It's Not Just Meds

I have been using this iPhone app to track my depression, and for the first time it told me that I have moderate severe clinical depression, instead of severe clinical depression.

Last week I called my mom, wanting some sympathy, I think. She told me that she had just read this article which said that, if you have bipolar and your meds are not working, you need to exercise everyday. I hung up on her.

If you have severe clinical depression and you are making it to the gym, you almost have to question the diagnosis. I suppose that there are some people who can, but I am not one of them.

I know I need to exercise, for many reasons, but don't tell me that when I am not capable of it.

I know that there are a lot of things that have contributed to this latest depression- but I also know that I got to a point where I needed meds to get me out of it. In fact, at times in the past when I felt this bad I would have been hospitalized. I really haven't had the energy to exercise- sometimes I couldn't even make it to the pharmacy to refill a prescription. I have spent way too much time in bed, thinking about death. Envying Whitney Houston for dying without even trying. How did she get so lucky?

But yesterday afternoon- and it is always in the afternoons- I really felt better. And I realized that I need to use those times that I have when I do feel better, to make the most of them. So I went and got a haircut- something I had needed to do for months (I've been looking terrible). And I went into a grocery store- something I normally find too overwhelming to do when I am depressed, so I kind of stick to convenience stores. It wasn't easy- either of these things- especially when the person who cut my hair kept wanting to make small talk- but it was possible. I was successful.

I felt so much better after getting a haircut. I look human again. And I have a freezer full of food-I am not thinking that I am ready to cook yet!

And this morning, with no work to drag myself to, I am going to the gym to see my personal trainer. Even though I have to admit that I haven't been in 2 weeks since I last saw her. But it is something just to go today.

The more the meds free me up to act, the more I have to take advantage of that and do things to help myself. And hopefully, eventually the balance will shift, and my life will be better, and it will be less about the meds. And maybe I can take less of them. But for now, they are getting me out of a very deep hole.