The Whirlpool Days

I've been meaning to write a post for weeks now.  It seems like every time I think of it the next time I am at the computer I have other things in my head and have forgotten.  Part of the problem is the "whirlpool" effect, the name I like to use for the pieces of time when I fall into my other me.  The one that just simply moves through the motions day by day.  The actual term for it is Dysthymia but, to me, it feels like you are swimming around in a circle and the whole time you know what you're doing and what you should do to get yourself out of the water but it's just so hard.  When your arms and legs are busy paddling in circles it is hard to maintain anything extra, it is hard enough to maintain the basics of your everyday life.  Things like paying bills, juggling work and school schedules, remembering tasks...for example blogging, fall away from you.  The days fall away from you.
I have struggled with this disorder for quite a few years now, you would think that by now I'd have found an effective strategy for bouncing out of it when it hits but I haven't.  Sometimes these "times", for lack of a better word, last a few weeks and sometimes it lasts months.  I have lost countless chunks of my life to this.  I always feel lighter and carefree as I come out of it.  Almost as if now I can conquer some things, as opposed to the feeling of worthless circular living I have just come out of.  I am beginning to become more proactive about overcoming it through cognitive techniques and other methods because as I enter into my career, where I will be dealing with patients recovering from injury or illness, I want to be at my healthiest for them.  I also fear for the farther future and how it will affect me as a mother.  I want to be able to give my children the best of me and not give them an unbalanced mother.
I'm sure that whoever I am is who God intended me to be and He gave me what He did for a purpose, maybe to be able to relate to patients better?  Or to be able to appreciate a simpler view on life; that knowledge is empowering but over analyzing and living in the past is dangerous and can weigh you down and make it harder to swim.  It is much more advantageous keep head facing forward, working for now and looking to tomorrow.
On a video blog I watch by a personal trainer I heard a great word of empowerment.  She said that whenever you start to play that story, whatever it is, going in the past or becoming negative on yourself, you need to say out loud, "I'm back."  That using this technique is going to bring you out of your internal drain and snap you back to the here and now.  Isn't that great?!  I've been using it for about a week and really makes an impact.  I have it written down on post its in my car and apartment.
I really wanted to write all of this down.  I know that none actually reads my blog so it is really just a journal for me but a small step of overcoming this is seeing to it that I do the things I say I am going to do so I needed to make sure to write this post tonight.