Developing Hope-The Extended Version

I feel more hopeful and more stable. This is light years away from where I have been earlier this year. Yesterday, someone reminded me that just a couple of months ago I told the support group that there was no hope for me of attaining a better life. I believed that my life sucked and worse yet, it would always suck.

My life is still in tiny little pieces as I mentioned earlier in one of my posts. My finances are a disaster, my marriage is ruined, I am obese, and I am waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off track with my career. My finances and my weight bring me down the most. I still struggle with hopelessness with my finances because I just couldn't see a way out or through.

My friend asked me last night, what changed for you? How did you develop hope? It is kind of hard to answer, but I feel compelled to at least try.

My most recent major breakdown was in March of this year. One of the major signs that I am depressed is a tendency to isolate. I did not contact my friends and family for a month. I would leave the house once a day to get food. My apartment was kept dark and I pretty much just sat in bed and watched TV. I didn't shower for weeks and I didn't comb my hair. Of course the apartment didn't get cleaned. One of my sisters came by and for some reason I let her in. She really helped to save my life. She let me cry and she asked me if I needed to go back into the hospital (I said no.) She told me that I had to make an appointment with the psychiatrist though. I did but it wasn't for a few weeks later. She and another sister came by again and took me to a natural foods grocery store and we hung out there.
I started calling people but it took a while for me to stabilize. I still dipped into suicidal lows and even told a friend not to feel like she failed if I went ahead and killed myself. I would go to suicidal websites and look up famous people who committed suicide. My sister would come by and I wouldn't answer the door. I still wasn't doing my hair. I don't think that I showered much. I read a lot of biographies for some reason. I think that the only positive things that I did were to talk to my friend and look up mental health resources online.
I went to see my doctor and he was glad that I was talking to people but he wanted me to physically be around people. He suggested a book club. I looked up support groups instead that met close to my house. I found three and went to two of them that first week. One was a mental health group led by an intern and the other was a faith based group. Both groups had people who had been attending for years in it, so they knew each other and I felt kind of left out. I was still pretty low and very negative and judgmental. One lady reached out to me in the mental health group and that helped me some. I still appreciate that to this day. I went to the faith based group to get back on track spiritually. I wasn't going to church regularly at all but the faith based group seemed like a good place to start. Even though I didn't like this group at first, I kept going back because I was determined to get my spiritual life together and I thought that this was the place to do it.
Even though I didn't know anyone there, I told myself to keep going back. That was my small goal. After a while, I found myself looking forward to the groups. Now, I really look forward to going to the support groups. They have helped me a lot. Recently, they suggested that I talk to my doctor about increasing my anti-depressant because I talked about being hopeless a lot. I told him what they said and he agreed to do it!
There is another group that I haven't been to in a while and that is the peer support group. This was my favorite group until I developed a crush on a member of one of the other support groups. (It didn't really go anywhere but I think that I will save that saga for another time.) It is a really good group and I really like the facilitator. It was in that group that I was given the suggestion to write this blog.
I have gotten off track a little...
So, I am taking more showers now and going to support groups and talking to my friends and family. It was during this time that I really began to appreciate my friends and family and how great they are for being so supportive of me. I talked to one sister almost every day. I really needed it and she was so there for me. A friend talked to me often as she has mental health issues and could understand a lot of what I was going through. This friend encouraged me when I would speak of being hopeless. She would tell me that I was smart (because I believed that I was dumb) and that I could have a career. She would encourage me to think about what career options were available to me when I didn't think that anything was really available to me. She gently persisted in getting me to think about a positive future when I didn't think that I had one.
There were a few times during this process that I would hit lows and want to isolate. This time, though, I would make myself call someone and I believe that helped out a lot.

Spiritually, I decided that I would go to this church that I had attended before. It only lasts for an hour so that made it doable for me. The dress is also very casual which was good because I could wear scarves to cover my hair. I have missed a few Sundays but I attend waaaaaaaaay more than I have in years. The biggest change that I am excited about is that I am actually excited to go to church! I feel like I get a boost from going and I haven't felt like that in a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. I think that going to a church that is right for me has helped me with feeling more hopeful. I pray more about things that bother me instead of just worrying about them and that helps me feel calmer about those things.

I definitely haven't arrived, but things are definitely better than they were. In writing out my story I see that a pattern has emerged: I set small goals, get those under my belt, and set new ones.

My next goals involve finding a new job and losing weight in small doable steps. What small, doable steps can you take toward wellness?