Sunday, June 12, 2016

A Breakthrough of Sorts

Hello Friends,

It's been a while again.  I hope this finds you well.  I have been staring at the "button" that I click to get to my blog for so many months now that it's become unacceptable. I look at it every morning and evening and even hover over it but then I think "I don't have much to say today" and move on to something else.   Part of it is that there's nothing exciting going on (which is good-I think) and part is that I don't want to start writing and have it turn into a gripe session.  I mean, I get tired of thinking about the pain, the swelling, the lack of mobility.  And if I get tired of just thinking about it, I certainly don't want to drag everyone else down with a gripe fest-especially since that flies in the face of why I started this blog.

It has been suggested to me more than once that it is possible that I may be going through a mild case of depression.  Of course, I always said "No WAY!".  I mean; I am functioning, I am "okay" most of the time and I recognize and am grateful for all of the blessings in my life.  I didn't see any way in wich i I am emotionally debilitated.   Then a friend pointed me to this article from Prevention magazine that contains this:

"Depression doesn’t always look like debilitating sadness," says Richard Kravitz, MD, MSPH, a professor of internal medicine at University of California, Davis, and an expert in identifying depression in primary-care settings. "Patients are reluctant to consider depression as a cause of their symptoms—in part because they may equate it with weakness, but also in part because they simply don’t associate those symptoms with depression." 

So I reluctantly read the article and discovered that I identify with 5-6 of the 9 symptoms.  It was a shocker! I honestly thought I was just caught up in the day to day but upon reflection, a lot of my day to day is on autopilot.  I give sufficient attention to do what I have to do and to ensure that it's done correctly but I am not my chipper, enthusiastic, overly motivated, perfectionist self and haven't been for a long while.  It kind of clicked that feeling "okay" is not the best I can hope for.  Not for nothing but I attribute it to-once again- my illnesses.

 I don't think I would have been as receptive of this had my gorgeous sister not gotten married last month.  We all flew out for the wedding and it was just beautiful.  Her new husband is an awesome guy and I can't imagine a better match for her.  The trip was smooth and hubby and I got to spend time with all of my sisters, the new hubby, Mom and Dad and our awesome niece and nephew.  It was very special.   Though it was a (very) short trip, it was filled with joy.  By now you may be thinking "okay- you went, you had a great time, where's the problem in that?"  While we were there, and on the way home, I found myself feeling a little...disconnected?  I got up early most mornings (as per usual) and walked to the 7-11 for coffee and then chilled out by myself enjoying the first cup till my youngest sister got moving and we could get together.  It was during one of those quiet moments that it hit me that I was feeling a step away from everything.  Though the family may not have noticed because there was SO much going on, I was just quieter than I normally would have been.   I realized during that morning downtime it was because I felt like I didn't have much to say.  I almost felt like, well, the only way I can explain it is as if I was there but I was watching things through a window.  And in looking through that window, I didn't even recognize myself, if that makes sense.  As these thoughts rolled around in my head, for the first time I could FEEL myself retreat.  I was pulling inward and I recognized that I do that a LOT lately. It's not that I wasn't enjoying myself.  I absolutely was. I was just a step back from the goings on.   It was disconcerting to say the least and from then on I made an effort to pull myself out of it.

It was shortly after I got back that depression was mentioned to me again (apparently I was doing the quiet thing) and the article pointed my way.  So- I don't know what I will do with this.  Those that know me *might* say that me being quiet and pulling back is a good thing. LOL.  OTOH, I will probably talk to my doctor about it at my appointment next month.  I don't want more medication but I do want to know what I can do to get back to feeling like myself.

For now, that's all I know! 

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