Ups and Downs

I haven't been blogging as much recently. That's been because I've been struggling to maintain the progress I've made mentally and because I've been in a huge amount of physical pain off and on.

Despite my love of autumn and Christmas the colder weather is not my friend and I find myself struggling with badly with my chronic pain. In general I associate autumn and winter with the phrase "Holy crap! What it this bad last year?" to which the reply is always "Yes."

I forget in the spring and summer how much my pain is affected by the weather. Sure I'm in pain in the warm weather but it's not as crippling bad as it is in the cold months. That pain combined with the shock of it makes it very hard to deal with. I'm better at dealing with it this year. I sort of remembered that it was bad and emotionally was better able to deal with it. I've also been a lot more careful in pacing and balance.

I'm not trying to be supermom or superwife or anything like that, I'm acknowledging when I need help and asking for it. This last Thursday, for instance, I was cooking a roast chicken and was supposed to do mash with it*, I realized I was starting to struggle so I asked my in-laws to pick me up some pre made mash. I had already anticipated I was going to need some help so they were already planning on taking my son out for a couple of hours. Essentially I did everything I was supposed to in order to prevent a flare up.

So imagine how pissed off I was on Thursday night/Friday Morning to realize I was really bad pain...basically in a very bad flare.

But at least I wasn't angry with myself. I was angry with my body for betraying me but not with myself for being "stupid" something I usually beat myself up about.

It's been hard to remain positive, the bad days have sucked when I've had a panic attack or using should statements or when it's really bad emotional reasoning. The emotional reasoning for me seems to be along the lines of "I'm in pain, that must be because I'm a terrible human being." which of course is nonsense.

In some ways the hardest hit was acknowledging my habit of occasionally becoming fervently "spiritual" or religious and seeing meaning in everything is probably a symptom of mental illness. Part of "Mania" can be delusions. It's hard to swallow, but it makes sense why when I'm depressed or stable I tend towards atheism.

Taking that in mind I've embraced my atheism, but it's hard admit you were delusional. Mildly, but yes I was delusional.

So yes, I've been up and I've been down. That's not new, I've been up and down most of my life. The difference is that when I'm up now I feel really good and when I'm down I still have hope. I still maintain faith in myself, which is so far from where I was in January of this year.

Right now, my ups out weight the downs. Even through the pain.



*we were celebrating Thanksgiving

Medication

Awhile ago I was talking to a friend about depression. She mentioned she didn't want to be taking her pills as she didn't think she should have to rely on them. I understood that feeling because I have felt like that. But (as I told her) now I have a different view.

I view my anti-depressants the same way a person with...oh well lets say Type 1 diabetes views their insulin. I have an illness, my brain isn't producing certain chemicals correctly, I need medication to be well. The group counselling worked very well for me, but I still need medication and even then it's not plain sailing.

The last couple of weeks I've been up and down, most of the time I've been upbeat and happy but the bad days have happened and been very bad indeed. Not as bad as they were a year ago but bad enough to be worse than "normal" bad days. But I have more tools now and I have faith in myself that I can get past this. I know that depression lies to me now and even when it's convincing I don't trust it. I know that there is an end to it. But I still need my medication.

Medication isn't a weakness, it's a tool and (at least for me)a necessity.