Bedroom Makeover Success, Medication Change Failure
Well, the bedroom has been painted, through no help of my own. (Here’s the before.) This intense 5-coat project coincided with my change in medication dosage which left me in bed all day, too depressed to move. Our bed was actually leaning in the hallway so I was just on a mattress on the floor of the living room. It was right outside the bedroom where Matt was slaving away, and I was consumed with guilt and shame for being unable to do any painting. I kept thinking about all the painting I’d done in the past and screaming at myself for not being able to pick up a brush. I did help disassemble and reassemble the bedroom and living room, but that was the extent of my labor. Matt insisted that he was the one who had made the decision to go ahead with the project, even though I’d said that I wasn’t up to doing it. Once I realized I couldn’t do it, I was ready to write the whole thing off for now and wait for a better mood to make the painting possible. So he never blamed me for lolling about in bed all day while he took the project on by himself. Part of my need to stay in bed all day was attributed to the trouble I’d been having sleeping. I’d wake up early after only 6-7 hours of sleep instead of my usual 11, and by the time I’d exercised and showered, I was utterly exhausted and would crash back into bed. This interrupted sleep was the exact opposite of my expectations for the change in medication dosage. I went down on my atypical antipsychotic, which you would think would cut down on akathisia (restlessness) and interrupted sleep- at least that was the plan. But inexplicably, the reverse was true and the experiment has officially been deemed a failure. My instinct was to press on, committing to the full 2 weeks of the experiment as suggested by my doctor, but ultimately I called it after only 10 days of utter disaster. I’ve had a tendency in the past to push myself too far when something clearly wasn’t working, whether it was persisting with the washout of all my meds last summer (the disaster to end all disasters) or going through a full 6 weeks of TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) therapy despite it being ineffective and very painful. So this time, I decided not to push it.
Regardless, the paint job is beautiful and the white reflects a lot more light around the room than that dark blue-green did. It’s caused me to question some of the decor, but overall it’s a welcome change. I did end up burning the sage “smudge” around the room before we brought the furniture back in. I felt completely foolish reciting an “intention” over and over again as I walked around with the smoking bundle, but Matt was very supportive and didn’t make fun of me for it. Another change we made was to switch sides of the bed. I wanted to make everything as different and disorienting as possible, in order to really get that fresh-start feeling.
I’m sorry to say that none of this cured my mood disorder. I mean, it’s a ridiculous thing to expect from a little bedroom makeover, but I admit I had my hopes. And I was disappointed that the freshly painted walls didn’t boost my mood in the least. I was still feeling awful from the dosage change, and I didn’t even want to go in there for fear of “contaminating” the room with my bad mood. When I told Matt what was going through my mind, he pointed out that that was completely absurd and that I would surely have bad moods in the bedroom in the future. He said that painting it was never meant to cure my mood disorder. I guess I just got caught up in the clean newness of it all and entertained this fantasy of a cure. I mean, we really cleaned that room- we mopped the floor and dusted and vacuumed every item we put back in there. We washed the sheets and bedspread and even the mattress cover. We removed and replaced the immensely heavy radiator (still painted blue-green). We took down the sconces so that Matt could paint every square inch and replaced them with a new, simpler style. Everything is fresh and clean and new. I put my medication back up to my usual dose last night, and today I was actually able to get out of the house after my workout on the treadmill. So peace is restored, at least for now.
