I'm sick in the head. No seriously, I am. I'm medicated and everything. Bipolar, clinically depressed, angry all the time, and riddled with anxiety and self-hate.
It's a serious condition, but being crazy does have its perks. Jehovah's Witnesses know not to knock on my door.
But sometimes depression can really suck, especially if you're trying to live a healthy life. It can be hard to eat right and exercise when you're a miserable wretch.
Mental illness is much different than physical illness. Sometimes your medication works, sometimes it doesn't. It's not like taking insulin for diabetes or blood pressure pills. You can still have bad days.
As for me, I have three or four crappy days a month. They're the kind of days when I wake up and say to myself, "Ugh, I know I've said it before, but today is the day I kill myself. Yup, today's the day." So far I haven't.
But my bad days still suck. Normally I lead a healthy life. I eat right, exercise regularly, and I see a shrink. But, when I'm having a crappy day, all that goes out the window, especially my diet.
Food is my drug, always has been. When I'm depressed, I eat. I don't turn to drugs or booze, like many mentally ill people. I equate that stuff with fun, so there's no urge for me to get drunk when I'm depressed. I just eat.
Now, I've blogged about this before, I'm a near-vegetarian; no meat, eggs, milk, or cheese. I only eat fruits, vegetables, and fish. So I don't get like a woman with PMS and lock myself in my bedroom with a gallon of Haagen-Dazs, a jar of pickles, and the latest issue of Cosmo.
Because of my diet, I'm not jonesing for things like Big Macs, Cinnabon, macaroni and cheese, or milkshakes. No, my comfort foods are pretty lame. For example, I love non-dairy ice cream. I'll cut your throat for a pint of Good Karma Banana Fudge.
I eat a lot of cheap supermarket sushi too. You know the stuff. Those funky California rolls made with unripe avocado, fake crab meat that tastes extra fake, and crusty dried out rice.
Chinese takeout is good too. On a crappy day I'll get a double order of fried tofu, drowned in a gallon of sesame sauce.
But, my biggest diet faux pas is Peanut M&Ms. I'll destroy a whole bag! And not the itty-bitty packs by the register, the big XL bags in the candy isle. Of course this ends in disaster because I can't handle the milk in the milk chocolate, so those damn M&Ms wage war on my bowels. It looks something like this.
I usually snap out of a funk in a few days and everything goes back to normal. My psychologist tells me it's normal for someone with my issues to have highs and lows, just as long as the highs outnumbered the lows. But honestly, it's a tough pill to swallow when you're trying to live a consistently healthy life.
So, whether you're mentally ill or not, when you're having a lousy day, what kind of foods are you looking to score in shadowy back alleys?
Image credit: Happy Tree Friends and Sushi Pack
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