Reading

The last several days have been stable and pretty good days. No real ups or downs. I may be running just a little short of "normal" (there's that undefined word again) on the depression scale, but I'll take that for now.

I've noticed that, when thinking of topics about which to write, I can't remember if I've written about them before. I'm quite sure that I have written about some topics or stories more than once (but going back, at this point, to try to figure that out would be very time-consuming and futile.)

I've never been a fast reader. Great and detailed comprehension, very little speed. Melissa can knock off a book in a weekend, and in a day if its not too long. I didn't read at all, in fact, until depression became part of my life. It was then that many things I used to enjoy brought much less happiness and books seemed to be a good way to escape what was going on in my head. So, for several years before ECT I would park myself at a local coffee joint (usually a Starbucks, since they have slowly chocked everyone else out in most places) and read for about an hour on most days. My reading speed increased slowly until I was reading a book every week or ten days. I've noticed since ECT that my speed has dropped off considerably, as has my comprehension. I find myself having to read the same paragraph more than once because my mind would wander off onto something else while I "read." I sometimes, now, will continue scanning words in a book but have my thoughts somewhere else entirely. I think, as time goes by, instead of getting better, this problem is getting worse. On many days, now, I have a lot of trouble reading. I will invert words in a sentence or letter in a word and have to look closely at the writing in order to get it right.

Melissa swears that my memory is getting worse (sometimes I agree with her, and I know its not getting better.) Likewise, my frustration tolerance isn't getting much better, if any. I feel less confident in myself when it comes to doing little household projects and, when I run into little snags in those projects, that lessened frustration tolerance really comes out. And its little projects like hanging curtain rods. Maybe some of the problem is that I don't want to screw things up in our new house and this is really an anxiety issue. Nonetheless, the less confident I feel the more frustrated I get, and the more frustrated I feel, the less confident I become. Its another ugly cycle that I don't remember occurring before ECT.