Hiding from the world Well hello there! You may have been wondering where I've been the last couple weeks. Let me tell you all abou...

My Epic Cure for Depression From Illness

Hiding from the world

Well hello there! You may have been wondering where I've been the last couple weeks. Let me tell you all about my week long stomach flu! 😷 Okay maybe I won't give you the details. We'll just leave it at, I didn't have the energy to do anything but lay in bed or on the couch. Oh and there was another dead rat under our house. Since the town was basically shut down because of the ice and snow, the pest control company never came to get it. This weekend Brian had to go find it himself again. Yuck. It was hard to get well with the smell of death. I feel much better now that it's gone. Except for the cold I'm fighting. Waaaah!

Anyways....onward! Being sick usually comes with a fairly bad bout of depression for me. That's possibly normal but sometimes it can stick with me for longer than the illness, making me think I'm still sick when I'm actually not. The symptoms sometimes blur together too, so that I can't tell if I'm sick because I'm depressed or depressed because I'm sick. It's more than a little frustrating.

I may have kicked anorexia's ass, but defeating depression has been a much harder battle than I ever anticipated. I still struggle, far too often, with being depressed. I've come a long ways from my worst of course. Besides no more disordered eating, I also don't worry about everything or get down over every tiny bump in life. Now my stress and depression is more often spent on large and important issues. And during and after illness, which happens far too often.

Nothing some cuddles won't fix
I'm not talking about just being a bit down either. I'm talking hiding in my room, often with the lights off and a dark blanket on the window. And either sleeping, crying, reading, watching mindless TV all day, or a combination of those things. And not socializing with anyone and barely even seeing my own family. This is usually what happens to me with the aforementioned bout of depression that comes with illness. Which is how I justify it to myself that it's okay to hide in the dark and quiet when I'm sick. But whether this is a typical or healthy response to being under the weather, I don't like it and want it to happen less often. My entire life I've had the tendency to get sick often, it was even worse when I was a child. So it's not like any of these bugs I catch as an adult are the worst I've ever had. On the contrary, I'm positive the worst ones happened when I was under the age of 10. So it seems like all this sick time should've toughened me up a bit instead of seemingly making me weaker. Well I don't like feeling weak. That's a big, fat, blinking sign that it's time to change something.

Which brings me back to my most recent illness. It started like any other, with me hiding in my room. Extra justification was escaping the smell of death downstairs which was obviously not helping my intense nausea. Brian poked his head in to check on me and did something that made all the difference in the world. He moved the blanket on the window and opened the blinds. It was last week on the morning after the most snow I've ever seen since we've lived here (like 6 whole inches, it was crazy!). And it was sunny and, obviously, extra bright from all the snow. My first reaction was of course, "No! Ahhh my head! It's too bright!" But we both knew it would be good for me, so I left it. After the initial shock wore off and I could open my eyes, I realized it was bearable. I made a point of opening the blinds anytime I rested in my room during my sick days.

Our backyard last week
And you know what happened? I made it through my entire illness without getting depressed. I can't even remember the last time that happened. Or if that's ever happened. Seriously, it was pretty fucking epic. So all these years I've felt like my progress with defeating depression has been creeping along in slow motion, now one illness bam! I feel like I've jumped ahead a hundred steps. There's always more steps ahead but for now, I'm taking a moment to just enjoy this progress. 

So if like me, you tend to get depressed when you're sick, try not to hide from the world. Instead, try getting some natural light in your life. Doesn't even have to be sunny, you just need to be able to see outside. It reminds you that the world isn't ending and before you know it, you'll be all better.


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