Depression Rubric

In the beginning of March I ended up not sleeping for a long period of time (about 60 hours) after Kurt had a fluke skiing accident that kept us up most of one night.  I think that I was so panicked to have to go through a long bout of insomnia again (it happened 2 1/2 years ago) that anxiety kicked in.  I was not very familiar with anxiety and tried to get it under control with lots of hot baths, exercise, relaxing music, essential oils etc.  But after a week or two of that plus the insomnia (and anything else that might have been going on in my body??) I landed into some clinical depression :(. Those were some pretty rough days there at the beginning and I have never experienced anything quite like it, but I had Kurt and the kids supporting me, relief society sisters helping me around the clock, a visit from our Bishop, priesthood blessings, medication, therapy, temple prayers and prayers from everyone whom I talked too about it! My sister got in her car with four of her children and drove 24 hours in a day and a half and stayed with me for 9 days and took care of my family and home (and her children) better then I can on a good day!!  Then more help from local friends, and then a friend from Delaware came to keep me company for a weekend and then my mom came over spring break!  A cousin came with her family to join us for Easter Sunday and she shared some great insights into how I can fight this battle as well.  I am learning so much and I still have much more to learn. 

I think that the medication is helping and I don't seem to have any major side effects so for now I will keep going with that.  I have enjoyed speaking with a therapist.  I appreciate my doctors insights.  I think it has been really helpful to have many people help me so Kurt hasn't felt TOO over burdened.  It has been helpful to have many people around to distract me as much of this has been a waiting game, and a don't let my thoughts or worries run away with me game!  I've been surrounded by people who have exuded much faith and hope and I've needed to lean on them for some of that of that while I was working through some dark feelings where there was not any hope.  And maybe one of the best ideas I would like to share was inspired by my mom.  I wanted to make sure I didn't overwhelm Kurt with so much processing of how I feeling every day since it has been really up and down and all over the place, but I still wanted to be able to communicate with him and let him continue to be my number one support, so my mom told me to make a ruberic and then rate my morning, afternoon and evening, so that every day when Kurt gets home from work he can look at my day and have an idea of what kind of a days it's been and what my needs might be with out us having to talk it all through!!! Genius!  So below is the ruberic I came up with although I'm realizing I needed a 3.5 category.  But I'll also copy down how I've been rating my days just for anyone who wanted to see where I'm at.  I'm hoping to see a lot of 5's in my future!!