This is a post about self-care
Actually, this post is mostly about self care, but also a little bit about depression. Which means I'll put it behind a cut.
Soooo, the winter before last, I had a bad depressive episode. Very bad. It didn't help that my relationship was beginning to crumble, that I was working two jobs, that I lived in one of the grayest states in the country, and that I was reading post-modern novels by people like Samuel Becket or W.G. Sebold for school. The point is, it was bad. I didn't want to die, exactly -- at least, not all the time. I mostly just wanted to hide under my bed in a self-induced coma for a few years, until the world stopped being such an awful, meaningless place.
I dragged myself out of it, eventually. However, the sudden shift in weather here -- I swear, it was 80 degrees two weeks ago, now I'm sleeping in sweaters because I don't have a duvet yet -- has triggered a little bit of a slide back into that unpleasant territory. I'm forgetting things, I'm constantly overwhelmed, I'm not eating, and I'm making rash and impulsive decisions. I'm having trouble leaving the house, and I've spent most of the last two days reading fanfic in bed. I recognize this cycle, and want to avert it if at all possible.
SO. How do you, flist, take care of yourself? I don't mean the obvious necessary stuff, though I occasionally need to be reminded of that shit too. (This is what I have a platonic wife for, however. ) How do you take care of yourself when you feel like shit, when you want a vacation from your own life and your own brain? I want this post to serve as a brain-storming session and a reminder to myself. Any and all advice welcome.
Here's my current list of self-care to-dos, because I like lists:
Soooo, the winter before last, I had a bad depressive episode. Very bad. It didn't help that my relationship was beginning to crumble, that I was working two jobs, that I lived in one of the grayest states in the country, and that I was reading post-modern novels by people like Samuel Becket or W.G. Sebold for school. The point is, it was bad. I didn't want to die, exactly -- at least, not all the time. I mostly just wanted to hide under my bed in a self-induced coma for a few years, until the world stopped being such an awful, meaningless place.
I dragged myself out of it, eventually. However, the sudden shift in weather here -- I swear, it was 80 degrees two weeks ago, now I'm sleeping in sweaters because I don't have a duvet yet -- has triggered a little bit of a slide back into that unpleasant territory. I'm forgetting things, I'm constantly overwhelmed, I'm not eating, and I'm making rash and impulsive decisions. I'm having trouble leaving the house, and I've spent most of the last two days reading fanfic in bed. I recognize this cycle, and want to avert it if at all possible.
SO. How do you, flist, take care of yourself? I don't mean the obvious necessary stuff, though I occasionally need to be reminded of that shit too. (This is what I have a platonic wife for, however. ) How do you take care of yourself when you feel like shit, when you want a vacation from your own life and your own brain? I want this post to serve as a brain-storming session and a reminder to myself. Any and all advice welcome.
Here's my current list of self-care to-dos, because I like lists:
- Start learning something new, like a French or knitting or how to use photoshop.
- Make things.
- Finish the things I begin to make. (This is harder.)
- Read novels.
- Limit time spent derping on the internet. (Including fanfiction, which gets to be an unhealthy distraction sometimes.)
- Write.
- Cook.
- Bake.
- Dance, even when I don't want to.
- Stretch.
- Travel.
- Cuddle with people.
- Go out with friends. Go out on dates.