Waking Up Depressed

This morning, I am having trouble getting the day started.

I had trouble even making up my mind to get out of bed. It was already after 7 AM, and I am usually up and going by then. To help me decide whether to stay in bed or get up, I found myself recounting a rhyme I learned as a child. I-lit-a-match-and-it-went-out. The problem with this was, I couldn’t decide if “out” meant I had picked that choice, or if it meant I had picked the other choice.

All I was trying to do was get out of bed. Then I remembered the rhyme, my-mother-told-me to-pick-this very-one. It would seem that the choice I was picking would be settled when I “picked this very one.” Once again, I jacked it up and couldn’t decide what the end meant.

Eventually, I just said, “screw it” and I got out of bed.

Obsessing on something like whether or not to get out of bed might be normal on a rainy Sunday morning. There is fog on the mountain and the light sneaking in around the edges of our room darkening curtains is soft and non-threatening. While the room was a little warm, the ceiling fan was on low, keeping the room bearable. But to me, the whole decision about getting up caused a lot of stress and anxiety.

So now I am on the front porch, rain coming down at a steady pace.  My view is our front yard which faces 40 wooded acres owned by a neighbor. Our gravel right of way, a common driveway, has five homes on it, each on five acres. Fog is crawling up the gap in the trees, slowly pouring over the driveway and sloshing down our hill towards the lake that edges our property.

My neighbor walks his dogs in the morning, taking the loop around the lake. Today, he passed me as I sat on the porch, disappearing down the driveway into the woods. Minutes later, he was heading back towards his house, something I have never seen him do. “There’s a bear about 200 yards ahead on the road” he calls as he heads back towards his house.

Bears are a great distraction, but now I am alone again on the front porch, with the rain coming down, wondering why I can’t just get out of bed. Oh yeah, now I remember, I have depression. “I have depression, depression does not have me.” My job is to know that and to face it daily. Not to hide in my bed, making up reasons why I can’t get up.

Even in the pouring rain, birds are coming to the pole I hang my feeders on. They expect that I would have already hung out the feeders. Since the bear doesn’t have table manners and destroys the feeders while snacking on the bird seed, I bring the feeders in at night. Being up around 7AM, I usually get the feeders out while I am waiting for the coffee to brew. Today, they are still in the basket by the door.

Why am I waking up depressed? When will the Prozac start to work? Oh, that’s right, it will take four to six weeks and even then, it might not be the right dose or even the right medicine. Had I broken my leg; the course of treatment would have been much clearer.

Why am I waking up depressed? Because I have depression. Why am I having a hard time remembering that this morning? Looking to my right, there is a new cloud slowly making its way through the trees. My mind feels cloudy too, as it moves slowly to wake up and be present.

Now the blue jays have arrived and are calling to me to hang out the birdfeeders. They don’t care that I have depression, they don’t care that I can’t get going today, they just know it’s time to eat. To them it is simple. I look forward to getting back to simple.

The rain is picking up, and my coffee cup is empty. Maybe a second cup will get me out of this cloud and feeling more like myself. Waking up would be a whole lot easier if I wasn’t depressed.

Do you ever have trouble getting out of bed? What works for you? Please leave me your comments.