much more difficult because I haven't got the budgets / month end spreadsheets set up yet due to above delay !!!

I know that right now I miss A not being here but, the poor bugger, when he is here, his snoring drives me INSANE - so much so I have taken to sleeping on the couch if he is at home (which I don't mind too much because it is very comfy but I HATE sleeping alone and would prefer to go to sleep and wake up next to him instead of by myself on the couch).
I know that right now I spend more time feeling like I am going to burst into tears than I'd like.  I am not normally an emotional person.  I don't like to feel that I am going to lose it at any moment during the day - but I do.  Luckily I have managed to keep it together and not fall apart at work.

I know that right now I spend lots of time feeling anxious - again, this is not a feeling that I am used to.  While I have spent many years faking a self confidence or bravado that I don't feel, lately I have had feelings of anxiety about unknown issues because I can't put my finger on what it is that is making me anxious.   Except today.  Today it was having to do a huge reconciliation for the bank because the lady who normally does it was off sick.  The stuipd thing was that, while I have only done it once before in December last year, I knew that if I just took it logicallly, I would get it done.  And I did - but I spent most of the time having blood heart palpitations as well !!!!!  I was also anxious about the management meeting which we had after I had finished the reconciliation - I have to do the minutes and I hate doing them.  Nobody sticks to the agenda - they jump around the damn thing which makes it difficult to follow and keep track of what we have discussed and what we haven't - in the end I reckon we did about 30% and then it was time for one manager to go to a medical appointment and the director to leave to get her children from school, so off they went and I went back to trying to keep the other ladies job ticking over while she is off sick and getting further behind in the work that I need to do.

I know that right now I battle to concentrate for any period of time on a particular task.  My mind wanders and I lose focus.  Right now, I cannot read a book if my life depended on it.  I used to read 6-8 books a fort-night - now I am lucky if I can read 1 book in a month.  I cannot follow the story, I forget who the characters are, I can't remember the plot - it's awful !

I know that right now, when A is at home, he and K can drive me nuts with the bickering that they get into with each other.  Why can't they just both be nice to each other ??????  The worst is that it upsets me and I take it to heart and, when I do come through to the loungeroom after banishing myself to the bedroom to get away from their squabbling, they are over it and chatting or watching TV together and I am the one stewing on it !!!!

I know that right now I am not happy with the food I am eating or the exercise I am not doing.  On the exercise front I am waiting for my orthotics because, all of a sudden, I am of the opinion that if I run without them I am going to damage my knees to the point where I can't run anymore or am I just being lazy ???????  To be honest, I'm not sure.  My head definitely isn't in the right space to worry about what I am eating - I really just want to feed my face with comfort food - probably not the best thing I can do for myself because when I eat chocolates, biscuits, crisps etc - I feel cr*p but they are the easy options and that is sad.  I have come so far with my weight and now it seems to be getting away from me.  I have to make a decision soon - if I don't do anything about my weight, I will not be able to fit into my jeans as well as thermals in NZ - and I will be FREEZING !!!!!

I know that right now I am on anti-depressants which the doctor advised will help with balancing my hormones - maybe she sees more of where I am at than I do but she didn't want to say I was depressed.  I don't know.  I do know that I can't wait for them to kick in and then maybe I can get my act together and move forward in a positive way rather than this moping around which is all I seem to be capable of right now.

TFTD : The best achievement in life is doing something you think you can't do.