Two winters ago I had mild depression and anaemia. It would take me half an hour to make my bed. I lived in a house with no heating, so I spent most of winter huddled over a fan heater and crying. I was tired and lethargic and I hated it.
Last winter I was depressed again, far worse than the previous year. It would have taken me half an hour to make my bed if I'd been at the point where I was even able to think about doing any kind of housework. I was tired and lethargic and I didn't care.
Now it's nearly June and the weather is getting cold. A few days ago I realised I was starting to slide into some pre-depression behaviours. I'm tending towards avoiding contact with people; I haven't been to church in four weeks; I'm finding cooking to be more of an effort than normal so I'm not eating well; my general anxiety levels have increased; I'm not sleeping much; I'm occasionally bad tempered and I'm sometimes having trouble making decisions.
This sounds like a bad thing, but actually it's good news... because this is the first time I've been able to recognise the signs that might lead to depression before becoming depressed. Life might still be a bit of a struggle as the weather gets colder but I don't think I'll be depressed this winter. Things are looking up.
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Last winter I was depressed again, far worse than the previous year. It would have taken me half an hour to make my bed if I'd been at the point where I was even able to think about doing any kind of housework. I was tired and lethargic and I didn't care.
Now it's nearly June and the weather is getting cold. A few days ago I realised I was starting to slide into some pre-depression behaviours. I'm tending towards avoiding contact with people; I haven't been to church in four weeks; I'm finding cooking to be more of an effort than normal so I'm not eating well; my general anxiety levels have increased; I'm not sleeping much; I'm occasionally bad tempered and I'm sometimes having trouble making decisions.
This sounds like a bad thing, but actually it's good news... because this is the first time I've been able to recognise the signs that might lead to depression before becoming depressed. Life might still be a bit of a struggle as the weather gets colder but I don't think I'll be depressed this winter. Things are looking up.
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5 comments:
Good news!! Its great that you are recognising the signs!!
Maybe a trip to sunny QLD this winter will lift your spirits?!
Sunny, flood-ravaged, declared-a-disaster-area-by-the-govt Qld? Sure... I'll bring my boat! :D
Yeah, THAT Queensland! Welcome!
I think I remember that you weren't blogging during those winters, were you? This time you've got a support network :)
I used to get my panic attacks more often in Summer. The warmer weather would sniff around your ankles and I'd start feeling a little unsettled ...
Thank God (literally) that that's a thing of Summers past. May depression be a thing of Winters past for you!
I was blogging during those winters but I didn't have many readers. Also I did a cull a while ago and deleted a lot of depression entries because they were... depressing. I kept them as Word docs but I don't want to read them.
I have a great support network now. And I have to say, you Queenslanders are awesome! I think at different points I've received emails from all of you checking in on me and letting me know that you're praying for me. (Of course, when I say "all of you" I mean all the Queenslanders who read my blog. I don't mean everyone single person in Qld.)
It's funny the way our minds and bodies work, huh? My anxiety attacks happen almost exclusively at night, either just as I'm going to sleep or they wake me in the middle of the night. Why that time? I have no idea. I had an incident the other night where I was lying in bed with chest pain, utterly confused about it because I had none of the other anxiety symptoms that usually accompany it. Then I realised it was indigestion! It cracked me up but I didn't blog about it because I thought there are so few people who would get why it's funny. :)
Hey, great that you can recognise the signs now. That is progress. I'm certain that moving to Qld would be a much better option, even if some parts of the state have a few issues at the moment. At least we don't get huge bushfires! (Mainly because it doesn't rain in winter here - err... well, it's not SUPPOSED to).
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