rough days.....how do you cope?

Sunday was great. I ran in a 5K and almost beat my best time. The weather was perfect, I was with my family, and all was well. But I forgot to take my Lexapro until about 5 hours after I normally take it. Does this make a difference in how it works? I assume it does.

But today...today was wretched. I seem to have used all my energy on Sunday and none came back to me overnight. I struggled through my morning shift at the library, and then all too soon my afternoon shift at my school job was over and I still had a lot of work to do for it. As soon as I got home I relaxed for about 20 minutes before having a group project meeting for a class I'm in. It went ok, but it was a lot of work and dealing with 4 other people. (Which is harder for me than it used to be...dealing with groups of people, that is.) Then I had a meeting, where I found out that I missed a deadline for my school job. At this point, I wanted to cry right there in the meeting. Or scream. Either one would do. I am inordinately frusterated that I can no longer do things that used to come so easily....homework, readings, organization of my life, talking to people in general.

And now it's 11 pm, and I have probably an hour of slides to watch for class, as well as homework which will take me about an hour. It would be nice to complete my work for the deadline I missed this afternoon as well. But all I have the energy to do is sleep. I'm not sleeping though. I'm still working, but it's hurting so much to keep pushing on.

What do you do when you have bad days? At what point can you tell that a day is going to be mostly good or bad?

What are your strategies for dealing with days that you know are going to be rough?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

-Kaitlin

Well, first off, we all have good and bad days and we each understand that. I can usually tell when I wake up. If I feel bad when I wake up I usually feel bad all day. And I usually feel bad when I wake up. Of course, most of my days are spent doing the same things over and over again. Its hard to wake up at 6 in the am, get on a bus, go to school, get on a bus, get home at 4, do homework, eat, take a shower, and get in bed early. That is my day, everyday. I never have time of my own. And I think that makes it worse, but if I did have time I would probably choose to sleep!

But, my advice is to not think about the bad things. If something bad happens early in the day, don't dwell on it. Just put it away and focus on something good. I know it is hard to forget the bad, or to forget that you feel bad, as I can never do it! But, maybe it will work for you!

Try planning something that you enjoy each day. My counselor gets at me each week because I choose not to plan fun things because I dont enjoy much anymore. I guess I need to fix the underlying problem then I can have fun! But, she says to force myself into fun things or going places to do things and even if you dont think it will be fun, you never know what will happen.

On my truly rotten days, I just keep thinking about going to sleep. Yea, because I feel horrible and I'm tired, but also because I always hope the next day will be better! Try to keep that in mind. The next day will hopefully be better!!

Wishing you many good days....TeNNiS*