Saturday, September 25, 2010

Have you gond Mental? (XXVII)

Its been a pretty good day today; better than I've had the last few. I busied myself with some errands for my Mother and for Janet with a stop at the Post Office as part of the bargain.

I find that keeping busy is like my medication. It temporarily provides relief and masks some of the symptoms of my mixed depression-anxiety. This can be good because on a day like today, the things I did gave me some satisfaction, helped others, AND as a by product, tired me out... waaaay out.

A highlight of the day was my oldest daughter, Erin, coming over with her family from Seaside to spend a couple of days with us. Today she and Chris brought my little Grandson Cannon. Tomorrow they will go to Gresham and pick up Flannery who is staying with friends. It will be great to see her too.

It is almost always good time when they come over. It lightens my heart and always brings out some laughter. My son also had his girlfriend over today, which compltely filled up the house (in my estimation), but was great for everyone. I had some growing anxiety when the house kept getting more and more full. I did some deep breathing and found myself needing my anti-anxiety medication. Its ok. I had a good attitude about our guests being here and it was something I had looked forward to. I found for myself that there's usually a "down side" to those things we anticipate, but the positive anticipation tends to give me a lift.

After they had been here an hour or so I gave in to exhaustion I fell asleep for about two hours. I was exhausted from the activities of the day; which was only about four hours all tolled. As many of you have noticed, depression takes away our energy whether the symptoms are masked by medication, activity or distraction.

On a scale of 1-10, my day was probably a "6", which is a good day for me. It seemed that neither my depression nor my anxiety "got the best of me". There were a few moments when anxiety loomed, but was not debilitating. Depression mainly expressed itself as exhaustion. A few recollections of the past brought me down a couple of times; but that is normal for most of us.

I am seeing a new provider of psychiatric services who is working with me to adjust my medication based on a new or additional diagnosis. We'll see how that goes. All I know is that my anti-depressant medication hasn't worked well for a few years and all I've done (under Dr's orders) is increase the dose. Paul Simon's immortal words came to mind, "Make a new plan Stan." As you might imagine I am tired of taking five medications for my condition and hope we can find a way to cut back. It could be that "less is more". However, medication is necessary at this time in my life while I use my "bag of tricks" and continue to pray for healing.

Well, you've probably had enough pop culture sayings by now. Not to mention my circuitous narrative. I am, by faith, antipating a good weekend with minimal ups and downs. I hope you are too.

With typos and all ... God bless you!

1 comment:

  1. I love spending time with you, whether you're anxious, talkative or even sleeping. xoxo

    ReplyDelete