Saturday, 03/18/17, 11:21am
I'm in another low today. A couple really stupid arguments with Nasser triggered me. And oh it feels terrible whenever I'm triggered by people I love, which is nowhere near as rare as I'd like. It certainly happens with the kids plenty. When it's with Nasser though, it feels particularly worse, because my brain distorts things badly enough that I question his love for me. Of course, he does love me, very much, and our arguments don't change that, but then my stupid good-for-nothing brain. Sigh.
This fucking diseased brain of mine. I shouldn't have such hatred towards my brain, but it's my worst enemy. It makes me believe that I'm worthless, that I deserve to feel awful, that I deserve to think that my life isn't worth anything, to anyone. It makes me think that I'm the scum of the earth, that I'm the worst parent, the worst everything.
And then, when I'm not strong enough to combat the thoughts my brain plants in me, my brain says it's all my fault. It's because I'm not strong enough, I'm just this weak pathetic being. And those thoughts all compound, and everything becomes proof for why I'm the worst.
And yet, I have proven to have a logical part of my brain. I completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in mechanical engineering, and you'd think I could apply that analytical, logical side to my emotions. But it's like (I suppose actually is) separate parts of my brain, and only the one part is sick. And we're trying to jump-start that part of my brain with TMS right now, and 4 weeks in, one day "I'm starting to get better" and the next it's as if I've crashed and I can't even move to find my broken pieces again.
Today, my thoughts feel jumbled and angry and despairing. It's hard to concentrate and I'm questioning the idea of blogging at all. Maybe it is better to wait until I'm in a better state to share, it's safer, but again, that always feels less honest to me.
I want to use that stupid acronym right now- FML. Fuck My Life. It's a horrible thing to say, really, but it does perfectly embody how I feel right now. FML. I suppose it should be FMLwD, or Fuck My Life with Depression. Because really, I think I would love my life if it weren't for that fucking Depression. It just taints everything with its presence.
All you wonderful people out there who know firsthand what this is like, I feel for you. It's not your fault, just as it's not my fault. I wish I could remove that shame we carry with our struggles. Because above all else, this is just a horrid illness, a disease of an organ, but it just happens to be of the brain. Just because the brain houses all our thoughts, doesn't mean it can't get sick.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Thursday, March 16, 2017
I might be wrong, I might be wrong, I could have sworn I saw a light coming on
Thursday, 03/16/17, 3:43pm
Well. Perhaps I picked the wrong day to blog, but I'll do it anyway. Today, and last night, have been rough, but honestly, in general, the past week has been a little better. Possibly getting some improvement signs from the TMS, but then this morning, I was feeling full of despair again. It sounds like I'm not feeling grateful that I've been a little better, but it's hard. When you go through a several decent day stretch, and then it all hits again, just as hard and pulls me down just as far. The TMS doctor said that's normal. As you start to improve, those dips still tend to be as severe, but further between. Eventually they don't dip as low. So yeah, I suppose I'm on the trend to getting better. Time will tell, of course. I have to say when you fall into some hope that you're getting better, those dark days really humble you again.
Last week saw some changes/improvements to the TMS. After my Wednesday appt with the doctor, we started adding pulses on the right side of my brain. On this side, it's one pulse a second, at a lower intensity than the left-sided treatment, and only lasts about 5 minutes, for me. Interestingly, the right-sided treatment targets the anxiety symptoms and actually depresses brain activity, while the left-sided treatment targets depression symptoms and stimulates brain activity.
So after a couple days of the additional right-sided treatment, we also got to the target intensity level for the left side. Friday, for a decent portion of the appointment, we were treating me at 120% intensity level. I feel like it took awhile to get here, I'm now almost 4 weeks complete, but the lower intensities were still treating me, so it's probably not something to worry about. I'm due for 6 weeks of TMS, but the doctor already mentioned the possibility of adding more days. We'll see. Really, it's going ok, so I'm not counting down the days until treatment completion or anything. Plus I've had a friend there everytime; today two showed up!
There haven't really been reasons for the depressive breakdown today, but I guess that's also the way of depression. The reason is the illness. And yet I still look for ways to blame myself for it all.
This evening, Nasser is going to drive RG to his choir practice. He's been doing this a lot for me over the past couple months, but I really wanted to try and take on this responsibility again. And yet, today the depression hit, and getting through doctor appointment, TMS treatment, lunch with friends, and getting RG from the bus was about all I had energy for. I've been a wreck off and on today. Tears, anxiety, self-hatred, fatigue, hiding in my room while I give the kids Minecraft time, and now blogging. I can do this. Thankfully, Nasser can take over this choir rehearsal responsibility tonight. And I can let the tears flow when I need it.
Until next time, dear blog. Hopefully it won't be as long this time.
Well. Perhaps I picked the wrong day to blog, but I'll do it anyway. Today, and last night, have been rough, but honestly, in general, the past week has been a little better. Possibly getting some improvement signs from the TMS, but then this morning, I was feeling full of despair again. It sounds like I'm not feeling grateful that I've been a little better, but it's hard. When you go through a several decent day stretch, and then it all hits again, just as hard and pulls me down just as far. The TMS doctor said that's normal. As you start to improve, those dips still tend to be as severe, but further between. Eventually they don't dip as low. So yeah, I suppose I'm on the trend to getting better. Time will tell, of course. I have to say when you fall into some hope that you're getting better, those dark days really humble you again.
Last week saw some changes/improvements to the TMS. After my Wednesday appt with the doctor, we started adding pulses on the right side of my brain. On this side, it's one pulse a second, at a lower intensity than the left-sided treatment, and only lasts about 5 minutes, for me. Interestingly, the right-sided treatment targets the anxiety symptoms and actually depresses brain activity, while the left-sided treatment targets depression symptoms and stimulates brain activity.
So after a couple days of the additional right-sided treatment, we also got to the target intensity level for the left side. Friday, for a decent portion of the appointment, we were treating me at 120% intensity level. I feel like it took awhile to get here, I'm now almost 4 weeks complete, but the lower intensities were still treating me, so it's probably not something to worry about. I'm due for 6 weeks of TMS, but the doctor already mentioned the possibility of adding more days. We'll see. Really, it's going ok, so I'm not counting down the days until treatment completion or anything. Plus I've had a friend there everytime; today two showed up!
There haven't really been reasons for the depressive breakdown today, but I guess that's also the way of depression. The reason is the illness. And yet I still look for ways to blame myself for it all.
This evening, Nasser is going to drive RG to his choir practice. He's been doing this a lot for me over the past couple months, but I really wanted to try and take on this responsibility again. And yet, today the depression hit, and getting through doctor appointment, TMS treatment, lunch with friends, and getting RG from the bus was about all I had energy for. I've been a wreck off and on today. Tears, anxiety, self-hatred, fatigue, hiding in my room while I give the kids Minecraft time, and now blogging. I can do this. Thankfully, Nasser can take over this choir rehearsal responsibility tonight. And I can let the tears flow when I need it.
Until next time, dear blog. Hopefully it won't be as long this time.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
you can try the best you can. if you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough
Tuesday, 03/07/17, 9:38pm, 1:43pm
Well, yesterday's post was all hopeful and feeling like I'd had a turning point in getting better. I guess it's only inevitable that this morning, the depression hit hard and I'm just feeling incredibly stupid for having hoped at all.
I hate days like today. Days where I feel so incredibly small, so worthless. Days where I just want to be done. Done with everything- with life, with depression, with anxiety, with being a mom, with responsibility, with expectations. It's really hard to have those thoughts of despair, yet I know I have no option there other than to persist forward. I have to keep trying- for my kids, for my husband, for everyone who loves me, for future me.
It's always difficult to write a really downer post. One full of my real thoughts of despair, in the moment. Maybe it's not something that's the best for me to share about with anyone and everyone, but then I also feel strongly that it's critical to share this stuff. Because what if there's someone else out there who has these feelings too? But they think they're alone because most writers of depression share after the fact. And we're expected to express hope the strongest. I found out yesterday about some guidelines for writing about mental illness from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Now granted this is for when you're representing NAMI, which I don't profess to do. At the bottom, they mention specific words or phrases to avoid. Including, contrary to my personal belief, the word "suffer".
From the site:
Suffer. Although there are times when a person is suffering, we avoid it when it discussing mental health. We opt for more hopeful language that is forward looking.
I see where they're coming from, but gosh, I've used the word suffer in my blog way more times than I can count. And to me, I think this is incredibly ignorant to try and rub this word out of our vocabulary. In fact, many people DO suffer from mental illness, regularly, just as people suffer from physical illness. Why should we pretend that this isn't a major component of mental illness? By only focusing on the hope, you invalidate what people are suffering. For me, the focus on hope and people constantly telling me to "think positively", "you gotta hope for the future", etc, worsens the self-stigma I put on myself. When I'm not feeling hopeful, I feel guilt and shame over it. Hope doesn't fix mental illness. Sure maybe it can help to change your outlook on life which may improve mood, etc, but hope for me is a double-edged sword. Hope destroys me when I do suffer because 1. How dare I give in to the suffering and not keep hoping? and 2. Here I thought I was doing better/will get better and that hope misled me. It made me think that if I just hope and think positively, this will all go away. But nope, it doesn't.
And the constant proof that things that are supposed to help me, but don't (you know things like medication, and therapy, and TMS), crushes that hope over and over again when I keep not getting better. And it makes me question whether or not I really have a disease. If it can't be fixed by all these things, then what's really going on? Is it just that I'm a screwed up person who fails constantly in life? But then we have concluded that I have "treatment-resistant depression," so my "not a disease" logic shouldn't stand.
My therapist recently noted that I seem to fight my diagnosis. I suppose I do. I question it, I self-stigmatize, and I shame myself over my depression and anxiety. And I can't seem to figure out how to stop doing it. I write about the problems with mental illness stigma, and yet I do it all to myself. What the fuck is wrong with me???
It's the depression. It's the illness. It's the brain disease (another word NAMI doesn't want us to use), but it absolutely is that. And although TMS might not be helping yet, there's still time, and hope, really. And please remember, this treatment will help (or not help) regardless of whether or not I hope. I keep going to treatment, I keep trying; isn't that enough? Sometimes I hope, and other times I despair. That's doesn't make me a failure at life, it simply is a side effect of my illness. I'm telling you all this, also in the hope that saying it over and over again will change my own personal views and stupid stigmas.
I wrote most of the above this morning, and although I still stand by all I said, I am feeling a teeny bit better now. Today's TMS appointment went pretty well; talking with a friend present and the technician makes the appointments go by faster and seemingly, less anxiety-inducing.
I feel less despair now, but I know those thoughts aren't far away. They've been close and intrusive for many months now, and I'm ready for that to improve. Whether it's TMS, or attempting medications again after TMS (because some people do respond better to meds after their brain chemistry changes enough from the treatment), or maybe someday I'll even try ECT, but <shudder>, I don't ever want it to come to that.
But regardless of whether or not TMS works, I've been dealing with all this for like 8 years now. I suppose I have shown that I do persist in the face of these challenges, with every day that I get up in the morning. Even if it feels trivial in comparison to what I view as failures.
I know it probably seems like I've been bashing NAMI for the guidelines they've posted, but really I do understand the reasoning behind it, and I know they want to be careful that they aren't triggering people with what they share, and there's a fine line between helping and triggering when it comes to mental illness. And NAMI does so much to support individuals with mental illness and their families, they serve to educate and advocate, and they mostly do a great job doing so. I do feel that some of the choices they made about the latest guidelines aren't considering some of the greater harm they might be doing towards those of us who do suffer, on a regular basis.
Well, yesterday's post was all hopeful and feeling like I'd had a turning point in getting better. I guess it's only inevitable that this morning, the depression hit hard and I'm just feeling incredibly stupid for having hoped at all.
I hate days like today. Days where I feel so incredibly small, so worthless. Days where I just want to be done. Done with everything- with life, with depression, with anxiety, with being a mom, with responsibility, with expectations. It's really hard to have those thoughts of despair, yet I know I have no option there other than to persist forward. I have to keep trying- for my kids, for my husband, for everyone who loves me, for future me.
It's always difficult to write a really downer post. One full of my real thoughts of despair, in the moment. Maybe it's not something that's the best for me to share about with anyone and everyone, but then I also feel strongly that it's critical to share this stuff. Because what if there's someone else out there who has these feelings too? But they think they're alone because most writers of depression share after the fact. And we're expected to express hope the strongest. I found out yesterday about some guidelines for writing about mental illness from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Now granted this is for when you're representing NAMI, which I don't profess to do. At the bottom, they mention specific words or phrases to avoid. Including, contrary to my personal belief, the word "suffer".
From the site:
Suffer. Although there are times when a person is suffering, we avoid it when it discussing mental health. We opt for more hopeful language that is forward looking.
I see where they're coming from, but gosh, I've used the word suffer in my blog way more times than I can count. And to me, I think this is incredibly ignorant to try and rub this word out of our vocabulary. In fact, many people DO suffer from mental illness, regularly, just as people suffer from physical illness. Why should we pretend that this isn't a major component of mental illness? By only focusing on the hope, you invalidate what people are suffering. For me, the focus on hope and people constantly telling me to "think positively", "you gotta hope for the future", etc, worsens the self-stigma I put on myself. When I'm not feeling hopeful, I feel guilt and shame over it. Hope doesn't fix mental illness. Sure maybe it can help to change your outlook on life which may improve mood, etc, but hope for me is a double-edged sword. Hope destroys me when I do suffer because 1. How dare I give in to the suffering and not keep hoping? and 2. Here I thought I was doing better/will get better and that hope misled me. It made me think that if I just hope and think positively, this will all go away. But nope, it doesn't.
And the constant proof that things that are supposed to help me, but don't (you know things like medication, and therapy, and TMS), crushes that hope over and over again when I keep not getting better. And it makes me question whether or not I really have a disease. If it can't be fixed by all these things, then what's really going on? Is it just that I'm a screwed up person who fails constantly in life? But then we have concluded that I have "treatment-resistant depression," so my "not a disease" logic shouldn't stand.
My therapist recently noted that I seem to fight my diagnosis. I suppose I do. I question it, I self-stigmatize, and I shame myself over my depression and anxiety. And I can't seem to figure out how to stop doing it. I write about the problems with mental illness stigma, and yet I do it all to myself. What the fuck is wrong with me???
It's the depression. It's the illness. It's the brain disease (another word NAMI doesn't want us to use), but it absolutely is that. And although TMS might not be helping yet, there's still time, and hope, really. And please remember, this treatment will help (or not help) regardless of whether or not I hope. I keep going to treatment, I keep trying; isn't that enough? Sometimes I hope, and other times I despair. That's doesn't make me a failure at life, it simply is a side effect of my illness. I'm telling you all this, also in the hope that saying it over and over again will change my own personal views and stupid stigmas.
I wrote most of the above this morning, and although I still stand by all I said, I am feeling a teeny bit better now. Today's TMS appointment went pretty well; talking with a friend present and the technician makes the appointments go by faster and seemingly, less anxiety-inducing.
I feel less despair now, but I know those thoughts aren't far away. They've been close and intrusive for many months now, and I'm ready for that to improve. Whether it's TMS, or attempting medications again after TMS (because some people do respond better to meds after their brain chemistry changes enough from the treatment), or maybe someday I'll even try ECT, but <shudder>, I don't ever want it to come to that.
But regardless of whether or not TMS works, I've been dealing with all this for like 8 years now. I suppose I have shown that I do persist in the face of these challenges, with every day that I get up in the morning. Even if it feels trivial in comparison to what I view as failures.
I know it probably seems like I've been bashing NAMI for the guidelines they've posted, but really I do understand the reasoning behind it, and I know they want to be careful that they aren't triggering people with what they share, and there's a fine line between helping and triggering when it comes to mental illness. And NAMI does so much to support individuals with mental illness and their families, they serve to educate and advocate, and they mostly do a great job doing so. I do feel that some of the choices they made about the latest guidelines aren't considering some of the greater harm they might be doing towards those of us who do suffer, on a regular basis.
Monday, March 6, 2017
I'm on a roll this time, I feel my luck could change... we are standing on the edge
Monday, 03/06/17, 3:04pm, 4:41pm
So. Since I wrote last Tuesday, things have seemed to take a little turn for the better. I spoke with the technician on Wednesday about her comments Tuesday; she actually clarified and corrected several things, pulling out a clinical study to reference in the process. It was good. I spoke again with the doctor on Thursday about some of the long term efficacy stuff, and I do feel a bit better and more hopeful again overall.
The other thing that happened last Wednesday was we re-checked my motor threshold. Do you remember how I had that appointment before starting treatment? The one where they found the spot on my head, and intensity required, to twitch my right thumb? Well, the technician re-checked it before treatment on Wednesday, and it was slightly different than it had been. Slightly different location, and lower intensity. Apparently this isn't that strange to get a different motor threshold than the first time, since the brain, after receiving some TMS treatment, can become more easily stimulated, more responsive.
Well, so after we had this new motor threshold, we tried out the new location based on the new spot, and WOW. That first time had essentially no facial twitching whatsoever, which was a first. I could talk through treatment. Plus, the lower intensity for motor threshold equates to a lower treatment intensity as well. Now since then, we've increased the intensity to get closer to target and had to make minor adjustments, but in general, it's been going so much better. I think that's relieved a lot of my anxiety around the treatment, but it's made a bit difference in my overall mood.
This post is going to be short, because I'm starting to feel enough of the mom guilt that I'm blogging right now, after my kids have come home from school. Before I go, a few recent photos are worth sharing.
Last Friday, after school, I was well enough to play a game of Carcassonne with the boys.
And Nasser has been doing so much with the kids while I haven't been doing so great. Including, directing a volcano experiment (involving papier-mâché), and supervising snap circuits.
So. Since I wrote last Tuesday, things have seemed to take a little turn for the better. I spoke with the technician on Wednesday about her comments Tuesday; she actually clarified and corrected several things, pulling out a clinical study to reference in the process. It was good. I spoke again with the doctor on Thursday about some of the long term efficacy stuff, and I do feel a bit better and more hopeful again overall.
The other thing that happened last Wednesday was we re-checked my motor threshold. Do you remember how I had that appointment before starting treatment? The one where they found the spot on my head, and intensity required, to twitch my right thumb? Well, the technician re-checked it before treatment on Wednesday, and it was slightly different than it had been. Slightly different location, and lower intensity. Apparently this isn't that strange to get a different motor threshold than the first time, since the brain, after receiving some TMS treatment, can become more easily stimulated, more responsive.
Well, so after we had this new motor threshold, we tried out the new location based on the new spot, and WOW. That first time had essentially no facial twitching whatsoever, which was a first. I could talk through treatment. Plus, the lower intensity for motor threshold equates to a lower treatment intensity as well. Now since then, we've increased the intensity to get closer to target and had to make minor adjustments, but in general, it's been going so much better. I think that's relieved a lot of my anxiety around the treatment, but it's made a bit difference in my overall mood.
This post is going to be short, because I'm starting to feel enough of the mom guilt that I'm blogging right now, after my kids have come home from school. Before I go, a few recent photos are worth sharing.
Last Friday, after school, I was well enough to play a game of Carcassonne with the boys.
And Nasser has been doing so much with the kids while I haven't been doing so great. Including, directing a volcano experiment (involving papier-mâché), and supervising snap circuits.
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