Day 1
Intake:
Fine-milled oats, soya milk, walnuts, honey* -- 250 kcal
Innocent orange-mango-pineapple smoothie -- 100 kcal
Lemonade, fresh -- 60 kcal
1 cup white rice, cooked -- 551 kcal
Soy sauce, sriracha -- 30 kcal
Spinach -- 15 kcal
1 avocado -- 180 kcal
Amy's Organic Low-Fat Lentil Soup -- 288 kcal
Hipp Organic Simply Apples applesauce w/ cinnamon -- 63 kcal
1 tbsp peanut butter -- 90 kcal
Total: 1573 kcal
( *Not strictly vegan, but there are worse crimes, and I was out of maple syrup )
The last week has been awful, truly, the absolute depths of chronic and relentless depression. My mother posed the question: is it time to consider hospital? I hate worrying my family more than anything. Truth is, I haven't been able to leave the house in almost eight days. My degree's finished, my dissertation got handed in, but I find it impossible to look forward to the future. Frankly, I'm terrified, and it's making me unwell. My life, my mind and the way I cope (or don't cope) with stress has made me unwell. I've pretty much ceased to function normally. I've been put on 5mg Cipralex, due to increase to 10 after 3 weeks, and today marks the end of week 1 on this drug. Trust me, I really fought and did everything in my power not to revert to anti-depressants, but the situation's got so bad that I didn't know what else to do. It was between that and continuing to have anxiety attacks in my own home.
The anxiety's mildly better, but depression has gotten much worse. I've been picking my face (does anyone else do this? I've heard it's a mild strain of OCD that usually goes hand in hand with general anxiety issues and depression, so it wouldn't surprise me if I wasn't the only one). I gained some weight, getting back up to 178 at the worst, but now I'm back down to ~173, which is marginally better (although still not ideal). The skin picking started again when I had major panic attacks around 2 weeks ago, and I've got the same blemishes I did back then, as they haven't healed. I hate that I do this - it just makes everything worse - and prevents me from going outside even more - but it's a symptom more than anything else.
I asked myself the question today: What am I doing to make this better? I couldn't answer truthfully that I'd tried doing anything, beyond starting the new meds. Part of me feels like I'm beyond trying to "empower" myself at this point, due to the extent of the depression - hence the question of hospital. But my mum put it in this way over the phone, she said, "If you go inpatient, you will be around people much worse than you. People who have tried over and over again to commit suicide, and will keep trying, even when they're in hospital. People who have severe mental health issues much worse than yours - and you'll be pumped full of drugs - do you really want that?" My answer, definitively, was "
Fuck no". As bad as I feel, experience tells me that this is temporary, and that it too will pass. I'm waking up every day. I'm showering, eating consistently, I'm not bingeing or starving myself, I'm taking minimal exercise but I still get dressed and go out at least for a cigarette. I'm not hallucinating, I'm not psychotically depressed, I haven't and I don't want to die. In earnest, the problem is the opposite. I want to live, and I'm aware this isn't living. Nowhere near.
I couldn't stop crying, and I hung up the phone before making a few decisions. I'm nowhere near well enough to consider applying for jobs right now, but that doesn't stop me trying to regain some sense of normality. I was normal once, I can normal again. I just have to stop thinking there's no middle ground between the pinnacle of health and happiness, and feeling absolutely fucked day-in day-out.
One decision I made is that I need to go back to veganism, at least for now - initially that decision came from the knowledge that if nothing else, it'll help heal my skin quicker. Counting calories recently got me down to the 160s, but it's unsustainable. When I eat vegan it encourages me to look at things holistically - it's somewhat of a keystone habit. Being vegan makes me want to eat less junk, makes me want to stop messing with my skin, start exercising. Another decision: I looked at my trainers in the hall yesterday and thought, why am I not trying to go for night-time runs? So I feel fucking self conscious leaving the house during the day, and anxious about encountering other people. But that doesn't stop me from taking my recommended 10,000 steps at night in the form of a run. So I'm going to try that - doesn't mean I'll succeed immediately, but since I'm housebound, doing zero physical activity and spending half the day in bed, even ten minutes here and there would help.
It breaks my heart that I'm breaking my mum's heart, and even if I can't bring myself to get better for me right now, I have to at least try to get better for her. She feels helpless, I can hear it in her voice. Anyway, my lease ends on July 10, or roundabout, so I have the whole of June to do this. And I will not give in to the pressure coming from my dad's side about finding work this month. Honestly, I love him too, but he doesn't understand the same way my mum does and he thinks I'm doing this to myself. Maybe I am, but if I am, it's not something I've been able to help. Therapy tomorrow, hopefully I feel "good enough" to go so I can talk all this through. I'm gonna end this post here, felt good to get some of it down so I'll try to continue the habit.
