This past month or so really got to me, though.
Between familial issues, friends leaving for other schools, my own school problems, and my own health taking a downturn, things have just absolutely sucked.
The thing that really did the trick was my anemia getting out of control once again.
If you've been reading this blog for at least 3 years (which I highly doubt, since my life isn't all that interesting) you'll know that in 2010 I had to leave the University of New Haven due to a bad case of anemia.
My hemoglobin levels were down, my iron levels were down, my red blood cell count was down, the sizes of my red blood cells were inconsistent... I was a mess.
Worst of all, I had to leave college to recover, and lost my scholarship.
You can imagine how painful and upsetting that was for me. I didn't go back to school for a year, and instead moped around for 5 months until I finally got off of my butt and got a job.
Well, it happened all over again two weeks ago.
I started to nod off during class, had shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and dizziness. When it led to confusion that's when I got really scared... I quit my summer class, got a blood test, and sure enough my iron count was low again.
Once again, I fell into a period of feeling useless and upset. I started to stay up late, get up late, and generally do nothing.
This Monday was the final straw.
I stayed up until 5am, accidentally woke up Jon as I climbed into bed, and he couldn't fall back asleep. To make matters worse, he had to leave for class... On about 6 hours of sleep.
I felt so guilty for that, and told myself I had to start going to bed at a normal time... So I drugged myself to sleep with some ZzzQuil and somehow found myself sleeping for 13 hours.
Yesterday I had a psychiatric appointment.
I've had a psychiatrist for the past 7 years. Once again, if you've been reading this blog (which I doubt) you'll know that I've had major depressive disorder from approx. 2002-2008. I started getting psychiatric therapy in 2006, though of course I haven't had the same psychiatrist since. (I've had two.)
Even though I'm technically "better," you never really recover from depression 100%. You're still left with some emotional "scars," some painful memory triggers (which eventually just become annoyances rather than sources of pain), and of course, problems adjusting to being "normal" again.
One of my "scars" so to speak is a feeling of guilt when I don't live up to other people's, or even self-imposed expectations. That was a prevalent feeling when I was depressed, and I still react badly to it. (Of course, I just feel sad now, not an I-wish-I-would-die kind of feeling.)
I'm pretty sure it's guilt for having to quit my summer class, and that Jon is off doing something awesome every weekday that had me spiraling into a sort of mini-depression, so it was a relief to be able to blab to my psychiatrist about what had happened and what was going on.
The result of that appointment was a game-plan to help get me out of this spiral downward, and get back to being happy and proud of what I'm doing.
The plan is:
- go to sleep when Jon goes to sleep
- get up when Jon gets up
- when Jon is at class or at his internship, work on crafts or videos or anything useful
- NO NAPPING, no matter how tempting it may be
- make a blog post of my progress at the end of each day
Since I obviously am running out of time (Jon is already asleep, but he went to bed much earlier than usual) I'm going to make a blog post of the previous day's happenings each morning.
I hope that by following this "plan" I can stop feeling so useless. I know having this list given to me by my psychiatrist sounds kind of silly, and almost juvenile, but I've always held adults in high regard... So when an adult tells me to do something, I listen.
I know I'm technically an adult myself now, but I guess I mean I respect my elders.
And by elders I mean people older than me.
Or something.
Here's to hoping this works in the long run.... I feel a lot better today, to be honest.
That's a start.
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