As summer gears up, so do some other major changes in my life. Those changes...well, I don't always react favorably to change. The first major change came when I traveled cross-country to attend college 3,000 or so miles away from home. That's also when my first bout of depression really kicked in. Ever since then, I have dealt with a number of serious bouts--three or four--and one hospitalization (a decent track record for someone with more than a decade of a history with depression).
And now, I'm preparing to start law school.
I've read the statistics and I've heard the horror stories. I know law students are quite susceptible to depression. Just my luck, so am I. Count in moving to a new city in order to attend law school, and we're adding another change. So I'm a little nervous. Am I doing what I can to prepare? Well, yeah, I'm on meds and have a great therapist, I'm developing an exercise plan (not going too well at the moment) and doing law school prep (law school boot camp, here we come!).
But in my last session with my therapist, I talked about things that helped me when I was in the hospital. And besides figuring out some way to incorporate some crafty hobby into my life, I realized that one of the few times in my life I journaled regularly was during that hospital stay. And it did help.
The other bonus to journaling is the honesty bit. Now, I know of an author, Lucy March, who did a 500-day or so blogging project. It was quite the undertaking, and, being an author, she had a built-in audience, which I don't, but I'm not necessarily doing this for an audience--although if a person with depression and interested in law school stumbles onto this, it might provide an helpful (or not) perspective. I'm doing this for me.
See, even now, there are things I don't quite cop up to with my therapist or shrink. I might say, yeah, I'm eating kind of badly. But the truth is mozzarella sticks, chicken wings, potato skins and pizza. And that's just the past two days. It's bad. I've gotten fat. Fatter than I've ever been before. But I think my meds need adjusting, and I need to get back into the swing of exercising, and maybe do some other stuff, so right now, this is how I'm eating. And the truth is, since I'm off right now, with nothing to do, no job at the moment, waiting for a move that's not until next month, well, I'm kind of on my own to do what I want, good or bad, with no one to justify myself to.
Enter the blogosphere.
One of the things journaling does is create a sense of accountability. Even if I'm the only one reading this, I intend to have a policy of brutal honesty here--no sugar-coating, no down-playing, no holding back. And this'll be good for me: I will be forced to see my actions in the black and white of print, and maybe, that'll help me do something about it.
Another thing I'm trying to accomplish with this is to create a chronicle. This is called the 1080 project because I decided I'm going to keep this blog going until the day I graduate from law school (fingers crossed, knock on wood and all that). And when I started playing with numbers, I realized I liked 1080 because it's, at the moment, the high in high-definition. Detail, clarity, depth, all the things I'm aiming for in this blog, are all the things promised in 1080p plasma screen TVs (why, yes, I have been shopping around for a television). But the metaphor is spot-on, and, in the end, I do want a clear picture of what this journey is like. So, starting today, I will count down 1,080 days until law school graduation, posting each day, if only a little, what my day has been like. This project will be a chronicle and a place to be real, a commitment that I have every day and a place of release. And, hopefully, another tool for a woman living with depression to live her life to the fullest, and actually accomplish what right now, still seems like just a dream.
1080 countdown begins.
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