Where I've been...

HELLO! 👋 When I last blogged in June, I did not expect to be gone for so long! I mean, I’ve been religiously doing the High Five for Friday posts since 2015! 😮

I’ve actually been putting off posting… and kind of dreading it. Probably because I’m out of practice with being vulnerable online. And also because I’ve been dealing with things that are still very much in the slippery, undefined phase.

But hey, here we are. And here’s what’s been going on over the past six months. It seems I might have:

• Agitated depression!

• PMDD!

• The worst vitamin D deficiency both my regular doctor and psychiatric nurse practitioner have ever seen!

(No, wait, I do definitely have that last one, HOORAY.)

It’s like the least fun Choose Your Own Adventure!

As I said in my last post, things fell apart in June. I had a pretty bad anxious/despairing episode in which I could barely eat, sleep, or sit still. However… this is at least the fourth such incapacitating episode I’ve had in the past few years, which made my psych NP Liz wonder if I have something called “agitated depression.” It’s on the mood disorder spectrum along with regular depression and sounds like anxiety on steroids—plus a lovely layer of depression.

But the jury is still out on whether or not I actually have agitated depression because Liz had me start tracking my mood. And while the weeks and months that followed weren’t quite as bad, I began to notice that my mood and emotions would go haywire alongside changes in my cycle. Liz says that she often sees people’s mental health issues worsen alongside hormonal fluctuations, so IT maybe ME. But, of course, if you’re having A Really Bad Time when you get your period, you could have also have PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder).

I had begun to think that PMDD was the culprit for me… and then January happened.

January was the first month where my mood/emotions didn’t fall off a cliff. (Like, I continually noted “Shockingly okay!” in my mood tracker.) The only thing that I’d done differently between December and January was introduce vitamin D supplements for my crazy deficiency. I didn’t expect these random gummy vitamins from CVS to actually do much, but maybe they are! I’ve read some articles that suggest a link between vitamin D levels and mood, particularly depression, so maybe we’re on to something here. (I’m going to get bloodwork done soon to find out for sure.) All I know is that I’m feeling better!

So, yeah. A lot of stuff that we’re still trying to sort through!

Not to mention, you know, the whole GLOBAL PANDEMIC thing. 🙃

But I do hope to come back to this space more, as I really miss having this creative outlet and chatting with my dear blog friends!

And…

If you’re reading this and feeling terrible and like you’ll never get a handle on all of your stuff, well, for what it’s worth… now you know one other person who’s going through that too. ❤️