Mental State Much Improved: Thank You!

This is a bit of a shout out to anyone who messaged, replied, commented or liked my post from last week when I was in the middle of a new eating crisis.

I am fine now, by the way. I am taking it a little easier on myself and encouraging myself to at least have a protein shake or piece of fruit at meal times, even if I am not especially hungry or enthusiastic. I realize that, as a 200 pound, 5.5 foot woman, I am not what most would call an ideal weight, but I think my current shape, while a bit flabby, is manageable. Starving myself (literally) to cause thin-ness is more likely to have dire ramifications later in life. I am not currently in a state of morbid obesity and even if I was, just not eating for days is not a healthy answer.

The thing is that this eating issue I have isn't really usually driven by the need to be thin. My senior year of high school was not plagued by my own fatness. I was quite thin and what US society considered a healthy shape. I also did not enjoy the consumption of food. Not because I would gain weight but because it gave me no joy. Even things I liked to eat didn't make me happy. When eating is joyless, life is a bit sad, but up to that point, that was all I had known.

Last week, I got a couple of days off with my husband, during which we both relaxed and regrouped and I remembered how I came to be overweight. Something about him, and don't ask em what because I do not care to identify it, makes me feel calm in such a way that my stomach ceases to rumble and my appetite awakens. When we started dating, I suddenly realized that I could eat all of the food. So I did. And now I am a bit on the heavy and less-firm side of things, but this is survivable.

That's part of what worries me when my appetite disappears though. Is this a warning sign of impending depression? Is it just nerves? What am I so nervous about anyway? What has changed to cause this? And worrying about the answers to these questions causes more tension that drives the appetite further away and suddenly I am skipping 4 meals in 2 days. So...yes. I am choosing life today. And it's an easier choice today than it was last week.

Depression the way it works in my head is sometimes like someone's controlling all the color in the world with a dimmer switch. When it kicks into high gear, the world is a dismal grey-scale and numbness overwhelms. When things are okay, it can still get toggled slightly, but being aware that the switch is in play helps me to fight back against that instead of just watching everything fade away and then wondering where it went.

I am not currently suffering though. I am working on self-care and making better choices for myself and my mental health.

In other news, part of my brain is totally ready to get started on having another baby. The rest of my life? Not so much. We don't have the money saved to offset me being out of work for about a year (at least 6 months of stupid cervix bed-rest and the rest of tiny baby time). Nor do we have a clean house, nor any of my books, edited and ready to be sent toward publication. All the goals I had for Julia's first year of school and my first year of getting to work on the house are shot, but hey, I am still doing this living thing, and that is a hell of a lot better than it could be.

Mental-State: No Food, Just Sleep

I'll be honest. I'm having a rough week. It's not a direct causal thing, not even really a lot of little things either. Just stuff. Just me. Just muck.

My appetite is gone. I actually do not care about eating. Hunger pains are fleeting nuisances that I can't be bothered to handle properly. It's not as severe as it was when I was in my late teens and the intensity of my stress destroyed all appetite and induced nausea. I'm not feeling like eating, and I am not forcing myself to eat, but I am also not feeling like I might vomit, so I guess that's good? Better than it could be.

This is the first time in ten years I have completely lost enthusiasm for food of any kind outside of physical illness. Even if I'm skipping meals, I am still eating popcorn and other snacks with my daughter in the afternoon, and I am not a small woman, so it's not as if I'll waste away anytime soon.

I had half a mind to post this on twitter as: "I just discovered this new diet-- Depression!" but thought it might be too glib.

Still it isn't a good sign, I know that, and it's usually something I would keep to myself and suffer through alone, but I think I have a good enough, respectful enough support network these days to hear it, be concerned, know to be careful with me, but not force feed me or try to take the place of a savior. I do not need that. I have had those friends/frenemies before, the ones who are so insecure that they see any weakness of mine as an opportunity to force help upon me, but without any regard for my personal needs, wants, or comfort. I may be a mentally ill person, but I am still a person.

So I am still alive. I haven't felt this drained in months and haven't had these depression symptoms since high school, but I am okay. I am still here. Luckily I have 10 years worth of eating more than necessary than balance things out for however long this specific thing lasts.

In the meantime, I am going to run self-care via sleep because it is something the rest of me actually wants to do.
I really need to write more, clean more, do more, be more...and instead I think I am just going to sleep. It is what I can do.

Until next time, here I am on the far side of the world, continuing to exist.