Dealing

So when I was in my early 20’s my doctor started me on Paxil to deal with my depression. The idea at the time was I probably just needed it to correct a chemical brain imbalance and after about 6-9 months I wouldn’t need it any more. If I remember correctly I stayed on it for just over a year when I lost my health insurance and couldn’t afford the medication anymore. I went through HORRIBLE withdraws. But once that was over I was great. I seemed to have gone back to my “usual self” (whoever that is).


Shortly after getting married I started to feel depressed again. I had health insurance again, so after a few months I went back to the doc and got put back on an antidepressant. For the life of me I can’t remember which one. I stayed on it for about a year before deciding to stop again. My thinking at the time is 1. I was thinking it must be that damn brain chemical imbalance again and 2. We wanted to start trying to get pregnant, and I didn’t want to be on antidepressants while pregnant.

Well after the horrible withdraws, this time I wasn’t as great. I was better, but not great. And though there are definitely times since then where I feel more in control and actually happy, things have grown steadily worse. Obviously when life gets more stressed it gets worse. And I just can’t avoid stressful life moments. And seeing them through the eyes of depression just makes them so much worse.

So last week when I was sitting at my desk unable to do any work and bursting into tears because just the idea of walking to the microwave to cook my lunch seemed equivalent to laying on the ground as someone kicks me in the stomach for 5 days, I made a phone call to my doctor to start the medication again. It finally hit me. If I didn’t have to live this way, then why am I?

This was significant for a couple of reasons. One being I’ve finally come to the conclusion, after dealing with depression for 12 years, that I’m not one of the individuals that just has a chemical imbalance that can be corrected with brief treatment. This will be forever for me. And can I just say how incredible angry and sad that idea makes me? I will most likely need to take something for my depression and anxiety for the rest of my life. And where I know as far as lifetime medications go, this is by far not as bad as it could be and it’s easily workable, it just makes me sad to think that I’ll never be whole without it.

Also I’ve learned that depression is one of the symptoms of PCOS. So that’s another clue that it’s not going to go away anytime soon. Which is ironic too because the in ability to have a baby also only contributes to the depression that the PCOS is probably causing to begin with. One of the reasons I stopped the meds to begin with was to try and be “healthy” if I got pregnant. But I’ve come to realize that I owe it to myself, my husband and that mythical future child to be on the medication. If I’m this bad now, how would it be if I were pregnant or postpartum? (I’m laughing as I write this because really I feel pretty stupid writing that like I’ll ever be in that situation.)

This is all pretty funny also because I’m going to school for Psychology. I part of me feels like what good would I ever be as a therapist anyway? Who would want to go see a therapist that is broken? And what’s really funny, is that damn stigma. I HATE the stigma that’s attached to mental disorders and the lack of understanding and the fears that people have. And I’ll be one of the first to argue against anyone who says that mental disabilities should be looked at and treated differently than a physical disorder (And of course I mean socially, not medically). And yet, here I am scared of my own stigma that I know is wrong. Aren’t internal conflicts just awesome!!! But this whole thing has made me question my chosen path. I love Psychology, I really do, but maybe it’s not what I should be going into.

Overall this week I’m feeling better, but life is calmer this week than it was last week. So though I feel better I know that it really hasn’t gone away, it’s just waiting for life to get a little crazier again and then it’ll paralyze me all over again.

But that’s pretty much how I’m dealing right now. I saw the doctor on Tuesday and he prescribed Celexa. Which I'm happy with since its side effects seem minimal. It takes about 2-3 weeks for an SSRI to start being effective, so now I wait. He wants to see me in a couple of weeks and in a month to see how I'm doing. I appreciate that he's not just throwing pills at me and sending me on my way. I may seek therapy as well, but I think I need to get my mind in some kind of balance first before I can handle that. So we'll see I guess.

Hello Old Friend

So I really wrote this post about two weeks ago and I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not I was going to publish it ever since. Not because it isn’t exactly how I’ve been feeling (not only lately, but really for the last few months, and really when I think about it, for well over a year), but because it’s just so raw. It’s pretty embarrassing. I’ve never actually ever written out before what it’s like for me dealing with depression. It was freeing in a lot of ways but also extremely frightening. Writing it all out makes it so much more real.


But this post in a sense is how I’ve been seeing the world for a very long time now. I’ve thought about editing it a bit, because it’s kind of choppy and doesn’t really flow well. But I think that it’s a good example of how my brain is working right now, so I’m leaving it as is. This isn’t by far all I have or want to say about depression or what I’ve been feeling like, but it’s a start.

I guess it was shortly after high school when I first felt the darkness in my life. I remember just feeling so tired, so sad, so lethargic. I remember talking to the wife of my youth pastor in an attempt to try and get some support and guidance. She basically just told me that I just needed to pray more. Something I was already doing, and didn’t seem to be doing any good. This depression lasted the summer off and on. Not too heavy, but it was there. Always. After a few months it was gone.

Since then I’ve struggled with depression. Sometimes the darkness lasts longer than others. Sometimes it’s deeper; sometimes it’s so oppressive I think I’m going to drown. Others I can push it aside and everyone things I’m functioning like normal. I believe it was in my late 20’s that the anxiety decided to join the party.

Though, I don’t know if that’s true. When I think about it anxiety, most especially in social situations, is something I’ve always struggled with. I just didn’t realize it. I remember a time about 10 years ago when my usual ride for faire wasn’t available to I needed to call someone else for a ride because I still wasn’t driving yet. The lady I needed to call is someone who I knew fairly well, had offered me a ride if I ever needed one, and was never anything but kind to me. It took me an hour of hyperventilating to work up the courage to call her. And as soon as I hung up, I threw up.

And of course when I’m in the darkness the anxiety only gets worse. Sometimes I can barely drive without panicking about right turns. Yes, right turns freak the shit out of me. No, I have no idea why.

To this day I find I hardly know any of the women outside of my immediate office. Not because I don’t want to know them. But because I’m terrified to talk to them. I am absolutely freakin terrified. My stomach turns at the thought of it. Recently a few of them, probably realizing that I’m not going anywhere and always see me at the usual watering holes, have started to reach out to me and talk to me. One this usually leaves me stunned. I try to act as casual as possible, then run back to my tiny office shaking and go over every word that I said and how stupid it probably sounded.

What’s funny about this is you can ask me to get up on a stage and give a speech to 100+ people and I have no problem with that. And in other social situations I can be just fine. I’m not really sure what it is about some that just freak me out.

So, all this to say the darkness is back again. And it’s pretty heavy this time. I can’t work, because I just don’t care. I should. But I don’t. I’m exhausted from having to put a smile on my face and act like a normal human being. The guys coming to my office to talk about their retirements and adding their newborn to their health coverage don’t want to hear that I don’t have the energy to help them. My boss doesn’t want to hear that I’m too lost in my own mind to finish the files.

I feel so angry. I want to yell. I want to tell everyone to just fuck off. I want to break things. I want to cry. I want to run away from every responsibility every commitment no matter how small. I want it all gone. I feel so guilty. For my husband that really has no idea what to do with his wife that’s got some major “issues”. I feel guilty that I’m not taking care of things like I should be and that the aftermath will be a bitch the clean up. I feel guilty that I feel like I’m lying to everyone when I smile. I feel guilty that I’m a disappointment to everyone in my life who expects more from me than I can give right now. I feel sick. Nauseated. Exhausted. Cold. Hot. Drained. Anxious. I’m dizzy and shaky. Irritable and annoyed.

I know this will pass in time. But it really sucks right now. The worst part of it is. Sometimes I can’t tell which is the real me. The me in the darkness or the me out of the darkness. The darkness is comfortable. It’s familiar. It’s warm. I know my place here. I know what to expect. I know where I am. When I’m not in the darkness, I know it’s there. Always. Just off to the side. Waiting. And it’s only a matter of time before it returns. And that’s pretty terrifying.