Begrudgingly

A few months ago, I wrote a guest post for Alise Wright's blog about my depression, health, and running.  Things were looking up.  Then I got frustrated with the running because I wasn't losing any weight.  Then, I went off my medication.  That's when the depression came roaring back.  I was unable to get out of bed in the mornings, sometimes lying there all day, for about a month and a half.  Things didn't pick back up at all until Amy had finally had enough and we had our arguments about the state of things.

I also put on another 35 pounds.  I'm up to 285.  Last year, my goal for this year was to be 200 and I've gone in the opposite direction.  I did get my job at IWCC back, but I have a lot of anxiety about it.  It gets in the way.  I'm just a ball of problems and I need help.  I can't fix all this on my own.  I plan to get help once the job's insurance begins in September.  I need it all and hope to get it.  I'd like to go back to counseling, maybe get back on some medication, and I want a personal trainer.   I've tried so many times on my own to lose weight and every time I end up weighing more than when I started my program that it's really making me angry.  I also want to go back to the doctor and maybe get some help with my diet.  Everything about my life has been and continues to be a serious roller coaster ride and I want off.

Well, that's it.  That's why I haven't written anything in months.  That's why I don't communicate with anyone.  That's why I sometimes avoid going out of the house.  Here's to seeing you.

My Scale Broke

Literally, it really did. I stepped on it and heard a very unpleasant crack. Stepping off, I examined the bottom. Nothing looked abnormal. But when I stepped back on it read 218.something. Flattering but clearly incorrect. I stepped off and turned it over once more, checking the footpads. Each one seemed fine until I got to the last one. Mushy. Oh well. Whatever happened I don't think I can fix it.

I planned to buy a new scale this weekend. I really did. But I ended up working on some music and getting it out on the web and then I worked on my website and I connected my ReverbNation and Facebook and Myspace profiles and blah, blah, blah. I just never got around to buying a scale even though my weight check in was supposed to be yesterday. I felt a little bad because I really wanted to know if I'd lost any weight or simply just broke even since my eating wasn't perfect this week, especially yesterday.

But after my run this morning, again I feel good. Well, let me rephrase that. I feel OK. Not OK as in "blah", but like things will be OK. I'm running. It's more than I was doing a month ago. Anything could be. No matter what I'm eating, I'm still focusing on eating better than I was a month ago (damn you, Halloween). And no matter what I do, things will be OK. I'm doing the best I can do for the moment in time that I currently occupy.

I'm sure all of this sounds like I've found that calm little center in myself amidst all the chaos. Trust me, I don't think that's happened. But if I don't tell myself these things repeatedly, I'll forget to believe them. And I simply can't afford to do that right now. So I'm happy my scale broke. I don't need it. The distance between what I am and where I want to be is only a function of the effort I'm willing to put forward to get there and the time it takes to get there can be irrelevant if I choose to let it be. Some races, I still want to run. Others not so much. I just have to choose my battles and go with what I know. It's the one thing I do best.

Epiphany #2 (Wait, Not Really)

I suffered a little blow to my ego again recently. Basically, my career is in the toilet and I don't know how to get it back out. As a result, according to my counselor, I've been experiencing many symptoms of loss, depression being one. I started Prozac two months ago, but it still didn't control my rapid mood swings, sometimes daily, up and down, up and down. It can be dizzying and frustrating living like that. I went over two weeks only getting 3-5 hours of sleep a day. I played a lot of video games to keep my mind off my troubles. It was during that time that I had the dream I wrote about previously.

Suddenly, things seemed so clear to me and I started to write it all down. There was so much going through my head that I knew I wouldn't get to it all before my son woke up for the day. But you know what happened? I got back to it when he was napping and reread what I had written. It was all true. But it was no epiphany. Just a lot of words that I had already been through many times before. It was then that I began wondering about mood swings.

The next time I saw my psychiatrist, we did another bipolar screening. I answered yes to more questions this time after clarification of some of the possible examples of symptoms. The medicine I got was expensive. I don't want to be on it for long. I'm not really sure how long I'll be on it.

But here's the thing. Since I have nothing else going for me right now, I've started a running program called Couch to 5k. Well, I started like a typical beginner at first, running as far and as fast as I could muster, but ending up hurting by the end of it. But since I'd been told about this program by a friend, I thought I'd try it. I'm currently on my second day and I was able to complete my longest distance yet, about two and half miles with a pace of about 12:30. It was raining. It was windy. It was cold. When I got back to the house I was tired and soaked. But I felt great. Better than I have in a long time.

If what I had was no epiphany and merely the overactive misfirings of my synapses, so be it. Since I've started running, I've given myself the only real goal I have left. To get healthier. And job or no job, it feels damn good.

A Dream That Leads to My Major Weakness

It's been just over a week since my last post and I've still had a horrible time with sleep. This whole week has been identical in its pattern. Basically, I can squeeze in about four to five hours of sleep per night before I am forced awake. "Forced?", I can hear you ask. Yes, forced. When my mind wakes up, all it wants to do is process my current feelings of loss. I know this because of the dream I had tonight. Here it is, as much as I can remember:

I'm sitting in a classroom on the first day of a class at the college level. I am as old as I am today, but everyone else looks younger, fresh out of high school. It's a philosophy class of some flavor that I can't remember but it is being taught by Stacey Steele, the flute professor at my undergrad university and wife of someone I wholly regard as a model for my life and mentor, Terry Steele. When she arrives to class, it's field trip day so we all get up and head out towards a van in a nearby parking lot. Before I get in the van, I walk over to a grassy area next to the parking lot where there is full concert band seating arranged and waiting to be used for rehearsal. Nobody is there except for three people sitting in what I think is the low brass section. I don't remember two of them, but the person I do know is Jason Shaffer, a very intelligent friend of mine from high school, someone I always respected who was much more academically talented than I. I talked with him briefly about some classes that we were taking at school. I don't remember what he said. Then I headed toward the van.

The next thing I remember is that the van took us to the Steele's home. Well, it was a home that was the Steele's in my dream but not their actual home. You know what I mean. Anyway, we were preparing to begin the lesson and the other students and I were all sitting on couches waiting for Stacey to come back. I felt alone and out of place. I didn't like the people sitting next to me. I was finding ways to judge them, although I didn't know any of them.

Suddenly, Terry and Stacey's oldest son Jeremy emerged from a door on my left. Jer passed away a few years ago and at the time it affected me in a way I find hard to describe. Maybe I'll post about it later but for now I have to get this dream down. As he walked around the couches, eventually in front of me, he morphed. He was no longer Jer, but just a random guy with a beard. The random bearded guy made a comment about a house cat sitting on the stairs. I looked at the cat. It was grey and white. When I looked back, he was now a youngish Asian-American hipster sort of character with very long, black hair, moustache, and long goatee. He was very skinny, dressed in black. Black t-shirt, dark jeans, black bandana helping to maintain the long mane of hair flowing down his back, black low-cut Chuck Taylors, and one of those faux rock star belts with all the shiny metal studs you can find at Target now. He told me, "Hey, I am going to work for EA soon!" (Electronic Arts is one of the largest American developers/publishers of video games in the US.)

"What IP will you be working on?", I asked, feeling a huge pang of jealousy.

"Command and Conquer," he replied. Then he sprang up some stairs two at a time and out of sight.

And that's the end of the dream. I woke up not long after, not remembering anything that may have occurred in the dream after that. Once I was fully awake and began processing this dream as well as things I've gleaned from counseling and my own introspection, I had a major epiphany. Like, the second one I've ever had in my lifetime kind of major epiphany. I've only begun writing it down after two hours of typing. It will come next.

A Frustrated Mess

I started seeing a counselor again about a month ago.  Both Amy and I knew I would need it mostly due to recent events, but my current state of mind has crept up on me many times throughout my life.  It has been most pronounced when I encounter significant failures but it has been something I've experienced for as long as I can remember being cognizant of my own mental well being.

The counselor recommended that I see a psychiatrist which I did this past Wednesday.  I was promptly diagnosed with depression and given some medication.  Up until recently, I've always been very much against the idea of medication for my own problems of this nature.  But this time I admit that I wanted something to help.  So when she prescribed some medication I was eager to begin taking it.  I'm really interested to see what happens.

This is day one of the medication.  I was advised that I may experience some of the side effects as I begin taking it and I most certainly do.  The most significant is a feeling of mild anxiety that can only be described as hyperactivity.  I want to do everything.  It was frustrating this morning because I wanted to clean the entire basement but having Nick around made that pretty difficult.  It still didn't stop me from trying.  I got a little done but most of the time I spent trying to keep him away from my sharper tools.  (Dear DHHS, I was successful.)  He really enjoyed sweeping things up with our shop vac. If this anxious state continues past the next couple weeks, I'm told I should call the doc.  Until then, maybe I can get the house painted.

UPDATE: I realize that using YouTube is still using Google et al. I tried searching for other video sites but none of their embed codes would work properly. *sigh* I hope to find a good one soon. I like Vimeo a lot but they didn't have the video I was looking for. If you know of a good non-YouTube video site, let me know.

Dragged Behind the Wagon by a Rope

This was not the best food week for me. I bought some of my students pizza on Monday. They ate most of it and I finished it (about 5 small slices). It felt good, but I felt guilty. I also snacked a little bit more than I should have. My snacks were OK choices like yogurt covered almonds or fruit but I still did it more than I should have. I think that I was struggling a little because, as I've said before, I'm an emotional eater. Significant events, both happy and sad, cause me to want to eat things I shouldn't or just eat more in general. Since this past week was my last week at the job, emotions were confused and flying high. One day, I could be sad, the next, elated. It made it difficult for me to stay focused on the goal. In fact, I even stopped logging my food this week, too.

But, logging my food really does help keep me in check. It also helps that I've asked Amy to start logging her food too. She quit for a while because she no longer felt that she needed it and she was concerned that her potential obsession over the numbers would cause her to behave unhealthily. But when I explained that I had started feeling like I was doing it alone again, she conceded to me and is trying to help me in any way she can.

I've started to try to figure out a strength routine of some kind that appeals to me. It's a little difficult because I refuse to purchase anything that we're simply going to have to pack up and move in two months so I don't have things like weights or resistance bands or huge bouncy balls. Another frustrating thing that I've discovered about some new moves I'm trying is my lack of understanding about certain motions in the exercises. Some exercises make perfect sense. Some seem like they should but I can never tell if I'm doing it right. I can't work with videos because I can never keep up with them. The trainers always move much too quickly for me and I get frustrated with myself.

This is the Easy Part

I added a little weight loss counter widget down at the bottom that will update each week automatically when I check in. It says "4" right now, but that's not entirely accurate. I started my regular cardiovascular regimen a week prior to that and when I initially set up the MyFitnessPal account I had already lost four pounds. I can always add four to that number and feel even better. I'm excited to see what Mr. Scale says this Saturday. If I've lost another two or three this week, I will have successfully taken off the additional weight I put on over the past few months with the fast food. For the record, I've vowed to avoid those places and have succeeded admirably so far.

I know that this is the easy part though. The extra pounds that have been added most recently are the easiest to lose. I expect the next ten to disappear at a slightly slower but still rewarding pace. I'm guessing another four to five weeks to take off the second ten. The biggest challenge for me will be the changes that are inevitably coming over the next weeks or months.

I Have No Mouth And I Must Eat

Trust me, I'd find a way. But I've finally had it. Again. I've never been a skinny person or athletic in any sense of the word, but in the past 10 years, my weight has yo-yo'd from about 215 pounds, about my size when I left high school, all the way to my recent all-time fatass record of 261 set last Sunday. I've dieted and exercised sporadically as my weight has fluctuated, losing 30 pounds in 2002, gaining it all back plus some in 2003 as I was jobless and depressed most of that year, then once I found a job in 2004 remaining fat and happy until 2006 when I tried the South Beach diet (and exercise), losing 25 pounds and then again putting it all back on plus some in 2007 and '08 when Amy became pregnant and had a pretty rough go of it. Then, with the new job in 2008 stressing me out on a daily basis, I've become addicted to junk food, rewarding myself for getting through a bad day or just eating because I had a good day and I felt happy. Everything became a reason to eat. It got to the point where I was hiding food because I was ashamed of my eating habits. That is just wrong. Plain wrong. No, wait, plain wrong is probably good for you. This is probably Twinkie-covered-in-chocolate-and-deep-fried wrong.

I am, here and now, putting my foot down publicly. No more. When I saw my weight above 260 last weekend, I realized that my problem is manageable with the right mindset and tools. I started off doing some easy aerobic exercise on a daily basis, about 30 minutes a day, EVERY day. Nothing too strenuous but just something to get me off my giant ass. Knowing that that is not enough, I've also decided to start keeping a record of my exercise progress and caloric intake at MyFitnessPal.com. If anyone that reads this would like to join in with me, for your sake or mine (dieting alone sucks major balls not to mention the inevitable denial of my brains pleasure and reward centers), please look me up there and friend me. My username is DrRosenRosen. I will see you in a year and hopefully will have lost a good portion of the 60 pounds that I need to lose. I know I can do this. My biggest hurdles will be the psychological, emotional and behavioral issues I have with food. A lifetime of learning poor eating habits is a hard thing to break.