'Round and 'Round..

Over the years, it's occurred to me more than once that a lot of health problems- mental as well as physical- carry the risk of the person with that problem falling into a vicious cycle.

This is, in my opinion, especially true of people with depression.

In addition to my eczema, I suffer from a plethora of health problems (which I'll go into some other time). Some are scary, some are painful, and all are inconvenient. However, while eczema wins the prize for biggest obstacle from me living the type of life I want, depression isn't that far behind.

In a perfect world, in my perfectly organized life, I'd have this down by now: taking a short shower to start my morning and a rinse every night before bed, changing my sheets every other day, moisturizing constantly, and keeping my environment under control- complete with a well placed humidifier, an air sanitizer, no dust, no clutter to attract it, no trash, everything meticulously organized and stored properly.

My reality, however, is very different. Frankly, my place is a mess. I have clutter everywhere- a mixture of clothes, shoes, textbooks, notebooks, art supplies, dishes, medications, lotions, and paper trash dominates every surface- except, of course, my closet, which is empty. My bathroom is in a similar state- except the clutter in my bathroom is- well, stuff that you normally keep in a bathroom, so I suppose that's a minuscule plus.

I own one and a half sets of sheets, no air sanitizer, and my humidifier has a filter that apparently needs to be washed or changed- I'm not sure which, and I have NO idea how to do it in any case.

And the worst part of all of it is, there is dust everywhere. It coats everything, and is impossible to escape from. And what's the cause of this dust, you ask?

Here's a fun fact, for those of you that don't know it. A primary component of dust is dead skin cells.

Among the symptoms of my eczema is that I'm always 'shedding'- my skin cracks, peels and flakes, and I lose a ridiculous amount of skin compared to the amount a person with normal, functional skin would lose in the same amount of time.

Dust is my number one allergen.

And the principle cause or origin of all the dust in my environment right now, is me.

Talk about one of life's cruel jokes, right?.

Like I said, eczema, while certainly the most dominant and detrimental of my health problems, isn't my only one. I also have asthma, and intestinal troubles; I'm developing new vision problems, and problems with my thyroid. In addition, I'm diagnosed with depression, ADD, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, all of which are treated and, for the most part, under control.

'The most part'- that's a pretty potentially damning phrase, I agree. What I mean is that, while my bipolar disorder is under control, there's only so much you can do about depression, ADD, and anxiety. But, for the purposes of this post, I want to focus exclusively on depression.

Or, how depression works with my skin.

Having skin that hates you is pretty damn hard at times, to say the least; one of the biggest problems comes from when you can't move without pain or discomfort- when your skin feels tight and raw, or you've gotten a mild skin infection all over and it's hot and itchy and painful to the touch. A lot of the time, a bad breakout makes you feel like your nerves are wrecked. You're hypersensitive- you feel everything (and not positive feelings), about ten times more than you should.

And when your skin hurts or burns or causes you intense discomfort whenever you move, well- moving is the last thing you want to do.

One of the best images I've seen for the 'vicious cycle' of eczema is depicted in a blog I will hopefully be linking to a great deal more, which I am aiming to introduce properly later on today.This is the image from the blog:

I actually made my own little chart, to try to describe the basic aspect of the vicious cycle. I made it on creately.com, but it still looks like it's in editor. Why, you ask? Because you have to register in order to save your projects.
Thank goodness for screenshots.

And that's my life in a nutshell- a vicious cycle that goes 'round and 'round.
Well, the battle continues, as ever.
Fingers crossed that I get my wish and am able to come back shortly with a nice surprise!

Cheers!