Not at my best...

It's been awhile since I've been on medication. I'm pretty par with the average consumer that I loathe the side effects of anti-depressants and I'm probably better than average at finding other ways to cope. Notice I didn't say healthier ways, just other - although as I've grown older I've tried to avoid self medicating with substances or food. sigh... key word - TRIED. Sometimes I'm pretty good at avoidance.... sometimes what I'm avoiding isn't necessarily what I should be avoiding.

I'm pretty much free falling at present - enough that I think I may have no other choice but to go to my doc and ask for meds. Again. This in and of itself, is not making me feel better.

I know that my current depression is mostly due to my reactions to some very specific current events, some of them personal and some of them the world at large. I tend to soak up the free floating anxiety that our current economy and pre-election hysteria send out to the ether; like many with depression, I feel everything personally and intensely. I just spent a full week in a training to become a WA State Certified Peer Counselor and came home pretty shook up. (Imagine a week of intensive group therapy.) Then I had someone I thought of as a friend tell me she is "done," (with me? I assume) - leading me to ruminate on how she got to "done" without me even guessing that there was a problem. ( I will think this to death. It will be my fault. Can't maintain even the most rudimentary adult relationships - just like your mother - bladdda, bladda, blah.)

The level at which I am NOT coping right now is pretty clear. Binge eating is being narrowly avoided, or not avoided depending on your point of view... I'm bingeing but on pretty low calorie fare so it hasn't left me feeling a complete failure... only a minor one. I'm avoiding social contact. I'm a complete bitch to my poor husband, because he's around me enough to catch the brunt of my misery. I haven't started drinking for relief. I cry myself to sleep after an hour or two of mindless mental activity to wear me out... or I have to take something to sleep - tylenol PM or Xanax (down to my last 6 pills and hoarding them. Don't really want to go the doc.)

Is it enough for me to say that I need help, even while I'm avoiding getting it?