Any diagnosed germophobes or hoarders on this forum?

Good morning @Escaped_Goat ...how was your evening last night? I hope you were OK...

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@Escaped_Goat wrote:

@NatureLover Thank you ☺️ I appreciate you too.

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I meant to say, thank you for this 🙂

I was up at 5.20 this morning...a bit too early but I went to sleep early last night. I'd rather be awake in the mornings than the evenings. Had nightmares though. I've always dreamed vividly and generally remember my dreams... I think I didn't drink enough water yesterday - that usually results in nightmares.

@NatureLover I think we had the same night.

How are you feeling this morning? I'm rather wiped after a night of unpleasant dreams and I know I didn't have enough water yesterday.. my head feels full of cotton wool.

I wish I could stop feeling sad... I feel so stupid that I can't control my emotions and I'm wasting even more of my life on depression. I'm actually getting annoyed at myself.. my standards are slipping for cleanliness of the house and myself. I have no motivation to do anything really... I used to be so enthusiastic about walking and now it feels like a chore. I hate feeling this way and I don't know how to move out of this place of sadness... I don't know how to take the first step.. I feel stuck.

So that's my plan for the day... figure out how to do that.

Sorry for being so heavy first thing.

@Escaped_Goat you're allowed to be heavy at any time. I'm sorry about your sadness though. Have you been this low before at all?

I'm OK thanks...not very motivated this morning, but it's due to be "sunny" today - with no qualifiers like "partly cloudy" or anything - so that's something good. Plus I am looking forward to having sultana slice for morning tea.

Today's the 6th, so you only have 2 days till you can re-introduce some exercise! Are you due to have any physio or GP/surgeon appointments about what exercise you can do? I'm hoping that the exercise will help with your depression and feeling more in control of things...

@NatureLover It's currently 9° here but real feel is 5° supposed to be breezy with sun behind high clouds and 22°. If it's anything like yesterday it will hit the max just before it gets cold again 😂

I don't remember ever feeling this sad for this long before. It's frustrating.

I think my GP is calling me on Friday to check up on how the increase in meds is going but as far as exercise I will just go back to what I was doing before but introduce the exercises slowly not the whole lot at once. Not that I have the enthusiasm for exercise that I had two weeks ago... but hopefully once I start again it will make me feel more like exercising.

Sounds like we both need to find our mojo first task of the day.

Do you remember what pulled you out of your sadness on previous occasions?

Yes, the cold weather doesn't help with the desire to exercise. That's good you can introduce your own exercise slowly without having to go to an appointment.

All I want to do today is read and eat. So that's what I'm doing this morning. I'll try to get some stuff done this afternoon.

Yes re lost mojo @Escaped_Goat ...good luck...

@NatureLover I don't know what helped previously.

Anyway.. so far today I have caffeinated... gone to Aldi to buy myself a new cordless hair remover because mine hasn't worked cordlessly for at least 5 years and does a pretty crap job but I never replace anything of mine until it dies usually. I was looking at my bank statement and how much I spent on grandkids and my adult kids last month and decided to spend some on me. It won't cheer me up necessarily but my legs will be smoother. While I was there I saw they had sneakers so bought myself a pair of those as well because I actually don't have any at the moment... I wore mine completely out and decided I could make do with slip on shoes that had a rubber sole because that's how I am.
I got home and realised I left the bathroom light on.. so much for my checking 😂

Guess what? Nothing bad happened! I feel weird about it though.
Now I might eat something. I noticed my face feels tight and dry so I'm going to make sure to hydrate today and I'm going to rummage around in the bathroom to see if I have any face masks. Maybe today can be about self.

@Escaped_Goat I really like that maybe today can be about yourself. I'm glad you have the sneakers and the hair remover. The sneakers will be good for walking and exercising (with your smooth legs lol).

And it really made me smile that you accidentally left the bathroom light on and nothing bad happened! Yay 🙂 Can you tell me why you feel weird about it anyway? (Just me trying to understand more)

I've been lying down - there isn't actually any sun here yet, and I was tired of trying this morning. So I'm giving myself the morning off. There's no objective reason why I should be struggling...but that's depression for you. It's not severe or anything but it's frustrating.

I'm wondering whether the combination of all the troubling things coming all at once in the last few months for you means your sadness is maybe deeper and more longer lasting than before? And I was also wondering if you currently have a counsellor...

@NatureLover I guess I'm feeling weird like maybe the bad thing is yet to happen? If I can get through the day without a disaster I'll have more confidence to not check so much.. hopefully!

I'm going to suggest something and you can tell me to shut up if you like. I think first off you need to really give yourself credit for the days you've been throwing out one item a day... sorry I lost count but it's been a lot. So really give yourself the credit you deserve for being that many items lighter. Then take a breath. You deserve a breather... who says you need to move onto the next level of difficulty today? Give yourself a moment to celebrate how far you have come and to prepare yourself for the next level... make a start date though we don't want you partying forever! But you can take a long minute to think about what makes the next level harder and figure out how you're going to get going and get through it. There are no rules except what works for you here. I'm cheering you on no matter what!

I think everything has everything to do with my current depression but I can't stop the world from turning. I do have a counsellor.. he's working from home and available via phone appointment if needed. I'm trying not to need him too much... hoping the drugs kick in fully soon.

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@Escaped_Goat wrote:

@NatureLover I guess I'm feeling weird like maybe the bad thing is yet to happen?

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Thanks for explaining - I was worried that this might be the case. Am crossing fingers that nothing bad happens for you today and thus a little tiny inroad is made into the burden of checking.

Thank you for your kind and encouraging suggestion, and for cheering me on - that has really warmed my heart. I think I won't put much pressure on myself today. If I want to have the whole day off, I might do that. I will have to think more about a strategy to tackle the hard items to throw away. The good thing about doing them all at once is that I'm in the 'zone' and feeling what I call "ruthless" enough to throw items out. That feeling doesn't happen very often though - maybe once every year or two, and it takes months of work in therapy and maybe 6 months of psyching myself up to achieve just a few hours of feeling "ruthless". Yes - it's that difficult. 😞

So the 1 item a day plan is definitely a great plan, just harder to achieve on a down day. Maybe I will build one day off a week (from my 1 item a day) into the plan...I'll have a think about that.

I'm glad you have a counsellor available if you need. When will it be 2 weeks since you started your increased dose?

@Escaped_Goat

@NatureLover I understand the difficulty. 🙁

Two weeks Friday... it better hurry up.
Meanwhile we need this...