Yesterday, after feeling good about spending time researching maternal psychosis for my book, my energy levels took a dive, and I began to have depressive thoughts like:

Even if I am feeling good, my brain will find a way to torment me.
This is never going to end.
I can’t keep a schedule because my brain finds a way to sabotage me.

I felt so sad that I went to bed early to escape my thoughts. Slept about 12 hours. Lately, my Apple Watch shows that I wake up a lot in the night, even though I don’t remember, but it is fragmenting my sleep cycles. Maybe that is what is causing my present mood shifts; I don’t know.

This morning, I woke up late and made some strong, black coffee. Sat on the couch with my 12-year-old chihuahua, Gumbo. Fed him. Still need to take him out. Got to thinking about my thoughts. I know I’ve had a lot of therapy to challenge such thoughts, but it all felt so pointless. Like I didn’t want to try anymore and just stop interacting with the world until I eventually die.

Started thinking about the hope tattoo on my left forearm. It’s a vine with the word Hope. Hope can be a good thing, but what if it is delusional? What if I am just tricking myself that things will get better, just to feel better in a difficult moment? What if nothing ever really gets better?

Decided that maybe I should try opening up about it rather than keeping it to myself so I shared with two friends. I didn’t want to burden them, or anything like that. I just wanted them to know because I’m trying not to isolate myself. Opposite action.

I think it helped. Writing it out to them helped me see that it is ok to have moments where you feel like things will never get better. Sometimes they happen. Sometimes they stick around when you’d rather that they leave as quickly as they came.

I guess that is where radical acceptance comes in. I can radically accept that I have these thoughts and want to isolate until I die. I can recognise that my brain is trying to protect me instead of torment me. And I can be nicer to myself for not achieving all of my goals for the day.

I should have done 20 minutes of exercise, but I didn’t. My daughter didn’t want to eat beans so she ordered us food from Good Times yesterday. I had a difficult time eating as I wasn’t hungry. But,I managed to eat most of it. I wish I had taken time to do a little exercise, even if only doing my “old lady exercises” as I called them when younger.

Exercise can really help your brain in so many ways. I know this, and I want to exercise, but I feel like that mouse in the olanzapine studies. It would run all night and annoy all of the other mice, but once it started olanzapine, it ate a lot, sat in a corner, and it didn’t bother the other mice. It felt good when it did exercise, but it had no motivation to seek that good feeling. That’s why I tried to switch to Vraylar last year, but it didn’t work out as I wasn’t sleeping at all.

I know I can work around that with discipline so I’m going to keep pushing myself in that direction.

In the meantime, I’m going to work on my maternal psychosis research and take care of myself as much as possible. I haven’t showered in 2 days so I’m pretty gross. Definitely need to shower. I used to take multiple showers a day, but now the water feels painful sometimes. I never used to feel that way about showers, but I’m hoping that even if it feels painful, I will feel better once it is over. And, I’m definitely going to do some exercise. I need to force my brain to feel better even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Thank you for reading. I hope to write more positive posts in the coming days.

These are the skills I’ve used to help me through this difficult time:

• Identifying Depressive Thoughts – Cognitive Processing Therapy
• Sleep – Prevents mania
• Radically Accepting Thoughts & Feelings of Hopelessness – Dialectical Behavioural Therapy
• Opposite Action (Socialise rather than isolate | Eating despite lack of appetite) – Dialectical Behavioural Therapy
• Acknowledged challenges to motivation while on olanzapine but seeking discipline as a way to help improve brain, mental, and physical health.

Update:

I took a shower. When the water got too hot and painful, I turned down the temperature and took my time. Made sure I took time to enjoy scented lavender lotion and I think it helped to wash away that depression stress sweat. Feeling better and ready to start my day. Taking time for self-care is important and helpful.