Is it the ECT? The anesthetic? My Meds? A Natural Shift?..

I just read this article about Ketamine and how it can almost instantaneously help treatment resistant depression. I wonder if they use that as part of the ECT aenesthetic?...maybe that is why I feel so good?

Well...I still awake, not dumped afterall and high as a kite...

I am wired for sound, super excited to be alive, enjoying my life, feeling like the old me is returning full steam ahead. The excited, enthusiastic, loving, busy, energetic, action oriented, unstoppable me is back. and I am loving every second of it.

I can see I may be a bit too high (like the not sleeping at all may be a bit of a problem). I am switching from task, to task, to task...having a hard time keeping focused on one thing. Everything seems so important!!! I'm also feeling a sense of my self racing...both my mind/spirit and my physical being.

I HAD to find some sedatives last night and the two nights before (I found some left over Valium), because I was so hyper I felt panicky. The Valium didn't seem to do anything at all for my hyperness...so I had a couple stiff drinks tonight. That didn't help much (if at all) either...so maybe I will take more sleep meds to try to slow myself down. I'm also a bit too quick to anger/lash out.

Overall though, I just feel like my old self...happy, busy, excited to be alive, creative, thrilled with life, full of ideas, ready for action, enthusiastic and full of love and appreciation for everything and everyone...that old self that I love and have missed so much.

It seems I have not been "dumped" after all. I think maybe I was not thinking clearly yesterday. I can see I may have been a bit to "On", "pushy", and dare I say..."demanding", or at the very least full of extraordinarily high expectations. My sweetheart is really slipping into a deep depression right now and I think I need to try harder to step back, slow down and let him choose a pace that works for him and helps him keep himself stable.

It is hard to explain what I feel. I have not had the pleasure of feeling this way for any decent period of time, for so long; of experiencing the self I like, love, adore... for so many years...that I feel "obliged" to wring every last drop of joy out of my brain...to soak it up, to slather myself in all I love and need and want. I feel I need to do everything and anything I want to do, and feel like doing...while I have the capacity to enjoy my life and all it has to offer as much as I am right now.

Look out world...are you ready for me???

I can't sleep...it's almost 4:30am!!

My day was weird...

It's Valentines Day and I think I have been dumped, without actually being dumped. Let go with no mention of a breakup. Men confuse me.

Oh The Swings in These Things...

Wow...an about face took place yesterday. I woke up feeling revitalized, alive, joyous, on, high, exhalted, creative, beautiful, sexy, talented...all those things I feel so rarely. I feel, and have felt the same high all day today...and wow have I got tons done...cleaning, driving all over the city doing all kinds of chores, helping others, 3 huge and long and beautiful walks in the pouring rain with my dog, and I painted all evening...it was so great.

Here are two paintings I finished last night (one was part done, the other I had barely started before last night)...I painted for 6-7 hours straight..dancing singing, painting...loving my life in these moments...ahhhh!!!

Each of them are 24" X 24", acrylic on canvas...and the canvases have a 1.5" profile...They look better in real life, but I will share anyways. I felt so good this past two days that (dare I say this???)...I actually felt that with more practice and experience I could be good at this!!

Wow...I feel great!! I have decided that maybe I will continue ECT, because I have not had as many good days in the last 9 years as I have had in the last 3 months...sure I'm still depressed, but at least I am periodically getting some really good relief.

Raging Depression

I feel so messed up right now I feel like I cannot even write. I was about to delete my blog, when I read the last comment, by Chris, on my last post. One of the big reasons I wanted to write this blog in the first place was to reach out to people who are struggling with mental illness, and in particular, depression.

I do not know what is happenening to me, but I am not doing well. I have been going for ECT weekly, but nothing good is coming of it. The past week and a half, (maybe more), all I have felt is RAGE. I feel so angry inside I feel like I am going to blow up; explode! There is so much bad energy in me right now. I do not understand what is happening to me. I am both scared and I have had it. I can't take life anymore.

When I went for ECT on Monday, I tried to express that I wasn't doing well, and the Dr./nurses asked me if I had changed my medicine. I stopped taking the high dose of dexedrine because I am wondering if it is making me crazy. They didn't even listen to me...and scoffed at my complaints about anger/rage...saying I was feeling that because of medication withdrawal.

If they had listened to me they would have understood that I had been feeling enraged for days/week before I decided to stop the amphetimines. I stopped them BECAUSE I was feeling bad...I didn't feel bad because I stopped them. I'm still angry, irritated, flustered, frustrated, cranky, and so depressed I don't know how to keep trying. I want to go...

My Heart Feels Broken...

...in so many ways.

I feel so desperately and severely depressed today. I could feel the depression returning on Monday, despite having ECT Monday morning. I felt cranky, and irritable, frustrated, flustered and I found myself swearing like a sailor all day. My memory is so brutally bad. I am forgetting things, mixing things up, times up, schedules up, losing things, confused about important things and basically feel mixed-up and lost. I feel like my hope has disappeared.

All day, all I wanted was to die. Please god let me go. I cannot take this anymore. I thought ECT was helping me heal...but I think my last commenter may be closer to the truth...it may have been the support and friendly gestures from other patients that helped me feel better. For various reasons...my external supports are very low right now.


I wanted so badly to call one of my family members for help today because I cannot stop dreaming, wishing, hoping I will die. Problem is...I just finished telling my family how much better I felt, and all of them are thrilled. My Dad, who never asks me how I am, or lets me know he's on my side, has been phoning me to see that I`m well. He told me he was so happy to hear I was better the other day. He said he thought I would never be well. My stepmom said she didn`t think I would survive this depression much longer...She is right. How do I call and ask for support, when everyone wants so badly for me to be well? How can I let everyone down again? I can't.

On top of all this my dog has been really sick. I don`t really know what happened, but while I was in the hospital, he was at my sister's. At some point my sister said he beat her dog up, and wouldn't stop. This sounds exactly "UNLIKE" my dog. I have never seen him bite another dog, ever! He is usually the friendliest and gentlest dog in any group. I hope this misbehaviour was a one off type of behaviour. It scares me that he behaved that way.

I feel awful that he behaved like that...but the vet that looked at him at the time did nothing for him...saying he was okay and now he is very, very sick....and covered in many, many, many puncture/bite marks many of which had become infected. The other day he got a fever, and twice could not lift himself into my car's back seat. When I lifted him in, he stood up briefly and then collapsed onto his side. I raced to the nearest vet and he was hospitalized; where he was rehydrated with intravenous liquids and given blood tests, and antibiotics, and 2 days and almost $800.00 later he was sent home with me, where many of his bites continue to be, or become, infected.

Then there is my relationship. I know...with all my problems...it has probably been hard for my boyfriend, but I try really hard to be there for him too. I think my being sick is too much for him. I woke the night before last night at 5am...and he was gone...no note, no phone call. Yesterday he said he told me, but my memory is so bad...I do not remember at all.

He e-mailed me the next day and said he got really anxious and just needed to get outside and walk, and walk, and walk. I asked him if we were okay, and he says yes...but I sense I am being dumped and he's trying to be nice about it.

I hate weird games, and excuses...they only work to make me imagine the worst, and imagine the worst is my fault...like I'm too crazy for him, too depressed, too broken. If it really was anxiety, just talk with me about it...we talk about that kind of stuff all the time. We were fine until I actually let him know how depressed I really am and he saw how sad I was. I guess on some level I have been dishonest with him about how I am.

I did tell him I was severely depressed for a long time, but people are confused by me, because when I am with people I work hard to put on a face, to interact, to make an effort. Often when other people are around me it helps my mood lift briefly. Anyways, my heart feels broken. I really love my boyfriend. I want so badly for this to work out, but I sense he has had enough.

I hurt so much right now. I feel back where I started before the hospital, only worse. There is something worse about having felt well for such a brief period, only for it to slip away so rapidly. I feel even more hopeless now than I did before I tried all the ECT, and the hospital.

Becoming Me Again...and then losing myself all over again...

These beginning statments were written Jan. 28, 2010:
I cannot think of any other way to describe the transformation of my "self" that has taken place over the past 7 weeks. Over the past two or three weeks I have witnessed my rebirth.

Until the past three weeks I believed I was gone forever. I believed my depression had taken me over, taken me away, destroyed my self. I was giving up. My hope had disappeared. I never believed I would find hope again. I was wrong. There is hope. It is possible for me to feel better. There is a chance I will become well again. Thank God!!!!


I have been gone for a long while. I went to the hospital the first week of January, because I could not manage my depression anymore. I asked to have Electroconvulsive therapy again (ECT) to try to lift my mood a bit. I was hospitalized for it, because I did not have anyone to help me do it as an outpatient. I really believe I needed to be in the hospital, and that the stay helped me too.

First, in the hospital I met so many wonderful people. My first two roommates were sent to me by God, I am sure. They helped me find so much hope in such a difficult circumstances. It is really incredible what the love and care of another human being can do for another person's soul. Second, in the hospital I could let go of my responsibilities and just do things for me. I have a hard time taking care of "me" in the outside world. I don't know how to just be. I am always so worried about everything. I can't seem to just let go anymore, and just be. Something about being in the hospital gave me the "permission" I needed to just be. That seemed to help me.

The afternoon I wrote the above, for the first time in years I actually felt like the real me, the happy me, the enthusiastic, happy to be alive me, for more than 2 or 3 days at a time. As I wrote about my "rebirth, I felt I was truly at the beginning of my rebirth. Then the last few days happened....I have not felt like that at all.

I feel myself sinking again. Even after ECT (maintenance ECT) yesterday a.m. I did not seem to feel any better. Today I feel so depressed again, I am afraid I am slipping back into my old patterns. I feel no hope. I feel alone. I feel like a burden. I feel hard to be around. I feel overwhelmed and overwhelming. I feel like I am sinking back into the black pit and sinkhole from which, only a few days ago, I believed I had escaped.

I am so scared my "rebirth", was just a blip; scared I am returning from whence I came. I cannot manage that idea.