Tag Archives: SAD

PULLING UP MY BOOTSTRAPS

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September 1st. A new month, a new season, a new beginning. There’s hope in the word. Beginnings hold so much promise. Let me not foil it.  Let me be renewed and have a spark at least. I’ve been experiencing sleepiness these last few weeks even though I’m getting 8-9 hours of zzzs. Thank goodness that my dark mood and thoughts have passed. Otherwise, what would I do with myself? I guess I could sleep it off. Laughing not quite out loud.

Are you affected by the weather and changing seasons? I like to think I am. I hate to think that I am making excuses for myself. I hate to think that this is the real me. In my younger days I blame PMS. Well, who wants to own up to the not so attractive attributes? If I can’t shuffle them or laugh them off, can I sweep them under the carpet? Huh, can I?

 

I haven’t experienced SAD this early before. But then it’s been a stormy summer weather wise. So much fluctuation in one season. It’s still officially summer. Autumn doesn’t start till September 22. It’s not a new season yet. I have an excuse for not pulling up my bootstraps yet. Hooray!

Besides my sleepiness, I’m more forgetful, too. Needless to say, my energy sags. My inspirations have evaporated. I’ve lost ambitions for painting, writing, etc. I yearn for sleep. But I am paying heed – to keep abreast of my bills, to double check what writing I do. Sometimes I’m thinking of one thing and my fingers tap out another. When I read it back, I’m thinking: What am I talking about?? It makes my head hurt. My eyes want to close. I am so glad I got the lunch dishes done. I can put my feet up again and snooze.

 

 

SO MUCH FOR GOOD INTENTIONS

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Some days I start out with such good intentions. There are so many spoilers and you know, dear reader, how accident prone I am. Well, I’m drinking a toast to them to show I harbour them no ill feelings. I’m swigging back a beer on this hot day in Saskatoon. But I see it’s only 24 degrees Celsius. Maybe it is just my internal furnace running overtime on high. Great big sigh and another swig of beer. Ah! Much better.

The dog and I had a trek in the park. Sheba got her feet wet. I sat on the bank under the shade of some branches and watched the river flow. It is difficult to understand why people, especially a neighbour would deliberately try to get under my skin. But then I am talking about a sociopath. I’m in what they call between a rock and a hard place. I lost my friggin’ mind again. There is no reasoning with such a person. There’s no asking for respect. I can only take a deep breath and let it go. It’s a tough one today as with each incidence. It’s only time that can move that rock and hard place. So I’m breathing and tapping. Time, for a change is not moving fast.

I’m not having qualms turning towards my comfort drink. Orange Pekoe tea is harmless. I might be making frequent trips to bathroom. It’ll be worth it. I’ll be peeing out the toxins caused by my inability to remain equanimous through all weather. I feel heartbroken and sad after each incident as if it was me who caused it. My stories are quite unbelievable unless you have had experience with a sociopath. I try not to tell those stories anymore. Sometimes I feel worse after my vents. Someone once told me she was glad that she doesn’t live next to me after one telling. All I could say was, I’m glad you don’t either. Then I felt I was really mean and nasty.

Now, I am okay with the feeling – mean spirited, guilt and all. I know I am not. I’m guilty of not being brave and having trust in my own judgement. It is really tough when I am in that space between a rock and a hard place. There is no where to go. There is no recourse to me. Whatever I do or say will be wrong. But I am a matured adult. I can bear whatever consequences my actions bring. I don’t have to look for Alice’s rabbit hole for escape.

I know that sleep will be elusive tonight. I will not torture myself trying. Instead, I will read a little more on Julie Yip-Williams’ cancer fighting journey. It will remind me how good it is to be alive. She had lost fight but she gave me such wonderful insights into life with her words. Thank you, Julie.

 

SLEEP AND DEPRESSION

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I’m feeling much better this morning after a good night of sleep. I was feeling a bit blue yesterday. And why not? I had been mostly sleepless most of the night before. I had lived that way, mostly on 4-5 hours of sleep most of my working life as a nurse. I prided myself on how well I did on how little I slept. I was foolish. I did not think about the consequences of sleep deprivation. I do now. I am reminded each time I am sleepless.

I felt the beginning of a sore throat on waking. Oh-oh! I hope I am not getting sick. It went away after getting up, washing face and brushing my teeth. I remind myself to drink lots of fluids. I remind myself not to push for ‘accomplishments’ and speed. I have no ‘job’ and ‘boss’ to answer to. I can take it easy and take care of myself.

The sun is playing hide and seek, more hide than the other. It peeks out as I’m tapping. Then it disappears. I feel shadows creeping into my body. I feel them and let them be. The day can be full of tricks. I’ve been here before. The September I went to China, it was cloudy everywhere. In China it was because of the pollution and smog. Back home it was how the weather was. It stayed dark through all  of autumn. It was my most troublesome time with sleep and depression. I invested in a Remington daylight simulating clock . It’s much like the clock from hammacher.com. I went to sleep to the sound of gentle ocean waves and the lighting of the setting sun. I woke to birds chirping and the rising sun. I did not use the aromatherapy bead option. It worked well for me. I used it for a few years.

At the time I did not link my depression and sleeping patterns to my profession. I mostly blamed it on myself. But I also sought treatment and did research on depression and seasonal affective disorder -SAD. I attended workshops given by Dept. of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan. I was assessed for light therapy at the clinic in the hospital. I bought a light box. It was effective. I took up swimming. Then I renovated the house, putting in bigger windows and adding a sunroom. It was well worth the cost.

I’m looking back as I sit, tap tapping here. It has been very difficult, all of it. But I have to say that all of it have enriched me also. I had to reach out and into myself for solutions, to make a liveable and meanful life. I could not just sit and be overwhelmed and depressed by it all. There was always something for me to work on. I don’t think of them as problems but rather solutions. What’s working for me today? So many things -gardening, writing, painting, drawing, aerobics, learning a new interest, conversations. Life is always a wondrous thing.

What works for you?

 

FOREVER IN GLOOM – AugustMoon Day 3

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gloomy day

AugustMoon – Day 3 photo prompt

I have been telling myself forever and a day now that I have SAD (seasonal affective disorder.  It has been so long that I believe it.  How can I not?  It’s just lately I’m questioning the validity of it all. Is it true?  Maybe it was a gloomy day, or perhaps it just felt that way because I did. Even so, does that mean I have a disorder?

You know how the song goes – Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But some day the sun will shine.  

And that, my dear, is how life is – light and shadow, the yin and the yang, what goes up must come down….It does not mean I have SAD, even though I am sad some gloomy and rainy days.  On other such days, I’m restful, creative – baking, cleaning, sewing, reading, writing up a storm.  We all have our moments.  It’s how we are wired.  Let me not label myself in disorders.  Let me accept and revel in the kaleidscope of my emotions.

UNRAVELLING THE PAST INTO THE NOW

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IMG_2257Some days I’m a bit melancholy – maybe a left-over feeling from childhood days when we were new immigrants.  Can an eight year old feel lost and displaced in Gold Mountain(Canada)?  Where was the gold? In my child’s mind I had expected to see a land filled with colourful balloons and lollypops. There was neither.  It was puzzling.

 

IMG_2270I felt the smallness of our town, the dirt streets and the emptiness. I felt the smallness of me.  What I remembered the most was the loneliness of my mother.  I did not recognized it as such at the time but rather felt it. I was probably equally as lonely.  We were far away from home and our extended family.  We did not know the language.

It was so many years ago.  Was my memory correct?  Was it true?  Or was it distorted by the clouds, a sleepless night and the moody blues?  The thinking mind can be so deceptive. I have sunnier memories of other days when my mother recount stories from her childhood, of her siblings, her parents and China.  I have a rich and colourful heritage, one to be proud of.

unravelling_300pxI am dusting off the cobwebs and debris of my mind.  I am sweeping them out the door. I’ve finished  unravelling 2014 and now ready to tackle 2015 of Susannah Conway’s Unravelling the Year Ahead.  When I am feeling discouraged, it helps to look back at the seeds I have sown and the rewards reaped the past year.  I have not done a small thing.  Life is not a small thing, but it is made up of many little things.

The evening is here.  There is no sun to set. The day is done.  Time to put thinking aside and rest on my laurels.

 

RIDDLE, FIDDLE, DIDDLE, DE

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My heart likes to do tricks in the morning.  I pay it no attention.  Let it do the fast elevator down.  It’s trying to grab and trick me into excitement.  I might be a slow learner, but I’m onto it now.  Though I like to dawdle in the warmth of my bed, I rise and greet the day.  It is still dark at 7 o’clock.

I smell fresh coffee perking.  The aroma is enough to satisfy me.  I know its tricks, too.  It is in cahoots with my heart, trying to get me going.  I make my Chai, strong and sweet.  I savour its spicyness.  It is enough.  My heart beats its regular rhythm – no more elevator rides.  It’s best not to think too much, to analyze and figure out the why of everything.  It’s not always wise to get to the bottom of things.  The bottom might fall out if you figure out all life’s riddles.

I have to leave things alone, let the mystery rest.  Quite often, there is no mystery or reason.  It just is.  I have found that difficult to accept.  I’m such a contradiction, you know.  I HAVE to know.  I HAVE to understand.  Why?  Why?  Why? is my lament.  I’m quite tired and worn out with my ceaseless ruminating.  Now, I’m trying to be more accepting of the universe.

Yesterday, I stepped into Alice’s Wonderland for 15 minutes.  I attended her tea party with the March Hare, the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse.  The conversations were fascinating, remarkable and nonsensible.  As I listened, I heard familiarities to real live conversations I’ve had.  I recognized myself in Alice, always interrupting and demanding things to make sense.  Her whys were answered with why nots.  And indeed, why not?  You might as well figure out life’s riddles with a fiddle.

Less ruminating and thinking for me.  More doing and sweating.  Those are new goals for me this month.  No pain.  No gain.  I HAVE to heed my own words and PUSH forward, live life in the present lane – 15 minutes  at a time.  You can stand anything for 15 minutes, right?

You can travel a fair distance in 15 minutes even within the normal speed if you don’t dawdle, window shop or stop for coffee,  I am pleasantly surprised at how much I can write, tidy up and read in that short time.  Yesterday, I attended Alice’s tea party, met the King and Queen of Hearts and her whole troupe in that time.  It is not always how hard or long I push.  The key lies in my focus and steadfastness.

IMG00232Different ways work for different folks.  What works for me might not work for you.  You have to fiddle and solve your own riddles.  My songs and mantras make sense to me, but you will have to march to the beat of your own drum.  And that is a blessing.  Wouldn’t it be a dull world if there’s only one way, one tune, one beat?  There will be no sound with one hand clapping.  You have two of them.  Use them both and clap with ferver.  Clap with glee.

Don’t start a revolution.  Instead, create a solution.

 

 

ONE STEP FORWARD, 3 STEPS BACK

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It’s one step forward and three steps back.  That is the way it is, life in all its glory.  I have never known a time without struggles.

I know that this is the voice of my seasonal affective disorder talking.  Funny I recognize it and yet I cannot rid the spell cast upon me.  I feel it in my very marrow.  I want to cast it out.  Out, damn spot out!  I’m sounding like Lady McBeth.  I hope I’m not going mad.

Perhaps I’m being melodramatic, the hidden actress in me coming out.  I should not be so weak and selfish, feeling only my own small discomforts.  But I canot deal with all that is out THERE – the Ebola in Africa, the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong, the violence of Isis…

The world is too much with us.  I feel small and helpless in its wake.  It does me no good to be crushed under its weight.  I turn off the television set.  It’s not healthy to go to bed with the images of health workers in white protective clothing, carrying away stretchers of bodies wrapped in white.  Let that not be the last image before I close my eyes for the night.

IMG_1501I sit for moments, drinking my hot water, watching Sheba sleep.  The remains of a stuffed toy by her face, front paws curled and tucked in – a sweeter image to take to sleep with me.  I get up, straightening up and folding the Hudson’s Bay blanket, picking up strayed napkins off the couch. I take my mug to the kitchen.

If I want to feel better, I have to do better.  If I want different, I have to do different.  I put away the few pots and pans left drying on the dish rack.  It would be nice to be greeted by order on the counter in the morning.  I move on to my office, clearing off my desk.  There is no reason why I am not able to do that.

~

It is morning.  After a little struggle getting to sleep, I have had a good sleep.  Good things come to those who try.  I wake up from a dream, remembering it vividly.

My hairdresser, Audrey comes home with me after work.  It is strange how I still remember her name.  I haven’t gone to her for over 20 years.  She gives me a perm at the kitchen table.  It takes 3 hours. I have no sense of her putting in the rollers but I remember the shampooing and rinsing.  She was using this small teacup to pour the warm water over my hair.

The teacup is my mother’s.  She had found it discarded somewhere and she wants it back. She’s always rescuing cups and napkins from eating out and reusing them again to pour cooking fat in and the napkins to wipe up messes.  She hates how wasteful and careless we are in regards to the environment.  So she does what she can.

My perm is done and Audrey calculates her time and worth.  I can’t see the number on the bill.  Dreams are like that – not clear nor complete.  It is a mish mash of this and that, much like Alice in Wonderland.  Somehow, my father is at my place and he is dusting my bookshelves.  That is most unlikely in real life.  His mother, my grandmother (now deceased) is the dream, too.  She is doing the dishes – another most unlikely.

The dream continues.  I see my gold shag carpet in the living room with the floral orange and brown sofa set.  Remember those?  Our family is suppose to go out for supper but some of the kids are sick.  It is called off.  A coworker pops into the dream.  I’m coughing up a storm in front of her, working up an excuse to phone in sick for the next day.  I’ve been retired for a year! And yet it follows me in sleep.  Not often, I’m happy to say.

What stuff  dreams are made up of!  I wonder what it means.  Perhaps there are no meaning, hidden or unhidden.  Maybe it is just irritated dendrites firing and misfiring.  I shall just enjoy the mysteries of the dream and move on with the day.  The sun has just come out.  My Chai is strong and sweet.  Savouring life, valuing dreams.

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM WITH ALICE

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Groundhog_Day_(movie_poster)

Image from wikipedia.org

Some mornings I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, waking up to the same morning day in and day out.  The unchanging greyness frightens me in the first moment of wakefulness.  Have you ever experienced that?

The thing not to do is to dawdle in bed, but I do.  The greyness holds me there.  I am unwilling to touch the cold floor of reality and face the day.  I’ve been here before many times.  I know that the moment my feet hit the ground, the feeling will dissipate.  No, it does not magically evaporate.  I have to assist its departure.  How?

Getting out of bed is the first hurtle.  The rest follows:  I get up, dress up and show up at my desk.  I put one letter, one word….any letter, any word and start.  Things happen when you move.  That is the law of life.  It is not rocket science, as they say.  Don’t you just hate cliches?  I’m past the hurtles and I am sitting here, tap, tapping out the words.  I hope for magic today. I want to feel the words tumbling off my fingertips like water rippling over the rocks in the river.  The sound of the keyboard is music to my ears.  I see the stream of words floating gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily life is but a dream.

IMG_1089I’m rowing my own boat, steering, pushing it towards my  destination.  You have to have a little bit of oomph to get over rough spots. The weather changes and the water can get rough.  A life jacket is a must.  A rope or two can be useful.  You can never tell.  It’s best to have some tools on hand.

The weather has changed.  The sky is steely grey.  I feel the ghost tiptoeing on my grave. It is alright.  I am well acquainted with him. He cannot hurt me.  I breathe and drop the other shoe.  There are no explosions of catastrophe.  The quietness of a Saturday morning presides.

I am safe in my home, in my own skin.  I am the captain of my spirit.  I get to change the direction in which I travel.  The sky is grey.  Autumn leaves of orange and gold are floating past my window.  They are whispering and teasing me with their graceful dancing movements.

“Come with us.  Come with us”.

Image from google.ca

Image from google.ca

Perhaps today would be a good day to explore – to travel down Alice’s rabbit hole.  Would I find her Wonderland?

I stepped inside the book yesterday just for 15 minutes.  I fell down the tunnel with Alice and landed on top of a bundle of twigs and leaves.  We chased after the white rabbit and came to a hall full of locked doors.

We found a magic key that opened a door. We still could not get in, of course.  It’s not that simple.  If it was, that would be the end of the story.  There would be no Alice in Wonderland.  Life is like that too.  It has many corridors with many locked doors, all posessing different codes.  You need the right combination to unlock each.

I had to leave Alice swimming in the puddle of her tears, wondering how she was going to get into that Wonderland.  I will find another 15 minutes to be with her today.  It is an intriguing story.  It has grabbed the child in me.  That’s what good stories do.  I’m learning the process.

 

BUILDING HABITS, BUILDING DREAMS

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27097_321356195886_8251743_nMornings are hard in the middle of December.  The sun does not show its face till 9 or later.  So lucky that we have Sheba to be our alarm clock.  She is quite persistent.  If licks on the face, runs at the bed doesn’t work, she will resort to loud barking to get us out of bed.  I am hungry!  I am hungry!  Get up!  Get up!  What is the matter with you people?

So another day begins.  It is 7:25 and we have slept in!  I think about hopping on the exercise bike with my book and mug of tea for a few minutes but thought was all I did.  Oh tomorrow is another day.  I will have to remember that for tomorrow and not let myself down and slide on the slippery slope of will power.  I am an adult after all.

So, this is another morning.  Wake up call again..at 7.  I get up, remembering my promise to get on the exercise bike.  I am feeling low and tired.  It is not visions of sugar plums dancing I see in my head, but the shooting at the school in Connecticut.  It is the cares of the world I am feeling along with my own uncertainties and heaviness.  But time has been my best teacher.  All the thinking and feeling and trying to understand and figure things out has not helped me in the past.

And so I sigh, get out of bed, make my tea and head downstairs to the bike.  I turn on my SAD light and set my timer for 16 minutes.  Those minutes are long and short at the same time.  My thighs ache and I stop to rest and sip my tea.  Hurry, hurry, get going!  Only 16 minutes.  You want to get going to get some good.  Only 16 minutes to read this book.  Pedal!  Pedal!

The 16 minutes are over and so is breakfast.  Those feelings of despair for the world come and go.  When they come, I remember that it does me no good to think and feel them.  I get up and move.  I put the breakfast dishes in the washer.  I wipe the counter.  I put away the towels someone has folded for me.  I sucked up Sheba’s hair off the floor in the kitchen, dining room and sun room with the electric Swifter.

The sun is out and I am sitting here, tap, tapping out my words.  What I am thinking now is about the irony of our world, our lives.  This is the time when we do have the world at our fingertips.  With a touch of a button, we can send a message across the world.  We can talk via Skype to someone on the other side of the globe.  We are more connected than ever.  Yet at the same time, we are more isolated than ever.  I am missing those times when we were more brave, daring…to be vulnerable and talk to each other, face to face, on the phone.  I miss those times when we were not afraid to be friends and say, I like you, I miss you.  I need you.

I count myself lucky that I can feel all these feelings.  Sometimes they are a BIG nuisance.  You have a life to live, you know, and you have to flog through all the heaviness of feeling, just to get out of bed.  But the rewards of trying and doing are very much worth it.  Cultivating good habits help.  I love Regina Brett’s:  Get up, dress up, show up.  Every time I can do that, I know that I am a success.

sunroomI find that I can accomplish great things if I show up.  Sometimes our worst of times can be our best of times.  My sun room is the best testimony to that.  Because of my ‘condition’ of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I look for solutions and possibilities.  And this is the end result.

We are all builders.  So let us build good things.  Let us build a better world.  We can start with just a single block.

DARK, DARK NIGHTS

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The nights are so long now, the sun setting early and rising late.

I was having a dream when I was waken with a very wet nose and tongue in my face.  SHEBA!  It was still pitch black.  I rolled away from her and covered my face, not getting up since I have to work tonight.  I thought about my dream.  It was about mending a coat.

Funny how things get on your mind and come in your dreams, as reminders to take care of your life.  Sure, the winter can be difficult….dark and heavy sometimes.  You feel this inertia, the slowness of limbs and mind.  It is tough sometimes even to break out of a wet paper bag.  So you need these dreams of mending coats and Sheba’s wet nose and tongue to wake you from the dark, even if it is only 5:40 am.   Apparently the dark is messing up her internal clock, too.  Maybe she needs a bedtime snack to tide her over.

I do have two coats in need of mending.  So they are on my mental list of things to do.  It is good to make lists, to have plans, to move, to do…instead of dwelling on my mind.  It  is cold and grey, that I cannot feel joy.  The only feeling I have is like cold, grey dishwater.  Ugh!

So this morning I have had my hearty breakfast of eggs and toast and pedaled for 25 minutes on my exercise bike.  I read for pleasure those 25 minutes while pedaling in the glow of my SAD lamp.  I haven’t mended my coats yet, but I did change my furnace filter and it needed changing!  I vacuumed and tidied a little.   When I was done, the sun was out!

And here I am again bathed in sunlight and happiness.  Another victory!