It is my last day of vacation.  I work for a school so this year I have 6 weeks holidays.  It has been fun.  I have camped and sailed, bbqed some amazing meals ( well I bought and spiced, husband cooked- yummm) Tomorrow I head back to the office and dealing with 1200 teenagers, their parents and 100 staff members.  In someway I am looking forward to routine, in someway this means the end of the summer season, that makes me sad.  Not depression sad, but longing for warm days sad.  I love hot weather, the hotter the better. I don’t do cold well, and the thought of putting on jeans and dress pants  uggg!  It is what it is so adjust.

How have I been feeling?  I am still not sleeping well, in the past week I got 6 hours sleep one night, the most in a long time.  I average 3 to 4 most nights. I seem to get up and function.  I am not short with my kids, or husband.  I have been working like a dog these days, painting the house, gardening at home and at my church where they desperately need it.  I have done my fall cleaning and purged closets and dressers, moved furniture and cleaned the heck out of my house.  I am a clean freak, but in spurts.  I have anxiety over things not being clean, but a lot of the time I don’t give things a deep clean just a ‘hey that looks ok’ clean.  I have not been able to get back into a workout routine. Last week was good, this week I ran once and am too lazy in my mind to get out there.  But I will make up for that next week when I am back to work full time and organized again.

Self discovery this week?  I am really hard on myself.  I have come a long way in that I don’t feel quite so much shame in having depression.  Writing this blog and the response I have had from it has helped me realize that I am not alone.  Depression is so isolating, when I fall or am down I want to hide.  The mind is a crazy thing. I wear glasses.  I purchased dark rimmed glasses cause I figured that I could hide behind them.  Silly, because I think a dark plastic rim won’t attract the person’s attention to my face. (ya right!)  I have long hair, I wear it down and close to my face.  I change my profile picture on my BBM and Facebook to that of a guitar, cause I can’t look at myself.  I pull away and close off from people.  What I should be doing is opening up, drawing close to people, God, surroundings, make an effort to look open to people and not hide behind things.

Being hard on one’s self is also part of depression.  I think some males that I know ( not my husband)  feel that depression caused by menopause or just chemical inbalance is just  PMS gone crazy and don’t take the symptoms and the way the brain works as serious. I think they feel that its just a phase and it will pass but give no credit to the fact that there are psycological issues the person is dealing with outside of it just being a chemical imbalanced.  This makes me feel like the depression is my fault and I can do something to pull myself up at will.  It isn’t that easy and there are other depression traits.   I am a little bit of a perfictionest.  My kids would say “A little bit!!!”  People who are, do sometimes suffer from depression, another depression trait is anorexia, a denial of self, and punishment.  I have been thinking of this a lot lately.  God has been bringing it up to me often too.   I have mentioned it a couple of times in previous posts but not in detail.  I am suffering not only from the effects of the up and down moods- which over the past two weeks have been good.  I am suffering from anorexia also.  I could go for days without food and never think of it.  There are days I feel bad about me and force myself not to eat as punishment.  There have been days when I have done a run or intense work out and then in the afternoon gone for an hour walk to work off more.   I have never put these words down in print like this before, so part of this post is self-realization.  I had said once to a friend that I had a big dinner coming up that evening and was saving myself for it, they thought I was not eating for diet reasons.  That hurt, but they never knew it hurt.  On the surface it may have looked that way but deep inside it was my punishment.  For what?  I am not even sure myself.  Maybe for having fun, indulgence, I don’t know if I can put it into words. I went to lunch with a friend last week.  I didn’t want to and almost cancelled.  She insisted we go to a chinese buffet.  I was ready to get in the car and run.  I couldn’t go there and eat all that food.  I ate some, and just made sure I spread it around my plate lots so it looked like lots.  I didn’t eat for two days after cause it was way too much food.  A punishment again.

God has reveled to me on several occasions that He made this body and it should be treated as a temple that it is lent to me on this earth before I return to my heavenly Father.  I know in my heart He is right.  But there is a wall between heart and mind.  Somedays I can eat at least two meals a day.  Yesterday I had 1/2 an apple and three slices of Turkey breast meat.  Is that wrong, Yes!

How do I do this with a family and husband.  We are busy we do eat suppers most nights together.  I will excuse my lack or little serving of supper do to large meal I had a lunch or nibbling all day long which didn’t happen. Or if everyone is working or out I just don’t bother cooking at all.  Or make a supper of something I don’t eat.  I don’t eat pasta, or pizza or bread items so I make them for the family and eat a salad for supper.  So what is this?  Its lieing, cheating myself, and wrong.  The meds do not make me hungry.  I have to say its been a long time since I have said I am famished.  And Yes some of this is control when I can’t control my mind, some of this is punishment for not being in control.  It amazes me that I have got to this place.  It shames me that I think along lines that I have never thought before.  It humbles me infront of God cause it is his hand made body I am abusing.

God has been by my side during all this.  He has been gently reminding me that it is ok to eat, it is ok to love my body.  That I am blessed with a body that can run, work out, move, dance, pray, and do many many things.  I should celebrate this body that God gave me.  Its not too bad for a woman in her — well lets just say I’m not 30, but I look good for not being 30 🙂  God has been reminding me that I need to rely on his Love.  His love for the way he made me, and that he made me to be loved.  God always has my back. He always has his arm around me and he is always there to show me how I can improve me and come into balance with myself and him. Today I make a plan to eat at least twice a day.  Its not perfict but its a start. What do I do if this doesn’t happen, I will have a follow up with my doctor in a few weeks I will tell her and see what we can come up with.   In the writing of this post God has made me face what I am doing. I see in writing the destructiveness of depression the destructiveness I am causing my body and how I am hurting my relationship with God and I know through him I can overcome it.  It all comes down to trust.

God’s blessings till next time.