Dueling Depression

Like a "virus" it gets under the skin, can't locate the source, or even, many times, how it even happens. All of a sudden enjoyable things, like writing, being awake, things previously obsessed about doing become a chore, become tiresome, become too much. Sleeping twice as much becomes the way to get through the day. Eating patterns change. Everything changes for the worse, everything becomes forced to attain a normal feeling that doesn't end up feeling normal, only heart breaking.

We've felt it coming. We staved it off with thoughts of moving, the anticipation had grown. Whenever we had a bad day we just mentally put ourselves into our new home...and think of all the things we were going to do with it. Pictured painting in our new studio, and gardening in our beautiful gardens, and canning and cooking in our new kitchen. It was our retreat.

And then we lost it, it fell through. Interesting to know, they actually reduced the price by $5000 today; given that we just had to pull out of the sale this last week because they wouldn't accept our amended off after the property inspection, we're not ready to try to deal with them again right away. We've been burned, and we need time to deal with it. Some of us figure that the property will continue to stay on the market, even until after we find an alternative, and in the end be sold for what our final amended offer was.

Now our "safe place" is gone. There is nowhere to mentally put us when a place is needed. We don't like creating fake places to get by, because fake is...well...fake. We want a real place to put ourselves into, a home, a destination...a dream place based on reality and the future.

We've been mourning it in numbing fashion, sliding deeper into the hole we'd been poised above for months, understanding we are depressed, but not clinically depressed; there are marked differences between the two. Over the past couple of weeks we've worked on decreasing our drinking habit again, by about 50%, even though it's our only pain killer for back pain. So far so good, we suppose.

To combat the depression before it gets worse, because it's gotten exhausting to pretend we are mentally fine and dandy, some of us have been doing it for month. We plan to start working out again. The distraction of the gym and exercise will be healthy, both mentally and physically, and is needed.

We went to the gym today and did 30 minutes of cardio, just to start, on the cross-trainer mostly; it's always been our favourite piece of cardio equipment (it burns the most calories per minute while being gentle on joints). We had to decrease the amount of time we run because of our knees and back and so found love in the cross-trainer. It's been two years since we've been to the gym. We used to be frequent (4-5 times a week) gym members. It felt great getting back into it today, until we stood on the scale for the first time in a year...and then a desire to return each day, or at least three times a week, was put into drive. It went from feeling great, to feeling essential. As our weight has been an issue almost most of our life.

So, while trying to figure out where to move, how to move, and when to move, given we don't want to compromise too much on the dreams we have laid out; and with a bit of a new distraction of going to the gym and focusing on our body a bit with a goal of hopefully losing 20 pound before the Tweetup we are (planning) on (co)hosting in May 2013 (that's about as much as we can lose without looking ill); we hope to keep a stiff upper lip, and not let the wrenches tossed into the spoke of our dreams get us down. It's not easy, but we're many-times-survivors, and we can duel this depression like a pro...hopefully soon.

~ Frankie et al