For the past couple of weeks, by recommendations from my therapist and through encouragement from my partner, I have been going down to the apartment gym and working out three days a week. I’ve been making sure I get my 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill and then a bit of lifting (depending on how much I feel like I’m going to hurl after the cardio).
I’ve started into my third week. I’ve improved from where I’ve started. Parts of my body are toning. My partner is always there with supporting words and encouragement about how well I am doing. Keeping up with it. Making a habit out of it.
Meanwhile, the shadowy bitch that lives in the back of my brain keeps reciting the lyrics to Fitter Happier at me.
Fitter, happier, more productive
by Radiohead
Comfortable (not drinking too much)
Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
At ease
Eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
A patient, better driver
A safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
Sleeping well (no bad dreams)
No paranoia
Careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
Keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
Will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
Favours for favours
Fond but not in love
Charity standing orders
On Sundays ring road supermarket
(No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
Car wash (also on Sundays)
No longer afraid of the dark
Or midday shadows
Nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
Nothing so childish
At a better pace
Slower and more calculated
No chance of escape
Now self-employed
Concerned (but powerless)
An empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
Will not cry in public
Less chance of illness
Tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
A good memory
Still cries at a good film
Still kisses with saliva
No longer empty and frantic
Like a cat
Tied to a stick
That’s driven into
Frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
Calm
Fitter, healthier and more productive
A pig
In a cage
On antibiotics
When does it hit?
I find myself wondering more and more, when it is going to hit. I have read so many articles about exercise really helping with depression. I’ve experienced it myself. My partner has reported it helping tremendously with his depressive episodes.
But here’s the start of another one of mine. I’m getting therapy. I’m doing the exercise. I’m taking the St. John’s Wort. I’m taking the time for myself. But here here it is again.
The more weight I lose, the more loose disgusting skin I see. The more toned I get, the less feminine I feel. The better I look in clothes, the more vulnerable and scared I feel in public. When so much of my identity is tied to being a big (and usually intimidating) girl, it’s so hard to feel like I am being true to myself as anything else.
Can someone please shut her the fuck up?
Like I know, logically, rationally, that people slip. People with mental illness fucking slip and you have to forgive yourself, try to learn what you can, and let go. And I know you can’t get it right the first time. But I feel like I have been trying really hard and it still happened again within a month…
There is always this skeptic in the back of my mind telling me there is nothing I can do about any of this. It is part of who I am. It is who I am. Who laughs at the effort I put in. Who recites the lines of Fitter Happier in my head when I am going to work out. Who pokes my ribs and tells me I will never be good enough. That I am lying to everyone.
She’s a bully (as pointed out by my therapist) and the only way I’ve ever known how to deal with bullies is to ignore them. But ignoring her isn’t working, and neither is rationalizing. My therapist recommended arguing with her, but I still hadn’t made the time to get a full list together of arguments prepared before she came back.
I’m trying to be gentle with myself, but it is so hard. Especially when these episodes also tend to coincide with lashing out at loved ones and affecting their mood. I don’t know why I try to bring people down here with me. I hate feeling like I am toxic.
Acknowledging the Storm
When talking with an old friend today, she told me a piece of wisdom she had learned to help with her own mental health:
Think of that stuff like a storm. Acknowledge that it’s raining and thundering and know that it will pass.
And instead of trying to stop the rain (you can’t!), just get an umbrella or stay inside.
I acknowledge that this is temporary. I want it to happen less, but I know I’ll be through this bog soon. I am doing what I can and I am trying my best, too. I need to release my self-critical nature, or at least try to do better at not projecting it onto other people when it does get bad.
All I can do is keep trying.