A walk in a park ... well not really i guess
So I think that I am more or less back from wherever it is that I was. I’ve been depressed, not that that’s a new thing for me, but I’ve finally gotten the smarts for get some help. I’m not sure how many depressive episodes I’ve gone through in my life, but I have never gone to therapy or been on medication, I’ve always just muddled through on my own and quite frankly I’m sick of muddling through on my own so there you go. Of course this decision was helped along by the fact that this is the worst episode I’ve been through yet.
But I’m on an LOA from work, and seeing a therapist two times a week. We’ve become such a “Prozac nation” that I figured if I went to a therapist I would automatically get slapped with a prescription and sent on my merry way (much as I was when I was diagnosed with ADD, but that’s a story for another day perhaps) when what I wanted was to learn how to work though my issues and actually get better instead of just patching things up for the time being. I’m staying with my parents for the most time right now, which has been helpful because the sudden change in environment helped me break from the self destructive behaviors I had been developing and it means mom can drive me to my appointments (because other wise I might just not go, I’m like that). My therapy involves things like vitamins (I haven’t missed a day yet), (exercise I’ve been taking walks almost every day), journaling (this not I’ve been so good about) and a dietary supplement called 5-HTP, so no actual medication even, and it must be working because I feel worlds away from where I was. Still have a long ways to go though.
But on the actual reason I booted up the computer to make an LJ post:
I just got back from my walk. * ** From my house you can go three different directions (well you could go in any direction I suppose but if you want to walk on the road instead of dealing with long grass, trees and highly uneven ground, there’s only three ways to go) and they are north, east and west. Going either north or west involves going down a biiiiiig hill before you’ve gone any reasonable distance, and going down a biiiiig hill means that you will have to go back up the biiiiiig hill when you go home. Once you go down the biiiiiig hill and are in the valley everything is nice and flat and you can have a nice pleasant walk. So the first few times I got in the car and drove into the valley because otherwise if I walked down and up the big ole hill I would be sore the next day and I wouldn’t want to walk. But I feel a little weird driving to take a walk so yesterday I went east, which involves lots of smaller rolling hills. I think it worked well; it was exerting enough that it got me huffing and puffing at times, but easy enough that I wasn’t sore today. I took the same route today and my legs are a lot more tired than they were yesterday so we’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but I have an appointment tomorrow so I probably won’t get around to taking a walk anyway. I’m a little limited in how far I can go because the neighbor’s dogs don’t like me “encroaching” on their “territory” (in other words, how dare I walk past their house!), but I’d say its around a mile round trip, and I can get close enough to their house that I can wave at their cows (and yes I did wave to their cows, (I am just that weird) they all came up to the fence and looked at me expectantly as I walked past.
I really, really wish that I had brought along my camera though, I should no better to think anywhere is completely free from photographic opportunity. There is this one spot with these interesting trees (there used to be a house in the center of them that has since been taken down, but the grew so close to the house that they grew funny) and behind them the clouds were so … perfect that they almost didn’t look real, something about the hues and the contrast between the tops and the bottoms and there was certain smoothness to them, they looked like they had been painted there, and all of it was bathed in the warm light of the late evening sun. It would have made a nice spooky Halloween-ish shot, and it will never be quite the same again. Even if I had turned straight around and walked home and gotten my camera and came back the cloud would have changed and the light wouldn’t have been quite the same. The reason I bought the camera I bought was because it’s compact and I can carry it anywhere. Bah, well hopefully I’ve learned my lesson
What else... yes this Sunday we’re going to go up north and visit my brother and his family. Grandma and my sister-in-law and the kids are going with, so that will make it even more fun. I haven’t seen my littlest niece since May
Oh yes and speaking of little ones my BFF (if you’ll excuse my use of internet slang) came over for lunch with her little boy, and boy is he a cutie
Um, yes, I think that’s it for now. Mom and I are watching HHGttG. I happened to mention that I had it home and she asked to watch it, I think she’s only seen it once and that would have been back when I first got it. But watching it meant we had to wait for a time when Dad wasn’t home because he wouldn’t like it. We were going to watch it Tuesday while he was at lodge but he got home late from work and ended up not going. They must be having problems because he also got home late last night (but so did mom so we didn’t get a chance to watch it then either) and today he got home and they were calling him within minutes, mom speed cooked the spaghetti so he could eat and then he went back in. Mom figured if we did the supper dishes quick enough we could get the whole movie watched before he gets home.
*Actually at this point I’ve been back for almost an hour
**Well now its after supper so just never mind the whole “I just got back from my walk" thing.
But I’m on an LOA from work, and seeing a therapist two times a week. We’ve become such a “Prozac nation” that I figured if I went to a therapist I would automatically get slapped with a prescription and sent on my merry way (much as I was when I was diagnosed with ADD, but that’s a story for another day perhaps) when what I wanted was to learn how to work though my issues and actually get better instead of just patching things up for the time being. I’m staying with my parents for the most time right now, which has been helpful because the sudden change in environment helped me break from the self destructive behaviors I had been developing and it means mom can drive me to my appointments (because other wise I might just not go, I’m like that). My therapy involves things like vitamins (I haven’t missed a day yet), (exercise I’ve been taking walks almost every day), journaling (this not I’ve been so good about) and a dietary supplement called 5-HTP, so no actual medication even, and it must be working because I feel worlds away from where I was. Still have a long ways to go though.
But on the actual reason I booted up the computer to make an LJ post:
I just got back from my walk. * ** From my house you can go three different directions (well you could go in any direction I suppose but if you want to walk on the road instead of dealing with long grass, trees and highly uneven ground, there’s only three ways to go) and they are north, east and west. Going either north or west involves going down a biiiiiig hill before you’ve gone any reasonable distance, and going down a biiiiig hill means that you will have to go back up the biiiiiig hill when you go home. Once you go down the biiiiiig hill and are in the valley everything is nice and flat and you can have a nice pleasant walk. So the first few times I got in the car and drove into the valley because otherwise if I walked down and up the big ole hill I would be sore the next day and I wouldn’t want to walk. But I feel a little weird driving to take a walk so yesterday I went east, which involves lots of smaller rolling hills. I think it worked well; it was exerting enough that it got me huffing and puffing at times, but easy enough that I wasn’t sore today. I took the same route today and my legs are a lot more tired than they were yesterday so we’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but I have an appointment tomorrow so I probably won’t get around to taking a walk anyway. I’m a little limited in how far I can go because the neighbor’s dogs don’t like me “encroaching” on their “territory” (in other words, how dare I walk past their house!), but I’d say its around a mile round trip, and I can get close enough to their house that I can wave at their cows (and yes I did wave to their cows, (I am just that weird) they all came up to the fence and looked at me expectantly as I walked past.
I really, really wish that I had brought along my camera though, I should no better to think anywhere is completely free from photographic opportunity. There is this one spot with these interesting trees (there used to be a house in the center of them that has since been taken down, but the grew so close to the house that they grew funny) and behind them the clouds were so … perfect that they almost didn’t look real, something about the hues and the contrast between the tops and the bottoms and there was certain smoothness to them, they looked like they had been painted there, and all of it was bathed in the warm light of the late evening sun. It would have made a nice spooky Halloween-ish shot, and it will never be quite the same again. Even if I had turned straight around and walked home and gotten my camera and came back the cloud would have changed and the light wouldn’t have been quite the same. The reason I bought the camera I bought was because it’s compact and I can carry it anywhere. Bah, well hopefully I’ve learned my lesson
What else... yes this Sunday we’re going to go up north and visit my brother and his family. Grandma and my sister-in-law and the kids are going with, so that will make it even more fun. I haven’t seen my littlest niece since May
Oh yes and speaking of little ones my BFF (if you’ll excuse my use of internet slang) came over for lunch with her little boy, and boy is he a cutie
Um, yes, I think that’s it for now. Mom and I are watching HHGttG. I happened to mention that I had it home and she asked to watch it, I think she’s only seen it once and that would have been back when I first got it. But watching it meant we had to wait for a time when Dad wasn’t home because he wouldn’t like it. We were going to watch it Tuesday while he was at lodge but he got home late from work and ended up not going. They must be having problems because he also got home late last night (but so did mom so we didn’t get a chance to watch it then either) and today he got home and they were calling him within minutes, mom speed cooked the spaghetti so he could eat and then he went back in. Mom figured if we did the supper dishes quick enough we could get the whole movie watched before he gets home.
*Actually at this point I’ve been back for almost an hour
**Well now its after supper so just never mind the whole “I just got back from my walk" thing.