Let me start by saying that I have a bit of good news:
Little by little I am coming out of my depression. I no longer feel like I am encased in a suit of armor stuffed with ice and cotton wool. I am starting to feel the full range of emotions again.

“That gum you like is going to come back in style.”
The bad news:
I am starting to feel the full range of emotions again.

“Doesn’t she look exactly like Laura Palmer?”
For the first time in quite a while, I feel moody and irritable. I have tried very hard to keep myself in check, and I hope that I have not been taking it out on Jennifer. I do not feel as though I have been. She would certainly let me know if I were. She would not stand for it either. After all, she’s a master communicator who specializes in talking about emotions and healthy boundaries. That said, I got exceedingly upset on a phone call about a fraud claim I made against a scammer on PayPal yesterday. I did not shout, swear, or belittle the customer service rep, but I did whine, wheedle, and whinge in such a way that made me promise to just kiss the twentyish dollars up to Jesus when I woke this morning. Not acting the fool again is worth walking away from that amount of money. Perhaps I can buy myself a little self-respect with it.

Why thank you, Stock Photo Lady!
My energy levels are starting to rise, but with that, I constantly feel impatient and antsy. My legs are shaking and I find myself fidgeting with my hands. A lot. Physically, I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. Where depression feels like a dull ache inside and out, this coming out period feels like the pins and needles that accompany the sensation returning to a limb that has fallen asleep. Imagine that feeling, but all over one’s body. I can even feel it inside. As you can imagine, it is highly unpleasant. Vexatious even.

I 100% just wanted a reason to use this word.
As uncomfortable as I feel right now, I am thrilled to be coming out of what looks like a short depressive cycle.

This guy gets it.
However, I am desperately looking for outlets for all of this nervous energy that are not harmful to me. With all of the fuckery going on right now, doomscrolling social media all day is definitely harming my psyche, but I feel powerless to stop doing it. Even to do something pleasurable like read a book. I have to literally lock up my phone to stop doing it some days, and lately I have been unable to do even that. It is so frustrating. Next week I will not be doomscrolling social media all day long. Pinky swear.
My eating is teetering on the edge of out of control—even with the support of my great therapist, my really kind and supportive dietitian, my first-rate primary care physician, and the well wishes and helf of everyone I love. This is so upsetting to me. Nothing makes me feel so small and powerless as this addiction.
There is good news—my problems with food are inextricably tied to depression cycles for me, and while I may be a bit dodgy right now, I will soon be feeling much more able to control my urge to overeat. What to do in the meantime? This week my therapist asked me a question that honestly stumped me:
“What do you do to self-sooth when you feel overwhelmed?”
Just like when people ask me what my hobbies and interests are, I had no answer for her. “I just eat something or doomscroll or stare into space until I feel less terrible or fall asleep,” was the closest thing to an answer I could come up with. Once upon a time I would have gone outside and smoked a cigarette. We talked a bit about what healthy self-soothing looked like and she emailed me a worksheet on self-soothing that I looked over after our tele-session was over. In all my years of therapy and psychiatric treatment, including several hospitalizations, I do not recall ever being given specific actions to self-sooth with. Especially things to bring immediate relief when emotionally overwhelmed. This worksheet has so many! I plan to study and focus on this in the next week. You all have no idea how relieved I felt when I read over this sheet for the first time. ‘Chewing gum, taking five cleansing breaths, self-massage, sitting in the sun, or wearing familiar perfume or cologne’ may not seem like big steps to take, but to someone like myself who struggles with self-soothing this is a revelation. You mean that I can take an action instead of just sitting in my powerlessness and pain?

It really is.
Let me say something that is from the heart:
PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME ABOUT THE WONDERS OF PRAYER, YOGA, EXERCISE, MEDITATION, OR ANY OF THE MYRIAD OTHER WONDERFUL SELF CARE THINGS THAT I, A FORTY-SEVEN YEAR OLD WHITE GUY IN AMERICA WITH ACCESS TO TELEVISION AND GOOGLE HAVE MOST DEFINITELY ALREADY HEARD OF. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU.
Now that I have that out of my system, let me tell you what I am doing to help get myself out of this depression. I am trying to get a walk in everyday, though the muggy warm weather this week has kept me inside. I am making sure that I get enough sleep. I am staying nice and hydrated. I am reaching out to friends and family, so as to not isolate more than the pandemic already has us isolated. I am listening to a lot of music, reading books, and trying to learn something new every day.
My attention and focus are still utter garbage, but I am finding a nice outlet in drawing every day. All of the other challenges are too fraught or attention-heavy for me right now, but drawing is very soothing and people seem to be enjoying what I am doing. Next week will be all about drawing, so I hope y’all like indifferently-rendered pencil drawings of buildings and fish.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Drop me a line: jeremydnichols@toolatesmart.org
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