Depression Sucks

My depression has been kicking my butt as of late. I was in a car accident at the end of July and since then my depression has been getting worse and worse. Dealing with doctors, attorneys, car repairs, etc. has sent me over the edge. The other day I was at the chiropractor, and I pretty much cried through the whole visit. By the end, I was convinced that he doesn't listen to me, and he doesn't know what he's doing, so I decided that I would never go back there and cancelled my remaining appointments. The next day I went to an appointment for Lasik eye surgery and ended up crying there too. Their administrator spent more time talking to me about depression than she did about Lasik. Everything makes me cry. I was driving home the other day and I saw a sign on the freeway that said "You are Loved. Buckle up." I started to cry about the thought of being loved. You know when you start crying over a billboard, that you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Today I was talking to a friend about how unfulfilling my life has become. Because I am also extremely overweight (morbidly obese would be more accurate, but those words seem so awful that I can't bear to use them in reference to myself), I have gotten to the point where I really don't do anything enjoyable in life. Why would anyone want to prolong a life where every action you take, even one as small as taking a shower, feels like the most difficult thing you have ever done. I'm not feeling suicidal right now, which is a good thing, but I'm definitely feeling like I can't handle life. This morning I read an article about how exercise helps depression, so I decided that I was going to exercise. I decided that I would ride my exercise bike for at least 10 minutes. I cranked up the 80's tunes and rode for 14 minutes. I've got to look at exercise not as a way to lose weight, but as a way to keep my depression under check. I have read multiple times and places that exercise helps depression. It is also one of the 8 therapeutic lifestyle changes recommended for depression. I'm going to have to look those up again, because when I was doing them last year, they helped my depression immensely! I keep thinking it was the medication that was making the difference, but what if it was mostly the lifestyle changes? If that is the case, I could be feeling much better and hopeful about life simply by doing the things I love to do anyway. I'll discuss those in future posts.