I had a depressive episode today, thankfully it only lasted an hour or so. When my depression has been at its worst, a depressive episode could last all day and sometimes not involve a trigger. My episodes usually involve me uncontrollably breaking down into tears and I will cycle back into tears when the bad thoughts roll back in.
What triggered my episode? I went to see a weight lost specialist for an initial consultant and there was a weigh in. I now weigh as much as I did before I moved to Sydney; 125 kg (much sadness).
I didn’t break down during the appointment, I started breaking down while trying to sort out payment with the receptionist. While standing in front of the receptionist the bad thoughts were starting to cycle through my mind. I managed to get to the bathroom before breaking down completely. I felt like all of the hard work that I put in is now all undone, I can’t believe I put all of the weight back on that quickly. I felt ashamed, worthless and fat. I can tell you that some of my thoughts were harsh; too harsh for me to write down.
I managed to pull myself together enough to send an email to work saying that I’d be taking the afternoon off work, exited the building and got on a bus home. I still experienced waves of tears while sitting on the bus but it was dying down. So instead of buying a tub of icecream and wallowing in self pity, I started thinking about this blog post and my cycle of misery.
There seems to be three major things that; when combined create a misery cycle that is hard for me to brake out of. They are; poor mental health, poor physical health and poor financial wellbeing. I feel like I don’t have enough control to keep one in check, let alone all three. If I try to tackle all three, I get overwhelmed and disappointed when I don’t meet the goals that I’ve set myself. I stopped seeing a personal trainer because I thought I was in a good exercise routine and I felt like I should next tackle my finances, then life happened and a mild relapse of depression occurred. Life has a tendency to ruin my well thought out plans ;).
I know how to fix these issues and I know they shouldn’t be that difficult. It’s just about making the right choices, right? However, I can tell you with first hand experience that while going through depression my capacity to make good choices is greatly diminished, instead the impulsive/short term rewards part of my brain gets a bit more freedom. This part of my brain loves to eat food, spend money and not exercise. It doesn’t help that our society is geared towards high availability of food and getting us to spend money.
I know weight loss surgery is extreme and I feel like it’s cheating. However I’m considering it because it is a control that I can put in place to help me curb my over eating and over spending. Maybe it can stop me from falling back into bad habits when life happens?