So I Turned Myself To Face Me

[autographedcat]

Sometimes, you realise something about yourself so fundamentally obvious in hindsight that you're not sure how it took you so long for it to occur to you.

I've been struggling a bit with my depression in recent weeks. Given the amount of slow-motion change in my life right now, that's hardly surprising, but today, while thinking about a comment thread yesterday in osewalrus's Facebook page, something clicked in my brain that clarified to me why I've felt so unsettled.

I have two strong behavioural methods for temporarily punching up my mood: eating and buying things.

Neither of which I can really do right now.

I'm trying hard to get back on my fitness plan, which means I have a careful budget with regards to what and how much I can eat in a given day.

I'm saving up money to move across country in 3 months and need to be prepared to weather out a period of unemployment, so I can't really shop for much of anything I don't actually require.

It could be argued that neither of this are strictly healthy ways of dealing with stress and depression, but I've been me for a long time, and I know they both work, at least in the short term. And right now, for a variety for reasons, I'm denied their outlet.

Not sure what to do with this information presently, but there you have it.

Comments

suggestion regarding walking

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Not knowing if you do it or not, let me suggest you take music with you when you walk. When I walk, I have an iPod Shuffle with 13 songs on it, and what I do is walk around the other building in my complex and walk to a set number of songs at a somewhat brisk pace. Four songs is about 10-13 minutes. Six songs can be anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes.

Re: suggestion regarding walking

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I usually listen to podcasts or audiobooks while I walk. This morning my walk lasted around an hour, and I walked about 4 miles, which is a pretty good pace. Got through the latest episodes of Savage Love and Skeptoid, and a short piece from Fresh Air about Big Joe Turner.