no alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

Wednesday, 08/10/16, 8:53am

I'm a wreck. I was a bit of a wreck last night, and I'm a wreck this morning. I'm supposed to do a bunch of things today, including go to a therapy appointment, and all I want to do is crawl back in bed and sob until I become too exhausted to stay awake any longer. I want to hide from my life and responsibilities.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. It's been a long time since I've felt really productive or successful in my life, even with regards to the kids. Nasser mentioned this morning that maybe it makes sense to go back to working (although I felt the statement came across more judgy and frustrated with my depression) and that just triggered me into the feelings of I am a failure as a mom. His statements of you're not alone with my feelings then made me go into the if I'm not alone with these challenges in parenting, why am I the only one falling apart?

I feel like a failure at my life. And I can't seem to find the motivation to be better at my life and feel less like a failure.

Probably getting help from my sister today which should help, despite any further feelings of failure that I need to be saved today. Somehow I need to fight those feelings, but it's so hard to give in to outside help sometimes.

I'm not functioning too well on my own, this summer, maybe all year, or maybe since the depression first manifested. It's not clear whether or not the various medications I've been on actually do much. So we've decided to start considering other treatment options. Of course due to the nature of this illness, that requires discussing with all my doctors, figuring out what to do with the variable of the birth control medication that doesn't seem to be working anyway. It likely requires weaning off the medications I'm currently on, and trying out new ones, a process that I'm truly terrified of. It requires real vigilance on my part to track my moods and figure out whether or not I'm better when we change something.

As Nasser said last night, there's no good measure of how well an antidepressant works. It's all dependent on how the patient feels. God, mental illness sucks so much and the treatment is so incredibly complicated to figure out and needs to be even more personalized than it currently is. I have no idea if we'll get there in my lifetime, but sometimes I feel like my life depends upon it.

Please give me strength and patience and motivation today in your thoughts and prayers.