A year ago, I found myself sinking into a deep depression. As an extremely active person for my entire life, I was not equipped to handle this. How do you go out and run when you can't even get out of bed in the morning? How do you cook healthy foods when you don't have the energy to grocery shop? As my depression continued my meals, more often than not, were from restaurants. I started recognizing delivery vehicles from certain places. I felt an intense shame for not being able to take care of myself as I had always done, which propelled me further into the pit of depression. I stopped seeing friends. I have always been gregarious and fashionable. My friends used to look to me for style advice. I was embarassed that I had gained weight and that my clothes no longer fit. I also didn't have the energy to try to be social. I isolated myself and the spiral downward continued. Not having contact with friends, not exercising, not eating well, not having the energy to tackle any of those things pushed me to the bottom. My self esteem plummetted and with it my depression took over. During this time I had been trying to keep my relationship with my boyfriend going, but I was consistently disappointing and failing him. I pushed him away because it was one more thing I couldn't handle. He did everything he could to be supportive, but I wouldn't allow help when I felt I didn't deserve it.
It was the breakup with him that snapped me into consiousness. It was a mutual decision. I felt I was not in any shape to be with him (mentally and physically) and he wasn't happy either. After we ended, and I went through the mourning period, I realized how much I had changed from the person who started a relationship with him. I was now an insecure, emotionally dependent, miserable mess. I did not like the person I had become and I missed the person I was. I decided I was going to start the journey to reclaim myself. My first step was to start eating better. My mood is strongly linked to what I eat, and I needed to not be so miserable. It took time to break the habits I made. What is the saying? It takes three days to make a habit and three weeks to break it? I knew the only way I would succeed is if I started to feel better and to fill the void that was left after the breakup. I reached out to a couple close friends I knew I would not feel judged by, given my altered appearence. I started leaving my condo more for activities other than work. I made it a goal I had to do one social activity a week. It seems small, but for someone fighting depression it felt like a huge leap. I stuck to that. With the social activities and leaving my home came the motivation to regain my strength and to feel more at home in my body. I started adding workouts in. I started small. I would do 30 minutes of working out two days a week. Then I did three days. Then four.
By taking incremental steps I am slowly finding myself again. I am not dating yet. Right now I need to make my journey all about me. I am lucky that I am young and unattached and do not have the stress of being accountable to anyone other than myself. I no longer need to force myself to be social once a week. I am growing my friendships and also care less about what others think of me than when I started. I still look forward to the day my clothes all fit me again, but I am proud of the work I am doing. I am enjoying the journey, being kinder to myself, and fighting like hell to not fall back down.