But I'm feeling much better now

If anyone of my friends know me well enough, you'd know that quote comes from one of my all-time favourite sitcoms of all time Night's Court's beloved character Buddy Ryan, who was played by the lovely John Astin (most famous for playing Gomez Addams on The Addams Family TV show). In this wonderfully hilarious sitcom, Buddy was a mentally ill person who frequently told stories about how he did some crazy things, but would wind up the stories by saying his catchphrase: "But I'm feeling much better now."

I'm sort of feeling like this today. For the past few months I have been going through feelings of anxiety, depression and indeed sometimes despair. There were a few things going on in my life that was creating an intense stress on me.

One of the things I was stressing out about was getting my place ready for the carpet replacement, that will happen mid-June. I had convinced myself that I also had to downsize and get rid of things in that room, which I found to make me quite apprehensive. I did try to sell some of the things last year, but it didn't go very well and they are still here. I wanted to make some money off of them, but it looks like that will not happen, so donations or recycling might be my only resort for them. I suppose I could always try to sell them again, or maybe even go on eBay and auction them off or something. I definitely didn't have any luck with Craigslist. There are so many flaky people out there. Ones who say they want something, agree to meet you and then not show up without a hint of a reason why. I found it quite irritating, which is probably why I had such apprehension about trying to sell them again.

But here's the thing I kind of realized last week. I don't have to get rid of all the stuff by the mid-June deadline. It's not like I am actually moving. I will still be in my home after the carpets are replaced. I have no time limit on getting rid of the stuff at all. I do have a time limit on packing it all up though.

Once I realized that, suddenly it sparked a new energy and enthusiasm about the situation. I finally started to get up off the couch and started a week-long excursion to clean the house, which I had been putting off due to the depression and anxiety that problem was giving me. The dishes were piling up and things were getting quite messy. So I wrote a to do list on my dry erase board with checkboxes next to them and checked them all off one at a time. I did my dishes on Wednesday, tidied up the living room and bedroom on Thursday, got actual groceries on Friday, and finished cleaning the rest of the place on Saturday. Sunday I left for packing up the office.

It was a task I thought would take forever and a day to do, mostly because I seem to forget I have in fact downsized significantly here and there over the years. The few items I am trying to get rid of aren't that many, and the room took me about 4 hours to complete with packing. Most of it was already packed, to be honest with you. So now everything is ready to be moved into the kitchen area, which I will do the weekend before it happens.

Completing that obstacle that I found to be too daunting of a task has given me a newfound energy and optimism that has been missing for a very long time. The stress and anxiety were just to much for me to bear, but I'm feeling much better now.

The second thing that was making me anxious had to do with my work on the steps in the Emotions Anonymous 12-step program. It works similar to other 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, but focuses more on not being able to deal with emotions. I find it a helpful program, and it also gets me out of the house every Saturday to go to. The Saturday weekly meetings are when we go through the step for that meeting and people get a chance to talk about what struggles or triumphs they have had in the previous week or what not. I find it very useful for me to get a lot of things I keep buried inside of me out.

On the fourth Saturday of every month, we also have a step meeting after our regular meeting. This is where we work on the steps and share our progress on them to others in the group. We work through a "Step Guide" and answer questions. Steps 1-3 I was able to get through quite well enough. I have a notebook I write it all down in and find it helpful as I am very much better at writing than I am at most other forms of communication.

Step 4 is where I stalled. Step 4 is the step where you do a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. The very first section had to deal with resentments. You make a list of everything you are resentful about in your past or present, and then figure out how it affected you. After that, you then see what role you played in the resentment. I found this section difficult because I harbour quite a lot of resentments and sometimes it is hard for me to either look at the resentments themselves or see what I did or did not do that contributed to the resentments. Every time I would deal with a resentment, it made me very angry and I would have to put the damned book down and walk away.

Because I was having so much problems with the first section of this step, it made me feel very overwhelmed and I just wound up putting it off completely. I knew full well that the work is very much needed if I am to become well again, but couldn't bring myself to do the work. If the first part of it made me so angry, and there were many other parts after that, how could I possibly get it all done? The section itself looked too daunting to tackle.

Last Saturday, being the fourth Saturday of April, we worked on Step 4 in our Step Meeting. We went through the questions one at a time, only sharing one experience. The parts after the resentment part actually wasn't as difficult to get through. In fact, we wound up closing the meeting a bit early because we were finished really quick. That has also given me another boost in energy and has given me a renewed interest in completing the step.

I was feeling very overwhelmed and felt this step was simply too daunting for me to attempt, but I'm feeling much better now.

So now, because I got so much accomplished last weekend with the packing, I have decided that this weekend will be a break weekend. Where I can relax a bit, unwind, and maybe tackle working on that 4th step. I actually woke up this morning feeling a new confidence and optimism that has been in absence for awhile.

There was another critical thing I realized last week that hit home what I've been doing wrong lately. Because of all the stress and anxiety those two problems were giving me (well, the first one was harder than the latter one), I found it very hard to stick to any kind of diet or exercise regime. I mentioned in the last post that I decided to form my own meet-up group for healthy living. I did have the first meet-up, with only 2 other people showing up, but I think that is normal for a first-time meet-up. In fact, I wound up waking up in the morning with no energy to make my lunches.

I have a couple of Google spreadsheets where I track down everything I've been spending. I sort of noticed last week that I spent more money on eating out at lunch than I did on actual groceries. When I checked the numbers, I noticed I ate out 15 times, and there was still another week to go in April, for a grand total of $122. That really opened my eyes. And most of the time when I do eat out, like a good 98% of the time, I eat at Tim Horton's. I always have the same things: Grilled cheese panini, Boston cream donut, and a bottle of Pepsi. Not the healthiest of eating, for sure.

So I put two and two together last night and realized one of my biggest problems is I am either too lazy or too sleepy in the morning to make a lunch that I just say, "meh! I'll just eat out today." That certainly adds up. So now I have decided that since I have such a hard time getting up in the morning, I will have to make my own lunches in the evening just before I go to bed. I want to limit eating out to maybe once a week, if even that, and that day being on a Saturday.

Today is day one of that program. I am also following the Canada Food Guide's plan for healthy eating as well. Today is so far, so good. I have stuck to the plan I have figured out for myself. Hell, when I got groceries last Friday I surprised myself because I actually bought more fruits and vegetables than I did any other food. I'm sticking to eating 3 regular meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snacks in-between breakfast & lunch and lunch & dinner. I shouldn't have much of a problem sticking to the plan during the weekdays as long as I continue to make my lunches at night. I am, however, a little worried about weekends, because I tend to eat fewer times in the days, but a lot of food at the same time, and mostly not healthy either. I just have to be more disciplined. I will allow myself 1 can of Pepsi a week, which I will save for Saturdays, as I don't think it's reasonable for me to completely avoid it altogether.

I am also going to start hitting the exercising again tonight. Yay me!

Anyways, I should wind up this blog post. Thanks for reading, for those who do.