Depression

I wrote a column the other day about asking for help and how amazing it was because I actually received it and fast! I should’ve guessed that was going to an amazing experience, but I rarely ask for help so it surprised me a bit. I guess I still had it in my head that only weak people ask for help, which is 100% WRONG.

There is nothing weak about having mental illness, asking for help, going inpatient, doing electroconvulsive therapy, going in “low-battery mode,” and/or anything else you need to do if you’re struggling or just living with a mental health condition.

It’s difficult to be mentally ill. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about something I need to do in order to be healthy — take my meds correctly, sleep well, eat a healthy diet, get enough sleep, go to therapy, etc. It’s exhausting sometimes, especially when a depressive episode comes out of nowhere and turns everything upside down, which is what has happened to me these past few weeks. You don’t have time to be weak when that happens. Nope, you call your doctor, therapist and PCP. Your try new medicine, schedule ketamine therapy, whatever your doc suggests you do. You have to be adaptable. Is that right word? You have to be flexible. There’s not a lot of time for me to mourn this episode, even though that’s what I want to do.

We’ll I guess I’ve mourned quite a bit, but that’s okay, too. I don’t need to be strong, but that’s the emotion that comes out first, allowing me to get through some of these complicated emotions. And being weak? Like I said, there’s nothing weak about any of this. That’s stigma and misconception that the mentally ill are weak. But after 30 ECTs, I can assure you I’m not weak.

Actually, why do people feel a need to comment on those with a mental health condition anyway? I’m not sure why we need to have a debate about whether we’re weak or strong? But it seems like we do. It even feels like I’m working really hard to convince your — or myself — that I’m strong. So maybe we should ditch those adjectives.

I have mental health conditions, and I’m struggling with major depressive disorder right now. All that I can do is make healthy choices and follow my psychiatrist’s orders. I’ve been here before, and I know I will get better. I can do this.

Because I’m a fighter, and I have a hell of a lot to fight for.

I had a follow-up with my psych this morning so she could see how I was doing on that new depression med. We decided to go forward with a bigger dose, and my doc wants me to try ketamine now, too, because it doesn’t sound like I’m improving as fast as she’d like. As I’d like. That’s fine by me, I’ve had ketamine before, and it has helped. I think the new pill is working, too. It just takes a while. It always does, but I have time, too.

After we hung up I decided to write down a gratitude list, and oh man, there are so many things I’m grateful for. My life is amazing, and I have far more to be happy about than sad. I know that’s not how depression works, but it’s nice remembering all the good in my life. And for once, instead of expecting more depression and crummy days, I started to think about my comeback. It’s there. I can feel it. It may not be anytime soon, but it’s there.

And I’m reminded why I got my huge Phoenix bird tatted on my back.

“Some nights the wolf inside me shrinks to nothing, she bares her teeth and runs away. The dragon in my chest rejects me, she’s so tired of being slain. There are nights when the lioness cowers, says she can’t fight it another day…”
“What about the phoenix?”
“She sits with me in the darkness. She whispers ‘we’ll rise. Just you wait.’”

I will rise. I’ve done it before, and my life was more amazing than I ever thought it could be.

I feel like I have something to learn this time that I didn’t or couldn’t learn last time, but I’ll get there.

I hear the phoenix whisper, “just you wait.”

So I will.

It seemed like it happened so fast, but looking back I see the signs that a depressive episode was coming — the irritability, naps during the day and more sleep on the weekend, I would snap at the kids more and I craved more alone time (isolating). And then the fatigue set in, and I felt the depression crushing me. I couldn’t take showers as much. I had to rely more on David to help me with my normal chores, which I hate doing.

I happened to have an appointment with my psychiatrist when this was all going on, so I enumerated all these problems, but at that time, I didn’t feel like I was in trouble. But a couple of days later, I became frantic and texted her that I needed help right away. We talked that day about different medications that could help, picking one that is used off label for depression and is less likely to give me tardive dyskinesia. It’s actually a medication used for Parkinson’s and restless leg syndrome but my doc has seen success with it in patients who have treatment resistant depression — that’s me, of course.

So because of this depressive episode, I have had to cancel work presentations and meetings and then social outings of my own. I’ve always had social anxiety, so those have always been a challenge, but you add depression and anxiety on top, and it’s near impossible. I actually had to take a couple weeks of from NAMI GCC, even though I LOVE LOVE LOVE what I do. I just have to focus on me right now.

The person who had taken this very personally is my daughter. One morning, after no sleep, I told her I couldn’t bring her lunch to her on the special day it was allowed. I had brought it to her the previous week, though. She got pissed and said I was “using my depression as an excuse for everything.” That really pissed me off. Then she got mad when I didn’t have the energy to volunteer at a Girl Scouts’ meeting. I get that it’s disappointing, I really do. But I had an in-depth conversation with her about what depression is, how it makes me feel, what I can and can’t do, etc. Still she’s only 10 and can’t understand completely. It still hurts my feelings so much. I can do 1,000 things right, but she’ll find the 1 or 2 things I do wrong and harp on them for days, even weeks. It certainly doesn’t help my mood. But again, I know she can’t fully comprehend what I’m going through — not just that, but she’s also dealing with the fact I told her I have depression. That’s hard to take in. She’s realizing I’m different than other moms (even though nothing has changed in me since I told her). Still, her mother just dropped a bomb on her.

It feels like someone dropped one on me, too. I have to tell you that I was not prepared for this at all. There were no triggers or changes in my life that spurred this episode. That’s the scariest part — that there was no real warning. I was doing just fine, being my happy self, living my normal life, which I love, when lightning struck out of nowhere. And with such intensity. I know what to do when this happens — I have a wellness plan, I’ve been to support groups where we’ve discussed what to do in crisis, I’ve memorized things to do. But, when it came time, I thought about the first steps in my head and thought, “that’s impossible,” and I continued to lie down. I isolated. I either didn’t eat at all or I ate too much junk. I tried to nap all day until I had to pick the kids up. I stopped showering. I didn’t put on “real clothes,” just sweats and workout garb. Emails were ignored. I canceled all my appointments because I didn’t want to leave the house or because my hair was dirty from now showering.

Again, what’s scary is that it did not take long for me to get to this place.

Finally I started telling my family and friends what was going on. I was honest; I told them the truth instead of blaming migraines or whatever illness I used to blame it on. I admitted it to the Girl Scouts leaders and moms because I needed someone to fill in for me as a volunteer. It was so freeing. I wasn’t doing it for sympathy; I just needed to tell them hey this is what’s going on. Sometimes severe depression can do this. I’m not afraid of asking for help because of my depression. And hopefully me normalizing it will help others do the same.

I do really appreciate others reaching out to me and supporting me. I made a post on Facebook, and the support I got there was amazing. Everyone had something inspiring and comforting to say. Someone mentioned that my village was with me, and that meant so much to me. It brought tears to my eyes, and reminded me that yes, I can do this. I’m starting my medication today, that’s one day closer to a happier me.

Thank you, everybody. We got this.

I always assumed my mental illness was going to be the death of me, but nope, here I am wishing I had some high-powered edibles, an ECT that would somehow make me forget the next few years or some kind of non-serious illness that would require lots of bed rest and very little stress so I wouldn’t have to face the hormones that taken over my beautiful, kind daughter and replaced her with that vicious sand worm from Beetlejuice.

I was just bragging on her the other day, detailing how good therapy has been for her and that I have seen real positive change. That all the extra time we’ve been hanging out has helped with her positive demeanor and confidence. I could see real change.

Then today I ask her about a couple of math grades, letting her know that I’m here if she feelings like she’s struggling. She’s in 4th grade but is in an accelerated math class so is doing 5th grade math. I told her I don’t care about her math grades much, I just want her happy and healthy, and we can get her help with math if she needs it.

The next thing I know she has locked herself in the bathroom, yelling about the time I told her she was adopted (in jest. To be fair, she asked me like 10 times if she was and finally I said yes). She knew I was joking. Then she brought up another comment I made. And another. Suddenly she’s got an elephant’s memory. Each of these memories we were both teasing each other, but only now she was hurt, even though I had apologized 1,000 times before.

I told her I loved her but we couldn’t do the cool mom/best friend thing if she was going to take me too seriously. How many times was she going to punish me for something I said? When she started the teasing in the first place? From now on, I said, it’s strictly a mother/daughter relationship and we needed to respect those boundaries in order not to hurt each other.

The next thing I know she’s in her room howling and sobbing hysterically. At this point, David doesn’t let me get near her again. That’s not the reaction I was looking for — I’m just tired of joking then apologizing for that joke multiple times, never really being forgiven. Neither of us is mature enough to be in a mom/daughter best friend deal. And that’s fine. We can work on our mother/daughter relationship, making it stronger and defining it how we want it to be.

Not right now though, because that hormonal sand worm thing ain’t a joke.

This really makes me scared for when puberty hits.

I felt it yesterday. The urge to binge. The need to have different foods tantalize my taste buds, however fleeting. I miss sampling multiple dishes, shutting my eyes while I savored the flavors and that feeling of being full and safe – but not too full – although I’d always get there. Always.

I don’t binge anymore. I take Zepbound, one of the weight loss shots, that helps me curb my binge eating disorder. I have lost weight on the shot – about 25 pounds – but that wasn’t my goal. I was desperate to stop the bingeing. So far, this is the only thing that has helped. Honestly I don’t care much about food while on the shot. It’s more about fuel for my body, not something pleasurable. And I’ve been fine with that.

Until yesterday.

I don’t know why, but yesterday I just missed food. I wanted to shove my face in a giant pizza, eat fried chicken and go to the Olive Garden to let loose. I wanted to eat more than a couple bites of something and not get totally full.

But why? I thought I was depriving myself too much, but then I heard myself say that “it’s easier to binge. It’s way easier to swallow food whole rather than sit with my feelings and figure out what’s bugging me.”

I rolled my eyes at myself.

I’m not sure all my binges have been about circumventing my feelings (I’d have to ask my therapist to be sure), but I’m betting most of them have. I think everyone can agree that eating a delicious bowl of pasta or a medium rare filet is better than figuring out why you feel uncomfortable and angry.

And I hate to tell you — even if you are on a weight loss drug — you will not lose weight if something’s eating you and you are eating everything in return.

Which means I have to figure out what’s going on, like now. Luckily, I have a therapy appointment tomorrow. But I need to start doing the hard work now. Honestly, I feel like everything is good. School is about to start, which means I can get back to my regular routine (I hate my summertime routine). Maybe I’m having anxiety about school starting and things getting busy? Things at NAMI are good. I’m getting to see my parents a lot lately and have another trip coming up. I just had my yearly physical, and I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. Maybe my kids’ birthday parties coming up are giving me anxiety? I always worry that nobody will show up. There’s always something, but I always deal with it, and it’s fine. So I’m not sure what’s going on.

What I do know is that I can’t go back to bingeing. Being healthy is amazing, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

There’s more work to do. I know that. But I will never, never, never, never ever thought I would be here.

And I’m never, never ever going back.

Screw a pizza and Olive Garden breadsticks.

It’s Mental Health Awareness Month. While every month is Mental Health Awareness Month to me, I want my non-mental health-field friends to know a few things. Maybe I’ve mentioned these before — I can be quite loquacious at times and certainly in this blog — but I feel the need to repeat myself. I have a bad memory, too.

Depression is awful. You’re not just sad when you have depression; you lose the ability to care about and enjoy things you once loved doing. And that sucks. It’s like the whole world is black and white, and nothing makes you feel good at all. You can’t shower (in my experience) or do anything to improve your personal hygiene. Just thinking about taking a shower is too much work. You isolate. You don’t want to hang out with friends. You just want to be alone, and even though you feel the need to recharge, you don’t ever get recharged. You stay exhausted and lonely. You miss school or work. You get written up. Nobody understands. People think you’re being selfish or lazy – or the worst – people think you’re not being grateful as if that has anything to do with the neurons and chemicals in my brain. You lose your appetite or start to binge eat because your depression has triggered your eating disorder. Your sleep schedule gets messed up. The pain you feel is deep and you just want to drop to your knees and moan or scream. A guttural noise that expresses your misery.

That’s just a preview. And that’s just depression.

Anxiety sucks, too. Sometimes it’s worse than the depression. I think I wrote a blog about that, too. I also have a rare personality disorder, and as previously mentioned, an eating disorder. I can detail each condition, it’s just too much.

I don’t want to make this about me, though. I’m just one person experiencing depression and other mental health conditions when actually 1 in 5 U.S. adults will experience mental illness each year, but only half will receive the help they need. Now that sucks. And if that’s not bad enough, the average delay is 11 years between the onset of mental health symptoms and getting treatment. That’s insane. I say that, but it took me even longer.

1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year — think Bipolar Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder (that’s me) and Schizophrenia. Not nearly enough will receive treatment either.

Something that’s eye-opening to me is that 1 in 6 youth experience a mental health disorder each year. And that 50% of all life-time mental illness begins by age 14 and 75% by age 24. This is exactly why we need to be talking about mental illness all the time. If we did, parents and teachers could better recognize warning signs of mental illness which could lead to early intervention, which could save a child/teen years of struggling.

I had my daughter evaluated for ADHD, which she did have, but the psychiatrist suggested she go to therapy first for self-esteem and anxiety issues. His exact words were “Let’s get her into therapy now so she’s not going to therapy her entire life.” I must’ve made a face because he quickly said unless you like going to therapy, lol. I don’t love therapy but I have been doing it most of my entire adult life. But I digress.

We have to start talking about this. There is nothing wrong with getting or asking for help. Because let me tell you this: suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among children aged 10-14. Our children need to be able to talk to us about their feelings, and we need to listen without judgement. To be able to find them help. To advocate for them.

The time is now, friends.

Let’s talk.