one leg at a time

i want to write about all of the craziness of life in the past few weeks - haven's broken arm, tony's eye surgery, etc. i want to write about finding pinterest yesterday and becoming instantly and deeply addicted. i want to write about the stuff i've been sewing, and how i finally found a vegan brownie recipe that actually tastes like brownies.
but...

but the feeling i had in january of being stalled/blocked, combined with the grief over the miscarriage and the havoc it wreaked on my hormones, has turned into full blown depression. it's a familiar feeling, because i felt it on and off for almost a decade, but it's strange too because i haven't felt it in several years. i'd almost forgotten what it is like.
i am a stronger and wiser person than i was the last time it hit, and i am better able to sense it coming and cope in healthy ways, but it still sucks the life out of me. it's a lot like hypothermia - i slowly start to get tired, and it gets hard to concentrate or move, and i start to lose feeling. i'm not miserably unhappy, i'm just not ever happy. that's what clued me in. i'd be in the midst of something that should make me really happy, but the happy just wasn't there. it's like that fuse is just flipped. just explaining it feels exhausting.

on one hand it is a relief to have figured out the reason why i'm not happy (and that it is not that i'm not in love with tony anymore, or a bad mother, or a naturally bitter and dissatisfied person). on the other hand, admitting it makes it really real, and makes it one more thing i have to deal with. it's one more thing to worry about, when worrying too much about everything is my problem in the first place.

so now i'm trying to figure out what to do about it. medication would lift the fog pretty quickly, but i dislike it on principle (and from experience) and since tony and i are still trying to have a baby i don't want to risk the complications it can bring to pregnancy. i'm so terrified now of anything that could hurt a pregnancy. there is a counseling center on base, but it is going to be tricky setting up appointments around tony's constantly changing schedule. i think that's my best bet though.

when i'm depressed, my natural response is to want to retreat into myself and wait for someone to rescue me without being asked to. unfortunately, my natural response is heinously counterproductive. meaning i now have to not only force myself out of bed, but also make sure i put my biggirl pants on and choose to fight my own fight, and keep doing the laundry, and not snap at haven, and give her lots of attention even when i feel spaced out, and keep talking to tony even when i feel too numb to talk.
the biggirl pants are awfully big pants to have to wear. a few years ago i couldn't put them on. every time i felt like this i would get totally lost in it and spiral into self-destruction. but the truth is that i have worked really hard on learning to cope with sub-par brain chemistry, and to communicate and take charge of my own life. i am a biggirl now. maybe they aren't biggirl pants, they are just my pants. that feels a bit more manageable...god bless semantics.

tomorrow morning i will call my doctor for an appointment, so that she can refer me to a therapist. in the meantime, i will wistfully think of all the blogs i'd like to write if anything mattered.

imagine now, dear reader, that you are hearing me utter a deep, melancholic sigh. and also the rustle of feet slipping into fabric.