Every year I crash and burn at least three or four times, because of a fairly major depression episode.
That means that three or four times every year I have to rebuild my exercise program, catch up on work, make excuses to friends and family I've ignored, sort out my finances, clean my house, go to the dentist to see if I have done any damage to my teeth, see if I can salvage the projects I've been working on, and lose 15-20 pounds.
I have to do all of that each time I recover from my depression episode. And I've been consciously doing that every year for the last 15 years (since I was diagnosed).
I'm part of a close knit extended family, and I've missed family gatherings, weddings, funerals, and even the birthdays of my niece and nephew. There are times when I haven't seen my favourite people for months. All for no reason at all, except depression.
I've lost the same 80 pounds in the last two years - unfortunately it's the same 15 or so pounds over and over.
All the work I am doing, including gardening, dealing with dogs, and this blog moves in fits and starts. Some of them can be put on ice for over a year because if I hit a rough enough period, I'll be too busy fixing the immediate stuff to deal with anything that isn't critical. Some of them I have to start over from scratch because I've forgotten what I was doing, or they've been eroded back to square one because too much time has passed.
I'm pretty sure that most of you reading this blog have to do or put up with something very much like this.
It is extremely exhausting and heartbreakingly frustrating to know that I am expending all this energy just to keep my day to day life frozen in one place. No plans moves forward. It's a Red Queen situation.
There are days when my self pity crashes in and I really really don't want to get up and restart my life again KNOWING that in a month or two I'll have to start all over again. Again. And again and again.
What keeps me getting up each time is the knowledge that this isn't a game or a class or a race or a job. It's my life. My life. Giving up trying means...what exactly? Giving up on trying for a good life? Giving up
I've accepted that even under the best case scenario, each year I will spend about three to six months in total being non-functional due to the mood swings or in catching up on tasks not done while I was depressed. It's a lot of time to lose from my life, but I accept what I have to accept.
Even after all these years, my mood swings still make it difficult for me to predict what I will be doing or liking or thinking next week or next month with any certainty. I used to say that I lived only in the now, with the future in view but not really accessible.
In the bigger picture, I regret that I will not achieve some of the dreams I've had since my early twenties, but I've learned to accept that and move on. That may be a sign of learning to live with being manic depressive, or perhaps it is just what happens as you grow older.