I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed, I'm lost but I'm hopeful, baby, what it all comes down to, is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine

Tuesday, 11/07/17, 10:10am, 12:52pm

Well, yesterday, and so far, today, have been a bit better than the last, well bunch of days. I had felt like I was stuck in this depressive rut for almost 2 weeks, but maybe (??) I'm coming out of it? I'm not gonna get my hopes up too much, cuz sometimes that causes a bigger crash downward, but I am going to hope a little. Yesterday I had several things go right: I succeeded in making butternut squash soup in the crockpot (booyah! cuz I haven't made dinner successfully in quite some time...), I biked to my friend's house and picked up food for us on my way over (hah, I spent quite a bit of time transferring the to go orders into some leak proof containers I had brought so that I could put them in my backpack. I think I lot of people at the restaurant were like "that biker weirdo", haha!), I enjoyed a really good lunch with my friend and got to have really good friend talking time and she let me let out a lot of the bad feelings from the past 2 weeks (such a good friend you guys, she just got out of the hospital end of last week after spending a week in it!), and then I biked home. The rest of the day I got a lot of "chill" time, both before and after the kids came home from school, but I think the combination of feeling really successful at several things plus getting some good exercise in plus friend time, was perfect.

This morning I was going to do a cycle/core fusion class at the Y, but didn't make it since Nasser and I still had to fill out our ballots this morning. I could have made it there late, but then we also got some snow (!!) last night so I would have been extra late with clearing off the car. Oh well.

I ended up doing a 20 minute "yoga for anxiety" video, which certainly didn't burn very many calories, but it was rejuvenating regardless. And I intend to do more of a workout later in the day if I can since I've got therapy at 11 this morning.

I want to share a couple quotes that have meant a lot to me recently...

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, 

this time more intelligently." 

-Henry Ford

"The moment that you feel, just possibly, 
you are walking down the street naked, 
exposing too much of your heart and your mind, 
and what exists on the inside, 
showing too much of yourself... That is the moment, 
you might be starting to get it right."
-Neil Gaiman

Both these quotes showed up at the end of my mindfulness practice with that app, Calm, on different days of the "7 Days of Calm." I am liking that app, although I haven't yet started the "21 Days of Calm," after having finished the 7 Days. I think that might help me get into the habit more of mindfulness every.single.day. Cuz I probably need that.

You know, today, it turns out, is my "blogiversary." I've now had this blog for 2 full years, and published 192 blog posts. Yikes. That seems like a lot of posts to me, but whatever. I think this blog has been huge for me in a lot of ways. It's given me a place to write, and pour out feelings, and reflect about things, and learn how to become more open about my mental illness. I didn't share the blog openly right away, it took some time. But I do kinda feel like that Neil Gaiman quote, I often feel like I am exposing too much of my heart and mind, and I do often wonder if it's the right thing or right thing for me at least to be doing. I like the validation I get from that quote. Cuz there's still this inner part of me that feels very strongly that it is the right thing to be doing. But it questions the blog, often.

So the other thing that I think helped my mood, was on Sunday night, Nasser reflecting over several recent things that I did, despite my foul mood. In my last blog post, I was feeling really crappy and yet forced myself to create some "hope statements", which isn't necessarily something I could have done pre-ECT. On Sunday, we were walking with my sister and her family to a restaurant across the street from our house. On the way, Nasser made a comment to me that I took a lot of offense to and felt really triggered by. I was talking with him really angrily and talked about going back home and skipping the meal with everyone. I was actually incredibly triggered (this is more a reflection on my depression than me, or Nasser) and felt super down, but I forced myself to go and actually enjoy the lunch and enjoy the discussion with my sister and brother-in-law and ended up helping myself more in the long run than had I ran off to go home. There were a few other things that Nasser brought up on Sunday night in this conversation and hearing all that made a big difference in my overall mood, I think.

When we're discussing medication changes and the possibility of a 2-3 ECT treatment burst, it's easy to feel lost in these feelings of, "I'm as depressed as I've ever been" and it's hard to see that despite the down times right now, I'm still doing better than before. I'm doing better than just a few months ago. And that's still huge, and that's still something to feel good about.

Ok, so, this next part I'm writing later, after therapy. My therapist got me talking today about some of the things that seem to motivate me, rather than focusing on the things that I feel should motivate me but haven't been. It helped to get a list started- we were able to come to a conclusion of at least 2 things. 1. I might need to plan in at least an hour every day of "relational" time, so like get together with a friend or spend time messaging with friends or even spending time on facebook catching up on friends or talk to a friend on the phone, etc. and 2. I might need to plan on one "project" a week- whether it's something around the house like getting together a pile of baby donation stuff or maybe working on ideas for our basement finish project. It was really helpful to start thinking about, like, what do I really need as a part of each day to feel good? Exercise each day probably needs to be the third item, but I'm having some trouble figuring out what "expectation" to set on that. I've been trying to exercise every day since meeting with my doctors on Thursday, and so far I've done it except for Sunday, and today I still need to (like I'm not really counting the yoga for anxiety from this morning since it was mostly laying on the yoga mat). I need to be careful about planning the exercise thing as an expectation because I tend to have a lot of issues when I don't "meet my expectation" and it all compounds into a horrid depressive state of feeling like a failure and yet the state makes me continue to not meet the expectation and it all gets worse and worse.

So like today. I'm a little demotivated with exercise since I didn't get it in this morning. This happens a lot when I don't accomplish it in the morning. Somehow the afternoon and evening are much less motivating times for me to exercise. I'm not really ready to exercise right now since I just ate lunch and feel too full still. But then, I don't really have much time to get the exercise in before I have to leave for an appointment at the gastroenterology place. Oi. I'm going to tell you about my appointment even if you don't want to hear about it. This afternoon I've got a hemorrhoid banding, my second of three of these. Sounds fun, right? I, unfortunately, but not, like, life threatening or anything, have hemorrhoids. We're currently treating the internal ones with this rubber band ligation procedure. Basically the doctor sticks a probe up my butt, sucks at the hemorrhoid, and puts a tiny rubber band around it. This cuts off the blood flow to the hemorrhoid and after a few days or so it falls off. But we can only do one at a time. So I have 3 separate treatment times for this, spaced out a few weeks apart. Anyway, my point was, I have one today, and I don't expect to be interested in exercising afterward... last time my butt hurt a fair bit.

Alright, I'm going to be done writing for today, since I don't feel like I have much else to say, and I could use some free time before this appointment. I do want to say, thank you to my readers, those of you who've stuck with me these 2 years, and even if this is the first post you're reading. You're all awesome.

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings, coming down is the hardest thing

Sunday, 10/08/17, 11:23am, 1:34pm, 3:33pm (plus all the draft times this week, including the hour this morning that I'd been writing and nothing saved, you effing blogger, you!)

Oi, whatever. I've had some time to get over losing the entire post that was ready to publish, and I've decided that this new one will just be better.

That's the attitude to take when things go wrong, right? And that's certainly not something that is instinctual for me, but I'm working on it.

I haven't blogged since the Las Vegas shooting that happened last Sunday evening. I don't really want to say much, there's plenty being said out there anyway, but the one thing I want to add to the conversation is my frustration that every time we have a mass shooting (and they happen way more often in this country than they should), many, many people decide to blame mental illness/ mental healthcare so that they can take the blame off of some of the more obvious and true factors. I appreciated this article which discusses the many reasons "Better Mental-Health Care Won't Stop Mass Shootings." I could quote the entire article here to state my case, but I'll just put in this one bit:

“If we were able to magically cure schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, that would be wonderful,” Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, told ProPublica. “But overall violence would go down by only about 4 percent.”

Personally, my depressed and anxious thoughts have never once led to thoughts of mass killing or violence against others in any way; the only "violent" thoughts I've had have been directed towards myself. It's so unfortunate that these mass killings keep happening, obviously, for many reasons, but it most certainly doesn't help the stigma against mental illness. And that just makes the journey towards recovery that much more difficult for people like me.

And yet, the difficulty I encounter doesn't deter me from "daring greatly" and continuing this blog and continuing to tell my story to neighbors and acquaintances and friends and family and friends of friends. I've had the uncomfortable silences and quick topic changes and shifting glances with people plenty of times before, and I've been told in various ways to "get over it" or lost friends or been recommended all kinds of things that don't help, or I've tried plenty of times before, or aren't even applicable to depression versus simple sadness. I've had to sit through all kinds of completely non-entertaining jokes that undermine the struggle I've gone through. And yet, I've also been told, by many people, that I'm brave, that I'm strong. I've been thanked over and over for being open about my struggles. Now that I'm doing quite a bit better, so many people have shared with me their happiness over my recovery. I've been hugged and been offered help and love countless times. I've been shown appreciation by fellow sufferers of mental illness for being open. The good bits make it all worth it. And when it's someone who has similar difficulties who feels helped, even just remotely, by my blog and by my being open, that feels the most touching to my heart. I told an acquaintance today that I am a patient, first and a mental health advocate, second. I hope to make things better for all of us sufferers as much as I can.

I also wanted to share with you fine readers some things from this week. This was my first full week being off the 24/7 supervision requirement. (As a reminder, I'm still going through electro-convulsive therapy, or ECT, but we're down to treatment once every two weeks right now. I guess we are truly into the maintenance phase of ECT, but we're still hoping to spread the treatments out even more eventually. We'll keep it at every 2 weeks for several more treatments to make sure I'm not deteriorating the few days prior to each treatment before we spread it out more. Oh and I still have 24/7 on treatment days, of course.) I'd say that the week went pretty well, but I think I noticed a lack of confidence quite a few times. But I think I need to figure out, it feels like it's from scratch, how to live with myself, for myself, all over again. I think I haven't really known how to do that, successfully, for many years now. I have a pile of books I want to, plan to read, several of which are of the more "self-help" type, but it's been rather difficult to read for quite some time now. The treatment made it really hard to get through any kind of reading, like my brain couldn't handle it, maybe still can't handle it. I started re-reading this week a book I got years ago, at the recommendation of a therapist, called Mind Over Mood, but I haven't gotten very far yet. And this one has lots of exercises in it too, so not strictly reading. It feels like therapy has been helping more the last several sessions, than it has in a long while. I'm also practicing more with a phone app I have to help with calming down in the moment. The only one I like so far is called "Meditation Game", although I've been downloading several more free ones to try to find a few options for myself. I've still been using the mood tracking app, "Daylio", and it's actually been a full two weeks since my mood has fallen below the average rating, or "meh". That's pretty good, in my humble opinion. I'm still working on my schedule for this week, but I plan to put a little more responsibility onto my shoulders, at least a few times, even if it's only for short periods of time.

I have another big thing to tell you all. I drove yesterday, for the first time in almost four months... woah. It didn't go entirely to plan, because originally I was going to drive my car, which is automatic, but when it was time to leave with the kids, it wouldn't start. I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise since we haven't actually started it in several months. We ended up using Nasser's car, which is manual, so... that was fun. It really wasn't too bad, but I learned stick shift later in life, so it made the driving again experience a bit more stressful. We didn't have the kids with us, of course; RG had a birthday party and we took TK to my parents' house for a playdate with his cousin while all the grownups watched the Cubs' game (stinkin' Cubs yesterday!!! ps- yeah I'm a Cubs fan since I grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago). We started me off in an empty parking lot, then progressed to the empty road in the business park, then on to real streets (taking the smaller roads where possible) back to my parents' house. We hung out for a bit and put in an order for Thai food before heading out again. This time I drove on some of the busier streets to pick up some dessert before even busier streets to then highway to get the Thai food. Nasser took over after that to pick up RG from the birthday party and head back to my parents' house. All in all a decent amount of driving, and I feel a bit more confident, although I'd prefer to get back to my car sometime soon, once it's fixed. We haven't decided yet when I'll drive on my own, and of course, then eventually, with the kids.

It feels like lots been happening, even though it hasn't really been that much, it's just... life. Despite being so much better than "before" (before ECT really), there's plenty of ups and downs, which still surprise me, oftentimes. As a friend said at the Moms' Night Out we had this week (which was so, so, so wonderful to be around my big group of mom friends again), "it's hard to be human."

Let's finish off with some gorgeous fall colors pictures... before we get snow (pwhat???!!!) here in Colorado tonight and tomorrow. (This is real, I'm not kidding...)

you've got to get yourself together, you've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it, don't say that later will be better

Sunday, 09/24/17, 5:23pm

I've been debating the last ten to fifteen minutes about whether or not I actually want to blog today. I guess I finally decided to try. But I can't guarantee anything mind-blowing or lengthy or whatever.

I felt really great when I blogged on Friday, really that whole day. I felt like, hey, I can handle this depression thing. And although I'm feeling slightly more capable now, five hours ago I felt like I was in the depths of some of the worst depression ever. But I'm going to take a deep breath and write about it, I'm going to dare greatly and share about stuff that is very difficult to share.

It's weird. Yesterday, for as Nasser called it, 2/3 of the day, I really was doing well, I was enjoying the day, I felt good. Then I got triggered somehow, I yelled at the kids quite a bit, I felt like Nasser scolded me about that, really I think he just asked me to stop yelling at them, but I felt like a complete failure: as a mother, as a person, in my existence. I've questioned my existence a lot this weekend, and that's been tough. Nasser has been supporting me, a ton, and really got me through the worst of it today, enough so that I actually feel like I made a decent recovery. A recovery, like I'd been talking about on Friday, that wouldn't have happened before ECT, remember electro-convulsive therapy, this crazy treatment I've been going through since mid-June. Today's state had me wondering if I need another round of acute phase of ECT, you know the time for a few weeks where I have to have treatment 3x a week. It sounds awful to have to go through that again, but that's how bad I felt earlier today. Then, this afternoon's "recovery" has me feeling like maybe that doesn't have to be the answer. (By the way, I think the biggest part of my recovery this afternoon was getting myself to get out for a run, in the rain. It wasn't a long run, but it was slightly longer than the last, also slightly faster, and felt a bit better, maybe partially because of the rain.) Nasser mentioned maybe we could look at other antidepressant options. I mentioned on Friday we have an appointment with the doctor; I had been referring to the ECT doctor, but we also have an appointment with my regular psychiatrist this week too. I even have an appointment with my therapist. Lots of good, important appointments. And, really, exercise was always super important to me, and maybe it still really is, probably it still is. And it's been awfully hard to get exercise in, especially the way I want it, with ECT. I mean, for quite a bit of the treatment, I had tons of fatigue, plus treatments rather often, so it was almost impossible to do anything. Now, it seems the 24/7 thing gets in the way of a lot of exercise. I need a buddy for everything, and granted, I've been doing walks a lot more often with the family I hang out with, with is so much better than nothing. But, I miss bike rides and runs, and the freedom to exercise however I want, whenever I want. The flexibility in the 24/7 is helping, and I know we are getting there, slowly.

Oh that neighborhood party I was talking about on Friday didn't happen this weekend. They moved it due to weather, which is good considering all the rain today. I have to say, I kinda enjoyed the bit of cold and rainy weather this weekend. It helped avoid the guilt and shame feelings of not spending tons of time outside, which wouldn't have helped my depression. I've really enjoyed wearing sweatshirts and comfy sweatpants. Plus, I think the colder weather plus rain rather helped my run today. I'm looking forward to lots of colder fall weather.

Alright, I don't know that I have much more to say. I shared about the ups and downs of my weekend. Hoping to keep chugging along alright. FYI, all you friends (and really anyone) out there who struggle with similar stuff, and hide it from almost everyone you know, or don't hide it, because everyone's struggle sucks, I hold you all in my hearts closely. Lots of love to you all, dear readers~

I'll trip, fall, pick myself up and walk unafraid, I'll be clumsy instead, hold me love me or leave me high.

Friday, 09/22/17, 11:26am, 1:49pm

Hah. I know I've started a blog post (or two) recently at the same time- 11:26am. The reason I remember the time so well is it's also my birthday- 11/26 or November 26th- haha. I guess I get similarly timed urges to write on different days, or something.

Happy first day of autumn, everyone. I'm glad we're technically out of summer now, even if the weather isn't perfectly following, you know, due to climate change and all.

It's been a little while since I've written, at least compared to how often I was writing, but there's a reason for it. For awhile I had some trouble filling my time during the days; reading has been awfully difficult most days, even though I bring like the same set of books around with me to everyone's houses when I go and hang out with different family during the days. But then this week, well last Saturday actually, when I was having some depressive feelings, I recovered a little by restarting a Netflix show that Nasser and I used to watch some time ago, one that I really didn't remember much. So it's kinda like I'm watching it for the first time again. But that's been a nice way to fill up a lot of my time, haha. And really, this is a good time to be doing this, considering I am still going through this rather intense treatment, right you guys? Does everyone remember I'm going through electro-convulsive therapy, or ECT as we refer to it a lot of the time? Although, we are seriously getting the treatments more spread out, which is an awesome, awesome accomplishment. I don't know if accomplishment is the right word, but it does feel that way a lot of the time. My last treatment was Monday, this week, and my next treatment isn't until Monday, Oct 2nd, so a full two weeks apart! Pretty nuts, pretty awesome, hopefully it goes well. I'm getting much closer to coming off the 24/7 thing, I think, I hope. We have an appointment with the doctor next week, and I do want to talk about that a bit with him, as well as some of the memory stuff, in particular, the "state dependent memory" thing. Now, I know I mentioned this phenomenon briefly in this post, but I couldn't find it elsewhere in the blog, so I might never have actually explained this. Maybe I did, and my quick search just couldn't find it, but just in case, I'm going to explain it again.

So. I've been finding that I have lots of gaps in my memory over the past, well, bunch of years, like at least since I was diagnosed with depression after RG's birth. What the doctor has explained to us, is that I'm being affected by "state dependent memory". State dependent memory is (by Wikipedia's definition) the "phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed." So we hear about this when it comes to alcoholics or drug users the most, but this applies to things like depression, as well. So I formed a LOT of memories over the past many years in a state of depression, and now that I'm much, much less depressed than I was (which is, of course, a good thing), I have lost a lot of those memories. It's... confusing. The last year, since Adam's death, has probably been especially worse. His death seemed to trigger me a bit further than before, and there's a bunch of things from the past year that I just can't remember. It's overwhelming in some ways to just not even know what memories I'm missing to some extent. I had planned two friends' ski trips this ski season- one in January with kids and one in March without kids. Nasser has shown me pictures from both and talked me through the trips a bit to try and bring back some of the memories. The January one, while super fun, was just about completely missing from my memory prior to talking with him, most likely because there was an additional, super stressful aspect to that trip. Unfortunately the original house I'd booked for it was double-booked and our party ended up being the group that lost out, but of course the owner didn't tell me until the day we were supposed to be moving in to the house. I scrambled to find a replacement, which ended up having several issues, and I put all the blame and stress onto myself. All that depression and anxiety I was in for that weekend made it so that the "state" I was in while forming all those memories was a bit more severe than the normal stress I would have been under, and apparently the result was my mind lost ALL the memories from that weekend, like at first I didn't even remember the trip had happened. I still don't seem to recall any of a trip we took last fall to Tuscon, AZ for my brother-in-law's father's funeral, and we have tried talking about that one and looking at some pictures. It's kinda a scary phenomenon to have going on, and I'm hoping to get a better understanding of what to expect, what's considered "normal", how much we can bring back those memories through pictures and talking, etc, from the doctor next week.

I mentioned before that I'm having a hard time reading books, somewhat because of short-term memory issues still, but definitely some because of my cognitive side effects. Like my brain just has trouble processing stuff. And processing books seems a lot more difficult than processing a show. By the way, the show I'm watching is Once Upon A Time. It's quite fun.

Oh and the other thing I've been filling my time with more this week, is friend time. I saw something like four different friends this week, which has been a big increase from what it's been. Although I suppose the start of school has made a lot of people busier, etc. And we're still trying to figure out some routine and trying not to use any one group of people too, too often because I worry that people are just going to get sick of helping me or something, because that's how I think, even though I know I shouldn't. Anyway, seeing friends a bit more has been quite nice. As part of that, I've gotten a little swim in, twice this week, and it's been awhile, so it's been a nice change. I still haven't run since my one run (last week was it?), but maybe I'll get another in this weekend.

We have a lovely bbq planned in our neighborhood on Sunday, which I'm pretty excited about. It's always a nice event, and although it is supposed to be a bit cooler this weekend, I'm hoping the weather holds out enough for it. We've seen neighbors at the bus stops and around and such, but it's not like we talk to people all too often. So this should be nice.

So I know I mentioned how I'm "doing better" than I was, and it's weird. Because of my memory problems, I tend not to always believe that, especially when I do fall into a tougher state or whatever. This morning, with Nasser, I was a little bit triggered, but it wasn't, like, devastatingly triggered like I used to be, and I still recovered rather easily. Nasser can see the difference, rather easily, but I don't, oftentimes. He reminds me, though, which helps, a lot. He was reminding me this morning, how the recoveries I've made the past several times would never have happened before. This is all pretty new, really, since ECT. And that's huge. I can hardly remember the bit of triggering I had this morning, now. I feel good, after having met up with a friend, gone swimming, had plenty of coffee and talked to my brother-in-law a bit, watched my show, done some blogging. And hopefully, of course, this mood continues. But then again, I guess I am recovering much more easily than I used to. And that is really, really huge.

Alright, I am done for today, haha, partially because I want to watch another episode! Have a good weekend, all, and a good start to the fall season.

my actions make me beautiful and dignify the flesh. me. I am free. free.

Friday, 09/15/17, 11:26am, 1:26pm

Hey everyone. I'm taking some time today to watch and re-watch some Brené Brown videos. Do you remember me talking about Brené Brown some time ago? Here, here, and here, just to name a few. She is a research professor/author/public speaker who has done a lot of work with vulnerability, courage, shame, and empathy. Her TED talks are worth a watch if you've never seen them: on vulnerability and on shame are the original two, but she's got a lot more stuff out there these days, and honestly I'm a bit behind on everything she's put out there. I still love the empathy cartoon she narrates... it's short, you can handle the less than 3 minutes to watch it...

When I wrote about how to support someone with a mental illness, back in May of this year, the big, big thing I talked about was empathy. Empathy doesn't just apply to supporting someone with a mental illness, or any illness; it applies EVERYWHERE in our lives. It applies to making a connection with anyone you meet, whether it's through work, or school, or in our neighborhoods. Whatever community you're in, empathy is useful. Anyway, watch the cartoon short if you haven't yet. I mean it. Seriously. Do it now.

I wanted to discuss in a little more depth about vulnerability. Brené talks about how "vulnerability – the willingness to be 'all in' even when you know it can mean failing and hurting – is brave." And this is based on her research.

I've felt decently good since reading Brené's book Daring Greatly about how vulnerable I really am by being so open about my depression and anxiety, about sharing some really shameful feeling things from my life, and deciding to ignore the stigma that's out there and sharing anyway. I'm certainly not as good at daring greatly as plenty of other people out there, but something recently made me feel good about it again. Last week, we had Back To School Night at our kiddos' elementary school. In fact it was the same day as an ECT treatment, which made it rather hard for me considering headache and fatigue and the desperate desire to just be in bed, but I really wanted to be there. Partially since we have a brand new school building as of this school year so I really wanted to see it a bit more, but also because every new school year there's new things to learn from the new teachers, etc, and whatever else. Well, the new PTO president for this school year was speaking, and I was there, thinking, "OMYGOSH, I totally know her, but I can't think of where I know her from, because of all these damn memory problems from ECT. Well SHIT." And at some point, in passing, she even acknowledged me and was like "hey Alisa, how are you?" So, when I had a chance to actually talk to her one on one, I immediately started with, "So I have to tell you something. I'm going through this big medical treatment right now, and one of the major side effects is short term memory loss. So I know I know you, but I can't think where from. I am so sorry." She, of course, was totally empathetic and immediately told me about how her kid so and so is the same grade as RG, etc, etc. I have to say it didn't even occur to me that saying all this to her was being vulnerable until Nasser labeled it as such, but really, being honest and open about ECT IS being vulnerable. It's not that easy all the time to do so, but I definitely find that being this way has more benefit than not being this way. I mean, I'm getting a rather large amount of support from family, and friends, and neighbors, and how would that be possible if I were super secretive about it? And being vulnerable isn't super easy. I mean, I don't get a response from anyone, most of the time. I write my blog and very rarely get likes, or +1's, or comments, or anything. And that definitely used to bother me, a lot. I feel like blogging in the last few weeks (as I've gotten myself doing more regularly for literally the past 3 weeks) has been different in that sense. I don't feel like I've cared about the response from my blog nearly as much as I used to, and I expect that the difference is because I'm nowhere near as depressed as I used to be. But I do know that it's easy to dip back into caring a lot about that stuff, and I'm trying to keep myself out of that.

There's this Brené Brown book that I started some time ago, but haven't gotten all that far into, and as it turns out, I'm pretty sure I have to simply re-start it because of the memory problems. Here it is:

Isn't that, um, perfect for what I was just talking about? I think this one is going to have a profound effect on me, but, with the treatment, it's been difficult to get myself to get into this book since it feels so self-helpy and all. But, I have to remind myself: this is Brené Brown, I'm going to love it. AND, it will probably help me A TON. Because usually when I'm feeling depressed, it's because I DON'T feel like I'm enough. It's a pretty shitty feeling.

Here was my "start my day off well" activity while at my sister and brother-in-law's house (since my bro-in-law works from home so he can be my 24/7 person pretty easily many days).

I know, I know, I've shared a picture of this mug before, but I still love it so much. And I have to recommend this book to everyone. It's wonderful, and this author uses amazing animal pictures to tell his stories. So great. So so great. I'll share one page from the book:

Heeheehee.

Not that I was having a blue day, really, at all, but that book and mug just put me in an even better mood, which I could always use, right?

I thought up a lot of things I want to do this weekend and put them as possibilities in my calendar. The intent here is to hopefully avoid some of the depression I've been having on weekends by creating some schedule or routine to the weekend, as that was one thought we had as to why this was happening. But I'm aware that if I don't do these, I may end up with more guilt, and therefore, more depression. That's why I'm trying to set the expectation up that all of these are possibilities. We'll see how well I follow that idea.

My next ECT treatment is on Monday, which makes it 12 days (woohoo!). Making progress, at least slowly. Unfortunately, and I didn't even realize this until this week, Monday is also a day off from school for my kids, BUT we are getting loads of help from lots of different family that day to make it all work. Although, really, even if I didn't have treatment on Monday, I'd still need help with my kids because the 24/7 thing makes it so I can't be in charge of my kids on my own anyway. So oh well.

I'm trying to be as brave and accepting of myself as I can be as I go into this weekend. Well, really I guess I'm trying to come up with as many ideas as I can to not be depressed, but maybe what I should be doing is coming up with ideas for if I DO get depressed. Hmmm. Like maybe put some activities on my calendar for "what to do if you're feeling shitty". FYI, I might just have to type that out here, because I am currently blogging and all, so it's kinda the natural thing to do, right?

For when I get depressed, down, or feel bad in any way:

• Take a deep breath, or 100
• Try a downward dog pose, or any other yoga pose (in the safety of my home or with people in a class, but only if I want to)
• Eat a piece of dark chocolate (because dark chocolate can stimulate neurogenesis you know)
• Do jumping jacks for 1 minute, then close eyes and breathe deeply for 10 seconds
• Hug Nasser, RG, and TK
• Lay in the hammock, with some ice cold water, and maybe a book
• Read The Blue Day Book
• Take a short nap, or a long nap, or just lay in bed for a half hour
• Take a sniff of lemon oil because "lemon oil is calming in nature and therefore helps in removing mental fatigue, exhaustion, dizziness, anxiety, nervousness and nervous tension. It has the ability to refresh the mind by creating a positive mindset and eliminating negative emotions." (that's from here)
• Watch a favorite movie, like "The Princess Bride" or one of "Lord of the Rings" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" or "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or "Finding Nemo" or "Toy Story" or something else that I can't think of right now
• Watch a favorite TV show, like "Doctor Who" or "Friends" or "The Magic School Bus" or some nature-y show on Netflix or "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" or again, something else that I can't think of right now
• Do whatever the hell I want to do

I'll add to the list when I come up with more, but that's a decent start for now. Hopefully it helps if any of that depression comes up this weekend. Wish me luck, all.

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.

there, through the broken branches, go, the ravens of unresting thought; flying, crying, to and fro, cruel claw and hungry throat...

Tuesday, 02/28/17, 2:52pm, 4:02pm

I'm feeling especially down today. It's weird to even say that, because it feels like that's just been the last week/months/years of my life, but somehow today's even worse.

The TMS appointment didn't help. I mean I was doing pretty badly, emotionally speaking (both anxiety and depression hit pretty hard this morning), enough so that TK and I took the bus and a friend chauffeured us around the rest of the day. Man, I have some awesome friends. Speaking of which, another friend has made it to several of my appointments so far, in support, and she talked us into swimming after the treatment yesterday. I really need to get back into a good exercise routine, since I know it helps me, but TMS is almost about as much as I can handle right now.

So the TMS appointment today. The technician today was a different one than I've been seeing. They have two and normally I'll see them both each week- 2 days with one, 3 with the other. But last week the technician from today was out and today was my first treatment appointment with her. Although I'd already met her at the motor threshold appointment before treatment started.

Anyway, this technician said some strange things during the appointment today. First she seemed annoyed that I had brought a friend. Then, maintenance treatments came up in the conversation so my friend and I were asking about whether or not it's common for people to do maintenance with TMS (sounds like typically 2 days of treatment a month). The technician said something like "I'll be honest with you, a lot of people end up with maintenance treatments. And often those that go into remission, relapse or have a minor episode after a year. And most (many?) people end up on antidepressants again."

Now. It was likely not the technician's place to tell me all this negative news. And I don't know what's true now. When I search studies of the long-term efficacy of TMS, I'm finding good results, but most of what I'm seeing doesn't look past a year. So she could be right. But then why wouldn't the doctor have mentioned this in the first place? The technician shouldn't be acting like she knows all the long-term efficacy anyway, without basing any of this off studies. And what the hell really, telling me how this treatment doesn't really work for most people isn't the right thing to do why you're administering the treatment to me.

My friend pointed out that maybe she had been having a bad day. The technician probably thought she was being honest and helpful with me. I still don't think it was her place to say what she said, and I will be bringing it up with the doctor, carefully and not angrily, when I meet with him later this week.

Sigh.

I don't know what to think except to try and reject all the external noise. I need to just focus on getting through these treatments, doing what I can to keep myself sane and functioning right now, and doing what I can to feel better.

how many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?

Saturday, 02/25/17, 8:52am

OK. One week of TMS treatment completed. Five more weeks to go.

I'm still not relaxed when I go to treatment. I'm still tense as I sit still, receiving the magnetic pulses. I'm still scared even though there are so few risks and side effects. But the anxiety might be getting a tad better now that I've gotten 5 treatments. I know what to expect now, I now understand the treatment intensity thing a little better, and even though we're still not at the target intensity, I understand why we're where we are and I don't feel worried that this isn't going the way it should. It's going, I'm getting treatment, and we shall see where I'm at once I finish the 6 weeks of treatment.

I've had some good support this week. Friends and family have asked me how it's going, I've had 4 different people come to my treatments so far to sit in and watch and support. Another friend started up a meal train again (did I tell you friends did that for us last month??), and I've had many offers for help with TK.

I have so much to be grateful for.

And yet, as the way it often is with depression, that's not enough. It still keeps hitting, a lot. I filled out a questionnaire again yesterday about my depression, the same one I filled out a few weeks ago, which tries to quantify your symptoms into a level of depression. 

And this week has just been... hard. Really hard. I've felt like a failure as a mother, a failure at life. And the self-stigmatizing has been through the roof. Even though I understand rationally that this week was reasonably hard, the self-shaming is there, seemingly uncontrolled. That seems to be the case. There's that inertia effect to depression. As it spirals downward, it spirals down faster because it all feeds itself. It's a "positive feedback loop." Many of the symptoms of depression, like fatigue, weight gain, difficulty sleeping, irritability, etc, help to make the problem and self-stigmatizing worse. 

I hate it.

I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling worthless. I hate feeling so much self-hatred. I hate this.

It's hard to be positive when I'm feeling this way, but I suppose I should try. (Much of me doesn't get or believe in the power of positivity but then I also see the value in my affirmations. I do think that affirmations and balanced thoughts and mindfulness are very different from simple "positive thought". And I still fight this notion that I just have to "think positively"). So maybe instead of being positive, I'll just try to balance the thoughts.

This is a disease. This is what my brain does when I feel really bad. I am not a bad person. I am not a failure. I am working hard to get better and I accept my illness such that I seek treatment and have for a long time. 

how many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

Monday, 02/13/17, 10:07am, 1:11pm

Hello my dear blog. It's been a very long time.

It's been so long I think I've felt especially nervous and unsure about what to come back with. I haven't felt much like blogging in so long, that it's felt that no topic is deserving of blogging.

Well that's just silly. There are plenty of things to blog about, to continue to blog about, when it comes to mental health. A topic that continually evolves, for the world, in our communities, and individually.

The last many weeks have been long. Many of them, many of the days, I've just felt, I don't know, like I'm underwater, in a fog, in a hole. I date my depressive episode here from around Christmas time, when I came off antidepressants completely to try a different bipolar medication (the one that maybe gave me that potentially deadly rash). There've been some ups for sure, plenty of functioning I guess, but a lot of depression, much a deep, dark depression, with a plethora of anxiety to top it all off. It's been really hard, and I think it was too much to share openly on the blog while it was happening. I say "was" because honestly, the last week has been slightly better. One of the difficult side effects of the depressive episode has been the fatigue. Complete, utter fatigue and lack of energy. It's been nearly impossible to stay up past 9pm most nights, or even simply beyond kids going to bed, and we figured out it could have been worsened by one of the leftover medications I'm still on. There are 2, neither of which are antidepressants. One is an anti-psychotic which had been paired with the antidepressants, but we kept me on it since we don't know if I'll be worsened by going off it. The other is an anti-seizure medication which has been shown to help with anxiety. So we weaned me off the anti-seizure med, and suddenly I have more energy. I still don't feel normal by any means, but once in awhile I stay up until 10 or 10:30pm now.

It was good timing to wean off that med since we just had a ski weekend in Crested Butte with family and friends. I certainly needed the extra energy even if it wasn't enough to ski full days, or stay up very late with our friends. The depression still crept in a couple points, as it just does these days, but we kept it at bay, at least until the drive home yesterday.

Here's my best family photo of the weekend. Our attempt at a selfie, minutes after the paid photographer offered to take a photo for us. I did not manage to take a whole lot of photos from the trip.

But yeah, I did the pigtail braid thing...

And this was the view from our condos... a ski in/ski out place. :)

So this Thursday I have my motor threshold appointment for the TMS treatment which starts next Monday, a week from today. This whole process has felt like such a long time coming, and really it kinda has been. But it's here. So motor threshold is interesting. That will be my first experience with the magnet, and they'll be positioning it on my head to find the location where they can twitch my right thumb. That will determine the precise location, some exact number of centimeters forward from that point or something, where they'll be delivering treatment.

Man, it feels surreal to be talking about this treatment as something that's actually going to happen to me. Like it still feels like I'm talking about someone else.

And this treatment has few risks, little to any discomfort, and likely positive outcomes, and yet, I'm awfully scared still. I guess I'm just scared it won't work. That nothing will change, that I won't start feeling better. And I'm still doing the cautious hopefulness thing here, trying not to get carried away, banking on something that may not do anything. But I am hoping. And I'm excited that it's almost here.

I will try to blog more often through treatment. I want to. I want to try and document it to some extent because it may be a somewhat unique perspective out there, but I'm also going to be continuing to take things a little easier. I've been letting go expectations for quite some time now, and it's been helping, but it's still challenging for me to do. I still beat myself up for not cooking dinner very often, for not feeling well enough to do a lot of normal things, for not feeling up to social stuff, for not being a better mom while I feel awful about myself. But everything has taken second place to the depression for awhile now, too long, and I'm looking forward to hopefully feeling a bit better finally.

the snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen.

Tuesday, 01/17/17, 10:26am, 1:29pm, 2:19pm

Whew.

Well hello dear blog. It's been awhile.

It's especially been awhile since it feels like anything from me has been optimistic or hopeful or happy.

Today, looking back on the weekend, I feel mostly happy. And I want to tell you about it. There were parts that were really really tough, where the depression really threatened to take over, but I mostly did well.

It started on Thursday last week, with the first of our friends coming in through DIA starting around noon. (Really it started almost a year ago after another friends ski trip over MLK weekend and I immediately started to work towards the next idea for a friends trip). Some stayed with us that night, and some got an Airbnb nearby. Our friends with young girls stayed with us and it was so much fun to watch the kids become fast friends. My boys are a little older with TK 2 years older than their older girl P. RG enjoyed entertaining baby A, for which I got no photos. Friday afternoon, the friends all caravan-ed up the mountains together while TK and I waited for RG to get outta school and Nasser to get outta work. TK and P had to say goodbye; it was wild to see TK pick up a smaller kid!

We didn't leave until almost 6pm Friday, had to make several stops for gas and new windshield wiper blades, both necessary for the drive up the mountains in potential weather. US-40 to Winter Park was pretty in the moonlight, despite being a little dicey.

So I have to backtrack a minute. Several months ago, I booked a house (a VRBO rental) for this weekend. It was a 7 bedroom house with an additional bunk room, and a good deal. Oh man you guys, it was so nice, it had a hot tub, lots of bedding and more importantly, all the necessary bedding, for our group. And it was on the free shuttle route for the Winter Park ski resort, where many in the group were planning on skiing.

Well.

On Friday morning, around 11am, I got a call from the owner telling me that he was so so sorry, but that he and his wife had each booked their house for the weekend. And her group moved in the night before, so we were out of luck. Well not entirely, as the guy informed me that they were going to re-book us for the weekend nearby (in whatever we could find last minute) and give me a free stay at his house another time.

The house we ended up with was... weird, interesting, crazy huge with lots of wasted space and some space that appeared to still be under construction, and not too fantastic in many ways in the end.

We ended up without a hot tub (which I know, it sounds so needy, but I personally love on group trips like this, especially when skiing), way off the highway on county roads that weren't well plowed for the poor little rental cars many of my friends had, with a very, very strange (oh man, and definitely not cleaned well in so long) house.

Here's our bedroom, one of the 5 "master" bedrooms. Some of our friends were put out though in comparison to the original accommodations, thanks to different in incorrect for our group, bedding.

And then there was the bathroom which seemed so nice at first (improper sloping in the shower meant for puddling when showering, which was also in direct line of that window next to the tub which had no blinds. Also the jetted tub took so long to fill and then. the jets had definitely not been cleaned in quite some time). No door on the toilet room either, which is also in view of that window. But whatever, few, and far away, neighbors for this crazy "estate" house.

Oh and then there were all those chandeliers... and ummm... pictures of chandeliers? There were several of those actually.

(I've been working on a big email to the original owner today on how the situation really was not rectified after he double-booked us, so, apologies for all the complaining I'm doing).

We ended up skiing with the kids on Saturday afternoon; we were lazy and social with the non-skiing crew in the AM, which was great.

TK waiting around for Daddy and RG to finish getting RG rental skis and boots since we had left his boots at home. in the garage. sigh.

gorgeous kid friendly tree run, it was pretty flat so a bit tricky to get through. 

what is it they say about families that stick together through the trees? nothing? well they should.

I know, I know, we should use the safety bar. I bet it would put RG at ease a little more. he fell getting on a lift last season, and apparently was more traumatized than I realized. 

you can totally tell I'm terrified I'm going to drop my phone while attempting to get the whole family in the photo. 

We found some neighborhood friends while skiing! They've got twins who are RG's age, and a daughter in her teens, who babysits for us sometimes. The 8 year olds really enjoyed skiing together. That's RG, the dark one on the left, crouching down to gain more speed, that goof.

The moms do it too; that's my neighbor friend on the right. You gotta gain speed as much as you can in those flat sections though.

that's the neighbor boy twin behind me in the orange. I'm best taking photos while skiing on the green runs, but it's hard to capture with all of us spread out.

so beautiful, you guys!

one of my friends helped out with a kid on the 2 person lift. we had split off from Nasser and TK and another friend at this point.

because apparently I love lift photos with RG. poor kid though, he hated this lift, but it was late enough at this point the larger one at that spot was closed.

That evening, after putting the kiddos to bed, many of us played a fun card game at this huge table. This was a good spot for the next night too, even though the original chair placement wasn't designed for people to sit at this table. Hah. It was rather difficult to maneuver behind where I was sitting, into the kitchen. But again, oh well.

The next morning we tried for an early start, with friends at the house watching our kids for the day (WOW and WOOOPEE!); we made it onto Mary Jane before lunch.

I got most of the Sunday ski group in the photos on top of Mary Jane after lunch, but my one friend left early to go back and help with his kids and take everyone sledding. Dear blog, I have some really awesome awesome friends who took some great care of our kiddos to let us ski till almost close. We didn't ski till close because our quads were so tired already.

I got some action shots on the greens off Mary Jane!

oh and here's the house and driveway in the daylight. or twilight really.

I didn't take more photos until we were going home on Monday, which was beautiful, so you'll have to bear with me because I took many. These are the narrowed down picks.

the new snow on the trees made for driving in a winter wonderland. US-40 was slow-going and trying to stay in the previous tracks in the snow, but then I-70 was pretty clear by the time we were taking the drive, late in the morning. 

but yeah, 70 was not without traffic.

so we jumped onto US-6 when we could and only looked back briefly to find nobody following.

I was a little obsessed with the tunnels, and we tried to get the kids to join us in holding our breath going through them.

clearly I haven't been on 6 in a long time, but I was a little obsessed with the meandering, icy sided, river.

I didn't actually read on this road though, too windy. that's RG's latest favorite book series, of which he's getting Nasser and slowly, me, into. I'm starting to decide that in my state of depression of late, I need some easier reading. but engaging. so far, this is good for that, and I'm still reading it super slowly.

we got some traffic due to slow car(s) in the lead. surprisingly enough, the slow car was not the casino bus.

I kept pointing out the falling rock netting to the kids

last tunnel!

still beautiful on our way into Golden.

we were starving for lunch, TK ate all of it!

my goofballs, one in pjs, and one in shorts.

All in all, it was a good, successful, enjoyable weekend. Some things still to hopefully get resolved with that first house rental owner, but I'm working on not letting that aspect ruin the weekend for me. We got great slope time, both with and without the kids, great hanging out at the house time, we still made good dinners despite that awful (albeit large) kitchen, and the kiddo with friends and friends' kiddos time was so worth it.

On a separate note, I am still off all antidepressants, waiting for evaluation appointment for TMS (again, transcranial magnetic stimulation) a week from today. Although there will still likely be a tough letdown from the trip, more than so far since I've been enjoying working on this post. It's tough to enjoy so much the time with friends from long ago who knew me when I wasn't depressed, and then go back to reality. It's easier to pretend that I'm not depressed for a short time like that, even if a simple question of "how have you been doing?" puts me into tears still. I pretended much of the weekend, and only in some more stressful instances did it threaten to take over.

Going to finish with hope, after watching this clip last night, where comedian Neal Brennan and Trevor Noah briefly talk depression and TMS.