...does not a winter make. There was a blizzard in Brizzle yesterday, for all of five minutes, then the sun was out. It's cold though. Spring is a bit slow coming.
Yesterday was hard. I'd increased the SSRIs up to the 20mg standard prescribed dose, and had the same reaction as when I first started them, busy brain kept me awake from 2am. As the time ticked by I got more and more tired and grumpy and cross about being awake, which then made me more agitated and awake, the usual.
And then as it got closer to getting-up-time I started weighing up, should I go in to work or do I "feel too unwell". I hate that conundrum. If I think about it for long enough I can nearly always persuade myself that I am ill enough that it would be better that I rest, especially when I am feeling down. I really believe though that thinking that you can do it, are strong enough, are ok, are able, is important for combatting depression and lack of self-belief.
I feel that if I let myself stay at home when I feel ill, I'll be at home quite a lot, and I'll do less and feel worse. I will get behind at work and get anxious and feel like I'm not coping. I will start to think of myself as, primarily, ill. But that if I force myself into work, and think of myself as a 'fighter', not giving in, and take stubborn pride in going in every day of the treatment (if possible), however rotten I'm feeling, that I will most likely continue to function and cope, with a few days here and there of it being too much, rather than months. Or... I'll exhaust myself.
So I dragged myself into work, feeling rubbish. As I was walking down the road (after having gone back to get my mobile phone, more incompetence) I remembered the bonhomie of my HCV support buddies and it lifted me up. I check in everyday now, just for 10 minutes or so, to catch up on how people are doing. We fight this fight together!
At work I got on with my repetitive, familiar, everyday tasks that don't require any original thought. I find that every time I switch screens, e.g. between Excel and Outlook, that I forget what I'm doing, so I found myself talking out loud (I am in an office on my own)... "come on R, what are we doing, we are looking for the payment schedule for X..." But there will be a day when I need to be able to do something which does require original thought. Oh well.
My boss told me to go home 45 mins early, before the snow recommenced and I refused. I hope that isn't going to backfire, by making him feel that his help has been rejected. I want to save going home early for week 44 of the treatment, not use it in week two.
The week before, I'd signed up for a nine week yoga course on Monday evenings. I didn't go last week because I was too busy being miserable, so really wanted to go yesterday. You miss one class, ok, you miss two it gets embarrassing and then you end up not going at all which is a waste of money. So, even though I was feeling sick, faint and shaky I went. I thought I was being stupid in pushing myself so hard - turns out not. The class was restful, just the right amount of challenging, and I felt transformed - energised and calm - afterwards.
I slept ok last night, but today, I have a brain of sludge. Or does it just feel like sludge? Maybe it works ok it just feels... it feels like yesterday I did 500 brain press-ups in the mud whilst being shouted at by a brain Sergeant Major and now it is quivering brain jelly.
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