madermouse's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Break the cycle Sometimes it is impossible to see the forest for the trees when you are standing smack dab in the middle of one. But in my case, I can recognize a cycle. I just don’t know how to break it. Every month I get worse two weeks before my period. By “worse” I mean I get moodier, impending depression, and less positive. My motivation falters. My anger levels rise. I feel lonely and disgusting and chock-full of self-loathing. I go back and read my journals and it’s clearly there....at the same time over and over. Reoccurring as steady as the tides, as the moon waxing and waning, as time. There are exceptions. Between March 18th – April 18th, I was a superstar! I was happier in general. I was exercising, counting calories, and focusing on the positive. I lost inches and felt some of my clothes loosening on me ever so slightly. I felt hopeful. Then the depression hit. And aside from a handful of good days last week, I’ve pretty much been in this dark cloud for 12 days. And here I remain unmotivated, not exercising, binging in the middle of the night until I am sick, and thinking about how pointless life is again. I hate this cycle. I despise its trodden path, worn down from years of repetition. It makes me a weak person. It makes my knees buckle when I should be standing proud and strong. It makes me sleep on beautiful, sunny days...like yesterday. I slept yesterday at 3:00pm while birds sang and rare Portland sunlight twinkled leaves and lawnmowers buzzed. I am adjusting to my newfound “freedom” from my husband. He has taken a new position in the company, which means he works weekends and nights. We are ships passing in the night. He kisses me hello on my sleeping forehead at 2am and I whisper goodbye before rushing off to work. Yesterday was hard. I sort of wandered around, lost in this new foreign loneliness. Tom is my best friend and its been a long time since I had so much free time just to myself. Initially, I thought “Great – now I can really work on my diet. I can eat whatever I need to for dinner without having to listen to any whining about eating chicken breasts for the 4th time that week. I can exercise in the morning without interrupting his newscast. I can take long walks without him being worried I’ve been raped and murdered.” All this seemed fine and well, but my follow-through has sucked. Big Time. Instead, I found myself sort of wallowing. At the supermarket I STILL didn’t want the chicken breasts, regardless of who would or would not be whining about eating them. I tried to exercise, but found the walk tedious and boring and all these happy people were out in their happy yards, planting their happy flowers or bbq’ing with their happy friends. It was all too much. But inside, faced with the silent, freshly cleaned house.....I realized that I had no motivation to pursue all these lofty ideas. I felt heavy and fat and too hot for the 70 degree weather. I piled into bed, my retreat and slept the afternoon away. I awoke in the evening, still tired. I know this cycle will end, they always do. Sometimes the cycle lasts longer than others. Sometimes it is only a few days. But I’m so tired of this. Today I made the decision to try my Prozac in the morning. I hope this is my answer to “normalcy”. I hope I don’t encounter terrible side-effects. Maybe this is what I need to break this cycle, get off this path, to move on. 3:04 p.m. - April 26, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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