I took the turn and turned to begin a new beginning, still looking for the answer I cannot find the finish

Friday, 01/26/18, 7:31am, 9:07am

So you know I've been on this 8 week, now 10 week journey of ramping up the dosage of this new medication. This mood stabilizer for bi-polar, because maybe I'm actually bi-polar type II, aka "unipolar depression", which conveniently looks just like depression. I hit the "therapeutic dosage" at the 8 week mark, so 2 weeks ago, then a week later got some blood drawn so they could measure the levels in my blood. Turns out I do actually metabolize this drug quickly and the levels are low. Lower than the lowest accepted level of therapeutic. So in my appointment yesterday with the ECT psychiatrist (who originally prescribed this med), he gave us a plan to up the dosage, like double it actually. And luckily, now that I'm at as high of a dosage as I am, we can ramp up a bit quicker. So, you know, we'll see.

Recently, the ECT caregiver therapist who Nasser sees recommended we look into this DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) intensive outpatient program that they have at the local hospital. It sounds a bit overwhelming- they meet for 3 hours, 3x a week, for 9 weeks. And of course, they meet M/W/F, which are the same days that ECT treatments are offered. So the days that I'd have both would be tough, logistically. I spoke with my therapist about it yesterday, and she had a lot of concerns over how intense the program is. We both had concerns over the fact that I'm still having a lot of trouble with my memory. I spent some time looking at some other DBT programs offered at other places in the area... I currently have 5 different tabs open on my Chromebook for various programs in the "area"; however most of them are a decent drive away.

I've been trying, at least a little bit, or however much I feel able with my depression always standing in the way, to look into methods of mindfulness or ways to encourage myself to practice it more. Cuz, yeah, I have heard plenty of how useful and helpful mindfulness is with mental illness, and yet, I can't seem to get myself to practice it regularly, or even often. (I have 6 tabs about mindfulness and methods of mindfulness open on my Chromebook currently, and I downloaded yet another app on my phone for it. Maybe one of these things will finally work.)

At various points over the last couple years, I've found interest in Quora, and in particular, the questions and answers about mental illness. There are certainly always the ones that are simply trolls, or the answers that are just mean and jerk people. I've been getting emails from Quora over the last week, over and over about the same question- "What cured your depression?" And I really haven't wanted to open it because I mean really, what would I answer if I tried? "Well, I'm not cured yet, after trying this ridiculously long list of things."??? But this morning I finally opened it, found a couple annoying answers, but found one that linked to an amazing answer to a slightly different question- "What is depression?" Not sure if I've ever read it before, or ever linked to it before, but I'm linking to it now, because EVERYONE should read this.

(Also, I know that everything I've typed so far has been rather disjointed, but that's just kinda how my thoughts are lately. So you'll just have to deal with it.)

I did appreciate this quote on the white board in the ECT office yesterday, so I'm sharing it.

I will try to appreciate that strength that supposedly or maybe I have.

how come I end up where I started? how come I end up where I went wrong?

Wednesday, 01/24/18, 10:12am

It feels like I've been down a lot lately. I've had bits of "better", like Sunday, when Nasser and I played this board game, Splendor, just about all day long. Oh and we let the boys play video games most of that time, so they were happy as can be, but that doesn't rid me of all the horrid guilt feelings of what a terrible mother I am for doing that. Despite how happy it made me. Sigh.

I told Nasser this morning, "Why is it that I feel like I need to cry like 10 times a day????" I had a psychiatrist appointment yesterday morning (this is my psychiatrist I've been with since the beginning, like 8-9ish years ago? not the ECT psychiatrist). I walked in, with Nasser, to his office and he starts asking "so how are things going?" and I couldn't even begin to answer the question without starting to cry. After the appointment, I called up a friend to see if she was available to get together and started to cry in the first sentence or so.

It is like the most frustrating thing in the world, to me, that I've had this incredibly long, extensive mental health journey, trying unbelievably hard to get better, seeing as much progress as we did after starting electro-convulsive therapy last June and feeling so hopeful, and yet, I still feel like such a failure a lot, maybe most, of the time. I still blame myself for not being further along with the getting better process. I still see myself interact with my kids and hate myself for not doing things a million times better. I still look around at the house and blame myself for not being motivated enough to get simple things done, more often, more regularly, more consistently. And I know, some of this stuff is normal, some of this stuff everybody feels. But with me, all this stuff equates, in my head, to things like I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be alive. I don't deserve to be alive.

I question writing that here in my blog. Because admitting that kind of stuff is dangerous. It can make other people say "well you need to be in the hospital" or "well you shouldn't be in charge of your kids".  Etc, etc, etc. And maybe this won't calm you down about that stuff, but in case it does, we really are handling it. I do recognize in myself when it's those self-blame, not wanting to be alive thoughts that are kinda habit thoughts at this point versus the ones that feel more dangerous. And I still know when to ask for more help. And I am still incredibly honest about all those things with Nasser, my most important support person in my life. And when I do go in for an ECT treatment, which is still rather often, I do fill out the questionnaire beforehand about how I'm doing and I talk with the nurses and my doctor before they put me under. Despite the fact that I'm not just locked away in a hospital, things are fairly regulated and controlled in my life.

Last week, I had treatment on Wednesday (so literally a week ago). And at the time, we decided that we'd wait until next week Monday for my next treatment, so almost 2 weeks. Because for awhile now I've been going once a week, and I've been wanting to spread them out more, probably because I feel like I "should". Now, this week, I'm questioning the judgement to skip this week. But then I'm also questioning whether or not ECT is really helping much anymore. I'm questioning whether or not anything I'm doing is helping.

Ugh, it all just sucks. Depression sucks. Mental illness sucks. Like really really really sucks. And if you don't have it, or don't know firsthand someone who has it, it's almost impossible for you to really understand that. So read my blog and try to empathize and try to understand it. Because understanding mental illness, at least a little bit, makes you a much, much, much better person. Just like how that's true with pretty much everything in life. Understanding something, and having the ability to empathize with what other people suffer in life, makes you so much better. Always.

Short post today, because I can't handle more right now. Right not I gotta attempt a workout (did I mention I'm trying really really hard to get this back into a daily habit thing???), maybe drop off some donation stuff to rid the house of some "too small" items from my children, and see if there's anything else "productive" I can manage. Cuz those things can often be good confidence boosters, and really, I need as much confidence as I can possibly get.

breathe, keep breathing, don't lose your nerve

Thursday, 01/18/18, 10:09am

It's been awhile since I last wrote a blog post. It's been over a month. And for me, that's a crazy long time.

I suppose there's several reasons I haven't written. There were the holidays which were certainly not on the easy side. At some point I felt like I couldn't remember what I'd written since starting ECT and I thought I had to re-read all of it. I still haven't accomplished that, but today I figured "what the hell?" And I've also been working on this new medication, ramping up process. So back at the beginning of December I talked about how we think I might be bipolar type II. And because of that, I've been trying a new mood stabilizer. Unfortunately it's been an 8-week process to get me to the therapeutic dosage. As Nasser put it at one point, it's been like I've been on nothing. We've been increasing the medication dosage a little bit every 2 weeks, and as of last Thursday, I hit that therapeutic dosage. However, now I need to get some blood work so they can check the med levels in my blood (we may have to increase the dosage due to that). And we'll also have to see how things are going for a little bit to determine whether or not the medication is working. I'd been thinking that things were going a bit better (although we also had a weekend away from the kids, in the mountains, over Martin Luther King Day Weekend), but then I haven't been doing so well since yesterday afternoon/evening, after having treatment earlier in the day. I guess I'm slightly, very slightly, doing better than I was right before bed last night. But so far today, it's been rather difficult to find something I actually want to do. And so I figured I'd try my blog, I guess.

I was asking Nasser this morning whether or not ECT has actually done anything for me. He thinks it has. He said that certain things that I've learned over the years in therapy I wasn't as willing to do/try before ECT. He thinks that ECT has made me more open to trying different things to make me better. (Today is one of those days though, where I just feel completely unwilling to listen to any of that, completely unwilling to try anything, etc. It's just a shitty day.)

I worry that I just, really can't do it. Can't be a parent, can't be a wife, can't be a daughter, can't be a sister, can't be a friend. I just utterly feel incapable of handling those roles. There are so many days I wish I didn't have this f*ing, life-crushing disease. People see me smile and assume that I'm totally better. So many people don't seem to understand that all of it is a process, a journey, that may never end, not until I hopefully die a natural death at an old age. I get good days, I get incredibly awful days, I got tons of, what my daily mood tracking app calls "meh" days.

I know I've been super negative this blog post so far. Here, I've got something more positive from ECT yesterday; it was in the waiting area.

Sometimes I remember that, and sometimes I don't. After seeing this and it speaking to me as it did, I think I'll be trying for this a bit more. We'll see how it goes.

I am continuing to read, as I was last month when I wrote. I had been re-reading the Harry Potter books, but silly me ended up re-reading them twice, in like a 3-4week period. It made sense in my head to do this, because after finishing the first re-read, I hadn't remembered all the story really. So I wanted to re-read it again, knowing everything.

Anyway, now I'm re-reading the Mistborn trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson. It's quite good, and I just started the second book. This one feels like a "reading it for the first time again" experience, which definitely feels weird sometimes.

And I'm re-watching Doctor Who, the re-launch seasons. Oh and on Tuesday, I was thinking I was getting into working out again, but then I haven't been able yet today to continue it. I expected not to workout out yesterday, due to treatment, but I wasn't expecting this depression to crash over me and prevent me from getting up from the couch. I guess we'll see what happens, what I'm able to accomplish, if anything.

I'm going to leave it there today, with the hope that next time I'll be a bit more positive.