Depression and exercise, changing the habit of a lifetime.

You know, I have suffered from depression on and off all of my life. I'm not going into specifics because it's a boring story. There's no history of abuse, no childhood trauma, etc etc, but from time to time I get very depressed to the point where people watch me to make sure I'm not dead or dying. Unfortunately I'm in that space at the moment which sucks ass because I really thought I was past it this time. Fortunately I have an emergency appointment with El Shrinko tomorrow which will help me get back on track again.

When I get like this I have no energy. Even saying "Hello" to people takes huge amounts of energy. Then I get so wound up from pepping myself up all day that I can't sleep. Going to sleep actually takes energy. Your brain has to permit certain functions so it can switch bits and pieces of itself off and then... we sleep. Last night I lay there for hours and hours until I finally got myself to relax enough to sleep and boing! I was up and at 'em again this morning.

In the past, depression has been one of my exercise downfalls. For awhile I used to walk or run every day but at some point went out all depressed and nearly collapsed from exhaustion. I walked home in tears and got into bed and stayed there for the entire weekend.

Yesterday I didn't exercise. I let this exhaustion/depression get to me, but this morning I woke determined that no matter bloody what, I'd do something after work. So I got home from work and yes I'm knackered, and yes it's fecking tough to put one foot in front of the other, but I hopped on that trampoline anyway. And then I put on my 6 years old Nikes and did 6 whole laps of my house. Running. Just like Forrest, until I stopped.

I have to say that I'm feeling a bit good about myself right now. I make my goal smaller for today. I know darned well that in a happy mood, I can run around this house 12 times. And that was a few weeks ago so probably 13. But after intense therapy for the last 8 months I'm also starting to realise how energy sapping stress is and that it can physically exhaust us.

So rather than repeat past habits and just not exercise when I'm a mess, I readjusted, did something different and I'm glad I did. 6 laps raised my heart beat and got me all sweaty. I'm proud of myself and think I learned a big lesson today!