I will rise up

Monday, 03/12/18, 9:49am

Well. I had another crash this past weekend, this time 2 days instead of 1. Raises a little concern in me that it lasted longer than the previous one, yet reassuring that it wasn't longer than 2 days and that I feel pretty well back to normal this morning. Ugh though, this stupid stupid illness, depression, bipolar, or otherwise; it stinks with whatever you label it. And I can do a little bit of blaming this past crash on my f'ing period, cuz you know, of course that started this weekend. Sorry, yet not sorry, for sharing this with you all (whatever, I share a ton of personal stuff as it is, right????). And the horrid cramps yesterday!!! That surely didn't help.

All the emotions were tough though this weekend, despite the lightness I may give it. Yesterday was worse than Saturday, and there was more arguing with Nasser than I would have liked, despite everything he was doing and trying to do all weekend to support me.

And there were times when it wasn't quite as bad. Several times I thought we could make it to my brother-in-law's band concert on Saturday evening and my ex-choir's (the one I'm hoping to rejoin once ECT is over and I get back to some semi-normal memory state) concert on Sunday afternoon. But then the stupid emotional crap still came along and interfered. But then there were times I thought I was on the mend. I started reading a good book and have gotten super into it (one I read and loved a while back, yet of course, don't remember), I managed to do some messaging with friends, Nasser sent me out for a decent walk yesterday despite me really pushing back on it, after kids went to sleep Saturday evening Nasser and I enjoyed listening to a "2000s hits" playlist reminding us of our college days. It is important to take comfort in the ups, and then the long stretches of good that do come along at the end of the crashes. I need to get into a better successful habit of reminding myself that "this will pass" when I'm in the middle of those crashes. It's so ridiculously f'ing hard since my brain is quite literally telling me the opposite. I hate my brain sometimes.

But. I AM going to continue this crazy fight. I AM going to continuously try my damnedest to rise above it all and survive it. I AM going to continue to fight the mental illness stigma, fight for my fellow fighters, fight to prove that these illnesses ARE real and deserve everyone's support. Perhaps I'm not doing a ton with that fight, but this is the main reason I keep this blog; I hope that sharing, sharing it ALL, can little by little break down that stigma, can perhaps show that you can fight it even when there's plenty of days that are hard, that feel like you're gonna lose, that feel like it's impossible.

Here's my fighter face this morning:

It may not look super confident, but it is a face willing to continue this fight.

this is the sound of all of us, singing with love and the will to trust

Saturday, 10/21/17, 12:54pm

I felt the first twinges of depression when I was a pre-teen, middle school/ junior high -ish age. I can't remember exactly. I do remember that I felt lots and lots of suicidal thoughts then. It was often, probably almost continuous, and something I didn't tell a single other soul at the time. I simply thought I was screwed up, I was wrong and different, and I certainly was nowhere near normal.

Today I felt a rush of those feelings I felt as a pre-teen come back from a video I watched. It was this amazing 7th grader delivering a poem she had written about the societal pressures on girls and coming to terms with "you are good enough". It's worth a watch.

In watching her poem, I was reminded of how alone and wrong and awful I felt at that age. I was reminded of how, when my hormones calmed down or whatever, in high school and college, I pretended like that part of my life had never happened. I still didn't talk about it, I still had no idea how I had "gotten over it" or whatever, and I probably just embraced the stinking stigma even more. Perhaps it's part of the reason my depression hit so hard the second time around. Perhaps it's part of the reason I was/am treatment-resistant.

My mother-in-law is in town this weekend, this is Adam's mother of course. She has become even more involved with NAMI and such since Adam's death, and she was telling us about this NAMI conference she went to in Chicago this past week. She attended the keynote on suicide prevention and was telling us about what she'd learned. It was so... touching/moving/tear-jerking to hear about some of these things that are known and taught and are, from my experience of feeling suicidal at many points in my life, so right on. She talked about how the biggest deterrent for people from acting on their thoughts is thinking they won't succeed. (So true).

She also talked about a man who spoke to them about having survived a suicide attempt of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, I think one of the ones in this story.

Here's the video of the one man telling his story, also worth a watch (whew, personally sobbed through this one, big time, but again worth.the.watch.):

Sorry, dear readers, that this is such a heavy, heavy blog post. It's important stuff though, stuff that I think I tend to gloss over more often than not. And even though I'm doing so, so much better than I was just a few short months ago, it doesn't mean that all of this is gone. The depression that hit about a week and a half ago was hard. And not devoid of these thoughts. I think that I had had these really high expectations, since "getting better" from ECT, these expectations that I'd never feel the "I want to die" thoughts again. And maybe that's why it hit as hard as it did that day. Because I had convinced myself that I'm too much better for those thoughts.

I don't really know what recovery totally looks like. I know that I have a lot more good days than bad these days, LOTS more. So I consider that recovery. I know that typically when depression hits now, it's not as hard as it used to be. So I consider that recovery. But I guess it probably doesn't mean that it will never hit as hard as it used to. And that can still mean recovery.

I've never acted on the "I want to die" thoughts. I've never cut myself, or attempted suicide. I suppose that doesn't mean that I never will, despite the recovery. But surrounding myself with people who love and support me helps, and keeping up with mindfulness/meditation activities helps, and seeing my therapist and psychiatrist regularly helps, and continuing to find new and extra ways to help helps. The battle never really ends, and I can never really be, well, off my guard.

But that can still mean recovery. And I can still revel in that.

To finish, some fall colors from yesterday's run attempt, which turned into a walk to finish. And some yardwork to get ready for the big town compost pickup this morning. And TK's last soccer game.

Oh and one more thing. Today is World Singing Day, which we didn't attend the event in Boulder for it today, but I still hold it dear in my heart. I am not doing choir this year, because of treatment and getting better and all that, but I do miss it in so many ways, and I miss regularly singing, even though I've picked it back up for boys' bedtimes again more recently.

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...)

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.

to memory now I can't recall, so fill to me the parting glass, good night and joy be with you all

Tuesday, 09/05/17, 9:47am, 1pm, 5pm (really many additional times in between, like all day, haha)

Well. Today I'm working on it. I'm hanging out at my brother-in-law's house (he works from home) this morning (lately I've been hanging with my parents a lot, since Nasser had to go back to work, but maybe I've already mentioned that? my memory can't handle much, sigh). One nice thing is he does a 2-ish mile walk after walking his boys to school down the street from their house, along with their pet dog. But, woah, they walk a bit faster than I'm used to. Definitely good for me though. It's nice being here today because there's no expectations of being social with others, haha. And I think I need some of that.

We're back, from the walk now, and I had some more coffee, with a fabulous, and perfectly appropriate for me, for today, mug.

Isn't that just lovely????

I'm feeling a bit, I dunno, determined to feel better today. Other than the walk, I'm keeping things fairly low-expectations and low-energy and low-social or whatever for today. I'm spending time on my Chromebook, blogging, planning to do some reading, I have some intentions of catching up a little on my "blog title/ song lyrics" spreadsheet. Did I ever tell you I have a spreadsheet for keeping track of those blog titles that are song lyrics, you know so I don't repeat them or something? Cause, yeah, I am a bit of a nerd, which is fine by me. But I also figure, catching up on that spreadsheet, which I haven't been good about keeping up with for a long, long time, might be kinda good for going back and looking over some older blog posts. I've re-read a few older ones in the last day or two, and it's kinda therapeutic in some respects.

I have treatment tomorrow, it feels like finally. And it'll only have been nine days since the previous treatment. That's not that long, and I feel a bit like a failure in having so much trouble getting through until the next one. I know it's not really a reflection on me, but I can't seem to stop myself from thinking like that, ugh. So frustrating. Cause that's the thing, depression and anxiety are mental illnesses. Illnesses. ILLNESSES. Like seriously, an illness is NOT a reflection on somebody, mental or physical. And yet, a lot of people with mental illnesses, as well as a lot of the people in the world who don't have any mental illness, just maybe know people who do, have this stupid effing stigma about it and think that to some extent it's our fault. Blech. BLECH.

I don't really want to talk a whole bunch about stigma today. That can often just put me into a crappy mood. No thank you.

I know I've talked some about my brain, and the short-term memory stuff, and the cognitive side effects, of you know, the regular seizures I've been having with this electro-convulsive therapy. But just a little more about it. Last night, I had trouble trying to read a book, a kids book, mind you, to TK before bed. Like I was stumbling over the words and couldn't handle more than a page or two. Maybe it was partially the reading aloud aspect, but it felt a bit like my brain just couldn't handle it. And that was kinda tough for me to accept. Then this morning, Nasser and I were talking a little about therapy, and how I haven't had it in a long time. Then he remembered, oh yeah, the last appointment, you had some trouble with not having remembered the previous appointment, and we decided to wait a bit until your brain was doing better. Which I didn't really quite remember, so yeah, another short-term memory thing. We decided I'm doing a bit better, cognitively and memory-wise, lately, that it may be worth scheduling another appointment. But then I had some trouble remembering my therapist's name... OH... MY... GOSH. I remembered it but I kinda questioningly said it to Nasser so he could confirm I had remembered it correctly. I still didn't remember her last name, although when I found her in my email and saw it, it made sense at least. Man though. It is not totally easy having all this brain trouble and memory trouble. I just keep reminding myself, these are side effects, known side effects, it's ok. You'll get through it, Alisa. You will. And someday, eventually, I will be done with ECT treatment, someday. And there's still the possibility that a lot of those lost memories will come back, with help. So I've been frustrated lately that I can't remember having seen Wonder Woman in the theater with Nasser, which I apparently really enjoyed too. It helped when my brother-in-law told me, "what are you talking about? that's a good thing- you get to see it in the theater, again, but for the first time all over again!" Hahaha, true. At least that works with the movie, but it certainly doesn't work with all the experiences I forget, sigh.

I have to say, I'm kinda surprised with how much more I've been blogging more recently. For a large portion of the ECT treatment, certainly the acute phase, I had no interest in blogging. It definitely felt too difficult for a lot of the time. I suppose it's a sign my brain is getting better that I'm blogging more, and successfully finishing posts and not just leaving them as drafts that I never look at again. But maybe there's also an aspect of me getting better with the interest in sharing more? I mean, not necessarily, since I've shared plenty when I've not been doing well at all. So who knows.

I also can't figure out if I'm sleeping better with the CPAP. I mean, yes, I think I probably am, most of the time, at least. But I'm also waking up a lot more, it seems, and I'm often having some trouble getting comfortable. Like, I'm kinda trying to sleep on my back more, since that puts the least amount of pressure on my nose with the mask. And when I am sleeping on my side, I'm trying to, like, angle my face outward more to, again, put less pressure on my nose. And the last few nights, both with the new mask I got on Friday and these sleep techniques I've been trying, I haven't been getting the weird bruise on the bridge of my nose. And that makes me feel a bit better about it. I've also, I think, been dreaming more. I'm not sure if it's an effect of the CPAP; I was thinking it could be that I'm simply remembering my dreams more because I seem to be waking up a lot throughout the night. Most of the time I'm able to fall asleep again quickly; sometimes I need a quick trip to the backroom, or a sip of water, or an adjustment to the mask or something. But a couple times, maybe literally twice so far, I've woken up and been awake for about an hour or so. And some of it could be the anxiety I'm getting from the "OMG, I'm awake and I feel totally awake and I'm never going to get back to sleep." But, whatever it is, it's frustrating. I hope that stops happening soon. The first time it happened was at 4am Saturday morning, so I suppose that could have contributed to the depression this weekend, but then the second time was last night at 11pm, and I ended up waking Nasser up for some melatonin, which got me back to sleep and I slept well until like 6:45am this morning (which is on the late side for me!).

You know, sorta a side note, I'm on this 24-7 supervision requirement thing, right? I don't know what you all assume about what that means. So I'm going to explain just a little. So it means I need to be within supervision of another adult at all times. So, like, I can't leave the house and do a walk on my own, I can't walk from our house to a neighbors' house to go under the care of someone else, like Nasser would have to walk me directly to the other person. I can't get myself my own medications, right, so like, Nasser has to get me my daily medications every evening. Whoever I'm in the care of on a treatment day has to give me my pain medications, between normal advil/ibuprofen and tylenol/acetaminophen and the special strong stuff I get through the ECT Docs (the one they only provide a Rx for qty 6 each time, and sometimes the headache is bad enough I take the max allowable of 3. during the acute phase, Nasser would have to get a new Rx after dropping me off for treatment each Mon/Wed/Fri and go get it filled during my treatment so that we'd have it for the rest of the day. but that's a different story). Let's see, I can't walk the kids to the bus in the mornings or pick them up on my own in the afternoon; oh and with the morning bus walk, Nasser can't walk them on his own, I have to go along so that I'm still in his care. I'm not allowed to drive, which means I have not driven since the middle-ish of June. So weird. Someday, whenever treatments are far enough apart, and maybe there's some amount of checking that my cognitive and memory abilities are back to normal enough, I'll be off the 24-7 supervision requirement and I'll be able to drive again. I'll still need to be in someone's care and won't be able to drive on treatment days, but just for that day alone. Man, that'll be something else. And, I feel like I've explained this before, but, you know, I don't quite remember, we're working towards the true maintenance phase of treatment, where I go in once every 3 to 5 or 6 weeks, and we continue that for a good 6 to 12 months beyond the acute phase. So I'm still in for a lot more seizures, really, heh.

My brother-in-law and I were discussing, while getting ourselves some lunch, mental healthcare and how, like, imprecise it all is. Like he was asking about my treatment and whether it's more experimental or what. And it's funny. So, electro-convulsive therapy (this is worth reading if you don't know that much about my treatment) has been around, in some fashion, since the 1930s (I had estimated for 50 or 60 years, I guess I was a little off). Of course, it's changed, a LOT, since it first started; if you've heard the term "electric-shock therapy", that's what it used to be. But since it's been around for so long, I'd say they know decently well what they're doing. The idea of that maintenance phase for treatment is all based on data, it's used because that's when they get the best results. But then I brought up this other part. Every time I go in for treatment, I have this double-sided questionnaire to fill out, kinda about how I've been doing for the last 2 weeks. So there's questions about how I'm sleeping, about my eating, various ways to kinda rate my depression and anxiety, there's at least one question on there about how much I've thought about suicide. But the thing is, over the course of my depression, I've filled out several versions of this form with various doctors and treatments. And even, a few weeks or so into my ECT treatment, they switched the form they're using. I would expect, although I don't know for sure, that different ECT doctors use different versions of these forms. And when I get rolled into the treatment room each time, right before they put me under, I talk briefly with my doctor, about the form, and about how I'm doing, we decide when to schedule the next treatment. Really, the course of treatment and all that, and this is true with just about any treatment for a mental illness, like determining how well a medication is working, is all based on the conversation between the patient and the doctor. Right? Like there isn't a very concise, non-biased method for determining how well the patient is doing. You can't draw someone's blood and have that tell you, oh this person has had x number of anxiety or depressive episodes this week, therefore, we need to up this medication by this much, or whatever. It's not that simple, ever, with mental illness. And maybe that's part of the reason that stupid, effing stigma pops up all the time. I mean, really, I think psychiatric care has come a long, LONG way over the years, but I hope it continues to improve. Because the "talking about it" aspect of mental healthcare makes it more difficult, more complicated, maybe easier to screw up.

Anyway, since writing all the rest, I've had a stressful afternoon with my kiddos, and the family has made plans to get together for dinner tonight to celebrate my brother's birthday, which sounds nice, but it is a social thing, which hopefully will be ok for me. I think it will be, and again, I have treatment tomorrow, which I'm feeling quite good about now that it's evening.

limb by limb and tooth by tooth, tearing up inside of me, every day every hour, I wish that I was bullet proof

Saturday, 09/02/17, 11:58am, 2:06pm

Ugh. Blech. Today is not turning out to be the best day so far. Or even a good day, rather. I'm feeling rather down, after churning out a more positive blog post yesterday, and it's making me feel more stupid because of the positive post. Like what was I thinking, feeling all positive then? And it makes me feel like I shouldn't have canceled the treatment appointment I originally had scheduled for yesterday as a "just in case". I guess maybe I kinda did need it? Now I'm waiting until next Wednesday.

I dunno. I mean, it's not like I'm totally relapsed or something like that. I just feel down, and it's hard to use all the coping mechanisms I need to in order to pull myself out of this. I just... I dunno. All I really feel like doing today is distracting myself from feeling down by just doing other things and trying not to think about it.

It's hard.

I was trying to come up with things to do to feel better...

• take deep breaths
• blog
• read

I had trouble coming up with more, and I'm having trouble again.

Sigh, took a break from this, and am now attempting to come back to it. I've since eaten lunch, locked myself in the bedroom to get away from the people of my family because I can't handle anything right now, got some crying out; I messaged a small friends group we have for some "comfort" and have since received some amazing photos and meme-type labels of our friends' adorable little baby. It helped make me realize we have good friends. I guess it made me feel slightly more open to the idea of attempting the blog again, so that's good, right?

Sigh, this day, man.

I suppose I'm more open to blogging but don't know what to blog about. Although, one thing worth mentioning, having a mental illness in this world totally, utterly sucks, like big time. Most of the time, I don't feel comfortable talking about my mental illness, and you know, even when I do, it's limited, like what I feel comfortable talking about, who to, how much of the details to give. And I'm, well, a bit more open about it than most people with a mental illness. Do you know why it's so difficult to talk openly about it? It's because of the very, severely widespread stigma that exists. Like SEVERELY widespread. I don't think most people who display stigma about mental illness even realize that they do it. But a lot of people out there have little thoughts about mental illness, like "oh, if you'd just think more positively" or "oh, if you just ignored those thoughts". There's a ton more that qualify, but, honestly, part of the reason I'm not going to list out more examples, is thinking about stigma examples isn't going to help how I'm currently feeling.

It's difficult not to think the typical stigmatized thoughts about people with mental illness. And it probably doesn't help that we tend not to be all that open about what we're going through. So it's difficult to break down that stigma. Somebody like my husband, who hears most of the stuff I go through and most of the thoughts I have and struggles that exist for me day to day, usually bears a lot less of that stigma than the typical person, because really he gets it a lot more than others. But educating yourself about the struggles of mental illness, etc is something that's doable for anybody. There actually exist lots of reading materials, blogs like mine which give a more personal viewpoint, and maybe one of these days I'll try to find a fair amount of that and list them out here on the blog. Right now I'm not capable, too... down still. Sigh.

Alright, I think that's about all I can handle blogging today, mostly just to let you all know that despite my positivity yesterday, it isn't that every day. I'm still working at it, really really hard, and not giving up. Hopefully it's not just this up until I have my treatment again, hopefully this is a one day downer.

how to support someone with a mental illness

Sunday, 05/28/17, 10:22am

Oh blog. Dear dear blog. You dear dear readers and loved ones who have stuck with me through, what I believe was the worst of it, and I think I'm close to finally coming out the other side. I love you all for sticking with me, despite my illness causing me to push people away so much. I now understand, after fighting this illness for so long, what it is that helps me the most.

And I can look back on my behavior all these years and I can see my mistakes but I can also see why I made them and what I was looking for.

I feel amazing. If I didn't know any better I'd wonder if I was manic, but I know that's not it. I can recognize the emotions in myself and I can better label them now. We also think this latest antidepressant might just be starting to kick in.

I should explain. There's so much to explain though. I have to do it right, because this may still be a hard post for all of you to read.

Let's start with a couple things. What I have to say, I think I know a lot about and I want to tell you why I think that and why I think I have the authority to talk about it. You know I have depression and anxiety, right? You may assume some things about my depression and anxiety, and the best thing I can do is share about it and hope that you understand more and assume less. And you may know that I'm an engineer, so you can probably assume that I have a fairly logical and analytical brain, which may or may not give you assumptions about me. I have seen, firsthand, my whole life, how my emotional side and logical side have been in conflict. And I think I finally know how to resolve them.

What I have to talk about is empathy, something I've touched on in this blog, but something I didn't fully understand until now. Many things have led to this "epiphany" I keep talking about. I've been feeling frustrated by my illness and I feel like a burden to everyone around me but part of the reason I feel that way is I see myself rejecting their help as I get worse and worse and I feel awful about that because I want to accept their help but it doesn't feel helpful to me, for some reason I can't figure out. It's been really really hard, but as I understand empathy more, in this last week of epiphanies, I can better empathize that the people helping me have also been scared to death by my illness and my rejection of their help. They see me deteriorating and they don't know what to do about it.

So, quickly let's have a little bit of history. I grew up not understanding mental illness. When I started feeling suicidal when I was about 12 or 13, I had no idea what to do with those feelings. I knew that I shouldn't have these feelings, they certainly felt scary and wrong to me, but I was terrified to tell anyone because I didn't know how they would treat me, because to me, this was me, not an illness. So I didn't tell people. For a really long time. I figured out, enough, how to reject those feelings and be happy and choose to be happy and pretend like all that stuff had never happened. I was happy in high school and college because I chose to be happy and when I was met with people who were depressed at that time, I couldn't understand what they were going through, and I, along with everyone else, couldn't help them either.

Then after having kids, those awful, scary feelings came back. I couldn't seem to choose to be happy anymore, but I kept trying to. I was like, ok, I'll get the minimal help I need and continue to choose to be happy. And I kinda did that, somewhat well, or at least it appeared that way to everyone else. The people who saw me depressed knew I wasn't all the way better, but I was functioning, enough.

My therapist has mentioned several times that I don't seem to accept my illness. All the scary thoughts I have about myself and the reason I usually go down that hole even further is because of this ridiculous belief in me that this is all my fault. And, as it turns out, it's been reiterated to me over and over and over again by the stigma that's out there.

Let's talk more about stigma real quick. I believe that it is something that is so pervasive, even with the improvements in mental health advocacy over the years. It's something that doesn't actually seem to get better because as mental healthcare improves, we also set higher expectations on the patients to "get themselves better". And that's such a ridiculously weird expectation. We see people who are so far gone with their mental illness, and we can't empathize with that situation because we haven't lived their life. We don't actually know what that person has tried and we don't actually understand why they've chosen the care they have.

The reason I call this stigma is we don't treat people with a physical illness the same way. We don't argue with cancer patients about the care they've been getting, usually, if they are seeing the experts. But then experts in mental illness aren't perceived as experts because mental health has to do with human behavior so why do people need experts for that? And suddenly, everybody feels like they need to help but of course most people aren't qualified to do so.

Let's try some empathy on real quick. In the last few days or so, I've been applying it everywhere, I've been practicing it more, and I'm finding it's getting easier and easier to do it as I see how it works. So take for example the young teenager, struggling with bullying and suicidal thoughts. They don't know who to turn to, because despite everyone loving them, very few people are empathizing. Because as this person struggles with these thoughts, they become more and more irritable and they seem to push others away more and more. If they don't understand, like really understand, not just logically, that there is help out there and people are willing to give it, they will turn to suicide. Absolutely.

We keep using this language to describe suicide as "committing" or "choosing to die" or whatever. It turns out, that language blames that person every time. They were "selfish", etc. We refuse to humanize and empathize with what that person was going through to lead them to that act, because it's so scary that someone would hurt us that way by leaving us.

Death by cancer is forgivable. Death by suicide is not.

Because yes, suicide isn't an "option", I'm not trying to claim that it is. It's just, we have to find the right language instead of demonizing the person with the illness.

If I tell you that I'm feeling suicidal, you feel scared. Am I right? You feel like it's all on you to fix this and you don't know the right way to do it. So you do what you know best, you remind the person you love them, and you offer some way to help, by either offering to help when they're willing to take you up on it and/or offering advice. But in the case of mental illness and suicide, etc, we rarely offer empathy, because yes, it is so scary and it's almost impossible to empathize with something that is so foreign and so scary.

I find that the best help I get is when that person offers empathy, first and foremost. Before and throughout any piece of advice they have to offer.

My therapist offers things for me to do and to practice in my life, but she is trained and knows to always give empathy first. I talk about how hard my life is, and she says, "wow, that sounds tough. it sounds like you've been struggling with these thoughts for a long time." And I still don't necessarily respond super well to her advice, because usually it's something I need to change about my life. And of course that's hard. But I respond better to her than I do to someone who doesn't offer empathy.

I started sharing about my mental illness at a point in my illness where it probably wasn't quite what I needed. I didn't know that what I needed and craved was empathy. But after taking data on all the help I've received since sharing openly, I've now seen that empathy is the common thread to helpful help.

I don't think that empathy is the key to eradicating mental illness or something. I do think that empathy is the key to eradicating stigma though, and I think that's going to be my message to the world from now on. If you can empathize with these crazy illogical thoughts that are floating through my head because I have this illness that you can't just fix by telling me the right thing to try, then you can start to offer empathy and give me exactly what I need when I need it the most.

My biggest fear like I mentioned is that I can't get better, either because I won't or because I won't accept help or because I haven't found the right treatment yet. I've been looking for other people to tell me that's not true, but of course they can't tell me that because they're almost too scared to talk around me. I've been looking for other people to remind me that this is an illness, it's not my fault, but then as I refuse to empathize with how hard their situation is in supporting me, I'm not invoking the empathy I want people to show me.

The best thing to say to someone with a horrible mental illness is this:
"I am so so sorry that your illness makes you feel that way. That sounds awful and scary. I wish I could help. Please tell me if there's anything I can do to make it better and I will try to do that thing. In the meantime, I will accept you for who you are and accept that you're trying your hardest to reject these feelings and thoughts."

And the best thing for someone with a horrible mental illness to say to people supporting them is this:
"I am so so sorry that my illness makes you feel helpless and scared for me and I know that you want to help so much. And I know you love me. Please know that when I reject your help, I'm not rejecting you. I am trying so hard and I will continue to try and tell you when I need help and get the help I really need."

I love you all. Really I do. I don't want to hurt anyone by what I have to say and I'm not trying to blame others for suicide or whatever. That's not my message. My message is simply this: try to implement empathy in your life, with your spouse and children, with your parents and your siblings and extended family, with your friends and neighbors and acquaintances, and most especially, with people you find disagreement with. If you try empathy, you can usually start to understand where someone else is coming from. And that is an amazingly powerful tool.

I don't expect I've said everything I wanted to say in this short super long blog post. And I don't expect to get this all figured out real quick because what I want to do is an impossible task. I want every person in this world to put empathy first and foremost in every situation they encounter, but that's not going to happen. It's not how our human brains are wired. When we see a scary situation, we have the "fight or flight" response, and it's really really hard to stop that. I've been working on stopping that, every time I get depressed or anxious, and I haven't been very successful so far. I think, I hope, it's going to get easier, as I get better and better at empathy and asking others for what I need. I think, maybe, I'm getting there.

you can try the best you can. if you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough

Tuesday, 03/07/17, 9:38pm, 1:43pm

Well, yesterday's post was all hopeful and feeling like I'd had a turning point in getting better. I guess it's only inevitable that this morning, the depression hit hard and I'm just feeling incredibly stupid for having hoped at all.

I hate days like today. Days where I feel so incredibly small, so worthless. Days where I just want to be done. Done with everything- with life, with depression, with anxiety, with being a mom, with responsibility, with expectations. It's really hard to have those thoughts of despair, yet I know I have no option there other than to persist forward. I have to keep trying- for my kids, for my husband, for everyone who loves me, for future me.

It's always difficult to write a really downer post. One full of my real thoughts of despair, in the moment. Maybe it's not something that's the best for me to share about with anyone and everyone, but then I also feel strongly that it's critical to share this stuff. Because what if there's someone else out there who has these feelings too? But they think they're alone because most writers of depression share after the fact. And we're expected to express hope the strongest. I found out yesterday about some guidelines for writing about mental illness from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Now granted this is for when you're representing NAMI, which I don't profess to do. At the bottom, they mention specific words or phrases to avoid. Including, contrary to my personal belief, the word "suffer".

From the site:
Suffer. Although there are times when a person is suffering, we avoid it when it discussing mental health. We opt for more hopeful language that is forward looking. 

I see where they're coming from, but gosh, I've used the word suffer in my blog way more times than I can count. And to me, I think this is incredibly ignorant to try and rub this word out of our vocabulary. In fact, many people DO suffer from mental illness, regularly, just as people suffer from physical illness. Why should we pretend that this isn't a major component of mental illness? By only focusing on the hope, you invalidate what people are suffering. For me, the focus on hope and people constantly telling me to "think positively", "you gotta hope for the future", etc, worsens the self-stigma I put on myself. When I'm not feeling hopeful, I feel guilt and shame over it. Hope doesn't fix mental illness. Sure maybe it can help to change your outlook on life which may improve mood, etc, but hope for me is a double-edged sword. Hope destroys me when I do suffer because 1. How dare I give in to the suffering and not keep hoping? and 2. Here I thought I was doing better/will get better and that hope misled me. It made me think that if I just hope and think positively, this will all go away. But nope, it doesn't.

And the constant proof that things that are supposed to help me, but don't (you know things like medication, and therapy, and TMS), crushes that hope over and over again when I keep not getting better. And it makes me question whether or not I really have a disease. If it can't be fixed by all these things, then what's really going on? Is it just that I'm a screwed up person who fails constantly in life? But then we have concluded that I have "treatment-resistant depression," so my "not a disease" logic shouldn't stand.

My therapist recently noted that I seem to fight my diagnosis. I suppose I do. I question it, I self-stigmatize, and I shame myself over my depression and anxiety. And I can't seem to figure out how to stop doing it. I write about the problems with mental illness stigma, and yet I do it all to myself. What the fuck is wrong with me???

It's the depression. It's the illness. It's the brain disease (another word NAMI doesn't want us to use), but it absolutely is that. And although TMS might not be helping yet, there's still time, and hope, really. And please remember, this treatment will help (or not help) regardless of whether or not I hope. I keep going to treatment, I keep trying; isn't that enough? Sometimes I hope, and other times I despair. That's doesn't make me a failure at life, it simply is a side effect of my illness. I'm telling you all this, also in the hope that saying it over and over again will change my own personal views and stupid stigmas.

I wrote most of the above this morning, and although I still stand by all I said, I am feeling a teeny bit better now. Today's TMS appointment went pretty well; talking with a friend present and the technician makes the appointments go by faster and seemingly, less anxiety-inducing.

I feel less despair now, but I know those thoughts aren't far away. They've been close and intrusive for many months now, and I'm ready for that to improve. Whether it's TMS, or attempting medications again after TMS (because some people do respond better to meds after their brain chemistry changes enough from the treatment), or maybe someday I'll even try ECT, but <shudder>, I don't ever want it to come to that.

But regardless of whether or not TMS works, I've been dealing with all this for like 8 years now. I suppose I have shown that I do persist in the face of these challenges, with every day that I get up in the morning. Even if it feels trivial in comparison to what I view as failures.

I know it probably seems like I've been bashing NAMI for the guidelines they've posted, but really I do understand the reasoning behind it, and I know they want to be careful that they aren't triggering people with what they share, and there's a fine line between helping and triggering when it comes to mental illness. And NAMI does so much to support individuals with mental illness and their families, they serve to educate and advocate, and they mostly do a great job doing so. I do feel that some of the choices they made about the latest guidelines aren't considering some of the greater harm they might be doing towards those of us who do suffer, on a regular basis.

I've paid my dues time after time. I've done my sentence but committed no crime.

Tuesday, 01/03/17, 11:12am

Remember how I was changing meds "one last time"? It didn't really help, at all from what we could tell. And as of almost 2 weeks ago, I'm on one more "one last time" med. It's a really slow ramp up to full dosage so... it just feels like it's going to take that much longer to kick in. That is, if it does kick in. Ugh, I am so pessimistic about everything lately, but I need to keep an open mind about this one. It's not even an antidepressant, so technically now I'm on no antidepressants at all. But this newest med I'm on has shown benefit for depression when nothing else has worked, so maybe I'm a good candidate after all.

I'm getting really exhausted with trying new meds. Obviously I get some benefit from them all, since they seem to kick in a little and remove some of the overwhelming crush of depression that is constantly present while we're waiting for meds to work. Because yeah, this has kinda been a "crushing" depression the last week and a half since stopping the antidepressants. I've been crying at the drop of a hat and at each kindness I've received from loving friends and family. A dear friend brought over dinner last night, which was amazing. The whole "cooking dinner" thing has been a big failure challenge of mine the last half year or so.

It's been so frustrating that I feel like I want to get better, but maybe I'm not motivated to do things for myself that may help. Mindfulness, exercise, showering, blogging, even brushing teeth, have felt overwhelmingly impossible, and everytime I want to do one of those things, but fail, it's this overwhelming crush of "it's all my fault." For a long time, this stupid effing depression, has felt like "it's all my fault." I don't understand why, rationally, I completely understand that this is truly an illness and I don't have control over it (maybe I have tools that help, like from therapy, but that's almost nothing like "control"), and yet I still self-stigmatize. Ugh, and I hate myself for it. Why do I always have to find reasons to hate myself????

Why? Why? Why? Because it's a fucking illness, and these things (self stigmatizing, self shaming, self loathing) are all symptoms. Sigh. UGH. BLECH.

Have I made it clear enough how much I hate the depression?

This should have been a positive post. A post looking forward to 2017 and things that may help and things I intend to work on this year. And I'm having trouble finding anything positive to say.

Ok.

It's 2017. It's a new year. Who knows what this year might bring? I know I have some vague new years' resolutions, but I am going to keep them private. Sure, I know we're more likely to keep them when we share, but that can also be extremely dangerous for me in the expectations I set for myself, and the self-shaming I do if I am not doing as well on my intentions as I want to (and being a perfectionist, I always want to do things better than is ever reasonable or possible). For now, for this year, we have some big hopes (not really resolutions) regarding my depression and treatment. But if they aren't fulfilled, it is NOT a failure. Just have to get that out there now, before those "what if" thoughts even start.

It's not much but my positive thought today is about hope. Hope for good things this year and always. Hope for love, and for gratitude. Hope for peace and collaboration and empathy in the world.

it could be worse

Tuesday, 12/27/16, 1:15pm

Sometimes a day hits that feels nearly impossible to get through. Sometimes it's a few days in a row. And sometimes it feels like months.

These last many months have been very difficult. Adam died in May, which sucked and still sucks and will always suck to whatever extent. We've been changing medications around since like September, which hasn't been going all too well.

Nasser and I have been talking about my depression, and the course of it over the several years. Certain things about it have never felt acceptable, considering the treatment options out there, and the treatments I've tried, both medicinally and therapeutically. The level of low that I get, like intensity, the frequency of my lows. We've tried to look back on the various medications I've attempted and said to ourselves, "maybe that one did work better than I remember." To be honest, it's probably more me that's been doing this than us. I think Nasser would prefer that we look less at the past and keep trying to move forward.

I've been feeling super ashamed about my depression lately all the time. I thought it was helping me to be more honest about it, like with the blogging, but it's also super difficult and sometimes oftentimes just hurtful towards myself. I expect, or wish, for my depression to be treated more like physical illnesses. I expect people to be forward about their support, and many are. But the overwhelming silence is hard. That's the place that breeds me coming up for reasons for why that is. Do people just see me as the weak idiot who can't control her emotions, which is what I fear about myself constantly? Maybe responses of "get over it" and "stop feeling sorry for yourself" aren't any better since those totally accept the stigma that it's all my fault.

The effing stigma. The effing self-stigma. It's like depression, and especially suicide, would be less prevalent without the stupid effing stigma. And most people out there don't get it. If there's less stigma, how do those thoughts of "I'm just a burden to everyone around me" breed anyway? I really wonder what would happen to our world if we all stopped stigmatizing those with an illness, mental or physical?

Just. Fuck. Sometimes, it's just fuck. The world is fuck. The stigma is fuck. This day is fuck.

Excuse my language. Had to get that out though.

Also on top of the effing depression today, there's the sad business of people dying. Like Carrie Fisher. Ugh. Death sucks.

but see how the wind it blows, all the birds scatter and I’m out here alone

Sunday, 11/27/16, 12:28pm

Today is one of those slipping at the edge of a deep dark hole kinda days. One where every once in a while I feel like I'm sitting there, with my butt just barely on the edge but enough to rest. And then it feels like I slip again, with Nasser or a friend reaches down to hold one of my limbs and helps me climb back up.

I think being out of reality in Steamboat Springs this past week has been wonderful but also, well, out of reality. I pushed away the depression and anxiety when it hit, I guess until now. Yesterday was my birthday, Thursday was Adam's. They were ok days in fact, all things considered. Better than I expected at least. Maybe all those feelings were just delayed until today.

I happened to glance at the subject line of a Quora Digest from yesterday, entitled "What is the loneliest thing in the world?". I have not yet looked at the answers, right now I cannot. But I can start formulating my own answer.

I would venture to say, as one who suffers from depression and anxiety, that the deepest, darkest feelings of depression is the loneliest thing in the world. That state, that one that breeds those darkest feelings of despair, is so lonely, that you are incapable of seeing those parts of your life that are not lonely. When I am starting to feel despair about my life, I think that everyone around me is judging and hating me and would rather I not exist. That's a big part of what breeds the suicidal thoughts.

To me, yes, a state of life and love and health and companionship and community and many other wonderful things often prevent people from feeling lonely. However, the state of depression will typically remove the ability to see the good. To see what's all really wonderful and what's to be thankful for. The state of depression makes it all lonely.

And then there's the stigma. I know, I know, here I am talking about the stigma again. But. I do believe that the stigma prevents us sufferers from sharing with eachother oftentimes. I write this blog, and I know, from people sharing with me once in a while about their own struggles, that I am not alone. But depression still feels very lonely. I don't feel much more able to reach out for help or support usually, other than to blog or to send a vague text to a friend. Of course, I reach out to Nasser all the time, since he sees my depression regularly and is really the only person in the world who really, truly gets what my struggle is. He sees it day in and day out and knows about every single depressive breakdown, even if he only finds out into the recovery. I don't know what I would do without him.

Today I'm writing, but I don't feel all the warm and fuzzies about the blog as I usually do. Today I feel like a failure and that totally and completely extends to my feelings about my blog. It also feels like a failure and a waste and perhaps something to just scrap. I do feel that way about my blog sometimes, when I'm feeling really bad or I've had another vulnerability hangover; I feel like I should delete its existence. There is too much awful stuff about me for others to read and know. How can I let that exist and be available? I don't know and I'm often not sure I will forever. Sometimes it is just too painful to share.

I will leave with some non-depressive thoughts. I have some pictures from the week. My constant pajama-wearing kiddos played some card games, also enjoyed being kids with eachother, also tried some fun new activity mats, and learned how to better use chopsticks.

More games pictures. :)

Believe it or not, we made it onto the slopes for a bit on Friday. It was not too successful and we made it down one long run, switching between green and blue difficulty, but the boys (and we) were super grumpy by the end. Some newish snow on top of packed icy stuff was not great and some sections were a bit too steep for the boys as it was the first run of the season. I have no photographic proof of this skiing adventure since we were all way too grumpy.

Nasser made me a mocha and yummy breakfast for my birthday yesterday morning...

And here's our best family photo from Thanksgiving, all. Love to everyone.

just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there

Monday, 11/07/16, 2:00pm, 3:37pm

I thought about blogging earlier when I had quite a bit of time, but now I'm in the mood to blog and I'll have to get the boys from the bus before finishing this post.

Also I wrote quite a bit before remembering what today is. Do you all know what today is, my dear readers? Today is my "blogiversary". I have no idea if that's a thing or not, but I'm calling it one. Last year, on November 7th, I wrote my very first post. And I'm not gonna link it for you. Because I just reread it and I feel ahem, like maybe I've come a long way? Yikes, I'm sure I still have a long way to go.

My kitty cat got me in the mood to blog today. Buddy the cat found me upstairs, looking at crockpot recipes for tomorrow, zoning out. I think we both needed some quality petting time. I feel like I've been neglecting him lately. Or maybe he's just good at making me feel like he desperately needs petting. That may be it.

We had Nasser's mom and stepfather in town this weekend, which was nice, but I felt awkward and ashamed and those stupid, irrational feelings, when I was down at various points in the weekend. I tend to feel that way around people when I feel depressed or anxious. Even though I desperately fight and hate the stigma around mental illness, I still stigmatize myself. Ugh. I hate that.

And it's not like either of them would judge me if I just talked openly about the depressed feelings over the weekend. But it's so hard to do that in the moment. Talking about it tends to open those flood gates of tears and could then even trigger a little further depression, or maybe that's just what I'm afraid of.

Nasser and I went to my psychiatric appointment together today. The outcome was the medication I'm on isn't doing enough to combat the anxiety and maybe my anti-anxiety med isn't a high enough dosage. Whew. More meds. But that's ok. That's not a failure. Right?

Sigh. No, it is not a failure.

I am definitely anxious about the election, cuz, ya know, that's tomorrow. Yikes. And I know I shouldn't get all worked about it, but it's kinda a big election.

Go vote people.

we're coming to the edge, running on the water

Sunday, 10/16/16, 9:43am

(Side note at 1:40pm, I was all ready to scrap this post, because I got to a lower state and I thought I sounded too optimistic here, if that gives you any gauge of how I'm doing... whatever. I'll post it anyway and hope that it's hopefulness at the end picks me back up.)

For a little while now, I've been less interested to blog when I'm in a crappy mood. I feel like I've had to force myself to blog during a low, whereas I used to feel a need for the blog before. I think it probably has a little to do with the fact that I do share my blog more widely now and more people can know about my lows.

I think I was calmed into a lull when I first started with the blog. At first I only shared with people who were super close to me, who weren't going to judge me. But as I've shared more, and more widely, and become more and more vulnerable, it's become more scary. People have said things with well intentions that still sting, and people have said things with judging intentions (not many thankfully!). And it's scary to know that I've just signed myself up for anyone and everyone to judge me, my self care, my treatment of my depression, because apparently we do that with mental health, more so than we do with physical health. It's really weird how we do that. I mean I suppose we judge people who refuse to see a doctor, for whatever the reason, but with mental health, we really judge people on "how hard they're trying". I mean, for crying out loud, I do see a psychiatrist and a therapist (pretty damn regularly), and I exercise and blog and seek support from those around me, and sure, maybe I don't practice mindfulness as often as I should, but I'm TRYING.

I don't know why I feel the need to start off so defensively.

I suppose it's in preparation to say, I'm not entirely sure that this new medication IS working as amazingly well as I initially thought. It's not a miracle drug. And I suppose I never really thought it would be. But I think it did kick in, right around the end of my last period, while we were in Bermuda, and everything felt really great for awhile. And it was this nice long stretch of wonderfulness. And even though I was talking about how I don't want to take that as an expectation of the future, I must have still done that.

This weekend has been super busy for us, in comparison to a lot of recent weekends, and although it's all good things, it's taken a toll on my mood. The anxiety and depression crept into my day yesterday, despite a really great day Friday, starting with a beautiful bike ride with a friend,

a birthday party for a nephew, and quality hanging out with Nasser time after his work trip this week.

(Sorry had to share those pictures). (ARGH, I am not supposed to say sorry. So with the habit I'm trying to form as suggested by Nasser, I will say instead, I love you blog, for allowing me to get distracted with sharing the good stuff, in the middle of sharing the bad stuff. Because that's how I roll).

Yesterday was tough. At many different points. It was also good at many different points. Nasser and I got through a tough discussion about the way we were interacting with eachother and we talked about me trying to cut politics out of my life a little bit since it works me up a bit much. We also had RG's choir concert. Did I tell you he's in a choir this year?? Yeah, I love it. Anyway, I wasn't about to back out of his first ever concert that he was super nervous about, because of some effing depression, so I rallied. But maybe my eyes were a little red and puffy. And I didn't talk much to anyone else. And we really didn't do much afterward with people but it was ok. RG was in a bad mood for awhile about the long day, and dinner plans, and his itchy pants, and he was probably exhausted. Of course, at bed time, he couldn't stop talking with me about the concert, and singing bits of songs, and he seemed to love the choir again.

But then after the kids went to bed, the depression crept in again. I can't even remember what triggered it initially, but it was worsened when we were watching one of our favorite comedians (one we saw live together as one of Nasser's and my first dates back in the day) make several jokes in a row about how psychiatrists aren't real doctors. Oh man that hurt. It was like a blow to the stomach, but I guess more a blow to the brain. Your disease isn't valid. It's all in your head. Just snap out of it. That's the stigma I get faced with in our culture all. the. freaking. time. I'm sure I notice it more because those words scream out at me more than they do other people. I was terrified to watch any other shows or comedians or whatever for fear that there would be more mental illness trivialization.

Today is a bit busy as well with another nephew's birthday party this afternoon (my sister's birthday was yesterday, the nephews' birthdays are this week, a day apart from eachother, and my dad's birthday is next week - October is a busy month for us!!), and I am trying. This morning isn't super easy because Nasser is taking a few hours to play video games with friends who don't live here, online. I've felt better about giving him this time more regularly, since playing with other people is better for him than playing alone, plus it gives him social time with these friends. Normally it's fine, but today the game it a bit more violent with the zombies, and the killing, and the gore, and we're not letting the kids watch. They've gotten some of their own video game time in, hence the ability for me to blog. But I needed it. Already the depression had crept in this morning with me yelling at Nasser for sleeping in, ALL THE TIME, which he really doesn't do. Then he held me while we practiced some mindfulness/breath concentration together to try and prevent me from crying. I still cried, but maybe it wasn't as bad as it would have been had we not practiced.

We decided some verbiage around mindfulness practice. It is a practice, just like yoga. One that, I believe, allows for no existence of failure. If you practice, you will likely get better at it, and you're doing it. You can't be bad at it, there is only the possibility of not practicing it. If you find yourself with wondering thoughts, you simply try again. If you are in a balance yoga pose, and your raised leg falls to the floor, you simply take a deep breath, and try again.

I suppose that's exactly life. You fall down those holes. Maybe you get stuck sometimes, having trouble finding the way out, but we all stop and help eachother along the way. Thank goodness for that.