Survival guide for "I literally cannot will myself to get up" depression days

Disclaimer: this by any means NOT always work but this is straight out of one of those days for me.

So let's set the stage. You wake up. Maybe you have physical discomforts. But you know, stricken with the knowledge that you cannot get out of bed today. Maybe it's some carry over fight from last night or some really restless nightmarish sleep. Maybe you dipped into the depression spectrum; and it was just incubating last night like a cold. But this morning, today, you can't get up.

Ok so first cover you bases. Do you have a job? Find a way to take the day off (fingers crossed no big projects depend on you). If you're needed for work then try to work from home, it will ease the pain. Now when you ask for the day off, or rather inform your team you will be out sick today you have to be careful how you do it. Do not lie. If you have a headache then you can tell them that's why. If you are having a panic attack, anxiety attack, something non-physical it's better to just call it a "sick day" or a "personal day." Corporate America businesses still stigmatizes mental health issues. It's really easy to lose you job if someone finds out. Now if your team and/or team leader knows of your condition then be frank. Tell them you need a mental health day. You NEVER have to tell anyone your personal business. Your health comes first. It's gonna be a rough day.

Do you live with someone? I'm going to just focus on if you live with someone who knows of your condition. Maybe you've taken a few more days off lately than "looks good" for your imagine. But today you can't do it. Tell your loved one, my boyfriend, for example that you are not going to work. Explain to them you have already informed work and got the consent to do it. They will worry you're sabatoging your career just because "you don't feel like getting out of bad today." Someone truly who understands will be concerned but trust your decision to stay home.

Do you live alone? This is going to be a real rougher. Whoever is in your support system call them now. See if they can come. You're gonna want to do something stupid or not move all day which will be also pretty bad. You need motivation to at the very least put some crackers in your mouth and stop crying continuously for hours on end. 

Do you really live alone? Pets are people too. Then you're not alone. Don't shut them out. They can sense when things are wrong. They might annoy you or been really needy when all you want to do is curl up and stare at the wall. That's ok, allow yourself some time to do thT. Shut them out for a short period of time if really need be. But then let them back in. Focus on them. Even though you're resisting because you want to be totally alone to feel completely helpless and spiral into your depression, you can't. They depend on you. You cannot neglect them. You don't have to pet or even touch them. Just let them in the dark cave you're hiding in. Let them lay next to or on you. They're just saying hi.

Don't have a support system? Try to sleep. DO NOT abuse your prescriptions but if you need to take that Xanax or whatever the doctor gave you for anxiety. Sleep the day off.

Ok now they know you're not coming in the office or signing online today. If you're like me, guilt will set in at this point. You will feel 10x worse than before even though you knew the best course of action was to remove work from the equation. Personally, I just think this comes from when I was little and often had to go home for migraines. My teachers never believed me until I threw up on their desks from the light sensitivity. I ALWAYS cried when I had to call my mum to pick me up from school and take me home. Some sort of guilt embedded in me. I don't know where it came from, I was a good student despite my ailments.

So let's bounce back. That support system, can you talk to them throughout the day? My boyfriend and I are fortunate to be able to text during works hours. You're going to want to lay there in silence and rip yourself into pieces inside you head. But you might hear a little "ding." You've got a text or message of some sort. Ignore it for a few minutes if you must but do not forget about it. Pick up the phone, it will feel disgusting. You want to be alone wallowing in sorrow. Text says, "hi," or "how are you?." For me, I'm frank and dramatic. So I put my feelings into words but my boyfriend knows how to read me. He distracts me with baby slothes getting baths, asking about what's for dinner, have I eaten breakfast? He actually cares. So for the most part I one word reply and then don't do anything to keep the conversation. Turn back over and wallow. Eventually I'm sternly directed to eat something. Since I know it will get me less bothered I do it.

Some words on eating. When I'm depressed I do not eat. Or drink, anything. Of course I eventually get hunger pains but those eventually pass. And the only getting out of bed I do is to get water or go pee. I had my most horrible stretch of major depression in 2013 after a particularly rough breakup *details redacted*. I lost 30 pounds, luckily I didn't have a job to lose but I was slipping in my classes. It finally got to the final hour. And instead of "ending my sentence" I semicolon-ed. I reached out for help. But that's besides the point. Back on the topic of food, if you want to waste away, don't. If you can muster a craving eat whatever that craving is. Or trust your support system/boyfriend/girlfriend/care taker to give you food. Don't fight, just eat some of it.

So you're home alone and your cats aren't butlers. You need to roll, melt, do whatever to get out of bed and find a snack. You don't want to eat. Everything seems like sawdust, you don't want any of it. Too bad, food is now medicine. Take your medicine. (Also on a side note try to find a way to take your actual prescriptions).

Ok. You did that? You got a snack, scurried back to bed with a spoon and nibbled on whatever? Good you opened the door and probably forgot to close it. Guess what? Cats* come pouring in. The light from the door makes them look like angels when really they ar Devils in disguise. Let them annoy you. For me at this point I'll either actually swoosh them out of the room which requires getting up or just stand up so I stop getting clawed or wet nose wiped on. 

Aha! I stood up! I didn't realize it was I was getting food but I got up twice. Now here's the important part. Is there something I can do? A project? Clean a single thing? Do just one thing before I lay back down. I'm a little OCD or just like a hyper organizer so I noticed my shelves fell off the wall last night so they need to be put back up. But this requires drill, nail, level, charchol pencil, etc. A BIG job, too big. So instead I go in my closet and pull out these special hangers. I think they are for ties but I'm using them for long thigh high socks. Idea! I can use the other one for belts so they are more organized and not hidden in the closet (hang them off the back off the door with an over the door hook. Mission accomplished. I did a thing!

Naturally for me, cleaning de-stresses me. I think it's the main reason I make messes in the first please. So today as I wrote this blog, there a MANY things that need to be cleaned and organized. And we have company coming tomorrow so it can't actually be put off. I have things to keep my mind off the darkness for as long as I can tolerate being mobile and empty headed. 

I made the bed before I wrote this post, it made curling up feel nicer and easier but all the other stuff I see I just want to fix. My arms and legs are too heavy. I think I'll just lay down for a bit and try again in 20 minutes. At least if I don't move again until my boyfriend comes home, I will have accomplished something instead of doing something destructive to myself or my body.

Let's take this minute by minute, hour by hour. There's going to be relief soon. Maybe only briefly but it will pass, it always does. I have my new little semicolon tattoo reminder for when I'm alone. It will be ok. Let's get through today and worry about tomorrow when it's tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

Movies, movies, movies!

This isn't a real post. Just a list of movies I want to see (don't judge because most I don't care to see in theaters):

2015
the Vatican tapes
the gift
trainwreck
hobbit: battle of five armies
maze runner 2
almanac
pan

JAN
The 5th wave
The Boy
400 days
Kung Fu panda 3
The forest
The revenant

FEB
Gods of Egypt
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Deadpool
Zoolander 2
Viral (2016)
How to be single?

MAR
Zootopia
The other side of the door
Divergent: allegiant

APR
Jungle book
Huntsman: Winter's War
Ratchet & Clank
Before I wake?
amityville: the awakening

MAY
Star Trek Beyond
Alive through the looking glass
x-men: apocalypse

JUN
Warcraft
Finding Dory
Independence Day: Resurgence
The conjuring 2: the enfield poltergeist

JUL
How to train your dragon 3
Now you see me 2?
The secret life of pets

AUG

SEP

OCT
Underworld 5

NOV
Doctor Strange
Fantastic beasts and where to find them?

DEC
Jumanji?
Rogue One A Star Wars Story


If you have an suggestions shoot them my way! This was just a browsing of the movies currently scheduled to come out this year thus far. And yes I DO like foreign films, I'm just picky.

Happy new year 2016: reflections, hopes and "filled with determination"...

Always the new years resolutions. Mine is single, maintain this blog at the very least bi-monthly. I think I could easyly do weekly if this would load at work so I'm going to work on getting that sorted as soon as I can.

Reflections from last year

Last year was an exciting year. Matt and I moved in together in February. We got babies in May. We went to Gen con (second time for me). We went to Austin (first for me). And I went to San Francisco (for work). Matt got a job; I got a raise and a bonus at the beginning of the year. I started working on painting again and other projects. My steady weight is about 10-20 pounds lower than the beginning of the year. And I started some box subscriptions (which I'm going to start some unboxing posts this new year). I threw myself into a really big project at work and am leading the way for my teammates to use a new tool. I feel proud for stepping up; and although there have been many, many long nights and much support, I feel like I've accomplished something big.

The not-so-good. My bipolar is not stabilized. I went into a deep depression that affected my work, had to start seeing a therapist again and have been doing medicine swaps almost every visit. It's not been a good year health wise. I've been experiencing my first long set of mania (it's been about a month now). I spent way too much money. I no longer have easy fall back money. Just the money I intend for a down payment on a house. No extra savings despite the automatic deposit from my checks. Bad times.

Looking forward to the new year

There's a lot of things I want to try to do this year. I'm just gonna list them (this list might grow post live publish) My thought is 28 things for the 28 years I am for now:

1. Unboxing posts
2. Read/Audio listen 6 books
3. Paint, paint, paint (no set number but finish my backlogged ideas.
4. Ravio and Hilda cosplay (before august)
5. Lolita cosplay
6. Bring my baseline weight down another 10-20 pounds
7. Be more consistent in taking my daily meds (I've really been bad at this for the last 3 months)
8. Pass my good cholesterol tests for my yearly health review from work
9. Go to a Ferndale board game group night
10. Go to a GOB game night
11. Get back into D&D
12. Get finances back on track (use mint again)
13. Maintain a splurge budget better
14. Visit family more
15. Don't break the habit of photo memories for ALL THE THINGS!
16. Do a scrapbook
17. Origin Con
18. Volunteer 3 times (full days)
19. Spring clean and actually get rid of stuff
20. 12 movies in the year (all never seen) 6 new, 6 old AND reviewed
21. Try to get back into video games
22. ✅ Gamer fleece blanket
23. Start Halloween quilt
24. work from 6,000 steps a day to 8,000 a day by end of year
25. Learn some scripting and actually apply it to something useful
26. Get media center for living room
27. stick to hair color choice from beginning of year (aka stick with this skunk streak)
28. End of year I start looking for a house!!!!

Other stuff happening. We're going to Gen con again this year with at least 1 couples cosplay. I want to shoot for a lolita one too but we'll see. We will also be going to Jamaica! I want to recreate some pictures from my parents honeymoon, possibly swim with dolphins, snorkel and do the free stuff. Maybe there will be zip lining involved. Possibly visiting an open market. And maybe visiting Bob Marley's place. There's so many possibilities.

Thanks it for right now! I might try to back log som unboxings for Gamer Girl Monthly (because I totally forget for Ipsy and Birchbox) and I can probably scoured back out all the Pusheen items from the Pusheen box.

Thanks for reading guys, see you soon!