A little more background:
During this funk I was in, I stopped doing almost everything. All I wanted to do was stay in bed, or if up, watch TV or read. That's a terrible place to be. I suspect many of us have given up on life for at least brief times in our lives. I don't have to work, and there was very, very little I absolutely had to do. Any trips out of the house were usually to the grocery store. When we traveled to see the kids, I would manage to come "alive" for a few days, and then go back to my hole when we returned home. I guess it's a perfect description of depression.
Jake didn't pressure me, pretty much left me alone. I was glad about that, though I did from time to time tell him what was going on with me. I just could think of nothing I wanted to do, interested in nothing. I tried to keep my communication with God open and honest, so I least I wasn't totally hiding from Him.
If something needed to be done, I would do it. (Sounds a little like Forrest Gump, lol.) I went to the DPS and renewed my driver's license. I did our income taxes. I took the car to get inspected and got the new registration stickers. I cooked a bit and only did bare, minimal housework. After 4-5 months, I made it back to church some and attended a weekly study I go to, plus got together with my two closest girl friends from time to time. Sometimes I would answer the phone, sometimes not.
This sure sounds horrible and morose to anyone who hasn't been through anything similar. But maybe my story will encourage someone else.
I am doing much better. I still have reasons I could still be depressed, things that seem unchangeable in my life that I wish were different. But I have to believe I can still live a full and happy life in spite of undesirable circumstances, and I am trusting God to teach me how. So much has to do with what I believe about me and life in general.
I had been getting out much more before the corona virus hit, mostly church and my weekly group, errands, plus a get-together now and then. When everyone was going into lockdown, I didn't mind a bit as far as I was concerned. I hate the lockdown for what it is doing to the world and so many others. But I have been able to happily stay home with no complaint; it's what my default wants to do anyway, and it gave me the perfect excuse! Getting out is the challenge for me, so this part has been easy. By the way, I've found out that a lot of my introvert friends feel the same way!
But I didn't do lockdown in a healthy way. I haven't talked to hardly anyone on the phone, I've been eating a ton of crap. I just went back to TV and reading and games, though I did do a lot of spiritual reading. I love to knit and crochet, but I haven't done much of that in two years either.
So Texas is opening up more and more, and I'm consciously finding a way to return to life. The first step I took was to ask Jake to let me take on all of the household chores. He had been doing so many of them, doing his laundry and sheets, washing quite a few dishes, cooking a lot of his own meals. (He is still doing quite a bit of Keto, and I am not, so we eat a lot of different things.) One exception was not to do all of his cooking, just trying to have some kind of evening meal or going to pick up takeout.
This step has been so good for me. Taking back the housework and making it all of my responsibility has given me much more incentive. I know that if I don't do it, it won't get done. Thankfully, Jake has let me do what I asked. The house is not anywhere as clean as I would like, but it's improving all of the time. I've even done some organizing and weeding out, taking a lot of boxes to Goodwill or Salvation army. I cleaned out the pantry last week, which is a pretty big job.
I got to the point where I don't want to constantly push myself to do stuff that I don't want to do. I did that so much of my life, doing so many things out of a false sense of obligation and in order to look good to others. No more of that! I'm trying to learn to live from my heart, doing things from love (including love for myself) and things that are truly beneficial to me and others.
I could see that the next thing on my heart has been losing weight and getting into better shape. I know this will increase my quality of life exponentially. So this is near the end of my first week of that.
Yesterday, I was wanting to take a new step above keeping track of points and calories and using my FitBit. I felt like actually getting out and taking a walk would be a good new step. Here in West Texas, we have scorching summers, and since I get up too late, I never walk outside in the summer. With this early cold front we had, yesterday was in the 60s and 70s, very pleasant for our dry climate. So I prodded myself a bit and got out the door yesterday! I wasn't going to walk a terribly long way to walk a , just down one of the main residential streets and back.
When I came to a certain intersection, I decided to turn and check in on my best friend (Diane) who lives only six or eight blocks from my house. I called, and she was eager to see me, so I ended up taking another big step and reach out to someone for a social visit! I don't know why that's so hard for me to do; it just is. We ended up visiting for awhile and then she put on her sweats, and we continued walking together. We walked around a small park by her house and then walked back to my house, sat on the porch for awhile before she went back home.
My two closest friends both live 5-8 blocks from me in a town that is about 150,000 people! It would be great to have more walk breaks. I need to go by my other friend's house (Yvonne or Bonnie) soon. It's funny, all three of us have been holing up a lot. Maybe this pandemic just does that to a lot of us.
By the way, I did get back to church recently. I've been three out of the last four weeks. We'll see how I do tomorrow.
As far as my eating yesterday, I ended up not eating anything until about 3:00. I still counted my meals as breakfast, lunch, and dinner regardless.
I had my usual oatmeal (0 points) for breakfast, eggs and toast and grapes for lunch (2 points), then splurged on a waffle with half and half regular and sugar syrup for dinner (19 points). I had a thin pb sandwich before bed (5 points). I used 9 of my weekly points to be able to have a waffle. I still have 25 weekly points for today and tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I will use all of them.
I have some activity points, but I haven't figured out if my app is logging those correctly. I need to get with my leader or another member who has a FitBit to see if I am doing it correctly. I synced the two apps together, and it's recognizing my activity, but I can't tell if it has converted it to points.
This morning I was down two pounds, which is not great, but I'll take it.
After 5 days, it's definitely becoming more routine.:)
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