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...)

in my place, in my place were lines that I couldn't change, I was lost, oh yeah

Wednesday, 09/27/17, 10:36am, 1:01pm

Hey there.

As usual, of late, you know, like the last several weeks, haha, we shouldn't put any kind of "standard" on my life of the past many months or years or anything like that... but "as usual", the week, since Monday, has been going rather decently well. Unlike the weekend was. This seems to be my life as of late, shall we say the last month-ish? Because as a quick reminder, I suffer from treatment-resistant depression, and anxiety, at least for like the last 10 years or so, with an additional bout of it when I was a pre-teen.

If you haven't read my whole blog, which I'm sure most people haven't, you may not know my history. If you want a better understanding of how my depression manifested, or just a reminder, read here. As many of my readers know, we experienced a big loss last year: my brother-in-law Adam, who had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, died on May 13th on May 13th when hit by a train. I think my depression took a big turn for the worse after his death, and I couldn't seem to recover. You know, speaking of which, I was so lost in my own "worseness" and whatever, I didn't even acknowledge the 1-year anniversary of Adam's death in my blog. In the years before his death, I was medicated for depression and anxiety, I went regularly to therapy, tried to practice various coping techniques at home, and I think I often convinced myself that I was "good enough". I'm not sure that I ever really was, even before Adam's death, but when medications worked, at least a little, it often didn't seem worth it to switch to something else.

Last year, November 29, is when my psychiatrist first brought up "treatment-resistant depression"; this was before he was quite ready to diagnose me as such but when we were going to try one more antidepressant as a last-ditch effort. My post about that, actually, describes my various medication efforts decently well. I've been re-reading old posts more today, hence all the links, mainly because of my memory issues from ECT. If we recall, I've got this weird phenomenon going on called "state-dependent memory", so it's rather difficult for me to really remember how truly bad I was before ECT. I think going through some old blog posts, especially seeing ones I wrote when I was in a bad state, or like when in one of the posts I described how 5 of the last 7 days have been shitty days.

That's not how I'm doing currently. It's changed... significantly... since ECT. It's weird, from that first time I'd ever mentioned ECT, hoping I'd never have to read more about it, to my description of the first treatment, and to writing 5-star reviews of my ECT place on Google, things have changed, just a bit.

I am much, much better. Although the weekends have been tough, over and over again, and this Sunday Nasser and I discussed various treatment changes, we discussed it at length with my long-time, primary psychiatrist, the one I've been seeing for many, many years now. I'd say, for sure, that he knows me, he knows my history, very, very well. Nasser and I, both, trust his medical/psychiatric opinion. When we mentioned the idea of trying a new antidepressant, he was immediately, like, "oh no, I wouldn't want to chase perfection." Because he sees how much I have improved, and really, we have a pretty decent idea of what we need to work on. It's the weekends- whether it's the lack of routine, or ridiculous expectations I place onto to-dos, etc, I do believe it's something we can improve, without changing treatment. It's something we can improve with the help of all the troubleshooting we're doing, with the help of my therapist, with the help of my doctors, and family, and friends. It's not something that feels like the end of the world anyway, because in strong contrast to how I was doing before ECT, I can, and do, improve and recovery within in the same day of dipping down into that depression.

Well. I think that's just about as much as I can handle today with this post. Sorry, dear readers, I am feeling a call and need to relax. Haha. Before I do, I'm going to leave you with a picture from my run on Sunday, the one that really helped me recover, the one in the rain.

Oh, and some pictures of my kiddos doing chores the previous weekend... because despite what I say about weekends being tough, they haven't been all bad.

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.

in this town of Halloween

Tuesday, 11/01/16, 9:12am

Wow, it's November already. My "blogiversary" is coming up in just a few more days. It'll be a year that I will have been writing.

It's weird to think how much the blog means to me. How much I come back to it, even just to reread earlier posts. I'm quite sure it helps me a lot; my therapist most recently pointed out how when I've talked about it, I've only basically raved about how much it helps me. Hah.

On my run yesterday, I think I was practicing mindfulness decently well. I kept taking pictures- selfies and scenery. It's been a long time since I've ran. It felt really good for the first mile and a half, but then the rest wasn't so great especially with the foot pain from my (relatively) new shoes.

I think my shoes are a half size too small. Crap.

Actually if they made them in quarter sizes, I would be set. I need to be a women's 8.75 size. Haha. 9.25 in running shoes.

My run was fantastic in so many ways. Late fall beauty and late summer temps.

2.99 miles total (there was no way in hell I was going to force myself to get that extra 0.01 miles yesterday), not too shabby, but I wish it all had felt much better. And I wish my feet didn't hurt so much from the shoes. I feel like I've now run in them too many times to return them. Crap.

Then after the run, after eating something and taking a shower, I proceeded to face paint. 

It really didn't look right at the first part of the day, the Halloween parade at the boys' school, since I only had time for the white. But I looked creepy as hell at school. Hah!

RG was a kitty of course, but barely looked like he was in costume (he wore mostly black with a tail and ears). Sigh. Oh well. I suppose I was selfish with effort towards costumes this year, but the boys only wanted to be kitties! And had no interest in face painting on whiskers.

I'm the bad mom who didn't capture any good photos of the boys yesterday, and the parade was difficult to get a good shot of RG anyway, but I did get some good ones of the principal leading the parade, dressed as a construction contractor (funny to everyone there because they're currently undergoing construction of the new school on the same campus, so this entire school year is nuts with school continuing in the old building and construction going on of the new building). Anyway, literally the entire gym was chuckling at his costume and demeanor. I love our kids' school! Also, in a previous year, he dressed up as Matt Smith as the Doctor.

I was not the only parent who dressed up. Thankfully. There were few of us though. Sigh.

Here's the best I looked later on in the afternoon.

But then something happened. RG and I got into a fight about quitting the Kindle time (he really hadn't had much though at that point) and getting to Nasser's work for trick-or-treating there. It all just went to hell. RG stormed off upstairs saying he wasn't going and then eventually when we were all on the phone with Nasser talking it through, I got further depressed. I ruined a bunch of the face paint, then said well now I can't go anywhere and we decided to skip the work trick-or-treating and Nasser came home. Poor TK was especially disappointed in that I think. Sigh.

I recovered. Miraculously. It took some time, the kids got some "educational shows", which was fine in a lot of ways because I think they needed that downtime to do well later too. Nasser and I touched up my face, a lot, and then we headed out.

It ended up being a good night. Quality time spent with neighbors, some of whom we haven't known as well. There were two wagons brought along in the group, with adult beverages. I, of course, skipped that part, which was fine. It all was fun, we laughed, we scolded kids when they were climbing over too many bushes to shortcut their way to the next house, we reminded them to say thank you. And when we hit our cul-de-sac, our little family cut out a tad early. We needed it, we needed the time at home for the kids to peruse their candy before getting to bed, a tad later than normal, which was about where we needed it to be.

come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

Friday, 09/09/16, 11:33am

Sometimes I'm not really in the mood to write, to blog. Right now is one of those times, but it feels like I'm resisting every single key stroke. I've been a jumble of thoughts today and the idea of trying to convey them or relive them, sounds horrifying right now. And yet I'm here, forcing myself to try it, because I know that it heals me.

I don't know that sharing comes easily to me. At least not all the time. It's always hard to admit something you feel ashamed of. And I do feel ashamed of my depression. I feel ashamed that it destroyed my day morning (I can still salvage it, right?).

Today hasn't turned out right so far. It started off really well in fact, but a stupid, trivial argument with Nasser triggered me into (totally uncalled for) anger and then sudden, deep depression. (Oh God, this whole meds change!!) Luckily it all happened after the kids got on the bus, so I still have time to recover enough and they won't have seen any of it. Hopefully. It took me out for a good 3 hours so far and I missed my run with friends this morning. I sat/lay paralyzed on my bed, distracting myself with everything from a new Netflix show to facebook to my new book (that was a good one actually and I keep coming back to it today- woohoo!). But the ugly crying happened again and again and again. Maybe I should have blogged three hours ago, but I could not. get myself to. Until now.

I had a mostly good week I think. I was starting to wonder if the new medication was maybe, just maybe starting to kick in. It's possible. It's been about two and a half weeks since I started the new one, a week and a half since we upped the dosage. I certainly didn't expect for it to be kicking in yet, but I'm hoping that accounts for my string of better days. That would put next week at "even better" if the higher dosage then kicks in.

But because I had this false sense of security about my mood, it all hit harder this morning.

I think I'm finally at a point now, after this much blogging, texting with a few support people including Nasser, where I'd say I'm mostly recovered. Like I've climbed out of that hole, but I could still teeter backwards easily or even get pushed, if I'm not super super careful. There are a few things I need to do in order to keep my footing. I am going to eat lunch. Do some yoga, or a lot of yoga, depending on how I feel. I found a great video the other day, especially for anxiety/stress. Even if you're not a yoga/exercise/meditation person, it's worth a watch through the first 5 minutes for the breathing. This is something you can do in an office chair, or laying down for bed, or apparently, sitting at the kitchen table, writing your blog. Because it was worth the 5 minute re-watch, before I then practice the full yoga with the video later.

I still might run this afternoon. Crap. If I have time. Yoga is going to be my first priority though. And I'm not going to beat myself up if the run doesn't actually happen.

I'm going to leave with a photo of me at some point during the 3 hour hell that was my morning. I was a "bit better" at that point, but not much. The eyes had already much improved from the earlier redness.

I chose not to attempt a smile because it would not have expressed how I felt. It was not authentic.

But I am here. I am present. I am.

all I really want is some comfort, a way to get my hands untied

Tuesday, 09/06/16, 9:31am

I don't really want to blog right now. I'm not in the mood for it, but I feel the need to somehow.

The main reason I need to blog, is I found a NAMI blog post, shared on facebook, that really resonated with me. The author writes about "smiling depression", which
 
involves appearing happy to others and smiling through the pain, keeping the inner turmoil hidden. It’s a major depressive disorder with atypical symptoms, and as a result, many don’t know they’re depressed or don’t seek help. People with smiling depression are often partnered or married, employed and are quite accomplished and educated. Their public, professional and social lives are not struggling. Their façade is put together and accomplished. 

But behind the mask and behind closed doors, their minds are filled with thoughts of worthlessness, inadequacy and despair. They’ve usually struggled with depression and/or debilitating anxiety for years and have had some experience with therapy or medication. Many don’t disclose their depression due to fear of discrimination from loved ones or employers. “Oftentimes, I am the only person in this individual’s immediate circle who is aware of how he or she is feeling on the inside,” said Dina Goldstein Silverman, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry."

The entire blog post is worth the read, but this is important because Silverman says "there's a troubling connection between smiling depression and suicide."

I wouldn't really say that I suffer from "smiling depression", anymore, because I've become so open about my depression with others, but maybe I still do to some extent. In person, I will talk about my depression more often than I used to, but oftentimes I will hide it with others, if I'm feeling those feelings and I'm forced into a social situation. This can happen when we travel with others, for ski vacations, camping, family trips, visiting friends or family. If I'm constantly around other people for a weekend for example, I will typically have at least one depressive breakdown, maybe a half hour to a couple hour event usually taking place while hiding with Nasser in the privacy of our bedroom, and then "recover" enough to go be social and happy with the others. I won't usually discuss what happened, even though others may know I've been crying by looking into my eyes. Really I bottle those feelings up for the moment. And it forces me into some resemblance of "recovery", only I don't think it really makes me any better in the long run.

I've been backing out on social engagements more lately, and I think it comes across as "doing badly" or I have "worsened depression". But I don't think that's what it is. Since being more open with my depression in the blog, and as well as on facebook recently, I feel more authentic. And honestly, I'm less interested in being social right after a depressive breakdown because I don't know how yet to be truly authentic (and emotionally safe) with everyone I know when I'm in that state. How can I know that really? We shame "bad feelings" or "moods" so much, that we instinctively hide it when we're around others. Or at least I do. And I'm not interested as much in pretending to be "better" when it's just a façade and a temporary recovery. I do it, still, plenty often, but I'm learning to be more authentic with those I trust. I will talk about my depression and share about my most recent depressive breakdown at a party or family get-together, because I'm trying to be authentic.

It's been hard for me to know how to respond lately when people ask "how are you doing?". When it's someone I don't know, like at the grocery store, I still say "fine, how are you?" or something along those lines. But when it's someone I know, and I assume now that they know I have depression and they may or may not read my blog, I want to be more authentic. And no, actually I'm not really fine. I haven't been "fine" in a long, long time. Like truly fine, like consistently fine. Maybe it's only been since Adam's death, or maybe it's been since my depression really manifested 8.5ish years ago.

And we continue to work on it, as we've done since I first started treatment. I've been on several different medications and am now working on a new one, I've been doing therapy consistently for a long time, I've read (some) books and many articles on ways to help depression, I've blogged, I've discussed it at length with friends and family, I've cut out alcohol to very rare occasions, I've been working on affirmations, I practice mindfulness and I recognize the important of exercise and eating right on my overall health. I have put and continue to put so much effect into "not being depressed".

And I still. get. depressed.

I think that will always be the case, but all I can do is to continue doing the things I do. I continue to try to be better, to limit the depression as much as possible, and to cut myself slack when it hits or when I'm going through tough things like changing medications.

And it's ok. I will always continue working on the things that are shown to help, I will continue trying new things (even if I'm slow to start them, because there are still emotional hurdles to overcome with these), and I will continue to seek the support of others and try not to feel guilty over it.

We're going to end this post with some affirmations now.

I am strong. I am loving. I am capable. I am compassionate. I am brave. I am loved. I am nurturing. I am supported.

I am absolutely NOT a failure.

I dare greatly, at least sometimes.

And I continue.

and I'll try, oh Lord I'll try, to carry on

Thursday, 08/11/16, 9:41am

Sometimes I question my choice to be so open about my depression. It's not an easy thing to do, and although I write a lot about my struggles, doing so doesn't feel easy in a lot of ways. I guess it feels easy to write about it. To just let the words rush out of me, putting all those thoughts down, and I don't really consider the aspect of people will read my words. When I'm talking about my depression in person though, it's easy for me to "lose my cool", my teeth chatter out of nervousness, and sometimes I break down in tears. Something about writing makes it so much easier for me.

I do get a lot of really supportive and appreciative feedback on the blog. I now have a lot more people in my life who have opened up to me about their own struggles, and many of them feel a sense of connection, of comfort, of support in reading about my life. I hope that is the case for all my readers. And I hope that with my words, I can give many people a better understanding of mental illness and break down some of the stigmas.

Despite all the good support, I notice the ones who "ignore" it all, choose not to respond (for whatever reason) when I do share, and sometimes I get "support" and advice from people who mean well, but don't really get depression. I don't say this to discourage others from sharing what works for them, etc, because when framed that way, it can do a lot of good.

For some background, I was in a bad place yesterday and I decided to reach out on facebook for support. Perhaps it was a bit more negative than most facebook posts and it sounded pretty desperate, but you also have to know I felt pretty desperate at the time. And I wanted to put it out there honestly, without any of the cutesy facebook things to downplay what I was going through.

I did get a lot of great support. In the form of facebook responses, likes/reactions, texts, phones calls, facebook messages, and emails.

But I felt some real pain from one attempt at support yesterday. And it put a damper on everything, and that's probably a reason that I don't make a good, tough person to be blogging and putting myself out there. I don't deal with criticism well, and I never have. But when that criticism comes in the form of "stop feeling sorry for yourself", I do lose my cool.

I don't want to go into much detail, and I still owe it to that person to explain why it doesn't help, but to me that's Depression 101. You don't ever tell someone with depression to "snap out of it", "stop feeling sorry for yourself", "just think positively". I get that people mean well, but before you go giving advice for an illness you clearly don't understand, read up on it.

I found this article about supporting someone with depression and thought it was really good.

She states at one point:

My depression is well-managed, and I still have very bad days. But even on my good days, I spend a lot of time and energy managing my mood, my sleep, my diet, my activity level, and my relationships so that I can continue to function.

This so rings true for me.

Depression is an illness of the brain. It is real, even if you don't always see it. It is a struggle, sometimes constant, and it often requires medical and/or therapeutic treatment, as well as a strong support network.

So I posted something super negative on facebook. I was in a place where I was already getting a lot of support- from family and Nasser, I had blogged, I had tried coping mechanisms at home. I had had therapy earlier that morning. And I was still in a really bad place. Maybe you think I should have taken myself to the hospital, but based on my previous experience, I have no interest in going back there. Maybe it's good for getting out of "crisis" mode, but for me, the hospital doesn't help much long term. One of the great reasons to be in a psychiatric hospital is to have the safe, controlled environment in which you can find medication that works. For me, with depression, that wouldn't work so easily. Antidepressants usually take 4-6weeks to kick in, so that would put me in the hospital for a long time. The trauma of that "failure" (the way I would think about that, being in a hospital for months at a time) would have such negative effects on me that it wouldn't be worth it. We all remember that I consider myself a failure because I couldn't nurse RG... even though I exclusively pumped breastmilk for a whole year. How stupid and irrational is my thinking sometimes, right? And yet, I always see both sides of the coin. I see those emotional, negative thoughts and my rational side knows that those thoughts are ridiculous. But when I'm in a depressive episode, it's very difficult for my rational side to show itself, at all.

I am doing better today. Recovering from the vulnerability hangover of having shared so openly and honestly yesterday. I am recovering from the painful and ignorant advice I was given yesterday. I am recovering from the shame and embarrassment of having shared, of having required so much support. And I'm trying to be kind to myself and remind myself that there is no shame in reaching out for help.

Here I am today, working at being better.

think about direction, wonder why you haven't before

Thursday, 08/04/16, 10:33am

I am doing better today. Yesterday, although it went mostly well, was still more of a recovery day. Sometimes my episodes can require a full day to really recover.

I've kinda mentioned it before, but my treatment needs some work. I am going to therapy much more often than I had been. I'd really been pushing the time between appointments, some based on travel, some based on expense because our health insurance changed significantly this past year, some based on "I felt that I should be". I do this with therapy appointments and psychiatric appointments and it's not entirely a conscious choice that I make. It almost happens automatically. But now I'm consciously trying to stop that and making the therapy appointments at least weekly.

I've mentioned before, but I've started tracking my mood. Yesterday after discussing some ideas with my therapist and my sister, I created a Google Form for myself. It's a quick series of questions to gauge my mood as well as gather data on the circumstances (menstrual cycle, medications, exercise, etc). I can input a response on the form as often as I'd like, but this time, I'm not going to look at the data until I have a good amount of it. Looking at the tracker app on my phone has made me feel even more down, just seeing what feels like often low points.

I'm such a nerd. But I'm totally in love with this idea of tracking, gathering hard data with my illness to help improve my treatment.

Nasser has been researching the various medications out there for treating depression and anxiety, ongoing clinical trials, understanding more about "treatment resistant depression" and wondering if I have that. Because I've truly been wondering, am I really that different when I'm not on medication? Now, you may point out, I had a bit of a depression rut earlier this summer when I missed a third of one of my medications for about a week or so. But there were other things going on which may or may not have played a part as well.

I think that I probably need to be on medication, but I'm definitely wondering whether or not I'm on the right ones.

Let's talk about periods for a second. Skip the last paragraph if you can't handle it, although if you can't handle it, I'd invite you to push yourself out of that comfort zone and try to normalize menstrual cycles a little more. If you haven't read my rant on that, see here.

So the latest on my quest for hormone balance through my menstrual cycle is I'm on a high estrogen, some progesterone birth control pill (the second pill I'm trying), and so far, my body doesn't seem to want to follow the regulated cycle. What does that mean? I don't get my period when I'm supposed to on this pill. It's supposed to be during the placebo week, the last week of the pack. Mine comes a good week early, and it's lasting longer than my period used to without a pill. Sigh. I've decided to stay on this pill for a full 3 months to see if my body will take to it, but if it doesn't, I'm thinking of giving up this quest of finding the right birth control pill. Unless I find the right doctor to support me there. Seems like it might be difficult to find an ob/gyn who would be willing to work closely with me and my psychiatrist to figure out the right hormones for me.

up and down, and in the end it's only round and round and round

Friday, 07/29/16, 9:31am

I'm doing better than I was yesterday and the day before. I did get a short run in yesterday afternoon while the boys were on their bikes. Might be aiming for that again today. Maybe we'll have a dance party with some 80's music too. Those things help me.

Yesterday, despite having a really successful afternoon with the boys (with the aforesaid running/biking as well as some mini-pool time), I was never fully recovered. OK, I have to take a second to share some pictures and videos of the afternoon.

I relaxed in a camping chair, with some cold water, while the boys set up a water slide

Still wasn't perfectly easy to function, but I was trying my damnedest

We had to make some repairs prior to filling up the pool, as well as during. 

As of this morning, the pool is still about halfway full so I guess we did a good job!

They had fun, and that helped my mood more than anything else. It was fun, it was enriching fun, which maybe Minecraft is in its own way. Nasser recently found some data showing that video games, where they require creativity and imagination, are more enriching to children than television shows. (I would normally now link to the article explaining this, because I think backing up what you say is very important, however, I can't find that exact study at the moment. Will post in comments if I ever come across it.) I'm finding that there really are a lot of benefits to video games, in both what I read as well as what I see in my kids. They play Minecraft together, cooperatively. They learn to play cooperatively in larger groups when they play Minecraft with friends and family. They often play with Nasser, which I think is a key benefit. It is time spent together, they talk most of the time about what they're doing and strategies, and Nasser can help guide them to keep it beneficial.

And it's not like they spend all their time playing video games. They are often playing, however, when I'm blogging. Or showering. This summer, I've allowed it more than I would like to in the long term. However, 1. it is summer and I do believe that enjoyment of the summer is important. 2. Their uncle died at the beginning of the summer. We're still dealing with that and recovering from it. I don't feel that I need to justify myself further. And I'm not really justifying to you, the reader. Perhaps to some extent. But I'm also justifying to myself. Because I carry a lot of guilt and shame over the amount of screen time they get sometimes.

Being in a depressive episode, like I was yesterday, I definitely allow more screens. Because I want to hide upstairs and not have the kids try to find me and demand things from me. I don't want them seeing me when I'm sobbing over the thoughts that are going through my head.

Yesterday I put out a slight plea to facebook for some love. Just a little "can I have some virtual hugs today?" kind of thing. Many many of my friends and family responded with love. It was nice and it was something that helped yesterday. It didn't make me totally recovered, other people really don't have that affect when I'm truly depressed, but it helped. I said the other day that I felt like I was in a deep hole and couldn't see which way was up. It was like that most of the day yesterday.

Honestly, I had one big goal yesterday, and that was keeping the suicidal, totally hopeless and helpless thoughts away. I succeeded, without the need for Nasser coming home or someone coming over and taking over care for the kids. Because, yeah, some days, those thoughts are right below the surface, and if I'm not careful, they will consume me. I don't write this to scare anyone, and I hope it doesn't (please remember right now I'm doing rather well and not depressed in any way). I write it to share what I think is actually somewhat common with major depression. Maybe? For me, it's not that uncommon, to at least fall into the hopeless thoughts, for when I'm in a depressive episode. It's not how I feel all the time, and I do think that I have more good, happy moments in my life, than depressed.

I am starting up some mood tracking again. I think that I unofficially do it with the blog, since I'm often writing and I often write about my mood. :) But I wanted something where I could easily graph the results and get an idea of the overall trend. It's something I plan to show my doctor once I have some data to say, do we still think I'm doing the right things or am I worse than we thought? I've only tracked a handful of times, although I did track several times yesterday. The entry for today is just about the opposite of yesterday's.

We're keeping today fairly low key again. Although we might make a trip to Target for some groceries, as well as some shopping with some gift cards the boys received for their birthdays.

Lots of love to all my readers. I hope today is fine for you, as I hope it will be for me.

when I find myself in times of trouble

Wednesday, 02/17/16, 3:01pm

Someone recently referred to my depression as "more severe" (than someone else's). I wasn't offended by the term, just well, curious. I suppose I've never really classified my depression as minor/major/severe/etc. Certainly I am "more severe" than some, but less severe than others. I get my bad moments, mornings, evenings, whole days. Sometimes, like a few days ago, it can last over a 2-day stretch, but that is more rare. Some people who suffer from depression go for much much longer stretches, weeks on end where it takes enormous effort to get out of bed. From my point of view, that sounds so so hard, and I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it. But in general I guess, we, as a human race, handle what we're dealt. Before I was diagnosed with depression, it never occurred to me that I could handle a mental illness, but I do. I do it every day in the preventative things I do (therapy, meds, exercise, blogging, mindfulness). And when I'm dealt with an episode, I (and Nasser usually) have to handle it because it's there.

It's almost a little hard to blog right now, because my last post had me in such a terrible state. I feel a little embarrassed and ashamed after putting all that out there. But I guess I "dared greatly" by putting it out there, right?

I do wonder sometimes about putting all this out there. I wonder sometimes if I'm constantly repeating myself, because I do go through cycles. I have an episode, I recover, I reflect, I hopefully learn, and I continue. But it's not like the episodes stop, or I suspect, ever will. I've recently read in a couple different articles about people with mental illness being "in recovery". And I wonder what that means with regards to someone like me. Everytime I get an episode, am I "out of recovery"? I suppose you can take different meanings from it. Maybe an episode only qualifies as "out of recovery" if I have suicidal thoughts? Or maybe I was only "out of recovery" when I spent time in the hospital?

In general, I guess I would call myself "in recovery" because for me, it is decently well managed. I am not without my episodes, but I keep chugging along. If you look at who I am today versus who I was when I was first diagnosed, I may not appear too different from the outside, but I've changed a lot. I continually add to my toolbox of coping skills (for which I did not even have a toolbox when I was first diagnosed, or at least not one I ever consciously thought about). I am at a point where I try to help others with similar conditions. Because mental illness is so stigmatized and not talked about, the most important coping mechanism, having a good support network (family, friends, mental health professionals), is greatly hurt. We need to talk about this more because the best way to support someone is to make sure they know you're there for them. (All you wonderful people in my life who have recently opened up to me about your own struggles with a mental illness, I do hope you all know that I am here for you, whenever you need.) How can you show support if we don't talk about it?

But that damn stigma. We need everyone to understand that it is not weak to struggle with depression or anxiety or emotional eating or substance abuse or schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or whatever the name we attach to these mental illnesses. It is not weak to need help in these struggles. It is not weak to need or want to go to therapy. It is not weak to need medicine in the treatment of a mental illness. (Seriously, why do people still think that and judge others or themselves for needing antidepressants or the like????)

Mental illness is not weak.