My Day on Depression Island.

It was quite the Saturday.

Today was one of the worst mental health days I’ve had in a long time but the funny thing is, nothing was bothering me. I was just a prisoner of my own body, brought on by medication I’m taking and a horrible night’s sleep.

The depression has lingered since Thursday and I was praying that I would feel better by Saturday morning but my mind, body and spirit had other plans.

It started when I began to feel sick Friday night; I was in a really low mood, one that not even The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives could fix and I felt dizzy, nauseous and fuzzy. Falling asleep at 9:30 PM wasn’t on my agenda but it happened seamlessly.

That is until I woke up at 1:30 AM, an anxiety attack pulling me out of my REM cycle and immediately causing panic. I grabbed my weighted blanket and tried my hardest to go back to sleep, which was successful for about 45 minutes.

Another anxiety attack woke me up around 2:15 AM and that was it — I was awake and there was no chance I’d be falling back to sleep until the sun rose.

I tossed and turned, I ate Cheerios, drank water, watched the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills…I tried to mediate, turned the air conditioning on and off and at times, fell in and out of a mini sleep which was then disrupted by my racing heart.

Finally, knowing that my bed wasn’t the place for me I made my way to the couch, turned on the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives again, and got comfortable.

Hours ticked on, my weighted blanket keeping me company as I drifted in and out of light sleep cycles but the anxiety attack, the racing heart beat, it just kept coming.

Finally, I fell into a deep sleep at around 6 , only sleeping until 8:30, to which I woke deeply confused. The entire night felt like a fever dream and I couldn’t get a firm grasp on what was happening. I’ve never really felt like that before…

Because I was awake most of the night, the day felt really slow. At 11 AM I thought it should be around 2 in the afternoon; nothing felt real, including myself.

I had a list of things to accomplish but nothing was pulling me from the couch. I tried to eat breakfast and I threw most of it out; I tried to write and only got a few sentences down. I would get a burst of energy and try to do something productive like vacuum but within 5 minutes, a wave of exhaustion would wash over me and I’d have to sit down.

Nothing felt good, everything hurt and I just wanted to scream. I haven’t had a depressive episode that way in years…where I just waste away on the couch even though nothing is mentally bothering me. It was my body telling me I didn’t feel good physically, and needed to just sit.

I was starving, nothing tasted good besides a Burger King cheeseburger which I was able to go out and get. After that, I did feel a little better so maybe the protein was what I needed; however, as soon as I thought I was feeling good, my mind tricked me and I was down.

Finally I gave in, took an hour nap and once again… thought I’d feel better which I did for about 10 minutes. I did my best to get up, get myself together and ready for dinner at my mom’s house which actually did help lift the depressed mood.

The physicality of it all though still knocked me down until I took my magic cocktail of a Xanax and Zofran which cleared everything up and I could’ve kicked myself for not doing that at 11 AM this morning.

By the time I finished my sushi and was on my way home, the mood had lifted. I had a burst of energy and was able to actually do the things I wanted to: mop my floors, clean my bathroom, film a brand collaboration, and even sit down to write this newsletter.

Now, I’m sitting here at 10:30 PM, heating up Trader Joes French Rolls to satisfy the bored hunger I have and typing…regretting the day that I had but knowing that my body didn’t really give me a choice. I don’t know why it happened, and I’m fearful it will happen again tomorrow but I’m confident that it won’t.

Being isolated in your thoughts, in the state of depression where you just want to feel better, is one of the worst feelings in the world—and one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

These are the days that make me sad; where I wish I was normal, where debilitating anxiety and depression didn’t rob me of a perfectly good Saturday. It makes my heart ache for normalcy, to be like everyone else, to have the right chemical balance in my brain that didn’t cause me to lay around for hours on end, praying for night fall so I could go to sleep.

It’s lonely, the depression; I feel like I’m locked inside my head and none understands that I can’t escape it, no matter how hard I try to run.