When Depression Calls

Hello there,

This week has been a rough one for me. I have really been struggling mentally and emotionally with some things. It’s times like these that the depression really kicks in and its hard to break free from. When this happens my motivation flees, my will power to do anything but the things I absolutely must is nowhere to be found. I’m supposed to be working a network marketing business and this week I have barely reached out to new potentials and have followed up with only 2. I’ve spent most of my time away from work watching Downton Abbey because no part of me wanted to get up to do the little things like laundry and dishes. I have learned that when I have someone there with me its easier to be motivated to do things. I have a harder time keeping myself from sinking into that hole when I’m alone and trying to climb out can be a nightmare sometimes.

My crappy week honestly started on Saturday, my SO and I made plans to go out for dinner and get margs. I was super excited until I had to pick out shoes. I was really feeling myself; I thought my hair looked cute and the sweater I picked out was cute and sexy and then it was onto the shoes…. I was going to try these new booties that I got for my birthday but when I put them on, they just didn’t look right. I am bottom heavy. My legs are thick and so are my calves and ankles. These shoes accentuated that, and I was like “OMG no. There is no way in hell I am wearing these boots” but by then the damage had been done. My mind warped my figure and all I saw were my flaws. The sweater I had been feeling so sexy in 3 minutes ago suddenly made me look fat and frumpy, my jeans were too tight in all the wrong places, and I just lost it. I started sobbing thinking to myself that I didn’t even want to go out anymore. My SO tried to comfort me but in the headspace I was in, I couldn’t be anywhere near him. So, I took myself to the bedroom and I sat myself on the bed and I realized that I didn’t want to feel this way. That I didn’t deserve to feel this way because of a pair of freaking shoes and so I sat there and repeated this mantra over and over until I calmed down, and then I repeated it some more until I started believing it again. “You are beautiful, you are kind, you are strong, you are enough.” It took me a few minutes (and by a few, I mean 10+) to get myself back into a positive headspace but the point is that I did. In the span of 30 mins, I had a complete breakdown in my self-confidence and then built myself back up.

Monday was probably the worst day of the week for me. From the time I woke up I was just in a funk. I didn’t want to go to work, there’s some stuff happening there that has been tough for me to deal with, and it was just really weighing on me this day. I spent the whole 8 hours I was at work fighting tears, cried my whole way home and then sat in my car and cried for another 20 minutes. I was a wreck. At some point in the evening, I just decided that I needed to do something about it. I spent an hour fixing my resume and applying for new jobs. I felt better but I still wasn’t feeling myself. Hell, even now I’m still not really feeling myself. I got on a call the night with my group for my business and the speaker of that call (a girl I have known since high school) brought up some valid points and spoke to the group in a way that I really needed to hear. It helped me bring everything back into focus. It made me grateful that I have this business and this group of women there to support me. What she told us was that we needed to break the habit of that negative thinking. We needed to acknowledge our feelings, validate our feelings, and then break free from them. She told us to zoom out to see the whole picture because we can’t see the solution when we are focused on the problem, to be grateful for the things we do have and to not be so hard on ourselves. She also gave us an exercise to do. She wanted us to pretend that we were a brand-new market partner with all the worries and negative thoughts that we have ourselves and she wanted us to tell her what we would tell them as their mentor. You can do this yourself. Pretend your talking to a younger family member or someone that would look up to you as a mentor. What would you tell them if they were experiencing the same thoughts and feelings as you?

I know it sounds super corny and stupid but shit really is all in our heads. I made myself feel ugly and fat because I didn’t like the way a pair of shoes looked with my outfit and then I made myself feel beautiful again by telling myself over and over that I was. I was about to start my day Tuesday the same way as Monday, but I stopped myself and told myself that I didn’t want to feel that way. I didn’t want to wallow in self-pity, I wanted to MAKE it a good day. It has taken me a long time to get this far, to be able to talk myself out of a hole but the fact remains that I can do it. That you can do it. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes we have to heal our traumas first, but we can do it. All it takes is a change in our thinking patterns, a decision that we don’t want to feel this way. Instead of spiraling down into that hole it’s so hard to come out of, we need to break free from that way of thinking. We need to see the whole picture and we need to think to ourselves that we are beautiful, we are worthy of love, we are strong, and we are kind.

With all the light and love,

Alyse