Mental Health

I clearly need to step back and commit myself to some sort of mental reset. I’m still in a blasé mood most of the time, especially in mornings and evenings. –Actually, no, it really is most of the time, now that I think of it. I get brief reprieves when I’m eating lunch or working out or interacting with others, but mostly I’m really in a funk.

I feel affected in every area of my life. At work, I can’t concentrate. At home, I lose my shit with my son much sooner than I should. After his bedtime, I trudge down the stairs and think about how this preschooler power struggle isn’t what I wanted my life to be. Then I either stuff my face or go down the smartphone rabbit hole (or both). Then I stay up too late. Then I oversleep. Rinse and repeat.

Being in this headspace is unhealthy, and it feeds on itself. It’s entirely too easy to start reflecting on my relationships and how they’ve changed over time, and to start picking apart all the negative aspects of my life, while completely ignoring all that I have to be grateful for.

I feel frumpy and ineffectual. I’m eating the wrong foods because they feel right in the moment, then I feel like crap not long after. Even though I’m exercising several days a week, it doesn’t seem to be having much of an effect on my mood right now. Or maybe it is, and I’d be much worse off if not for my regular activity. Who knows?

Overall, I want to see my bedtime trending earlier and my weight (and/or body fat percentage) trending downward. I think tweaking those will help considerably. It’s just a question of how to get my inner grown-up to take charge of myself without my inner child rebelling.

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Postscript:

A member from my Weight Watchers At Work meeting stopped by my desk this afternoon to make sure I was OK. I usually attend every meeting, so it’s unusual for me to be a no-show. I had actually opted to attend the 11:30am yoga class instead, and had to miss my WW weigh-in entirely.

It really kind of made my day, though, to see that she was concerned and curious enough to stop in and see what was going on. That small interaction jolted me almost entirely out of my funk for the rest of the day — enough that I was able to make good food decisions, keep my cool with my son when he kept getting up after lights out, and get some stuff done before my own bedtime.

I’m glad she unwittingly helped me up out of the muck, but I hope I’m able to drag myself up and out of it in the future. Maybe now I’m at least out of the spiral.

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