All Entries Tagged With: "sleep"

“Damned if you don’t”

“What must I do to be damned?  Nothing.  That’s all.  You’re damned–condemned–
if you just sit still.  That is the law of this physical world.

“If you sit still long enough, you’ll never get up again. 
If you never lift your arm, you’ll soon be unable to raise it at all.
  If you remain in darkness and never use your eyes, you’ll soon become blind.

“It is the law in the mental world,  if you never exercise your brain– never read, 
study, nor talk to anyone, never permit anyone to talk to you, 
your mind will become blank– maybe you’ll become insane.

“The most horrible punishment that could be inflicted upon 
you is not twenty years of hard labor, but twenty years of solitary confinement.

“It’s the law in the spiritual world, simply shut your heart to all truth, 
and after a while you won’t be able to believe anything–
that is the severest penalty for not accepting the truth.

“The process of disintegration and death begins when a man 
shuts himself out from the forces that make for life.

“The body and mind and spirit are kept alive through constant constructive use.”

~Charles Steizle~

(Utah Labor News, December 12th, 1937)

I came across this quote today and it reminded me of depression.  When in a depressed state you can’t do anything physical, mental or spiritual- you don’t even want to do anything.  This beast of complete and all consuming inactivity takes over your life and there is only one way to escape, or at least begin to pry yourself free… and that is to do something, anything!

You don’t want to get out of bed.   You want to be able to sleep and escape it all by just lying there and doing NOTHING, but by forcing yourself to get out of bed (which wouldn’t be considered an accomplishment by most) you feel a twinge of hope, hope that maybe today will be a good day.

I’ve learned that as long as I do ONE thing each day (some days it is as simple as taking a shower or playing with the dogs and other days I can manage to actually leave the house or do a load of laundry) I am able to stay somewhat sane.  If I feel good after doing one thing that day, then I can decide if I’d like to do another, but if I don’t want to, that is OK.  I’ve given myself permission to only do ONE thing each day, and anything else is a bonus.

I get overwhelmed so easily and this is why I have a hard time seeing myself as a mother one day.  Right now it is okay if my “one thing” is to get in the shower.  If I have a kid I’ll need to feed, bathe, dress, and play with them until I can escape while they take a nap.  This is a whole lot more than “one thing”.  This is why it was so hard for me to work and go to school.  Work was one thing and school was another  and some days I could only manage to do one of them, and some days none because I was so overwhelmed I had to “check out” of life.

So like Mr. Charles Steizle said, I’ll just keep on doing at least one thing every day so that I won’t be “damned” to the hell that is depression.

Puppy Tears

My plans for getting back on track with blogging were disrupted by this cute puppy.  Tareak and I decided we wanted Kaya to have a friend and thought a puppy would be fun for all of us.  Neither Tareak or I have ever had a puppy before, so we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  Jacy is an 8 week old rat terrier and when she is full grown will be the same size as Kaya.

Having a puppy is harder than I anticipated.  In the last week I haven’t slept for more than 4 solid hours at a time.  My body is tired.  My brain is tired.  My sister asked me if having a puppy made me more or less excited to have a baby.  My answer was definitely LESS excited!  I think I am more of an older child/older dog type person.  I don’t mind adopting dogs from the shelter that have been locked in a basement their whole life and only have one ear.  It gives them character.  Many people don’t like the idea of adopting older children because they are “damaged”.  I think this is what draws me to them in a way.  I feel like I can identify with some of the mental struggles they must be going through and I want to help.

We have had Kaya for almost 2 years.  She is a permanent part of our lives and family.  We had a rhythm and a routine that everyone followed.  When we adopted Jacy this whole routine and rhythm was disrupted.  Kaya was very jealous of our newest addition.  If I was holding Jacy, Kaya wouldn’t come and sit with me.  My heart was aching because I felt so bad for Kaya.  I didn’t want her to feel like she was being replaced or had to compete for my attention.  She was mad at me, and I could feel it.

The other night Tareak and I were watching a movie and Jacy was sitting on one couch with me, and Kaya was on the other.  I wanted Kaya to like me again, so I put Jacy on the other couch with Tareak hoping that Kaya would come and sit with me.  She didn’t.  I waited and waited.  The movie was over and she still wouldn’t sit with me.  I tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t.  I wanted my old life back.  I didn’t want a puppy any more.  I resented her for ruining everything.  I wanted Kaya to like me again.  I wanted to SLEEP!

Kaya must have known something was wrong because the next morning she was back to her old self.  She has taken Jacy under her wing and allows Jacy to bite her ear stub, jump on her while she is sleeping, and everything else that comes along with being an older sister.  She will sit with me when I am holding Jacy and I know she isn’t mad at me anymore.  I still haven’t had any good sleep, but things are definitely looking up.

This whole experience has really made me reflect on having children.  At least I wanted a puppy, and so the struggle and disruption is something I can accept.  What will happen if I have a baby that is even more disruptive than a puppy?  Will I resent the baby too?  What will happen if I adopt older children that will also disrupt and turn my life upside down?  Will I cope with that any better?  So many questions, but still no answers.

I will try to keep blogging as I find a new routine and rhythm in life and hope there will be no more puppy tears.

It’s That Time Of Year Again

The birds and singing and the flowers are blooming and Leslie is walking around the house with toilet paper stuffed up her nose. Every year from around March-September I suffer from severe allergies. You might wonder what this has to do with depression, but it actually plays a bigger role than you might think.

Allergies make me tired. My body is working overtime trying to fight off all the things that make me sneeze and this hard work drains my energy. Unfortunately the allergy medication doesn’t help me out in the energy department. While it might help my itchy eyes and sniffles the number one side effect is drowsiness.  I have tried allergy shots, a neti pot, nasal spray and prescription drugs.  Each of these remedies provide some relief, but I can still feel the drowsiness weighing on me and pulling me down.

The number one thing I want to do when I’m feeling especially depressed is to sleep.  Some days I just feel so tired that it requires all my energy to just breathe in and out.  Sleeping provides an escape.  Excessive sleeping is a symptom of depression and one that becomes even harder to fight when I am being weighed down with the drowsiness allergies inflict.  This past week I have felt extreme temptation to just crawl back into bed after I’ve only been up for a couple of hours, not because my allergies have been horrible, but because the combination of the allergies, medication and depression just make my bed look so desirable.  While it would be easy to just climb back into bed and get a few more hours I have resisted.  I know that in order to combat my depression effectively I can’t give into all my urges to just crawl into bed and escape life, no matter how tired my body is.

Glimpse of Frustration

I have been sick this week.  By sick, I mean physically, not the usual mental sickness.  I’ve had a cold.  In a way it is good to be completely unmotivated and depressed because it makes recovery time for things like the common cold rather quick.  “Get lots of rest and drink plenty of fluids.”  No Problem!  I always get plenty of rest.  My cold lasted about 2 1/2 days.

Tareak is attempting to fall asleep next to me right now.  After working 13 hours, and getting home at 3 am, he is trying to sleep a bit before leaving for a work meeting at 6:30am.  It is currently 5:30am and he isn’t asleep yet.  While trying to fall asleep he complained that his throat was starting to hurt.  Uh oh.  This is exactly how my cold started.  Tareak should definitely stay home and rest so he doesn’t get more sick, right!?!?!

Even though he knows that he needs the rest, he has convinced himself he is tougher than he really is.  Last winter I had a sore throat.  It lasted a few days, but after lots of rest and water it went away.  A few days later Tareak got the same sore throat.  Because he wasn’t a sickly child and had never missed a day of work in his life, he thought that he would be fine and so he didn’t give his body the rest it needed to get better.  Tareak’s sore throat lasted about 3 or 4 weeks and he had a lingering cough that lasted another 2 months.  By the 3rd week and after coughing up blood I finally talked him into taking  a day off work, and I’m convinced that he would have ended up hospitalized with pneumonia had he kept pushing himself.

The point of this post is this:  Tareak gets frustrated with me a lot.  He can see the things that I need to do in order to take care of myself mentally, but for one reason or another I don’t do these things.  Right now I am frustrated that he isn’t taking care of himself physically even though he knows better than to push himself.  Luckily Tareak doesn’t get sick very often because I think I would be in a constant state of frustration due to his lack of self-care.  I am able to empathize with the frustration Tareak must feel for me daily as he sees my lack of self-care.  As frustrated as I may be, I feel grateful that he keeps encouraging and pushing me along daily.  Thank you Tareak.