Hello everyone.
I've struggled with depression most of my life. I had a situation in childhood with abusive/neglectful parents. I am 35 years old, and I've never really dated or been married because of it. That is to say, whatever I do with my life, I pretty much have to figure it out on my own.
Talking at length about depression is
probably outside the scope of this forum (but not necessarily), and not really what I came here to do right now...that is, to start a conversation about my own struggle with ups and downs. But as it relates to my motivation, I think I swing around a whole lot because of it. I can go through times where riding is easy and a delight, and eating the right foods is relatively simple and achievable. But other times, I'm just not motivated to do anything, even brush my teeth, bathe, or clean my home.
I feel like I can't be the only one who lacks motivation and/or tries to comfort myself with food because I am sad. It's not that I lack information about what foods are healthy, or even what exercise I enjoy and excel at. Furthermore, I have lots of good experience with counseling, and I'm just beginning to work with a personal trainer, which I've done in the past for exercise and helps with the motivation part. But, I lost my church of almost 10 years recently, so most of my social support vanished along with that (I am attending a different church now, but naturally it takes time to make new close friends). And, I got a promotion at my job just about 2 years ago..... which is great! But my new job is
a lot more stressful. This is also the first time I've been a manager. My boss seems happy with my work, but historically I've tended to be a perfectionist and I don't feel like I'm doing well in this job at all. I guess it's a lot of change all at once, and I feel pretty alone in it all.
Some days are better than others, some days are particularly full of sorrow. On the down days, the idea of getting on a bicycle seems meaningless. I know that exercise helps manage depression just as much, if not more, than meds do. (I took meds for a while but found them unhelpful). But quite frequently I just feel like I don't care enough about my life to be bothered to make good choices. Finding the answer to one's life is a big adventure, and I've been on this adventure long enough now to know there are going to be ups and downs, and that's okay. I just wonder if it feels like the elephant in the room for anyone else as much as I feel it is the elephant in mine.
As a reward for reading this far, here's a picture of a friend's daughter's bike that I'm in the process of cleaning up for her..... I had to special order 14" tires for it, which are coming in to the LBS on Thursday. It only really needed one tube and 2 new tires, but I thought I'd take it apart and put it back together as a learning experience. I am learning a lot and enjoying myself. Also, part of my goal in doing this is to get the kids and their mom excited about going for bike rides, which seems to be working.
Thanks,
Jessica
