Ups and Downs and Loneliness

Gratitudes:

1. Good friends who always seem to recommend the right books at the right times.
2. Tea Runners subscription tea service because OMG THIS TEA IS AMAZING PEOPLE!
3. Ylang Ylang essential oil diffusing through my house.

I'm gonna be honest, I've had a lot of ups and downs lately. Some of it I blame on the weather and the stupid ass spring we've been having. March was warm like April. April was by turns hot and cool with rain. May, I don't even want to talk about it. 

While I can use weather as a gauge for how intense my pain and/or brain fog will be, weather isn't the only thing that can cause me to flare. Here is a short list of other things that contribute:

• Eating foods known to have inflammatory properties such as the nightshade fruit and veggies, dairy, gluten/wheat, sugar, artificial sweetener, etc. 
• Stress. Any type of stress. 
• Over exerting myself. 
• Sunshine. I'm basically allergic to sunshine thanks to some of the meds I'm on, so spending time in the sun wears me out and can make me feel sick.
• Poor quality sleep.

The worst thing about all of this? The fact that making plans to see people must be tentative or last minute. So I spend a lot of time in the house with Velcro Dog, practically counting the minutes until A gets home. It's lonely. I feel like I've lost people in my life because of this. Or, I feel as though I'm now THAT person who always cancels last minute and if I'm going to get together with someone it's going to be because I reach out first. 

It's exhausting being the person to reach out. You know this. I know you do. You have people in your lives who you wouldn't see unless you reach out time and time again. Sometimes you sit and wonder if it's worth continuing to reach out. And sometimes the answer is no, it's not worth it. 

I'm not judging anyone or looking for sympathy. We all have people in our lives who are THOSE people. Sometimes we are THOSE people. We all have to take care of ourselves, and sometimes that means letting some relationships fade. 

That said, if you know someone who has physical or mental health issues that make it difficult for that person to get out and be with people, maybe shoot them a text to see how they are doing. Send them an email. Reach out via Facebook. Reaching out doesn't need to infer getting together. It's asking how someone is doing and meaning that you truly want to know. And listening.  

I'm writing this to myself as much as to the world at large. I haven't been the best at reaching out much at all this year in general. Whether it's because I'm just tired of the whole dance or whether it's because it's been a crappy year so far and I'm not in the best headspace most of the time, I don't know. What I do know is that by not reaching out to people I genuinely care about I'm part of my own problem. 

Well, if you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with this post. It's not my most cohesive writing. And I'm seriously NOT looking for sympathy. I'm a big girl. I'll figure my life out. It's more a friendly reminder that sometimes there are real reasons for people to be less active, or to seem to fall off the face of the earth. And this doesn't mean they are upset with you or have become hermits. So if someone crosses your mind, reach out. Let them know you miss them, that you're thinking of them. And if you're feeling it, ask them if there is anything you can do to help. Of if they would like some company. 

This has been an incoherent rant by Naomi, sponsored by Insomnia. When you want to feel really bad about yourself, choose Insomnia. The better self-confidence inhibitor!

Photo by Danilo Virotta via Flickr (CC Atribution-Sharealike 2.0)

Melancholia and Me

Gratitudes:

1. Looking at the rain from our newish porch. It's fantastic!
2. The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu - they are amazing men with a shared message of joy and compassion.
3. Rawhides. They are for dogs what the TV is for small children. Don't judge!

I'm not going to lie, it's been a rough week. As I have stated before on this blog, I have situational depression, which means I have short term depressive episodes that are triggered by circumstance or situation. While this is not clinical depression, it does share symptomology: depressed mood, feelings of hopelessness, crying, changes in sleep, changes in appetite, etc. It can lead to major depression if the situational depression isn't addressed.

I am also naturally more melancholy in mood. Melancholia is not depression, as Eric G. Wilson explores in his book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy:

There is a fine line between what I’m calling melancholia and what society calls depression. In my mind, what separates the two is degree of activity. Both forms are more or less chronic sadness that leads to ongoing unease with how things are — persistent feelings that the world as it is is not quite right, that it is a place of suffering, stupidity, and evil. Depression (as I see it, at least) causes apathy in the face of this unease, lethargy approaching total paralysis, an inability to feel much of anything one way or another. In contrast, melancholia (in my eyes) generates a deep feeling in regard to this same anxiety, a turbulence of heart that results in an active questioning of the status quo, a perpetual longing to create new ways of being and seeing.

Please know that I'm not attempting to minimize clinical depression. This is a very real dark shadow that sucks a person down into their own quiet hell. It is a straight jacket, the darkest night, a twisted tunnel of reality that is loathe to let a person go. Clinical depression requires therapy and medication and a lot of support.

This week's lows stem both from my melancholia and situational depression. What has happened to trigger this depressive state? I couldn't pinpoint one single event. I haven't changed jobs, ended a relationship. The only changes that have taken place in my life is that summer has moved into autumn and the two year mark of not working due to health issues has come and gone. I haven't worked in two years. I'm no closer to being able to work than I was then. In fact, I think things have worsened over the last few months.

That may be why I have sunk beneath the waters of melancholy and lay in the pool of short term depression.

Knowing what's going on within my body - physical, emotional, spiritual - means I'm more likely to be able to do something to help myself. Sometimes it's watching Doctor Who or Star Trek. Other times it's getting outside and being out in nature. Sometimes it's getting together with a good friend who loves me, quirks and all. Sometimes it's therapy.

Today, it was figuring out why I feel so low and then writing about it. I have named it. I can now regulate it (inside joke with Claire, but true nonetheless).

There are things I can do toward my health issues. I know this. I've been lax in doing many of them. I got tired of the supplements and the diet restrictions. I started to slip while on vacation in July and kept right on slipping once I got home. My sleep hygiene could use some tightening of routines. I could move my body more.

And I can let myself feel low, feel sadness, frustration, hopelessness. I can sit in these feelings and let them wash over me, through me. I can seek to answer what triggered this round of depression and increase my distress tolerance and my skills. I can let the emotions wash away a layer of myself that no longer fits.And  I can come out the other side being a bit better version of myself.

It's okay to feel low. To be melancholy. It's normal to be so thrown by a life event that you temporarily feel suffocated by depression. This doesn't make me a freak of nature, unlike what my brain continues to try to tell me. It makes me normal. It makes me...me. 

Photo by: Seth Stoll