CW: Mental Health

 I'm at that age where my hormones are running amok, again. For me, perimenopause is like post pregnancy hormones, times 100. 

After my heart attack, my symptoms disappeared for over a year. Then, on my 51st birthday, it was like I flipped a switch, and my body said, "Hey, she's healthy now, we can make her miserable in every way again!" And so it has.

So the hot flashes are back, including night sweats that wake me up constantly through the night. Which means I am not sleeping well. So then we add insomnia to the list of symptoms. 

 Which then leads to being over tired and over emotional. the weepies are literally just waiting there to spring at any moment. I've spent days where anything and everything makes me cry. 

I feel listless. No energy, no motivation. No desire what so ever to get dressed, to go outside. Anxious, because I know the feeling isn't right, I know that I at least need to get it together and go to the gym, if only because my life literally depends on it. I am making myself walk every day. Treadmill in my living room I can do, because it only means putting on shoes and walking across the room. I even put on pants, if only because I need a pocket for my phone. 

But I don't have to get public ready. I don't have to deal with strangers. With smiling when I don't feel like smiling. And if I don't have to leave the house, I don't have to worry about Covid. (Yes, I am fully vaxxed, because 1. I am high risk for numerous health reasons now and 2. It's the right thing to do. For public health, my vaccine may mean that someone I come in to contact with will be safer. Because I have EMPATHY, and care about people besides myself. And oh don't get me started on that soapbox!)

And I do worry about Covid. With all the talk about Delta and breakthrough cases, and new variants. Add the anxious hamster wheel thought spirals to the over tired, emotional, hot flashing me and I'm pretty much a mess.

So  I have an appointment with my PCP a week from today. It's a routine appointment, mostly diabetes management. And oh, I have been so bad with food this summer. I've been eating my feelings, and my sugar levels have been up and down more than a fiddler's elbow. I've been working hard on reining that in in the last few weeks, and my sugar levels have been better, and the gym helped that as well. But see the rest of my post for the way the gym has gone recently.

Anyhoo, next Monday I will be talking with my PCP about my depression, and what we can do about it. I am not a candidate for HRT, thanks to my other health issues, but I think it may be time to look at antidepressants. Which can be hard to do with high blood pressure (my blood pressure is very well managed with another med, though). But I have to do something. Try something. Anything to get me out of this spiral.

Now though, I am going to make myself go brush my damn teeth, get dressed and go to the gym.