Asking For Help

Thursday I took the day off. It was bliss, as each day day off is. To lift the burden of work from my mind is really something. It's not just the relief of not having to go to the office or check email or meet with people, it's that my brain can relax, all thoughts (aka panic) about what needs to be done when can be placed in a different corner of my mind. I feel calm, yet giddy. And I feel loved.I'm struggling again.Thursday was pretty awesome. I wrote, jogged 2m alone, took myself out to a cafe to write / read / draw, went food shopping with my sister and relaxed. Crazy enough I found snowflake dishes for a steal at the thrift store AND even won a Polaroid camera from Impossible Project! An awesome day, for sure.But the demons, or whatever you want to call them, are there, lurking. I feel this fight between my righteous Type-A self and my loving soul - one wants perfection, routine and Success, the other wants to be alone on a beach or indulge in a creative project. I certainly don't have the energy for the first. Everything feels like an energy-suck right now. And I keep ignoring the latter in order to placate the former. (Note: this is not smart)It all piled up into painful words and tears Saturday morning. Another Saturday with work, more of my time sucked away from me. I picked a fight with H, as I always do in these moments, believing somehow that if he could just help more, love me more, listen more, I wouldn't feel so terrible. And while I would love more of all of that from him (what girl wouldn't?) it's not his fault I feel this way.It's my fault. Or at least, it's my responsibility. I'm the only one who can make me happy.Getting my words out into the open with H relieved some pressure, as did a small text convo with my sister about feeling so blah. I don't feel entirely healed, I know this is just something that comes and goes. My friend said, for her, it's 3 months on, 3 months off. For me it seems 2 months on, 1 month off, but maybe there's a larger cycle there I've not pin-pointed yet.Writing this is asking for help. Talking to H and my sister is asking for help. Taking a day off is helpful. But I know I'm struggling with something. I know intuitively I have the answers, but my brain wants to rule the argument, pick things apart (me) until it comes to some logical conclusion...but there probably isn't one. I have good weeks and bad weeks, we all do.To quiet my logical mind, I need a brain-dump of To Dos and projects. Then, if I have the energy, I can break those items down into one thing per day. But mostly I need to give up the ghost, trust things are going just the way they should, and focus on creating, even if it's at a very small level.What do you do when you're feeling down? How can you tell the difference between the blues and something more? xo