Depression has hit

I feel like I am trapped in a cycle of depression. I literally feel no joy in anything. Even petting my dog as she sniffs my hand while writing this feels like too much for me.

I’m laying on the couch after mindlessly getting through my day. I’d honestly rather be alone in my bedroom but being in the same room as my family is what they need from me. I’m here physically but not mentally. I suppose that is enough for right now.

The way I am feeling started last week and fluttered off and on through the weekend. I started writing a post, to help me work through my emotions. Therapy in words. I didn’t think the feelings would stay but here they are.

… I took my medication this morning, drank a cup of coffee with coconut milk (my new favourite way to drink coffee), and made a nutritious lunch for my daughter. My daughter sat outside on the deck working on a dot-to-dot book while the dogs laid in the sun. We left for the day in a calm and peaceful manner and arrived to day camp drop off within minutes of the doors being unlocked.

I started to feel anxious with my drive into work. Then I started to feel sad and hopeless. My mind swirled with self-doubt over what I had accomplished this morning.

…that lunch you made is probably at the front door at home and you’re going to have to spend money ordering her Pita Pit and getting it delivered.

…or they won’t call you and tell you that she doesn’t have a lunch and snacks and she will be hungry all day. Then she will have behavioral problems and she will have a rough day.

…and it will be all your fault because she acted out.

I tried to keep my mind focused on work.

…you know you are doing this wrong. It will need to be fixed. (I wasn’t but it took me a really long time to do one thing I have done a thousand times before)

Like a film, I re-watched my morning in my mind to figure out where the self-doubt talk was coming from.

…go straighten your hair. At least it will look like you tried to put yourself together and care. God, you have let yourself go.

I scrolled through the 16 pre-loaded satellite radio stations on my drive into work and I came across Love’s the Only House by Martina McBride. I turned it up real loud as I tend to do with Martina McBride. The song reminds me of where I have been, what I have now, and what is possible in the future.

I was left in reflection after the song ended, if you want to call it reflection. It was more just scattered thoughts about randomness. I feel hopeful and inspired when I listen to Love’s the Only House, but not this time.

Here I am now a few days later, laying on the couch and not wanting to join my family at the dinner table. The walk from the couch to the table, the conversation at the table, and the clean up afterwards seems like far more than I have any desire to do.

My family is innocent in all of this. I kept quiet at the dinner table, smiling as my daughter told a story about a tomato. I heard but I didn’t hear. I saw but I didn’t see. I was at the table physically but mentally I was long gone.

Earlier in the day I told my husband that I wanted to take Asha on a trail walk this evening. The only place I now want to be is where I am now and that is alone.

I know that the trail and Asha will make me feel better but I don’t want to go. I do but I don’t. I just want to fall asleep as early as possible.

This really sucks.