I'm getting better.

Slowly but surely, I’m getting better.

I felt a surprising lift in my mood within a day or two of seeing my integrative doctor last Wednesday. I’m not sure if it was because I’d finally realized what was going on and had it acknowledged, or maybe because I was feeling the effects of the supplement I’d added back in several days earlier.

This past weekend, alternatively and unfortunately, was pretty low for me. Every conversation, every activity, everything I did, it just hurt. It hurt down to my core, like I had just experienced some great loss although I hadn’t. I felt both raw and numb, if it’s possible to feel those things simultaneously. I don’t even know how to explain it. My gut hurt, my heart hurt, my soul hurt, I just hurt and didn’t want to be experiencing anything. I wanted to sleep until I knew it would go away.

Dave encouraged me last week to let myself cry more, so I tried to let myself do that over the weekend whenever I was in a safe place. Ironically, our pastor’s sermon this past Sunday was about pain and learning to safely express it and cope with it rather than trying to ignore it and letting it pass on to hurt other people. I took in a lot from his message, but one of the most fascinating things to me was when he said that toxins are actually released when we cry tears of negative emotions, but not when we cry tears of happy emotions. We are literally expelling the ugly things when we cry an ugly cry. So I’m officially trying to let myself ugly cry a little more. It’s apparently good not only for my soul, but for my body too.

This week, probably starting on Monday, I felt the cloud begin to lift. I no longer was feeling a heavy dread 24/7. Greyden had some slightly alarming EoE symptoms over the weekend and then on Monday also, and Dave and I found ourselves trying to somewhat quickly contact his doctors at the beginning of the week to decide on a plan of action. It took a couple days, but as of yesterday the doctors all agreed that it appeared that Greyden is having an allergic reaction to green beans and we need to permanently remove them from his diet. Of course this made me a bit sad for him, because the kid loves green beans. I was texting a friend about all of this and without even thinking I typed to her, “It could be way worse.” And then I was like, whoah, where did that come from. That’s an old Kara thought. That’s a “this sucks, but we got this” thought. That’s not a depressed Kara thought. And that was the moment that I knew my depression must really be healing.

There have been some other signs I’m getting better, including a new passion to write some support blog posts for other parents of EoE kids. I found a void in others’ lives and I want to help fill it. And again I’m like, where is this coming from? How do I all of a sudden have the energy and drive to do something for others, something that requires effort? And then I’m like, praise the Lord, it’s because I’m feeling better. The real Kara, the Kara I want to be, is slowly starting to emerge.

I’m on my way back.