Category Archives: depression

On Starting Therapy

Posted on by
6

I met with a new therapist today, and I was only halfway through my first sentence when my voice cracked for the first time.

I felt I had to pause what I’d been saying, (which was undoubtedly something incredibly emotional and revealing, such as “I have been depressed for a while now,”) and explain what was going on, as if I was the first person who has ever cried during therapy. “I’m a crier,” I said, “You should know that about me. I’m going to cry the whole time I talk to you, and that’s just how it’s going to be.” She laughed and said that was fine, of course, and she would grab me all the tissues I could possibly need. “Oh, it’s alright,” I explained, as I reached around to my back pocket to grab the handkerchief I’d knowingly brought along with me. I told her, “I came prepared.”

I’m not sure why I even thought it would be possible, but I had convinced myself that I was going to be able to discuss my life with this therapist without snotting all over her couch and crying the whole time. I was so, so wrong. Before we even started talking about me, I knew I was wrong. I was sitting on the couch listening to her explain the legal forms that I’d signed–disclosure statements, right to privacy explanations, etc.– when I started to feel the inside of my sinus cavities start to tingle as if I’d just snorted a giant pile of crushed lifesaver Wint-O-Greens. I’m sure a lot of people cry during therapy, but I’m willing to bet that not everyone gets choked up while their therapist is running through her personal education background. But I do. Ooooh, I certainly do.

Before I picked up where I left off, I told her that I’d basically just shown her everything she’d need to know about me. I know that I’ve got a lot of stuff going on in my life, I know that I have problems. And even though I haven’t figured out how to fix them yet, I have learned to compensate fairly well. I understand my particular collection of -isms, and I prepare accordingly.

Then I blew my nose into the handkerchief that I’d brought, and we dove right in.

A Catch-Up Post

Posted on by
2

A fun way to break in the brand new oven at your brand new house is by using an over-sized dish towel to pull your steak fries out of the oven, and then, in the process, setting that dish towel on fire. Don’t worry, though. Because my brand new faucet for my brand new kitchen sink has a pretty impressive spray range. I took care of it*.
_________________________
Zack heard Scout growling the other day and thought that someone was trying to break into the house. She barks at people when they come over, and she barks at squirrels and stuff in the backyard, but she never growls. She growled for so long that Zack was able to shoot a little video of it to show me.

So, there’s a pond in our new neighborhood, and that pond has ducks. Scout was growling at one of the ducks, who was across the street, in one of the neighbor’s yards. You could see it on one part of the video; it was scarcely bigger than a period at the end of a sentence. But Scout could see it, and boy, was she ever pissed.
_________________________
Zack and I decided to sign up for a run/race at the end of April to motivate me (us?) to get back into the swing of exercising on a regular basis. We’re going to go for the gusto and register for the 10K. Wish me luck, but don’t wish me good sense, otherwise I would surely back out while I still have the chance.
_________________________
I’ve slowly started to make the medication adjustments that the doctor suggested that I make. I don’t feel a whole lot happier but I do feel more stable. I explained that concept to Zack earlier by saying, “You know how sometimes we’d go to dinner and have the best time, and then on the way home I would start crying, and then I would go straight to bed? I don’t feel like that anymore.” So that’s good news(?). It’s hard to think about things in terms of emotional stability as opposed to just happy vs. unhappy. I don’t feel better because I don’t feel happier, but stable is better than unstable, so I’ll count that as a win. So far, the biggest side-effects that I have from detoxing off of Medication #1 are jacked-up sense of spacial awareness (running into walls, trying to set things down on the counter but totally missing and dropping them on the floor, etc.) and feeling like everything is happening in slow motion. Neither of these are surprising to me; I expected them both. The side-effects just leave me wishing that psych meds weren’t so miserable to adjust.
_________________________
Pictures of the house forthcoming. Zack and I have been enjoying settling into the new house. It’s perhaps a little bit obvious or redundant to say this, but we have such a sense of ownership about this place — like we’ve never had before with any of the places that we’ve rented. It’s been fun to celebrate being in this house that we’ve dreamed of for so many years while we do normally-mundane things like decide where to store the dish towels.
_________________________
*Just kidding. I mean, I really did catch the rag on fire, but I was able to put it out with a couple of frantic waves and “OH SHIT”s. Problem solved.

All of my friends are Action Jacksons.

Posted on by
2

Well, I said that I was hoping that my post yesterday would get the ball rolling, and boy did I ever get what I was asking for.

I have a lot of people in my life who love me and care about me. What’s more is the people who care about me are real go-getter types–the kind that like to DO things about stuff. So when they ask me what they can DO to help me, and I say, “I don’t know. Why? Did you have anything in mind?” They are like, “UH, yeah. Here’s the plan. Let’s get started.”

So that’s how I wound up talking to a psychiatrist today. I didn’t have any intention of talking to a psychiatrist today. I was going to wait until we got settled into the new house, and then I was going to go to see a counselor. Instead, the go-getters in my life saw to it that I got the help that I need–the help that I’ve needed for months now. They saw to it by literally walking me to help’s front door and dropping me off.

Today wasn’t the worst day I’ve had recently. In fact, it wasn’t even a particularly bad day at all. That made for funny conversations with the doctors and nurses doing my initial psych evaluations. Usually people are at the bottom of their proverbial barrels before they finally go in to an office to see a doctor; I know that’s been my pattern at least. So when the nurse asked me to rate today on a scale of 1-10, I was like, “Uh, well, today’s actually been alright. But these last few months have been pretty rough. So, you mind if I give you a range?”

I’m feeling thankful today. Thankful for a husband, family, friends, and co-workers who care about me. Thankful for the go-getters who surround me, and help me when I don’t have the energy to help myself.

The Return of the Should

Posted on by
8

I should tell you the truth. The truth is, I’ve been incredibly sad for the last few months.

Every sentence in my mind these days starts with the phrase “I should.” Therapists don’t look kindly on the word “should” or the sentiment behind the word. It implies that there are expectations that I’m not meeting. And those expectations, I discovered during my last round of therapy, are often ones that I’ve placed upon my own shoulders. I should, according to my own plans, be doing a lot of things that I’m not doing.

I should be packing.
I should be running and doing yoga.
I should be studying up on Critical Care Nursing.
I should be spending more time with my family and friends.
I should be blogging every day, just like I have been for the last few years.
I should be happy.
I should be really, really happy.
But I’m not.

The depression is different this time than it was last time. The best way that I can describe it is to say that it’s more intermittent. I’ve been trying to convince myself that the fact that the heavy moments are waxing and waning means that the depression isn’t as severe this time around, but that’s just not true. It’s just as bad. It’s worse, even.

I can’t explain it. I don’t know why. I have every reason in the world to be happy right now. Supportive and kind husband. New house. New job. The life that I wanted is all falling into place. But if you were to be a fly on the wall in my house, all you would see is me sleeping. I don’t call people. I don’t go see the people who love me. I don’t do anything. I just go to sleep.

This time the lies in my head are louder than they ever have been. I hear that my boss made a bad choice by hiring me; I hear that I’m a risk that doesn’t pan out. I hear that I’m not worth the trouble that I cause. I hear that everyone’s life would be easier if I wasn’t around. I tell myself that all of these things are lies, but that doesn’t make them stop.

I should be doing the things that I know I can do to make myself feel better. I really should. I should start by trying to eradicate ‘should’ from my vocabulary again. I know that eating well, exercising regularly, setting a sleep schedule (and following the sleep schedule), and talking about what I’m feeling are helpful to me. I know that not talking about things, sleeping all the time, and existing on a diet of red wine & baked Cheetos are not good for me. I should be calling the therapist’s phone numbers that are sitting in my inbox, a gracious gift from a dear friend who did the leg work of getting recommendations for me. (I’m terrified of going back to therapy, ever since my last therapist almost killed me. But, that’s a discussion for another day.) Perhaps this is the first step. Perhaps not telling you all how I’m feeling is my version of living in denial. If so, then just imagine me standing in front of a room. Hi, my name is Sarah, and I’m wildly depressed. Again.

There are good days, though. The good days give me hope. Last time, the depression was steady; I generally felt the same amount of sadness every day. This time, I have incredibly good days, and then, days that are so dismally bad that Zack worries about my health and my acute decision making, and offers to come home from work to be with me. Those days are very, very bad days.

I wish I had an eloquently hopeful way to sum this up, but I don’t. I guess I’m just hoping that coming out about how I’m really feeling will finally motivate me to do something about it. Fingers crossed.

Ask for the help that you need.

Posted on by
3

My preceptor and I turned over all of our beds today. That means that all of the patients we started our day with were discharged during our shift, and we got all new ones to fill our empty beds. On top of that, it was a meeting day. That means that each of us had to spend an hour-and-a-half of our day in a conference room, instead of being on the floor doing the massive amounts of work that we had to do. And there was a lot of work. A lot.

Discharges require their fair share of paperwork, but more than that, they require time. Admits require time and paperwork. Time and paperwork. And then a little more time and bit more paperwork. And for me, they require a lot of focus and very deliberate planning. And list-making. I couldn’t survive admits if it wasn’t for my well-developed list-making skillz.

I’ve had to do enough admitting and discharging that I’m starting to feel moderately comfortable with the processes. Today, my preceptor and I both functioned as “real nurses,” because I was able to do things without her having to guide me every* step of the way. And even with both of us working our friggin’ asses off, and even with all of the help we had from other nurses on the unit who generously offered their time to us, we barrrreeelly got all of our business handled. Barely.

A fellow nurse-friend asked me how my day was today. I said that there are days when I feel like someday I am going to be able to handle this job on my own — days when I think I’ll be okay after I’m out from under the safety of my preceptor’s wing. But today was not one of those days. I could never do the amount of work we did today if I was on my own.

My friend laughed at me, saying that I was right, and of course I wouldn’t be able to do it alone. Saying that I’d learned the right lesson: I can’t do it alone. I will always need to ask for help. Learning how to ask for help is the hard part.

So I’m choosing to not be defeated today. I’m choosing to take those words to heart. The hard part is learning that I’ll always need to ask for help. My preceptor and I did an impressive amount of work today, and we were only able to do it because we relied on all of the support systems that were surrounding us.

Lesson learned. Ask for the help that you need.

 

Depression recovery is not a linear process.

Posted on by
12

Here’s the trick about recovering from depression: It’s not a linear process. It’s not math; it’s not simple addition and subtraction, where you work your way down a numberline, taking away bits of your depression until you’ve reached a value of Zero. Oh, but if it were only so simple.

photo by glacier tim

This road does not accurately depict my recovery from depression.

But it isn’t. Instead, there are times when I think that I’m doing better. Times when I go for a couple of days or a week without going to this place in my head where everything is slow and cloudy and wrong. In those times, I don’t even think about how I’m getting better because I don’t even think about depression at all. I mindlessly take my antidepressant every day and I give no space in my brain to active thoughts of depression or depression recovery or anything of the sort, and it’s wonderful.

I still haven’t learned to see the changes coming. I’ll just be going about my day doing normal things when it rolls in. And then I’ll feel tired. I’ll lose my appetite. I’ll want to go take a nap. I’ll want to be by myself, which, as you all know, is rather strange for me. Sometimes I don’t even recognize it in this stage. It’s still subtle enough that I can block it all out. I blame it on extenuating circumstances and refuse to assign my feelings the weight and validity that they deserve.

Other people do notice, though. People who know me well will remark about how quiet I’m being. Family and friends start to ask me questions about my eating, concerned because they can see I’m losing weight. They see me canceling plans, leaving parties early. I guess from the outside it’s easier to notice as I close myself off from the people around me. By the time everyone starts talking to me about these things, I am forced to face up to the truth: it’s getting bad again.

Zack deals with the ebbs and flows of depression pretty well, but when I get to the point where I stay in bed until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, he starts to worry about me. He hasn’t said it in those words exactly, but I know he worries about me. I know he worries that I’m going to go back to the place where I was last year. Hell, I’m worried that I’m going to go back to the place where I was last year. I think everyone is.

That’s about where I am right now. Isolating, in bed for 12-14 hours at a time, not eating much, obsessively cleaning–you know, the usual. Part of me isn’t scared because I’ve been here before and things that you’ve done before aren’t usually as scary as things you haven’t done before. The other part of me is terrified because I feel out of control. Now that I’m sliding towards the wrong end of the (over-simplified) depression-numberline, I want to do something to stop it, but I feel helpless. I mean, I’m already taking the little magic happy pill every day. What more does my depression want of me?!

It probably wants me to be more purposeful. It wants me to eat, and it would be happy if I would do some yoga, or really, any kind of exercise on a regular basis. It wants me to take Scout on more walks, get out of the house more often, and make more dinner dates with friends. Those are the things that helped last time, so I won’t try to reinvent the wheel this time. I’ll just do the things that I know to be helpful, and I’ll hope for the best.

Hope with me.