It comes, it goes, it stays, it leaves...
My last weekend's post is fragmented with ups and downs, and therefore late because my mental health has been fluctuating, but knowing that writing helps, here it is.
Monday 18th January.
I'm feeling so so about the day
ahead. Neither good nor bad, neither despairing or excited, at least right now.
Right now I'm concentrating on the essentials: getting out of bed. Making the bed.
Showering. Drying my hair. Dressing for the day and packing up my rucksack.
Then there's the rush or swift pacing towards the train. And on the platform
beside me are hundreds of others who have just gone through all those same
things and probably more. They might have children to rouse and cajole and
chastise through all of those steps above, parents or other relatives to care
for, or perhaps they have already been up for hours exercising. (It is, after
all, still January.)
Last week I wrote a blog post for Mind on the so-called
and fictitious Blue Monday, explaining as clearly as I could that anyone with
with depression could be #blueanyday.
So here's a look at my week.
Monday last, I performed all of the above. With a new
year goal to try to be healthy and fit, with a hope that as a side effect I
would lose some of the two stone I've gained since breaking my back and being
on a cocktail of drugs, at least one of which appears to have beaten down with
a stick my ability to eat well, exercise regularly and manage (to a better
extent, at least) my weight.
I was extremely busy all day with a number of meetings
with team members, colleagues leading projects I'm involved with, my boss and
with others. On these days I know I won't have created a document (or
'deliverable', the word my business seems - inexplicably - to prefer) in my
hand at the end of the day, the management consultant's equivalent of a
painting to take home to mummy and daddy to put on the fridge with proud faces.
I rush around the building, knowing that I will certainly meet my daily target
of 10,000 steps as my meetings are randomly situated over the fourteen-storey
two-building expanse that is my office.
Working my brain into an oiled machine...it gets a little rusty over the weekends at time
There is a reason that I schedule all these meetings
together though. One after the other the meetings happen, and I take "a
mindful breath" before each one, and get through them. during the first I
might feel my gears or cognitive cogs creaking into life after the weekend of
luxurious lie-ins (till 7:45!). But as the first meets progresses my clanking
cranium starts to move more steadily and stronger, the oil of my breathing and
breakfast silently slithering around inside me so I start functioning properly.
My point is: once the wheels are turning, I want to keep going as much as I
can.
It's worth it to get my brain in gear and be productive
My mind is whirring eventually and I can actually think about each topic
on the agenda and bring something valuable into what we discuss. And my second
point is, that, I can't get any detailed work document compiled in a snatched
half hour where I should also try to grab my lunch. So, at the end of Monday I
feel surprised that it has arrived. I don't have anything in my hand to show
for it, to prove I've done anything worthwhile, except a notebook of actions and considerations; but I did get through the day,
which I always try to see as something positive these days, and attending so
many meetings in a way makes the most of my mental and physical energy reserves
to speak and contribute and to be in front of people.
My day can end with notes on a piece of paper,
but those notes lead to decisions and - finally - to 'deliverables'
I go home and eat something for dinner. Something
healthy, and watch television and then to bed. I didn't sleep properly on
Sunday night so today, I hope, things will be different.
Tuesday 19th January
Just keep going. Get dressed, and do the things that come after that.
Tuesday is usually the same, but last week a combination
of needing to spend a large amount of time on teleconferences with colleagues
in other locations meant I decided to stay at home. Without a three-hour round trip commute I can just get so much more done. Unfortunately I didn't sleep
well again, so I indulged in an additional 45 minutes in bed. Some attempt that
when I rose, finally, I would be able to push my mind into a state where I
could work. I had more listening to do rather than talking, more notes to take,
then, but also more time to be quiet even while listening to others talking.
The structure of Monday (with all its meetings stacked up) works for me, but I need both
company and solitude to balance my mental health, and time away from the office is a great way to be fully involved in my work but not exposed to the anxieties of travel, dressing up, all the above "start the day" activities. Plus, no one can see my face or any part of me; I could be
wearing my pyjamas or my jeans. (If I'm at home as I was for most of Tuesday,
I'll likely be wearing jeans, thick socks, a woollen t shirt, two jumpers, a
woolly snood, a rug-like scarf and a hat. Our central heating is either on and
not very hot or off. Either way sitting still for hours is not the best if you
want to stay warm.) the point of this alone time is to be able to carry on
working on terms that help my mental health not get in the way of progress.
I ended the day with a treat to see a film - Room - at
the cinema, alone. I love solo cinema trips, since it was always too late to
organise spontaneous visits with friends most weekends. Alone in the cinema I
can think whatever I want and it doesn't matter if others disagree. I won't
need to be polite and listen and broker my way through the discussion; it's
just me on my own in the dark watching a story unfold, and my review is in my
head, not open for discussion or critique.
Wednesday 20th January
Wednesday was similar in form to Tuesday. I spent my working
hours at home on calls and producing some documents in the time in between. I
can't remember whether I slept well on Tuesday night or not, but I suspect I
didn't. Somewhere along the way through Wednesday morning a combination of
feeling numb and feeling desperate seep in and I notice by lunchtime that I
feel like going to bed and not getting up for the rest of the day.
I wasn't overworked, I was overwhelmed by depression.
Not the same thing. It can happen through over work,
but I'm still working on understanding this skittish illness
Where does
it come from? I had therapy coming up later and so, so wanted to stay at home
and slip under the duvet away from everything and everyone in the world until
Mat finally got home. But the practical part of me somehow wrestled me into
boots and out of the door. I didn't enjoy the fresh air on the walk as I felt
the despair of myself - the self I cannot love - in spades. But I know that the exercise and air are natural remedies for better mental health. And luckily for me, it was beautiful. Rationally and unobjectionably beautiful.
The only thing I can think of ito explain what has become a regular mood dip is that the middle of the
week is when I have involved myself in the work equivalent of a mess of wool and knitting needles of
activity, and if I stop every stitch will perhaps unravel, or if I continue I
must be unrelenting in my commitment to progress. You can't make an omelette, etc. Perhaps that is it. It's the
second Wednesday in a row when I have felt like this. I can't remember if it
came on at the same time, but by the time I'm through with crying in therapy
and back at home in the evening, still crying, I did remember how it feels to
feel desperate and that things won't get better.
TV. Food. Sleep. I think the sleep worked this time. I
didn't have anxiety in my stomach and tingling all over me the next day. That's all I've got. So that has to be good enough.
Thursday 21st January
Thursday was unusual. I had to go to Tooting for a
hospital appointment and walked all the way there from home, rising very early, to try to use the
walking and fresh air I know - rationally - that I have to include in my life
for better mental health. My feet hurt by the time I arrived but I focussed
more on hope that my brain would be flooded with positive endorphins of the
exercise rather than the dull, murky and lumpy vessels of whatever chemicals
are causing my depression to come back and dip my mood again. I also wondered
whether two days at home consecutively had made me lonely, so I` don't know. I'm
just trying a lot of things I know are good for me and hoping for a better day
tomorrow if today is rubbish.
I had a reason to feel somewhat abnormal. I was nervous
about seeing my neuro-spinal surgeon a whole year after our last meeting. He is both a brilliant surgeon and a thoroughly nice man but I was terrified that I wouldn't be deemed fit and well to
have the screws taken out of my spine and afraid in equal measure that I would.
I had to call my health insurer to gain an authorisation code for the surgery
which is another worry for me, as the representatives are trained to the
precise words that come from their mouths to offer a balance of sympathy and
firmness, the latter in particular when one of them tells you that you aren't
covered for that and that there is nothing that they can do, even if you might
find your life at risk because of that seemingly irrational and quite silly
conclusion. (To be fair this has only happened once, for suspected sleep
apnoea.)
When I've got a lot on my mind, my thoughts
weight twice as much as my body
The rest of Thursday was part triumph and part
disappointment. There are so many days like that, where hour to hour I feel
elated one moment, but the next in a slough of despond. I had a couple of great meetings but also
several where no one showed up. If this happens once, great, I can use the time
to get things updated for one project or another, find the resources to fee
fulfilled. Three or four cancellations, though, and I'm slightly panicked that
I won't be able to achieve the things I was meant to, feeling sick. These things happen; I have to tell myself that, and that there's no reason that it's me.
This sometimes worries me...
I am, after all a control freak... so I can control scheduling the meeting,
but not who attends them!
Sunday 23rd January
Doing what I can to stay in the pink and out of the blue
So here's to another week of ups and downs that leave me somewhere along the narrow road to tomorrow. Take care. x
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