Almost to Friday

Today has been moderately better for me.� The doctor is weaning me off the Zoloft and by the end of next week, I should be starting on Pristique.� I have some fears about the weaning off process next week when my normal dosage is cut in half but I am trying to be optimistic that the drug has become so ineffective for me that I will not notice much of a difference.� With being a golf widow all week next week, some of ya'll might want to check to make sure the kids are weathering the potential storm all right.



I have discovered that exercise is definitely helping me to cope despite the fact that right now, when I have little energy or desire to do it, I am making myself do it.� It releases endorphines that allow me to feel a bit better for awhile.� I literally forced myself to kickboxing last night (so not like me) after telling myself half a dozen times that I was not going, but am so thankful that I did.� Though this morning, the fog had descended on me again, for a few precious hours last night, I felt the closest to normal mentally that I had in awhile.� I ran this afternoon and again, it helped to lift the fog for awhile.



I had dinner with friends tonight before going to hear one of my youth girls give her junior recital (she is a vocalist) and the socialization that followed my run helped to keep me feeling more centered.� Depression, if that is what this is, runs in my family and though I don't feel mine is severe, it is enough to keep me from feeling "normal".� It is a difficult thing to describe if you have never battled it.� The inability to know the answer to "What is wrong with me?� Why am I feeling this way?" is a constant struggle. When the Zoloft was working, I could still have a bad day here and there, but I generally knew what the cause of it was.� This fog from the last week and a half, I can't account for; there is no one thing that placed me here.� I was feeling isolated a few days before the blow up at my teenager and it isn't that I WAS or AM isolated, but I was feeling that way for no explicable reason.� I sat at my desk at work last week and cried for no apparent reason; I only felt completely overwhelmed and alone.� My goals no longer felt worthwhile.� I was suddenly dreading the mission trip, something I look forward to every single year.� The thought of vacation was holding no joy for me at all.� These things and feelings are not who I am.



Though I do not cherish needing to take medication, if the choice is a pill, or constantly having this fog that I cannot seem to shake surrounding me, I will choose the pill.� Feeling this way with no end in sight would be beyond unimaginable for me.� I would never want to be the poster child for anti-depressants, but ladies, there is no shame in them.� Depression occurs much more frequently in women and I am entering into the years where everything begins changing hormonally.� I was fortunate enough to not have to take anything as a teenager though looking back, I wonder at times if I should have.� I remember once sitting on the floor of my bedroom with an open bottle of pills in front of me.� For the life of me, I cannot even remember what was so wrong (sound familiar?) but I was prepared to swallow a handful of these when the phone in my room rang.� It was a friend of mine who immediately said "I suddenly had this overwhelming urge to call you.� Are you okay?"� Don't tell me we don't have guardian angels.� I was maybe 16 at the time.



Now I am hopefully old enough and wise enough to know that an overdose would never solve anything, but again, if this is depression, it is a mild case and I am on medication for it.� But if anyone reading this is suffering from depression, do not let anyone shame you for needing help or belittle you for your feelings.� This stuff is real and there is no need for anyone to suffer when there is help out there.�



You don't have to feel this way.� Mental health is still health and what I am working towards.� It is all relevant.