depression

The Joy of MDEs

/ Twist the Leaf / 3 Comments

I went to the shrink today.   I have been dealing with a pretty deep depression over the past… month?  Month and a half?

I don’t really remember March at all, or most of April thus far.

She has encouraged me to talk to Gideon about monitoring my emotions so that next time I fall into the hole of a Major Depressive Episode, we can try upping my meds briefly to pull me back out.  I’m not sure if it’ll work or make things worse, but if I’m already in an MDE anyway, I figure that it’s worth a try.    There is the risk that the med fluxuation could stir up suicidal thoughts and urges, but if we don’t at least try it, we won’t know.

She also wants me to do a daily meditation in the morning, complete with positive affirmation that I am to meditate on, then try to keep in mind throughout the rest of the day.    I’ve never done affirmations before, so… that will be something new and different.

I suck at “daily” type stuff and getting that kind of stuff to “stick” into my routine, but I’m going to give it a try.

It’s too late to up my meds this time around, as I’m already crawling out of the MDE’s black hole, but maybe with a plan in place, my next one won’t end up stealing 4-6 weeks from me with no memory and (apparently) everything non-essential put on pause during that time.

Gideon’s Challenge

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Aghast

Because how the hell could anyone think putting two toddlers in an oven and turning it on would be a good idea.

Washington Post Article

I’m sorry, but mental health issues can only go so far to explain away people’s behavior.   To me, this is far and beyond fucked up.

Gideon’s Challenge

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Down

Broken Leaf

It is not the ache upon the solar plexus or sinking of the heart, but the silent creep of tiredness and, concealed within that tiredness shadow…. apathy.

The interest in food dissolves, as does the drive toward self care.   I focus on work so that I do not fall behind, but there is little joy, only process.  Mindless process where by I go through the motions that move me along one step at a time.

I try to push back, but there is nothing to push against, and nothing to push with.  It is all shadow and mirror, no substance and thus nothing to grasp or defeat.  After all, how do you wage war a shadow?

Kaleidoscope (Part 6)

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Abandonment

With the last installment of the Kaleidoscope series, we come full circle to a sense of abandonment. Because… that’s where I ended up. By the time I came to you and told you that I thought that you needed to go and start talking to someone about your depression, I was alone… and had been for some time.

This should be apparent by the other kaleidoscope posts, and yet, it’s more than that.  It’s that clear and aching sense of being left bereft and alone.  An odd dissonance, because I was and am still in a relationship with you… and yet, I was also alone. Left alone to deal on my own. A situation that created a sense of betrayal and resentment, because without intention I had come to depend upon you.

Dirty Pacifier

That secure spot of comfort and safety was removed from my reach.   I had tried so hard in the beginning to not depend on it.   To not need it.   And then when I did, it was taken away like a handful of sand slipping though one’s fingers.

Two years passed while I slipped further and further beneath the surface of hurt and betrayal and loss and anger and resentment.  It didn’t happen all at once, but one fraction of a millimeter at a time, nearly imperceptible in the moment other than those few rare sparks of occasional awareness.

I had to bury that part of myself, that soft and vulnerable need.   I had to, to protect myself.   It only made this sense of abandonment worse to put that small part of me in a box and close the lid.

Abandonment is separate in the series because it is its own animal.  It’s own monster.  It stands on its own and feeds the anger in ways the others don’t.   That’s why its last and alone as I reveal it to the light.    At the core, my anger comes from here.  All the other hurts and slights feed this one.  It is the monster in the closet, lurking and ravenous, eating up every slight, every hurt and ache and sadness.  It swallows it all up and keeps the anger burning.

It is the beast that lurks in that ball of fear in my gut as well.  The one that reminds me again and again not to trust, the one that says its not over, that you’re not back. It is an insidious whisper in my ear, always there to remind me not just of where I am, but what happened to get me here.

Gideon’s Challenge

/ Twist the Leaf / 2 Comments

Gratitude

Mental health issues are not a joke.  Nor are they something you can ignore and hope will go away.  You cannot “wish” them away, nor can you force them better with positive thinking and “will power”.

Most of them also cannot be cured.  They can be managed to a point, both through therapy that can teach you coping skills and techniques as well as with medication… but for many, managing is the best you’re going to get.   Honestly?  That’s a hard one to swallow, even for the patients let alone those that have never experienced mental health issues, and yet… there it is.  The glaring truth is that like one’s physical health, those with mental health issues are required to do regular maintenance to keep things running somewhat smoothly.

  • Major Depressive Disorder  (Although, I have a feeling if I were to be re-diagnosed while on my medication it would be changed to Dysthymia with Major Depressive Episodes.)
  • General Anxiety (at times with social triggers and panic attacks)

These are the issues that trouble my mental health and have since I was a teen, as diagnosed by a psychiatrist and treated (on an ongoing basis) by a psychologist.  And possibly, more recently, a bit of undiagnosed PTSD.  Although, how do you know when you’re cured of that?  It IS curable, isn’t it?  I’m pretty sure it is… unlike the others listed above which require treatment to “manage” them, but cannot be “cured”.

In my life I have tried many different medications for my anxiety and depression.   Some worked.  Some sort of worked.  Others didn’t work at all.  These type of medications work differently on different people, and you don’t know how they’ll work or even IF they’ll work unless you try them. But even with the ones that seemed to work well on my depression or anxiety, there was one constant through them all.  What never changed and never faded was my suicidal thoughts and urges. (Yes, they are different; thoughts are just thoughts, whereas urges are a need to act on those thoughts.)

And then entered one wonderful, miraculous, magical (not in the metaphysical sense) pill.

10mg Prozac

I was so lucky.  And I am so grateful for that luck that inspired the doctor to prescribe me 10mg rather than the usual 20mg starter dose.   I was so lucky because it turns out 15mg is my “magic” number.  It’s a child’s dose, not even the starter dose for an adult.   And yet… it manages my depression and anxiety beautifully.

That’s not the most important part though. What is the really miraculous part is that with this medication my suicidal urges… disappeared.  The thoughts are so rare now, and passing at most.  The urges are completely gone.   Urges that were once my constant companion, with me when I went to bed and when I woke up in the morning.  With me every third minute of the day.   Constantly there, no matter how hard I tried to push them away or bury them.

And with a child’s dose of a pill that I avoided taking (due to reputation) for YEARS… suddenly, those thoughts are gone.

They come back when I’m bumped up to the 20mg dose.  As does the crippling, unmanageable depression.   And yet, 10mg isn’t quite enough to find a good balance.  I take 10mg a day alternating with 20mg…. averaging out to 15mg a day in my body’s system.

Is it perfect?   No.   I still have to go to therapy.   I still have anxiety and mood fluctuations that dip into clinical depression.  But, none of it is as severe in the years I’ve been taking Prozac.

And I am so very grateful.