Tag Archives: depression

On Starting Therapy

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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.

The Return of the Should

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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.

Depression recovery is not a linear process.

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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.

Devastation

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My heart is broken. I come before you tonight a broken soul, devastated and mourning for a loss.

Sometimes, there are pains so deep that it takes more than once voice to tell its story. This particular pain has no way of being fully expressed. There are no words to match the sinking feeling in my stomach; no expressions encompass the severity of my sorrow. I am human, though; I need to share. I need to be in community, and so I must tell my story.

Anyone who has been following me for a length of time knows that I have twin nephews. I wrote about them here, here and here. My brother, (not Boo, who is my younger brother. Here we’re talking about my older brother), David, is their father. Jamie, a very sweet, very caring, very capable woman, is their mother. They live about 4 hours away from here. I love Jamie and The Twins with my whole heart. Seeing the twins or hearing of them brightens my days. I love them. I love them. They are my blood, they are fantastic and entertaining and so full of life. And I love Jamie. She is so gentle and compassionate and real. I was more than pleased to welcome them into our family, regardless of the circumstances.

And oh, were the circumstances ever hard. They were incredibly, extraordinarily difficult.

But circumstances don’t matter. What matters was that we had the most precious boys in the universe as part of our family. What matters is that I have never seen my parents happier than they were when they had those boys in their arms.

Happiness, in and of itself, doesn’t hold a candle to the happiness that is associated with grandparenthood. My parents love those boys with everything that is in them. I love those boys, and my love doesn’t hold a candle to the way that my parents feel for them. And the way my parents feel for them doesn’t hold a candle to the way that their mom, Jamie, feels about them. They, despite the difficult circumstances, are incredibly blessed. They know so much love.

But everything changed at the end of March.

Zack came to me one morning in early April and asked me if something had happened with David. Katy, Zack told me, had tweeted some things that’d made him think that something was wrong. I told Zack that I didn’t know. I hadn’t heard anything. Because school can be so stressful for me, my family has (graciously) gotten into the habit of saving up “news” until I’m between projects. At the time, I was under the overwhelming set of deadlines associated with The Project of Doom. I told Zack that if something was happening, I didn’t know. They must have not told me because of school. At the time, I appreciated the sentiment. I did not read her tweets. I’m glad I didn’t. If I had, it would have been obvious to me what had happened. Here’s what she said:

It’s these moments that shape us. That mold us. That forever haunt us.

It’s these moments that kill us, slowly.

It’s your blood and it’s my blood. It’s captured in a memory. It’s surreal and unforgiveable.

The words were spoken and we thought you were man enough to keep them. Man enough to hold them. To love them. To teach them what a real man is. But how would that be possible when you don’t even understand this?

They have faulted you never. Not once. And you tear their world in two without hesitation.

I grit my teeth to hold back a sharpened tongue.

You desert them. And you cut us deep. The blood runs thick, yes, but it means little anymore.

Earlier that day, my dad had texted her and begged her to write something. He needed something to make him cry, he said. Minutes before the text message arrived in her phone, Katy had been informed of the fact that my brother signed over his parental rights. No longer is he the father of these twins. He willingly gave up any stake of ownership he ever had in these boy’s lives. And in doing so, he irreversibly broke the hearts of every member of his family. He sent his mother, his father, his sisters and his brother into the deepest sorrow we’ve ever known.

He gave up the boys. Signed them away like they didn’t even matter.

That’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that those boys are better off without him in their lives. The worst part is that if you have the kind of father who is willing to forefit his right to be a part of your life, you really are better without him. Children should be surrounded with people who love them. With people who will sacrifice anything for them, who will do whatever it takes to ensure their safety, wellness, and happiness. And if you are willing to leave your children behind, you are not willing to sacrifice anything for them. You are not willing to do whatever it takes. You are not worthy of being their father. And so, in signing over his rights, David confirmed our worst fears about him. He is that kind of person. The kind of person who is willing to abandon his own children.

We, the other members of my family, are clinging to the relationship we have built with Jamie, and praying (please, pray) that she will continue to let us be a part of their lives even though she doesn’t have to. She doesn’t have to do anything. And if we’re all honest with ourselves, we can see that it’s harder for her to let us be involved. Because how does she explain us in 3 years when they start asking questions about who we are? We’re grandparents and aunts and uncles that aren’t part of Jamie’s family. We don’t show up at family reunions. We are a part of The Other Side. But in their case, The Other Parent doesn’t exist anymore. So how does she explain The Other Side? When encapsulated in selfish positive thinking, I tell myself that it’s okay. Because whether we’re hard to explain or not, the more people that love those boys, the better. Right? I mean, who cares what our titles are? We love them. Love will carry us through. Love will make the difference. Love makes it all easier, right?

Maybe. Maybe it does. Maybe it’s enough. But, on the other hand, it might not be enough. Love might not carry us through. Maybe, just maybe, my brother just made a selfish decision that took away the greatest joys our family has ever known.

On Concept Mapping Myself

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Remember my Concept Maps? The idea behind concept mapping is that you can take a complicated process, put all the information about it onto a piece of paper (or, in this case, a file folder), and then see how all the different pieces of the puzzle interrelate.

On my really bad days, depression drives me to bed. If I’m lucky, Zack’s there with me. After I’m through the crying phase, the “I’m tired” phase, and the calming-down again phase, I usually get to a racing thoughts phase. (This phase is typically the immediate pre-cursor to the napping phase, which is my favorite of them all.)

The racing thoughts phase is always where I, at light speed, cycle through all of my problems, all of my symptoms, all of my everything. I often think of things in these moments that I feel would be important to tell a therapist.  Unfortunately, I’m typically ill-equipped to write in those times. And then, as I mentioned, the nap phase sets in. By the time I wake up, the nap has done its job, erasing any of the mental connections I made whilst staring at my ceiling.

So, over the Christmas break I drew myself a little concept map of my own depression. I drew out all the symptoms, all the possible causes, all the complicating factors (ADD!) and all of the medication jumbles. I added critical dates, diet information, and medication dosage changes. And then I added a lot of arrows. I color-coded my depression.

Tomorrow night I have my first meeting with my psychiatrist since the Great Medicine Disaster of 2010. I’m going to ask him some questions, and give him a chance to explain himself and his choices (and what seems to have been some very poor information). Then I will make my own decision about whether or not I’m going to stay there. But whether it’s at his office or with a new doctor, I am comforted by my manila folder full of arrows. There is no reason to be lost inside my feelings anymore. I don’t feel engulfed by the madness. I feel like this map gives me a good idea of the places to start. I know that doesn’t mean the work is done. I know it’s just a starting point. But a starting point is everything when before, all you had was despair.

On Strawberries and Women’s Thighs

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Zack and I celebrated Christmas today at my parent’s house in a fashion that was very much in keeping with my family’s longstanding tradition of never doing anything the same way twice.  Holidays are very exciting around my brood.

After Zack and I returned to our home this afternoon, I hit a ferocious energy streak (good sign!) and simultaneously started about 38 projects.  One of the many clean-out and re-organize projects that I started (and dang near finished!) was to pare down our book collection by only keeping the books that we a.) loved, b.) would read again or c.) couldn’t live without.  We removed three sizable boxes from the bookcases (progress!) and in the process of doing so, I ran across a stack of journals from years past.  Knowing that some of those were from the time in my life when I was in Counseling: Round One, I cracked them open to see what they contained.

All of that has been to tell you this: even though I would have never described myself as being ‘depressed’ back then (2005 – 2006), I can retrospectively see that I was dealing with the same problems then that I am now.  Because, buried deep within the pages of one of my old journals was a quote that struck my core the first time I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.  All alone, centered on a page was written:

“Oh, strawberries don’t taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!”

Then, I appreciated the quote for its literary value–the succinct way in which it described the character’s entire life perspective in only one sentence.  Now, the quote stopped my page-flipping because I saw it in a whole new light.  I saw one sentence that aptly described the experience of my depression.  There are still strawberries and thighs of women, sure; but somehow, they just aren’t measuring up anymore.

Some days, it’s good to purposefully remember what you’re fighting for.  Today, I feel better than yesterday.  Today I feel good enough that I thought to myself that if I feel like this forever, that would be okay.  I would take this forever over ever feeling again like I did on Day Four.  But no matter how much ‘better’ I am than I was yesterday, I can’t stop here. I can’t be complacent.  Because, Oh, man.  I can remember what the strawberries used to taste like, and I so badly want to taste them again.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

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Though, not necessarily in that order.  You try to pick which one is which.

1.) I am not healed from my depression.  I haven’t been talking about it because there’s nothing new to tell. I’m still on the same medications I was on, and I’m still a zombie.  There are some times when some emotion will unexpectedly poke through, but it’s rare and generally brief.  There have been a few fun moments, like Friday, when I’m sitting with Zack in our living room, surrounded by friends, and we’re all laughing and eating fajitas.  In those moments, it seems like everything is normal.  And then there are the rest of the moments. The worst of which are lying in bed with my husband as he broken-heartedly confesses to me the sadness he feels about this situation and the fact that he can’t wait until I change medicines and/or get better.  I can’t tell you, or him, how sad (and guilty and worthless and hopeless and and and) it makes me that I feel like this right now.  It is like living life trapped inside someone else’s body.  The longer I say this way, the more I feel like there will never be a way out.  I have less than a month until the end of the semseter and an appointment with a highly regarded psychiatrist on December the 1st.  And somewhere, buried in the pit of my stomach, is an inkling of hope, holding desperately onto the idea that these problems that I’m facing can be solved.

2.) I still haven’t shaved my ANYTHING since before November the 1st.  SisterKaty has done a phenominal job of not smoking.  She didn’t smoke at all for the first 15 days, then on the 15th she smoked the classic, “Oh, I just wanted to see if I still liked it” cigarette.  She claimed she didn’t.  She claimed her taste buds had changed.  I was like, YEAH, I DID THAT TOO. 1,000 TIMES. That was always how I got sucked back in to smoking!  She held her ground in the argument, though, saying that she really didn’t want to go back to it.  She gave me permission to shave.

But somehow, I feel like shaving my armpits would be giving her PERMISSION to smoke, you know?  So I haven’t shaved. I’ve held steadfast in my commitment to support her smokelessness at the cost of not being able to wear any of my tank tops.  And also at the cost of feeling totally oogy every time I take a shower with Zack, because the whole time I wash my hair, he just stares at my armpits in shock.  Every single time he says, “by the end of the month, they’re going to look like mine!”  And I say, NO WAY.  Unfortunately, I’m starting to believe that he might actually be right about that one.

3.) I’ve been listening to my Christopher O’Riley albums all weekend as I have been working on school assignments.  You should listen to him, too.  My dad introduced me to him years and years ago.  This year I think I’m going to play some of his music at Christmas so I can sneakily get my grandma to talk about how awesome Radiohead is.  It’s going to rule.