Tuesday 2/28/23 Almost March

 Tomorrow is March y'all. That's crazy. My son will be 16 on the 8th - which is also crazy. Time flies . . .

I feel like I need to write. I always feel like I need to write when I'm feeling crappy. Somehow, writing helps, even if only a tiny bit. I've just been consistently not doing good. I'm still down. Hell, let's call it what it is - depressed. I've been depressed. I'm having a hard time accomplishing anything other than basic tasks. I shower, I eat, I do laundry. I go to work and struggle to get by. I have no motivation or drive for anything. I'm having a hard time concentrating enough again to even read. I hate this. I don't know what to do. I'm seeing my new therapist every other week, taking my meds like a good girl, trying to exercise at least twice a week, trying to eat better, trying to stay positive (which is all fake and extremely difficult to do), and trying to socialize with people while at work and not be a complete downer. 

But I am a complete downer. I'm not any fun to be around right now. My mood is low. I'm sluggish. I'm not connecting with people. I'm struggling. I'm so burnt out at work. I dread going. And I don't know what to do about that. I've been in the birth center for almost 14 years and I've always loved my job. But now . . . I'm burnt out. I don't want to go. But I'm not sure I can leave (well, right now I can't leave as I had signed a 2 year contract for a bonus). And if I left, what would I do? Where would I go? I have a feeling that no matter what I do I'll be miserable because in general right now I'm miserable. So what would be the point? I might as well stay where I know my job and the people I work with. I don't know if I dread work because I'm depressed in general or if work is a major contributor to feeling depressed. Maybe it's both. Who knows. The only other area of nursing I'm interested in is psych and everyone agrees that that's probably a bad idea for me. And inpatient psych . . . yeah. Probably wouldn't be rewarding. It's treat the crisis and ship them out. And people in crisis can be nasty to others. How would dealing with that make me feel?

Ugh.

So I have no clue as to what to do. I can have another ketamine infusion in March if I want (boosters are once a month). I felt amazing after my last one but that feeling quickly faded. So I'm worried the same thing will happen again. Maybe I should go anyway. I don't know. I feel lost and sad and a little scared. And I'm so freaking tired of feeling this way. Why can't I have some toned down, euphoric hypomania? Just a little bit. Just for a little while. Is that too much to ask?

I did a painting titled "Emerge". It's kind of, trying to emerge from the darkness that is depression. Except instead of a person I drew a fox. I mean, why not?

Here it is. I like it, I guess. It came out how I envisioned it, so that's good. The problem, though, is that I'm not emerging from the darkness. I'm enveloped in it. I'm stuck. And I hate that.

Thursday 2/23/23 Therapy

 So I had therapy today - my second session with my new therapist. And I felt like such a goob the whole time. I felt close to tears almost the entire session and my voice showed it I think. See, my depression has hit me hard the past few days. Well, week or so. Let's be honest. And today, before therapy, I was close to tears. For no real reason. Just feeling like crap. So it's no surprise that I was feeling the same way in therapy. Beforehand I managed to start a few drawings (didn't paint though), so my time wasn't completely worthless (I wanted to stare off into space). 

But anyway. Therapy. Becky started by giving me a stack of cards with pictures on them. She instructed me to go through the stack and pick out any that resonated with me. I picked out around 8ish cards. We then discussed why each of them resonated with me. The cards basically represent some of my various "parts" (we're doing Internal Family Systems therapy, or IFS). Today we focused on a blocking part. A part of me that blocks out strong emotions. It doesn't necessarily keep me numb (well, sometimes maybe), but it keeps me from feeling strong emotions and being overwhelmed by them or "losing control". 

While reading the book No Bad Parts (which is about IFS), I came across and "abandoned girl" part of me. I felt a wave of sadness and intense grief come over me, started to tear up, and then BAM! Curtain dropped, wall up, the feelings were blocked. That's the work of this "blocking" part of me. It's scared that if I feel strong emotion like that that I'll become overwhelmed and won't be able to function, and will maybe spiral further into depression. It's kept me from fully feeling the grief over Mike retiring (except for the day of my last session with him when I did lose control and sobbed horribly). When I start to feel strong emotion over it, there's the blocking part, doing its job, keeping me from feeling. What it doesn't understand is that I need to feel these emotions, at least to an extent. So the work becomes reassuring this part that it's okay for me to feel, that I can handle it, and that I won't lose control. Which is probably easier said than done. 

We also talked in general about how I was doing, how the past two weeks have been. I took an FMLA day this past Tuesday as I felt I couldn't handle work. I work again Saturday and I plan on being there. WE talked about how that was going to look: with me probably putting on a false front and pretending that everything is okay. Which brought to light how I often keep people at an arm's distance and don't let too many people see the true me (Jer, Beth and Lesley are exceptions). And how I don't understand how anyone could genuinely care about me because I'm just . . . me. (This gets into being raised by an absent, alcoholic mother and not feeling cared for growing up. Joy.) So we opened a big 'ol box of worms. 

And now I'm feeling tearful and quite annoyed with myself for stupid things (I emailed Becky my Deviant Art page and forgot to put the ".com" in the URL so the link doesn't work so I feel stupid and inadequate and I'm beating myself up over it. Go me.). 

In other news, the last two weeks of volunteering were canceled due to snow so now it's been a month since I've gone. In a way it's a relief, but at the same time I miss it. 

Anyway, I guess that's it. There's more, I'm sure, but I'm hungry, I have to pee, and I have to pick up my son from school, so . . . that's it. 

Wednesday 2/15/23 Ugh

 My last post was rather uplifting; this one maybe not so much. 

I don't know. We'll see. It's been a rough couple of days again. I was feeling so good last Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday BAM! Back to being down. More lost, I think. I worked Saturday and was just feeling down the whole time. Sunday I was supposed to go to a Super Bowl party with Jer at his friend's house and I ended up not going - I was NOT feeling it. Thinking about socializing with a ton of people I don't know sounded awful and made me anxious. On top of that I was feeling pretty down all day, so I didn't go. I stayed home and read. Monday I was called off. Which was probably a good thing because I had an extra day to "recover" before working yesterday. Work yesterday was stupid busy. Busy enough that I couldn't pay attention to how I was feeling. Well, except a couple of fleeting moments of down time in which I felt down and exhausted. 

So ugh. Why did I have to go from hopeful and okay back to this? It's frustrating and annoying and stupid and not fair. I'm over it.

Today is a snow day for Ayden and Jer is working from home - we got a decent amount of snow over night and it's still snowing. I'm off and have accomplished nothing except starting a load of laundry. I talked to my mom on the phone for a bit earlier and surprisingly she hadn't been drinking. Guess I caught her early enough. Now I'm just sitting here, wondering what to do with myself. I don't feel like painting or drawing or reading or anything really. I'm not necessarily down today, but I'm kind of just here. Just existing. Going through the motions. I know things I should do, but I lack any sort of drive to DO them. I've been staring off into space. Real productive. 

I probably will read though, after lunch. I'm almost through No Bad Parts (the book I ordered last week that my new therapist Becky has). It's . . . interesting. A new take on mental illness and therapy. One I'm not sure I quite swallow. The beginning of the book made some sense but the further I get into it . . . I'm not so sure. I'm not going to go into it here - it's a LOT to explain. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it as it's what we'll be doing in therapy. So we'll see how it goes. The book has exercises to do throughout. I was able to do the first two, but the next several after that? Nope. Nothing. So I don't know. Again, I'm trying to keep an open mind and remain curious. I can see how some things would be helpful but am not quite grasping other things. Time will tell.

Anyway, I'm hungry. I should probably eat something.

Thursday 2/9/23 A New Beginning

 A lot happened this week. I took my first intermittent FMLA day on Tuesday, I had another ketamine infusion yesterday, and I saw my new therapist today. Quite a bit if you ask me. 

I worked this past Sunday and had a really rough go of it. I was even disassociating, and people noticed. So I felt it was best if I had an extra day off and called in sick on Tuesday (which gives me the whole week off because I don't work again until Saturday). I felt bad calling in, but I have the FMLA for exactly this reason so I might as well use it. 

Yesterday was another ketamine infusion. My last one (2 weeks ago) was less than helpful. It was dark and heavy and overbearing and I felt anxious. Yesterday, though, was the complete opposite. It was light and airy and and colorful and comforting like a big marshmallow hug. I felt calm and warm and joyful. I left feeling hopeful. I still feel hopeful, which is wonderful. My mood was immediately lifted and I went from feeling depressed to feeling pretty okay. 

And today. Today I saw my new therapist for the first time. Her name is Becky and she's super nice. She does things quite a bit differently than Mike does, which will hopefully be a good thing. A new perspective, you know? A fresh set of eyes. I didn't know what to expect going in today. I was keeping an open mind. She had me talk about my last session with Mike which brought up tears. I wasn't expecting that, honestly. For it to still be so raw and painful. But that's grief for ya. Rears its ugly head whenever it pleases. We made a game plan of what we're going to tackle and she wants to see me every other week for a bit so we can start to build a relationship. I think this will be good for me. I ordered a book she had in her office, No Bad Parts, by Richard Schwartz. She trained under Dr. Schwartz, apparently, and uses his theory in her practice. So hey - why not read up on it?

Wow. I don't really have much more to write. I thought there would be more, I really did. Maybe that's a good thing? 

Thursday 2/2/23 When the Feels Are Too Much

 

This is how I feel sometimes. Like I need to scream it out. My feelings get overwhelming and need to be released. 

Not today though. Today I'm apathetic. Today I just don't give two shits about anything. Today I don't care. I don't like feeling like this, like I don't care. I'd rather feel my feelings, I think. Even when they can be overwhelming, at least I'm feeling. 

This past week has been rough at times. Not all the time; but at times. I did a painting, "Growth Through Grief" (here, I'll share it with you)

And I thought to myself how much Mike would appreciate this painting. And I started crying, because he'll never see it and that crushed me. And that's the thing. That's how grief is. You can be doing fine and then BAM! It hits you out of nowhere and you're feeling it all over again. I've had moments this past week where I've been fine - a little down or meh, but otherwise fine. And I've had moments where I've not been fine. Where I've been close to tears or crying. And then I've had some moments like today where I feel nothing. Where I'm completely apathetic. I'm getting the whole gamut I guess.

I'm seeing my new therapist next Thursday. I had emailed her, asking for times a month out, and all I got was next Thursday at 10am. Maybe she just wants to see me, make sure I'm okay since losing Mike was hard and all. I don't know. I guess I'll find out. She seemed nice when I met her last week and I'm going to do my best to keep an open mind. Because, as Jeremy says, no one will ever be Mike. But maybe this will be good for me. A fresh set of eyes. Time will tell. 

I've come to realize that I'm utterly burnt out from work. Work has been . . . work. I've not been enjoying myself and every day I work I don't want to go. I almost dread it. I know a lot of people are burnt out. Last month was slower and this month will probably be slower, which means we work even harder because our grid sucks. We get more patients and have to do the CNA work on top of it (oh, and phlebotomy too, because God forbid the hospital keep phlebotomists on hand). And it's not better anywhere else, so leaving would be pointless (not to mention signing the 2 year contract for a bonus). I don't know how to make things better. I don't know how to make me better. I'm hoping that going to Japan - a nice long vacation - will help. But I don't know if it will. Maybe I'm ready for a change. I don't know. The only other area I'm interested in is psych. And everyone thinks that's a bad idea for me to pursue. I'll just keep plugging along I guess, hoping things will get better.