One of the reasons I had wanted to start going to group therapy was to relearn some social skills.  Too many years of isolating myself sort of left me without normal real life social skills.  I had not really had a chance to immerse myself in the whole group therapy process because, since the first time I attended it has been three weeks before the group met again.  On one day it had been scheduled  the counselor had to cancel it due to illness and the following Monday was a holiday.

One of the women in the group and I had exchanged Facebook information, so we were kind of learning about each other that way, but it was still in a virtual kind of way.  Apparently, she had sent me a private Facebook message that I totally did not see.  What I found out yesterday, is that she is the sister of someone my husband and I know and…….she practically lives across the road from me!

I think this is totally cool!  I actually know someone other than my family that I can talk to.  Get this….I explained to her my aversion to having people come into my house.  I get really freaked out by it.  I do not like people in my house, I am afraid they will touch something or judge me about my house keeping skills.  I also asked her if she would be willing to come over to my house for the sole purpose of stressing me out.  I know that sounds strange, but what I have discovered about myself is that if I gently push myself outside of my comfort zone I tend to be able to work myself past what makes me so anxious.  I figured since we live so close to each other and are in the same group therapy together, she would be a good person to help me with my issue because she would understand how it would make me feel without me having to explain it.  She agreed, and we exchanged numbers.  I cannot even remember the last time I exchanged phone numbers with someone.

As you can tell, I am very excited about actually getting to know someone who “gets me” in real life.  I am very happy that I made the decision to start group therapy,

I probably enjoy being alone more than the average person.  Some people crave social time, I crave alone time.  The problem is that in the past, there was absolutely no balance between my social time and alone time.  The scale was very much tipped toward being alone. One of the things I learned in this last year of treatment is that my alone time and time spent with other people needed to be more balanced.

I believe that I need to maintain balance between my desire to be alone and being with other people for several reasons.  For me, the most important reason was to make my relationship with my family healthier.  It was not right that I spent almost no time with them. Even when I did spend time with them I was “off in my own world” so I was not really with them then either.  This made them feel as if I were rejecting them, especially my daughter.

I have discovered that sometimes, mostly when my mood is down, when I spend so much time alone, it makes it easier for me to slip back into old patterns of behavior.  Not just any old patterns of behavior, but the ones that I used to display before my depression treatment.  Kind of downward turned, almost pessimistic type of thought pattern and actions.  The more my thoughts were sort of depressed, the more I would start feeling that way.  Turning into an unhealthy cycle of sorts.

After having spent so many years avoiding people and social situations, attempting to be more social was not exactly easy. In fact, for the most part I really disliked it.  As it turned out though, the people I ended socializing the most with was my family, including my parents.  That is probably the best possible outcome for me.  By now they understand that there are times that I need to be alone, and they allow me that time without bugging me.  However, they also are very good at checking on me when they sense that I am struggling a bit.  Nothing major, maybe a check in phone call from one of them, or asking me if I am okay.

Slowly, as I let go of my anger, and gained more self worth and self confidence, I began to feel more comfortable in social situations and even going to stores.  However, it is still not something I really enjoy.  Especially the stores.  All those people being crammed around me makes me extremely anxious.  It helps that when I need to put myself in a social situation I am always with a member of my family.  Mostly because they are at least the one, sometimes more than one, person who understands how I am feeling at the moment.  They do not have to do anything , except just be there, to make me more comfortable.  Experiencing social situations with my family allows me to gently keep pushing my comfort zones, which is helping me learn how to be around people.

There is more balance in my life now when it comes to being alone and being around people.  I will probably never be one of those people who enjoy big social situations, and most likely shopping is never going to be my favorite activity, but at least now I am willing to do things with my family. That makes all of us happier.  I am creating great memories with my family.  My daughter feels like she can talk to me more.  My husband feels like he has a partner again.  I laugh more.  Being around my family distracts me when I am having a bad day.  It fills a need we all  had.

Even I have to admit that the title of this post looks odd.  What in the world does cooking have to do with depression?  In my experience a lot.

Before my last depressive episode got so bad that it impaired my ability to function, I loved to cook for my family.  Planning and preparing very nice meals for my family gave me a great deal of pleasure.  I was good at it too.  Not executive chef good, but it was good enough that my family enjoyed what I made.  The whole process, from looking up recipes to even going to the store to pick up the ingredients, was something that made me very happy.

However, it was also stressful to cook such nice meals for my family so frequently.  Trying to make sure that each part of the meal was finished on time, and worrying if my family would like what I made them were my biggest sources of stress.  Oh, and the dishes to be cleaned.  I usually had to use so many different gadgets, bowls, pots, and pans that the clean up was awful.

Once depression was ruling my life, I lost any desire I had to plan or fix meals.  Unfortunately, this meant that after working all day, my husband had to come home and cook our supper.  This state of affairs lasted for at least two years. It was hard on my husband, especially since he did understand that I was depressed. Once I got my depression diagnosis he was more understanding, but it did not change the fact that he was having to do so much extra stuff, including meal planning and preparation, when he got home fromy work.

Once I began to start feeling better, I was able to take that duty over again.  However, something had changed .  Even though I wanted to fix nice meals for my family, I had no desire to daily spend the hours on it that I used to.  One of the goals I had near the beginning of my depression treatment, was to find ways to simplify my life, and that included the time and effort I spent on meals.

I began to look for simple but tasty recipes, and much to my surprise I found tons of them. I also approached how I cooked differently.  No more stressing about when the food would be done cooking.  When it was done, it was done.  When possible, especially if I was fixing a big meal, I would just take my time.  The simple recipes meant less ingredients were needed and also less work involved in getting the food ready to cook.  The less work involved in food preparation led to less bowls, pots and pans getting dirty, so I had less clean up.

A couple of weeks ago, I got it into my head to make a really nice meal for the family, at the same time, I wanted it to be something fun and a bit different than what I usually did.  It just so happened that I had a nasty panic attack on the day that I had planned this.  In the past the panic attack would have meant that I was done for the day, and would have spent the rest of the day sleeping.  This time, even though that is what I wanted to do, I kept myself moving and went ahead with what I had planned on cooking.  What I discovered when I was preparing our meal is that, even though this was going to be a fancy meal, by using simple recipes I was able to successfully complete the meal without feeling overwhelmed, like I might have in the past.  This was especially significant considering the panic attack earlier in the day. Anna and I had fun with what I fixed, and we even had faux cocktails for a cocktail hour. I took my time and focused on the meal being fun rather than worrying about any deadline.

In the past I have not shared any recipes on my blog, but I thought since I had so much fun with this meal that I would share what I made.  I have placed the recipes in another post, you can find it here

Fancy Meal Recipes