Archive for Depression
Moments of BING!
Posted by: | CommentsMy past three therapy sessions have been a little frustrating: all talk, no action. Usually, I walk in, we check in, we work a little PSYCH-K magic. I have an epiphany or two and leave feeling good, like I accomplished something. (Because if I’m not fixing something I’m not working.) My epiphanies are BINGs! in my head.
The BINGs! are like sonar beeps: They indicate I’ve hit something important located in the depths of who I am, some belief that’s keeping me stuck, or delivering something into my life that I don’t want.
I live for the BINGs. I love the BINGs. The BINGs are why I pay money for therapy.
Three weeks ago, somehow we got on the topic of my ex. Ugliness ensued. Turns out, I’m still pissed off. I don’t love him. I don’t want him. If not for Lauren I’d be happy not to ever hear/see/talk to him again. So I’m completely detached from him.
And yet, attached. Nails and teeth dug in kind of attached.I spewed for an hour, she chimed in on occasion (I hate those therapists who refuse to engage. Judi’s ‘s good at telling me what she thinks when I ask her.) I left all riled up, unsettled and unsatisfied. No magic happened. No bings (even quiet ones).
Last week, we were back on the topic of my ex. I talked about how he accused me of cheating well before I ever did, and explained how I put on weight on purpose to make myself invisible to other men and to provide a physical barrier against his mean jibes.We talked about what core beliefs may be at the bottom of my difficultly dropping weight and keeping it off, and then I left. It was a good conversation, and yet, there was no fixing. Maybe a couple of faint bings. Therapy fail? Maybe, but probably not. Excavation was the word of the day.
Judi gave me homework of writing a letter to him, pouring out all of the feelings onto paper (not here), as a first step of letting go. I’ve been thinking about the letter a lot, but I have not been able to write a word. I’m stuck. Like most of the time in that marriage, my voice is stuck in my throat. I cannot speak to him about these feelings, even though he’d never read the letter.
Yesterday, I confessed this. And soon, I realized that the hate and anger is built upon a foundation of jealousy and competition.
A brief aside: A psychic once told me that he and I were siblings in a past life who competed for our father’s attention and favors, and in this life we were continuing that storyline. That certainly describes much of our relationship. (Yes, I do believe what readers have to tell me. I also believe in past lives.)
I not only need to compete with my ex, but to beat him in the game of life and parenting. If I can’t beat him, then I’ll push him down, even if it means holding myself back. The goal is to hurt him since it’s very unlikely that he will ever tell me I’m justified in my anger and jealousy, or that he’ll ever admit that he has what he has because of me (oooh, I believe that deep in my gut), or apologize for not supporting me in my dreams, or apologize for my fall down the socioeconomic ladder during and after our divorce.
I’ll piss him off every time he has to write the child support check. I’ll make sure I always need the financial support by never making more money than he does so he can remember that he OWES me every single month, even if he only has to pay me $5.
I realized that I experience jealousy and competition with my ex as POWER over him, and if I let go I believe I will lose the footing I’ve gained with him. Illogical, yes, and visceral and true, too.
BING! Core belief alert: If I stop competing with my ex, stop hating him, stop the anger and the jealousy, I will be powerless against him.
I realized that at the end of my first marriage, I had the lifestyle I wanted: the big house, the $50,000 car, travel when we wanted, never any worries about money. Not to mention that I could have all of this and work only 16 hours a week, leaving me plenty of time with my daughter and for me. However, the relationship was awful, I had no sex life, and I had no self esteem.
I do not believe that I will ever reclaim the lifestyle I had if I’m with Steve. Yet we have the best relationship I’ve ever experienced. We communicate. We kiss and make up. I can be wrong and screw up and be a bitch (on occasion) and even depressed, and APOLOGIZE to him, and keep my standing in the relationship. (Who knew?) I love him so much. Our sex life? Too hot for my blog. My self esteem actually registers on a scale. Most days I like who I am.
The first marriage, I got the lifestyle I wanted but had to sacrifice having the relationship I wanted to get it. This time, I have the relationship I want, but have to sacrifice the lifestyle I want to have it.
BING: Core belief alert! I cannot be married and have everything that I want.
The conversation turned to my spiritual beliefs and how I came to believe what I believe. And as I told the story, I began to light up. I realized how far I’ve gotten from living what I believe. All of my struggles are eased when I see my life through the spectacles of my faith. But my point of view is not mainstream. In fact, it’s pretty New Age and Woo-Woo and Not Normal. And I am certain that if I lived my life from what I know is true that I would lose everything and spiral into abject poverty.
Let me say it again: ABJECT POVERTY and SHUNNING for being who I am.
BING: Because when I live my truth, I am utterly alone and unaccepted. And weird. And in abject poverty of all kinds.
Had it not been for the three weeks of talking about all of this, I wouldn’t have excavated these core beliefs, which were buried under all the gross, hard, stuck feelings. These beliefs (and maybe others) combine into the living, breathing dragon called The Resistance that keeps me from living my truth and having the life I want to have. Now that they’ve been laid bare, I can work on changing them using PSYCH-K.
BINGs! help me identify core beliefs that aren’t working, so I can write new ones.
In my next few therapy sessions, we’ll do core balances and other work to integrate these new core beliefs:
- When I am detached from my ex and release all competition, I am powerful and protected.
- I am married and I can have everything I want.
- When I live my truth, I am deeply connected and accepted and loved and rich in all measures.
I love this work, even when it feels like work. Please remind me next time when I’m complaining that it feels stalled that I’m not stuck. The sonar just may have to search deeper to find the next BING!
Final note about BINGs! and my very early Dance of Shiva practice and coincidences (which don’t exist).
This week, I started doing a new yoga-ish practice called the Dance of Shiva. I’ve now done watched the DVD and struggled through the very beginnings of this HARD and oddly flailing practice four times. Apparently, Dance of Shiva helps bring on the BINGs! Coincidence that this week, after being stuck, I am suddenly having BINGs? No such thing as coincidence.
Sprained & etc.
Posted by: | CommentsSprain
My Xrays of my foot today show nary a crack. The doctor was surprised because my foot? Looks broken. She thinks that I likely have bruised the bone and sprained the ligaments on the outside of my foot. I am so relieved, because a) I am not a hypochondriac and b) I don’t have to get a cast. I probably wouldn’t have been able to drive with a cast on my foot, and that would have created a huge pain in my ass.
The doctor told me to expect the injury to take 4 to 6 weeks to heal. She suggested I wear a heavy, flat-soled shoe until it does heal–hello hiking boots with dresses! (Do I live close enough to Boulder to pull it off? Can I stop shaving my legs to get the full effect?) Other than that, all I can do is keep it elevated, ice it and keep taking anti-inflammatory meds.
Oh, and stay off of it. Yahoo.
It’s all back
I had to get on the scale at the doctor’s office today. And I am now officially disappointed in myself. Since the wedding, I have put on 12 pounds. TWELVE. I am now back at the weight I was after Lauren was born: 195. That’s 35 pounds over the “ideal” weight for my frame. Fuck. Two years ago I was 25 pounds lighter. Four years ago I was 40 pounds lighter.
Did I say FUCK? Goddamn it. Fucking bullshit. Grrrrr.
My muddled brain is partially to blame for this situation. My naturopath changed up my thyroid medication, adding compounded T3 and lowering the Synthroid dose in the hopes of helping my seasonal depression. (There is evidence that T3 plays a strong role in neurotransmitter development, and since I’m chronically low in that hormone, it may explain my chronic depression.)
Well, I took the new T3 pills for a month, then forgot to refill it. For five weeks, I was taking about 2/3 of the dose I need to be healthy. I figured it out right before Christmas, when I had a horrible, bleak, black day. Spikes of depression are a signpost that my thyroid hormones are insufficient, as are extreme sugar cravings. (That day I ate 2 tubes of Sweettarts, washed down by a 20-oz bottle of Coke was signpost #2.)
Another sign: weight gain. I noticed my clothes were getting tighter despite the fact that I haven’t had appetite to eat much. I refilled the prescription and have been taking it religiously twice a day since New Year’s Eve.
The bummer is that while it’s very easy for me to put on weight when my thyroid is out of whack, it’s not been easy to take it off even when my levels are good. Couple that with “the season”–even though it’s been better this year in terms of mood, I still have zero motivation for anything–and I am in a state of near-despair over this development. The idea of taking off at least 20 pounds feels insurmountable. Usually, any declaration that I am going to lose 10 – 15- 20 pounds is met with a weight gain. I believe it’s difficult and so it is. (Here’s to more PSYCH-K work on this belief.)
So now, I have to think of a new way to do this weight loss thing. I’m tempted to try Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig. Do any of you have any experience with one or the other?
Until my foot heals, I’m somewhat sidelined in terms of exercise: everything hurts. My one idea is to redirect the money I’ve been putting into our salsa group into Pilates Reformer classes at my gym. The only way I’ve ever lost weight (besides being sick) is to build up muscle mass first, then cut fat. The other way around — lots of cardio, calorie slashing — usually puts fat on me.
What’s interesting about this situation is that while I’m disappointed, for the first time EVER I do not feel all judgey and ashamed of myself. Also, even though the fat on my body is not pretty, I’m not looking at myself in the mirror with hatred as I have in the past.
Black
In my gratitude list yesterday, I wrote that my depression has been hovering in the 5-6 range. Did I jinx myself? Because this morning, it spiked to a 9.
I got up, showered, put on glittery eye makeup (which usually lifts me up) and got dressed. But I couldn’t leave the house. The thought of facing my office and my work caused my chest to constrict.Depression and anxiety go hand in hand for me.
I logged onto my email and sent my boss a note that I wouldn’t be in today. Then, I spent the whole day feeling guilty about not being at work, but at the same time being completely unable to concentrate on anything for more than 10 minutes. I tried to watch a movie, read, play on the computer, write the Last Decade, 2006 version, to no avail.
I did get to the doctor and stopped at Starbucks for a chai, but I felt uncomfortable and exposed the whole time I was out of my house. When I got home, I went to bed for three hours until Steve came home.
I’m trying to cut myself a break on days like this, to listen to the judgey, paranoid voice in my head and tell it I’m hearing it (“We are going to get fired!” “We are going to get in trouble with the ex!” “We are going to hurt our marriage!”), but I don’t have to agree with what it says.
I’m trying to be gentler to myself, rather than attempting to kill off the alien that tends to run me this time of year. That’s a change from all previous seasons. I have my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be better. As my friend Jessica reminded me on Twitter today, what goes down must go up again.
Best of ’09: Unsung Hero #best09
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I’ve done a lot of therapy in the past five years since my divorce. Each therapist had his or her place, and was right for who I was and where I was at those points in time. They took me as far as I could go then, helping me to learn both how to understand and articulate my emotions, which were skills I did not learn growing up.
Each of my previous therapists got me to the big sticking point, and that my friends is called forgiveness. Forgiving my mothers, and my father, and myself, and my ex. Forgiving the people along my path who hurt me deeply and profoundly. Forgiveness is the wall I have yet to climb. I reach it and stop short. I know that when I master this wall, my life will open up. I’ve never been at the point where I am energetic enough, or brave enough, or whatever enough to begin the ascent.
Or perhaps, I haven’t had the right tools.
A few days ago, I wrote about 2009 being the year of working out my shit. I feel that I’ve made a lot of progress and had multiple epiphanies about what core beliefs have been running me and my relationships with other people–and not in a healthy way. Slowly but surely, I’ve been letting go of these unhealthy beliefs and replacing them with new ones using a psychological process called PSYCH-K.
A good friend turned me on to my current therapist, Judi Spendelow, LCSW (there, I’ve violated HIPAA myself), and I clicked with her immediately. Judi is a psychospiritual therapist who uses a variety of techniques and modalities to help heal self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors. She doesn’t use a lot of tell-me-more-about-how-you-feel-about-it therapy. Instead, she uses these practical tools and systems that, you may need to be a little open-minded for. I was open and willing, and PSYCH-K has been changing my life belief by belief since May 2009.
This summer, we worked on silencing the critic that tells me I’ll never be good enough or perfect enough so I shouldn’t even try. We also worked on banishing my mother from my head–and if the great time I had with her on Friday night is any indication–her banshee voice has been cleared some. (Still some work to do in that area). Judi and her techniques have been the key to my growth this year, and will continue to be key parts of my healing my bipolar issues without the use of drugs.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be working on me letting go of the core belief that I am broken because of my genetic propensity towards mental illness, and therefore no treatment will give me relief. There are other issues to clear, such as this tidbit I gleaned from my subconscious last week as I sat in whole mind position: Because as a child I was never allowed to express a full range of emotions, my body has developed the down part of my cycle–severe winter depression–in order to process the stuff I accumulate during the rest of the year. And because our energetic systems always seek equilibrium, I’ve manifested a manic cycle in August that worsens each year as my seasonal depression worsens. Since the PSYCH-K process is about replacing what you don’t want with what you want, I’m working on the precise language for what it is I want. I’ve found that because words are so important to me, only precise language works in these exercises.
Eventually, we will come to forgiveness work. Even though I don’t know that I will ever be ready for tackling forgiveness, because to be honest, if I no longer have my resentments and others to blame and pain, then who am I , really? And how can I make excuses after that point for not becoming who I am supposed to be (which scares the shit out of me)? How can I cling to the level to which I have risen in my life–safe, secure enough, not the best, not the worst, just above the middle of the pack? I will have to give up that security net of victimhood and truly live what I know is true. If anyone and anything will help me climb this wall–or maybe just bust it down–it will be Judi and PSYCH-K.
I do not believe in coincidences, and I do not believe that guides appear in our lives until we are ready for them. I was ready for Judi when I found her, and with her guidance I am opening my life to greater possibilities. And that’s why she’s my unsung hero of 2009.
Blogger Extraordinaire Gwen Bell has issued a blogging challenge for each day of December–a “Best of” for 2009. I’m joining in as I have time and as the topics interest me.
Best of ’09: Word or Phrase: Working out my shit #best09
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Hayman Fire burnline, on a random roadtrip from Deckers to Manitou Springs.
In 2009, I turned 40. It seems remarkable to me, that number. It’s solid, the mile marker smack dab in the middle of my road trip called this life.
The first part of any road trip is filled with moments of my settling in, figuring out the best place for my sunflower seeds, selecting the best CDs or playlist, moving the cooler around until it’s firmly in the middle of the backseat. I usually find myself taking more pit stops in the first half of a long road trip. I look around more. I worry about getting there–wherever ‘there’ is–safely and on time.
The first half of a road trip feels like a dress rehearsal for the second half, the time where you really sink into the seat, elbow on the ledge of your open window, and sing over the wind at the top of your lungs even when the hot guy in the convertible pulls up beside you. Who cares what he thinks anyway. This is your trip, not his.
Someplace in the middle of my roadtrips, I usually stop, stretch my legs, get my bearings, and settle back in. I do a little reorganization, toss the empty soda cans in the garbage, work the knots out of my back. That’s exactly what this year has been like. I’ve been working my shit out, often in public here on this blog.
- I’ve been doing therapy weekly since May, using PSYCH-K techniques to unearth and resolve deep-held beliefs about myself and life. Some of the work as been successful, other parts not so much, but the fact that I’m dedicated to this journey to the point of spending 7% of my monthly income on it tells me this time around–because boy, have I tried this before–I’m ready to resolve and let go.
- I got married, throwing my lifetime fear of abandonment out the window as I said I DO to Steve. I am so committed that I even changed my name, something I didn’t do the first time around.
- I became committed to figuring out the best way to deal with my bipolar disorder–the best way for ME that is.
- I have become much better at quickly coming to understand how I feel and why I feel it. Where it used to take me days or even weeks to get it, now I can usually get to it in one conversation, or one blog.
- I decided that yes, I will write the novel. Nothing’s on paper yet, but the outline’s almost done in my head. And, because I am nuts, I also have started thinking about a second novel, to be written under my pen name, which will be an erotic romance. 2010 will be the year I actually write these books, now that the process doesn’t seem insurmountable. I still have some confidence issues to work out, but those will come by starting the damn things.
- I started taking pictures again. I love taking photos, and while I want to get better, I’m willing to ask questions and look dumb and have a lot of failures along the way. I’m hoping that someday I can make a buck or two on my work, either by taking portraits or selling calendars (ha!). But for now, I love that I have a hobby I can play in minus the need to be the World’s Greatest.
- I have written more this year than ever before, thanks to this blog. Yes, yes, sometimes I’m funny (by accident) and other times I’m downright depressing, and the Days of Grace project has become tedious for me, and maybe even for the 50 people or so who read this every day. However, I have been writing. And not writing was part of the shit I wanted to work out this year.
- I stopped trying to lose weight. Since I’ve been dieting in one way or another for most of my life, deciding that if my body wants to be a size 12, so be it, took more weight off me than South Beach or Atkins or fasting ever did. Figuratively, of course, because I’m still a size 12. However, this morning, when I looked at my naked body in the mirrors, I was fine with what I saw. This time last year, I looked pretty much the same, and I hated what I saw.
- I started to heal my relationship with my sister, which has been estranged for the most part since she was born.
- I have become a better, more loving mother to my daughter.
- I’ve mastered the double spin in salsa dancing.
- I’ve learned to better speak my mind even when it’s uncomfortable to do so.
- I’m still a slob, although I have had moments of neatness.
If you follow numerology at all, you understand that life comes in cycles. Numerologists say that those cycles are 9 years long. For me, 2009 was a 1 year–a year of rebirth, and of continuing to let go of what I started to let go of in year 9. I’m halfway through it, and I can feel the momentum for my next new adventure building inside and outside of me. I will continue to work on my depression, my perfectionism, my body image and identifying goals and values so that I can launch myself into whatever comes my way with a new vision of who I am and where I’m going on the second half this roadtrip called my life.
Blogger Extraordinaire Gwen Bell has issued a blogging challenge for each day of December–a “Best of” for 2009. I’m joining in as I have time and as the topics interest me.
Word.
Posted by: | CommentsRevivification. That’s the word I read in today’s New York Times article about Big Pharma and menopause drugs. Now, the story was interesting, but the word was fascinating. Fresh. Fun.
Say it with me: Revivification. Kind of makes you feel all bubbly inside, doesn’t it? All of those Vs vibrating your lower lip, giving you little burst of, well, life.
Being schooled heavily in greek and latin prefixes and suffixes in AP English (thanks, Mrs. Pohlman), I immediately knew what this word meant, but I give you the dictionary.com definition:
Restoration to life, give new life to, revive, reanimate.
The sentence in which the Times used revivification described hormone replacement therapy–Premarin, specifically, which has been marketed to women of a certain age to ward off the next certain age, called OLD, to give them new life after “the change.” But today, for me, it was the perfect word to describe how I feel:Revivified.
On Friday, I saw no way out of the pain and despair that strangled me. Then, my naturopath, Dr. Rena Bloom, gave me a dose of argentum nitricum, a homeopathic treatment. She selected it after nearly 90 minutes of querying me about my depression: Do I want to be alone or with other people? (Alone, yet with others) Does crying make me feel better or worse? (Better) Does my impulsiveness to, say, drive really really fast come with a keen interest to know the experience of crashing into something as I sped along? (Yes) Do I feel rage? (Yes) Do I crave sweet or salt? (Both, with a slightly stronger craving for salt this week) What am I afraid of? (heights, spiders to a point of phobia, equally failure and success to the point of fearing getting started on anything) What is my sleep like? (Deep, vivid dreams, yet I awaken feeling like I’ve only slept 5 minutes) And other questions that my MD never would have cause to ask me.
Dr. Bloom prefaced her prescription with a statement about her lack of expertise for using homeopathy with patients with deep-seated, genetically based psychological illnesses such as my seasonally triggered manic depression. If this therapy failed to bring me relief, she would help me find a practitioner who is more adept, she said. And she welled up. “I really want to make you feel better,” she said. Her deep empathy for me made me shed my own tears. I feel for certain that she is an angel on my path. Then she asked me to open my mouth and tossed in two capfuls tiny white beads. I let them dissolve under my tongue. She instructed me to take another dose in the morning if I didn’t get a good lift, and again on Sunday morning if I wasn’t feeling better.
I had acupuncture on Friday, which always gives me a little bump. When I started feeling slightly better–and by better I mean the tears weren’t constantly streaming down my face–around 6 pm on Friday, I credited the needles. Although I do respond well to other homeopathics–coffea cruda for racing thoughts and insomnia, tobaccum for motion sickness–this ancient remedy, which translates to Silver Nitrate, seems too easy a cure. I mean, how can a bunch of tiny pellets under my tongue cure THIS? The dark monster that has stalked me since I hit puberty.
Argentum nitricum has revivified me.
I do not know if my re-enlivenment is sustainable. I only know that yesterday, while watching a production of the Nutrcracker, I felt joy. Joy is not an emotion I typically feel easily this time of year, if at all. The feeling came during the Arab Dance, when dancer Meghan Coatney of Ballet Nouveau Colorado undulated beautifully on the stage. It’s always been my favorite piece, one of the roles I wanted growing up as a ballerina but never danced. As I watched her, I felt a pleasurable bubble move up through my chest into my throat, and tears spilled down my face. But unlike Friday’s continuous downpour, these tears were of pure joy. I looked at my 3-year-old niece, who was absolutely glowing as she watched the dancers, and joy bubbled up again. Until you know the depths of despair you cannot know joy, they say, and I understood that clearly this weekend.
Today, I had energy. I laughed. I played video games. I cooked dinner for the first time in I can’t remember–rather than just heating something up. I did not bite Steve’s head off. Today I feel good. April through July good. Last night, I slept soundly for more than 10 hours, and I woke up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. I haven’t felt this good for months.
It took two doses to get me here, and I admit that right now, I feel a little high. Buzzed, like from too much caffeine. I can feel the blood rushing through my veins. I feel the life inside me, which is 180 degrees from what I felt just 72 hours ago. I am doing my best to remain open to what happens from here, not quite willing to use the word cure, or even say I am healed. All I know is I am better.
And better is good enough for me.
Days of Grace: 252/365
Posted by: | Comments- Really fun times with my sister, my kids and my niece at Ballet Nouveau Colorado’s Nutcracker yesterday
- During which I felt actual, pure joy
- Two of the three games I picked out at Blockbuster were a hit, helping me narrow down the family Santa gift
- A new salsa partner who is going to be more than fine–probably somewhere around great. Bonus? He’s taller than me when I’m in 2.5 inch heels. Seriously, when you’re talking about a dance where most of the good dancers are about 5-6 in shoes, this is quite a find.
- I am keeping my fingers crossed, but the homeopathic treatment seems to have not only lifted my depression (which was at a 10 on Friday) but has me feeling like it’s about mid-April. Things that make you go hmmm.
Days of Grace: 251/365
Posted by: | CommentsToday was a black day, an I-can’t-get-out-of-bed day, a 2.5-hours-in-front-of-the-lightbox day. I did not go to work, called my boss in tears when, after 90 minutes, the lightbox didn’t give me the lift I need to get moving. These sunny days after a series of overcast ones, ironically, are the hardest. I crash and burn. I weep. Luckily, today I already had a therapy appointment with Judi. My acupuncturist had an opening at noon, and my naturopath had an opening at 3. I spent $400 on care today. I am exhausted. So it’s very tricky to feel grateful for anything. Except I have to. Days like today make my gratitude list a must-do. Mandatory.
- I picked up Lauren tonight. She is a wonderful daughter, and she loves me. And I love her.
- My naturopath spent 2 hours with me, but charged me for 1. She poured over her homeopathy books, and in the end gave me a remedy with a hope and a prayer. And tears–hers–because she wants me to feel better, to not have to do THIS anymore, and she’s not sure she can help. When have you known a medical doctor who wanted to help you so much that s/he shed tears of empathy? Dr. Rena Bloom, whether she is successful in helping me or not, is an angel on my path.
- Rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, so I don’t have to cook.
- Realizing that somethings, like hot cocoa, are better (and almost as easy and fast) when they are made from scratch.
- I don’t have to think about work for at least 60 hours.
