Remember, the only difference between hitting rock bottom and hitting the wall is gravity.

Okay, so that doesn’t make sense. The point is, I realized today that hitting the wall saved my life once, in a very real sense, and it is around time it did it again.

I have told you lovely, lovely people before about the period in my early twenties where I got into a very, very bad mental and physical state. Irritable Bowel Syndrome had hit me hard and, unlike other times, it stuck around.

All my life, I’d had “nervous stomach” incidents. Times when, for no apparently reason, I would get really nauseous and my guts would be churning and I would spend some time in Bathroom Hell.

It’s as bad as it sounds.

But these episodes were quite infrequent – maybe two or three a year – and I felt a lot better afterwards (yay endorphins) – so I never told anyone about it and just went bop bop bopping along again.

Ah, the resilience (and amnesia) of youth.

But after my college education was defunded, I went into a very bad doom spiral. The fact that I was unable to see what was wrong and continued to pretend like everything was a-okay made things a lot worse.

I wasn’t allowed to be anything but OK, or so I thought.

So after some very bad IBS attacks, I was a dehydrated, malnourished, anxious, hypoglycemic, hypochondriac mess. My days were miserable. I spent a lot of time sitting on the couch in the living room of my childhood home with the TV on, sometimes watching it, a lot of the times in too much pain for it to be anything but flashing lights and noise to me.

And this lasted for a long time. But eventually, I hit the wall. I got well and truly sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I got to the point where the cornered rat turns and fights. I was determined to get myself out of that hole.

So I forced myself to hydrate. My stomach didn’t like that one bit, but I didn’t care. I kept drinking as much water as I could handle, and eventually that got me to the point where I could eat.

Once I could eat, I recovered quickly, and before long I was physically healthy again. (Still depressed and unaware of it, but the physical side was working anyhow. )

And I think that’s where I am right now. I have been ill and depressed and a mess for a long long time now, and it’s high time I finally turn and attack my problems head on.

Starting with the physical. Physically, I am once more a big ole mess. My sleep apnea is untreated, I don’t ever check my blood sugar, and I eat like a moron.

At least some of that shit has got to stop.

It came over me like a revelation : I could be happier. I could feel a hell of a lot better than I do right now. There are things within my control that I can do to enjoy every moment of life more.

Now, for a normal person, this revelation might come across as one hundred percent DUH. But for a depressive, that’s a very difficult thought to think. Depression strangles hope. It makes it seem like the best you can hope for is things not getting worse, even though you are sure they will.

So you just stop thinking about the future and concentrate on making it through the present with a minimum of pain.

And then you look around and twenty years of your life are gone.

So the fact that I can now not just think things can get better, but believe it. It was always possible to imagine life getting better via some external agency like winning the lottery.

But now I think I can do it myself, and in fact, it now seems ridiculously simple. All I have to do is treat myself a little better, and I will feel better. And I am perfectly capable of taking steps to make things better.

The answer came to me through salad.

See, I have known for a while now that leaf greens make my stomach feel better. They give the acid something it can really sink its teeth into (cellulose) and that soothes my stomach really nicely.

And yet, the fog of depression was so thick that it was only recently that I realized that this was actually important.

If I eat more leafy greens, I will enjoy that better feeling more often. I will be in less pain, and that will make me happier. It sounds retarded when I put it into words, but that is nub of my recent revelation.

And to think, it all started when Joe bought a head of lettuce.

So tonight, when we go to ABC Country Kitchen for supper, I will see what kind of salads they have. Whatever I order, it’s going to have a lot of protein to go with the carbs, and will ideally have other vegetables as well.

It might end up costing me slightly more than my usual Greasy Thing And Fries, but how can you put a price on feeling a whole lot better? It’s going to be a rough month for me (hello, five week month!) but money spent on health is money well spent.

The sleep apnea and diabetes are bigger hills to climb, but the shitty diet is something I can tackle right now without a whole lot of effort.

And you know, baby steps. I am not going to suddenly change my entire diet. I am not planning on eliminating anything. I just plan to add more good things.

So my plan is actually to eat more. You really can eat more and weigh less, if you add the right things to your diet. Better nutrition doesn’t have to be a contest of wills.

It can be as simple as eating a salad before your gloriously decadent main course.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.