It's been an up and down week. I've flitted in between feeling ok, able to push bad emotions aside and function, sobbing my heart out with renewed feelings of hurt & despair and quite motivated, optimistic moments.
My past experiences of depression have taught me not to expect a sudden overnight cure, I know there's no such thing. But this constant change in emotions, the ups and downs, is so frustrating. I'm exhausted just from trying to keep up with it all, trying to manage my mood as much as I can and trying to avoid letting it impact on Sophie or my pregnancy.
It's hard not to get excited and carried away when I have a period of time feeling positive and more like myself. It's equally as hard not to be overwhelmed with a desire to give up when I feel like I've a taken ten steps backwards and darkness is engulfing me again. I'm constantly fighting my body and my emotions, trying to find some sort of calm middle ground, just to keep going.
Perhaps some of the ups and downs can be explained by medication. I have been prescribed an antihistamine, Promethazine, in addition to my anti depressants, to help my anxiety and to combat my insomnia. It is apparently fine to take during pregnancy and I must admit it does help. I get off to sleep much quicker after taking it and don't wake in the night.
The problem is I barely wake up in the morning either. I'm so drowsy my husband has to drag me out of bed when he leaves for work at 8am, to look after Sophie. I also get a bit anxious the following day when the effects wear off. Given that it's now less than two weeks until I'll have a newborn baby to take care of both of these things make me feel a bit wary of becoming reliant on the Promethazine, so I've decided to try and avoid taking it unless I have too, and stopped two days ago. Both my crying outbursts and lowest moments of the week have been in the past two days since I stopped taking it, surely that cant be a coincidence?
I don't know, sometimes I just like to attach a reason to how I'm feeling. I find it hard to accept it just is. That the ups and downs are for no reason. It's easier to attach it to something, and it gives me more hope and optimism about it passing, eventually,
Depression aside (if only that was as easy to do as it is to write!!!) it's been nice being at home this week, spending so much more time with Sophie. I've never had any real desire to be a full time housewife, my career has always been important to me, but I can understand why people love to do it. Sophie is different with me at the moment too, more clingy and affectionate. I hope it's because she's enjoying having me around more.
Stopping work has been so incredibly hard for me. Even writing about it here makes me feel very anxious. My job, my career, has always been a defining part of who I am, and not knowing what I want to do, or how the future is going to pan out makes me feel so... Lost.
I just don't know who I am without work.
That's quite sad really isn't it? To not know who you are other than what you do for a living. Maybe one good thing that will come out of all of this godforsaken pain and misery will be that I do find some more of myself, and end up happier. That's a thought to cling to, and to end today's waffle on I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment