Gently Does It

Mood goes up. Mood goes down. Yesterday mood went down very rapidly and left me snivelling in quite a pathetic manner.

I was disgusted with myself about the amount of weight I’ve gained since starting Mirtazapine. Every time I went to the loo and saw myself in the mirror I was confronted with visions of my horrid body. My stomach isn’t flat anymore, my face is fuller, my boobs are bigger. In January I bought myself a lovely pair of jeans that I can’t get into anymore. All the clothes that I stopped wearing last summer because they were too loose on me fit again. They’re snug actually. I think I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. Whenever I’ve gained weight before it has been gradual. This has happened in less than six weeks.

I know that I’m not fat, and I’m tall so I can get away with it, but yesterday I couldn’t seem to stop the thoughts going round and round my head – you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re ugly. In fact it wasn’t just yesterday, I’ve been doing this for a while now.

Then my thoughts started the beautiful circle of self-recrimination about everything else, and I mean everything. My self-esteem took such a beating in the recent encounter with my husband’s daughter – but all that really did was highlight what’s already there. I’m hypersensitive to the least little thing. I can’t face seeing her because I don’t know how to be around her now.

So I spent the majority of yesterday telling myself that I’m pathetic. I ended up in tears. A lot. I cried on the phone to my dad and then cried on hubby’s shoulder as the same time as ranting a fair bit. Thankfully he’s strong and can take it.

I just felt so fat and horrible, I wanted to scratch my own skin off. And I was being far too hard on myself, as was clearly obvious to all my loved ones. I was disappointed that depression had hit me again and I felt like I’d let myself down. But I really have to stop beating myself up about this. I mean, I’m always surprised when a mood swing hits me, surprised I could ever feel that way again when I felt so different the day before. It’s the nature of the beast. I think the higher dose of Sodium Valproate is taking the edge off the hypomania – so my latest good mood didn’t feel so up, so I thought it was just a normal good mood, I thought I was getting better. Then I felt like an idiot for thinking that. And then all the other crappy thoughts about myself came flooding in, particularly my step-daughter’s parting shot “you’re weak”, banging round and round my head, which just complicated the low mood even further.

I talked about it to my counsellor. He pointed out that I call myself stupid a lot. He asked me if I would talk to a friend like that, or my husband, or a small child. My answer was of course not. So why do I talk to myself like that? He made me cry again.

The upshot to all of this? We’re going to delve into some pretty intensive CBT. See if I can learn to be a little more gentle with myself.