Hollow

This post will not be eloquent, or elegant. I seem to have lost my ability to write. That is why I have not been posting. I have lost my voice. I cannot seem to "create" anymore, whether it be painting, drawing or writing, my creative self, my artistic spirit seems quite literally to have disappeared.

I am not sure why. I am still severely depressed (and getting worse...again), so I know that affects me, but even when severely depressed I usually am at least a bit creative. Since I had ECT last year, and/or since I began taking Lithium I have lost both my creativity, and have been having great difficulty with my memory.

Anyways, I was just thinking about what to talk about in therapy. It seems like I get to therapy and I have no idea what to say...sort of like not writing here, or not being able to create. I feel like I can't express myself the way I need to. So I was just thinking about what is most important for me to deal with and I made a list.

1. For the last year I have had extreme memory problems. I get lost in my own city, confused when trying to navigate, even in places I am extremely familiar with. I forget appointments, stand up friends, can't remember what I just read, have huge holes in my long term and short term memory and feel so frustrated and stupid I want to scream. Dr. X tells me it is "pseudo-dementia", that if it were real I would not know I was having these difficulties. This idea enrages me. This "fake" dementia...is adding to the already huge ruins of my life.

I feel angry, because my memory problems are REAL. This problem is severely affecting my life. It is also making me feel even more depressed and anxious, I feel stupid and slow. People look at me strangely, judge me, and are annoyed I can't remember things. It is getting worse.

2. My constant negative thoughts, racing and going around and around and around incessantly all day. It is to the point that the only thing I look forward to is taking my sleeping medication so I can stop the thoughts.

3. I am angry with myself for loosing track and control of my life. I Intellectually i think I understand I have a mental illness, but on some, deeper, more important level I think I am in denial that an illness has made me this way. I feel like I did this to myself for some reason. I let myself get off track. If I really tried harder I could get better. If I really wanted it I could change.

4. I am so sick of feeling sick all the time. So tired of how fatigued I feel every single day. I feel so fatigued that I don't want to do anything. I literally have to FORCE myself to do the smallest of tasks. I am so sick of it being so much of an effort to do simple things.

5. "Compartmentalizing"...I feel like I am not a consistent person/being. I feel like I change to be whoever I think people need me to be. It is exhausting. I have no idea WHO I am.

6. I want to die...This seems to be the only consistent thought I have. I know I have talked about having suicidal thoughts before, but I feel intensely uncomfortable discussing the details and the depths to which these thoughts engulf me. I feel like the thoughts (an therefore myself) will be seen as childish, or attention seeking, or that they will be dismissed. I feel ashamed for having the thoughts, but I need someone to tell them to.

7. "I feel hollow", Sylvia path said this in the movie "Sylvia", then went on to explain she felt like she was a shell and there was a huge emptiness within. I feel exactly like that, It is even worse since ECT/and or Lithium. My creative spirit, my desire, my abilities, my being has disappeared.

It feels like dying is the only way all these problems will disappear. I see no way out.

Why Can't I Get Motivated

I want to go kayaking; slip through the ocean quietly and peacefully. I want to go camping. Pitch a tent, build a big fire, stare at the stars and listen to nature's peacefulness. I want to go for a bike ride. I want to go for a hike. I want to paint three paintings. I see them in my mind. I need to get them out of me.

I sit and stare at the wall. I want o change. Really I do. I want to be different. I want to DO things. I want to be active. I want to be busy.

The dishes pile up, and up and up. The laundry pile gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I feel completely overwhelmed by just the ordinary responsibilities of life. I feel overwhelmed even though I barely do anything.

I get up out of bed. I walk the dog. These are the two consistent things I manage to do.

Mostly, I feel suffocated by my existence. I feel ashamed for how little effort I put into helping myself get better. I feel like I waste Dr. X's time, because I know what I need to do. I need to DO. I need to get active. I need to participate in life. I need to work, to contribute.

Why then, do I just sit there staring at the wall for hours on end wishing my life would change?

Do You Ever Feel...???

(Please note: I the following post I use the words, "crazy, insane, mad etc. loosely in describing only myself. I in no way intend, or even ever feel, that others having similar symptoms are anything but beautiful, though at times tragic), examples of the breadth of human experience). I'm just exhausted and weirded out and scared, and probably bitter and angry, about my own experience)

Do you ever feel like it doesn't really matter how you feel, because you are fucking insane, and everyone thinks you are crazy, so no one "really" listens anyways? And even if they did, the way you are would make absolutely no more sense to them than it does to you?

I feel like I am losing touch with reality. Yet, how can I be losing touch with reality if I know I am losing touch with reality? I am seeing more and more things around me, and inside me that are passing me some kind of meaning filled message/s...(though can't quite figure out the message/s...), that are making me feel like I am being sent messages, or things are showing themselves to me in order that I find some deep meaning in their presence.

(Eg., mood switching up after going to the front of the church and praying every night, mystical animals (crows) appearing when I need them to appear, pictures of wolves falling off my bookshelves, another wolf appearing on a torn out page of a children's book, right in front of me on the sidewalk, and then the terrifying wolves showing up in my nightmare, then the number 3: three pictures, the 3 nightmares, each nightmare made up of 3 parts)

Thing is, although my mind really does believe this "messages are being passed to me" idea pretty deeply...I can also see that maybe I'm crazier than I thought or something is happening whereby things just "happen", or "show up" at truly random times and places and for some reason my brain is seeing all these things as signs or patterns of meaning that I am MEANT to see??? God help me...

Since I got out of the hospital I have been severely depressed, almost more severely than when I went into the hospital...except last Wed evening my mood started to rise and I had a really great week. All week the rapid onslaught of negative and suicidal thoughts completely stopped, and I felt hope again. I felt like I was cared for, had tons more energy, felt talkative and social. I pretty much felt like I was on the mend. In fact, I felt sure I was becoming well.

...Until Sunday at 5pm.

You read that correctly.

Somewhere around 5pm on Sunday the voice inside my head returned with no warning and no reason behind it returning. {note: Although for the two nights prior, I had really two really bad nightmares, the likes of which I haven't had for a long time (and last night my wolf returned to me in another nightmare}

Just as I was entering the 5 rd bridge the voice/thought, (It has no sound...so it is not really a "voice", but it seems external), said to me:

"You have failed everyone. You have disappointed your dad so much, what a waste of life you are". And I started to cry.

Ever since then the voice has been going on and on about every bad thing I do, or mistake I make, how everyone really is sick of me, how I am not really loved by my boyfriend, how he is pulling away from me, how I have disappointed him and destroyed our relationship, etc.,

Then the voice switches to telling me how fucked up and wrong my thinking is, and how I am just imagining all this stuff and if I would just stop thinking it would all go away...but either way the voice goes on and on and on...maybe it is two voices?? I don't know anymore what is real, and what is my brain having crazy talk.

These thoughts/voices intensify and speed up or slow down. I believe they are magnified when my anxiety gets worse...as I have been having really bad anxiety/panic attacks. It may be though that the voices/thoughts are causing the anxiety as they begin to race faster and faster, and seem to be pushing me to change or die...whichever.

Either way there is an OCD like quality to them...including having a song I have recently listened to play relentlessly over and over and over in my head, as a torturous accompaniment to the thoughts that continue, and often race, faster and faster, harder and harder, over, and over and over, and over. Unstoppable. Unrelenting.

Sometimes I get so much "bad energy" inside me that the voice starts to speed up and it talks at me, over and over and over, at mach speed; incessant, punishing, shame inducing, and guilt producing. Often the voice has suicidal plots and plans, and reasons to die . Lately this is much much worse than any time I can remember before. It is like the thoughts are trying to push me.

If I wasn't crazy before...something inside me is aware I am crazier now. This is not right. I can see I am having strange thoughts...but my brain cannot seem to stop thinking (and while I am having them), believing these thoughts. Please, help me!!! Am I completely losing my mind?

Kafkaesque Bureaucratic Nightmare

My life already feels like a bad dream. Today, trying to get the care I need, in the manner I need it made me feel like I must be a character in a Kafka novel.

My province's (BC) Mental Healthcare system's rigid and top down dictatorial, rule bound, and unsympathetic, inflexible bureaucracy seems to forget that people with mental illnesses require "patient's needs focused care" (rather than bureaucracy-needs focused care), just like patients with physical illnesses. Right now I am frustrated, angry, even more depressed. I had an appointment with Dr. X. today, because I want a referral to receive ECT as an outpatient. He contacted the ECT coordinator at the hospital, and they said I had to have someone with me for 24 hours after each treatment. Period.

It didn't matter that last time I had ECT I was fine and able to care for myself a few hours after the procedure. My only option if no one was available 24hrs/day, three days a week, was to go in as an inpatient.

I felt really annoyed and angry about this, thought it was ridiculous and one of those irritatingly bureaucratic rules where people forget that patients have varying needs, and flexibility would go a long way towards helping patients get there needs met. Patients getting their needs met is what a hospital is supposed to be about...isn't it? The next thing that happened showed me just how unpatient focused BC's Mental Health system can be. I have no idea how people who are even more ill than me get the help they need.

So...Dr. X. and I discussed my going in as an inpatient. I asked him what he would recommend for me, knowing how I am feeling, and he thought going in as an inpatient would be the best thing. Despite really not wanting to be an psychiatric inpatient...for lots of reasons: loss of autonomy, stigma, scrutiny, potentially getting a misdiagnosis in my file, because a new doctor sees something in the 20 minutes they see me, that my careful, diligent, and intelligent psychiatrist has not seen in my nine years of treatment, loss of freedom, being away from my dog, having to share a room with someone I don't know, phobia of getting bedbugs or lice from a public bed, etc. The reasons are many and and varied, and each of them really impacts my fear and lack of trust that I will be treated fairly. I am afraid I will be harmed, rather than helped by an inpatient stay.

...despite all that, I agreed to go into the hospital.

This is where the real Kafkaesque bureaucracy begins...
I asked Dr. X. to refer me to the hospital next door to where his office is. This is where I went before for ECT. My experience had been okay, and some of it had been really positive. I trusted that going there would be okay.

What follows is none of DR. X's doing...I could tell he wished he could send m,e to the Mood Disorders ward I went to before. I appreciate all he has done to help me and can see he tried to help me, but the system has too many blocks, rules, and idiotic systems in place to allow him to refer me to the University Hospital...

Dr. X told me he cannot refer to the mood disorders ward at the University anymore. All referrals for inpatient ECT had to be done at VG Hospital's emergency department. I listened carefully, thinking he could send a referral to the emergency department and then maybe they phoned me when a bed became available.

They wouldn't make a severely depressed people, (who had a diagnosis, and whose personal psychiatrist was recommending inpatient ECT), sit in the emergency room all day or all night, go through a slew of questions and questionnaires by nurses, psychologists, social workers, residents and doctors: They wouldn't make me sit in an emergency room when I was feeling this unwell and knew what I needed to do to help myself...would they?

They would. In order to be an inpatient I have to go to the emergency room, sit there patiently and politely for potentially hours, and even then I may not be given ECT.

This enrages me. I do not believe that a chronically physically ill person, who had a specialist who had seen them for years, and who now wanted to refer her for some kind of surgery, or other "in hospital" care or program, would be told to send their patient to emergency, where they would be interviewed poked and prodded by numerous hospital staff, and if and when a hospital bed became available, then MAYBE they would be admitted for the specialist's requested plan of action.

I do not know how, in the 21st Century, so much discrimination, and inadequate and downright awful treatment, of people with mental illnesses is allowed. I am telling you...if ECT helps me I am going to make it my business to fight for changes to increase the accessibility, availability, and flexibility of treatments and resources available to people needing help for mental illnesses.

I will patiently accept my situation right now, and go through all the hoops and rigamarole to get the help I need, because I don't want to labelled as a difficult patient, or a borderline. I need help so I will work within the system for now, however,...

The system has pissed off the wrong person. I am going to make it my business to see that in the future mental health patients are treated with the respect, the patient focused resources, and the dignity every human being deserves. I do not mean I will blame the doctors, or nurses, or even individual administrators. I might blame the governments insufficient funding and support for mental health services:>0

I mean I will volunteer my time to work towards seeing positive structures, regulations and individualized, patient focused support systems and care are available to ALL people with mental illnesses. My first plan of action will be to find a way to ensure that no person wanting ECT is made to wait in the emergency room, when a referral from a regularily seen psychiatrist should make it easy enough to call the patient when a bed is available.

It's because he's on a leash...

God some people irritate the hell out of me.

Scenario: Me and my dog at the off leash dog park. I have left the leash on my dog as he plays, because if I don't I cannot catch him when we need to leave. I'm using it as a training tool.

A pitbull begins playing really rough with my dog. I understand the "establishing dominance" theory, and that some dog play is pretty rough. I watch and it gets too rough. The Pitbull's owner says it's okay, the dog won't hurt my dog, but I see the pitbull hanging onto and pulling at my dog's lips and soft areas of his skin. I intervene. The owner gets huffy.

After a short time out I release my dog again, this time the pitbull and two other big dogs gang up on him. This sometimes happens when too many dogs get too rambunctious together (sort of frenzied behaviour).

My dog is tired and I see the play is getting out of control. I step in again and pull my dog up and out of the frenzy. I hold my dog close to me in a heeling position, but the dogs continue to attack and now even more aggressively than before. None of the owners pull their dogs off.

The pitbull's owner yells at me: It's the leash. They are attacking because the dog is on a leash. Remove the leash!

WTF? I don't give a shit if that is true (that dogs attack dogs on a leash). As an owner, even in an off leash park, it is your responsibility to control your dog and ensure it does not hurt another dog or person.

The idiocy and of the owner continuously reprimanding me for having a leash on my dog, and then having the gall to suggest I was responsible for her dog's viciousness because of the leash, irritates me so much I can't stop thinking about it.

...I fucking hate people sometimes. It seems too many people have, lost their ability to be neighbourly, thoughtful and responsible.

Why does it keep playing through my mind and making me more and more and more irritable? I was irritable all day today and yesterday and the day before. Every little thing is angering me and setting me off. I have that sense of heartburn in my chest because the anger has become a very physical symptom...I feel on edge, easily annoyed, overly sensitive to even small injustices. I hate this feeling

Overwhelmed, Unable to Get Well, and Fed Up.

Waiting for a friend in my car. I am legally parked just past a bus stop, but the road is really busy and cars are weaving in and out of traffic at about 20-30 kms over the speed limit...numerous buses (at least their driver's) honk angrily at me as the pull out and pass my car

Bus Driver waiting at bus stop walks past me, towards the traffic sign so he can gain ammunition to tell me, with authority, I am illegally parked. His plan backfires. He reads it and walks back towards me...

Bus Driver: I know you are legally parked here, but it is very dangerous to stop here.

Me: I am waiting for my friend. It says I can stop. Why is it dangerous? (knowing full well why, but feeling really irritatable, angry and overwhelmed by life, and really becoming annoyed at all the jerky bus drivers honking at me, and by the the condescending tone of the bus driver addressing me)

Bus Driver: Buses are pulling out, cars are swerving to avoid you. They are driving at 70kms/hr. They might hit you.

Me: The speed limit is 50km/hr.

Bus Driver: If I were you I would be afraid to park here. I'd be afraid a car or bus might run into me or run right over me..

Me: (In my head) I see all the crazy drivers wizzing by at mach speed, barely missing my car. I noticed that not a single other car is parked in this lane. I deduced it was a dangerous place to park. I don't care. I'm sitting here precisely because I am hoping one of these cars or buses will crash into me at 70kms/hr.

Fears of Abandonment?

Last night I had a dream:

...I dreamed that a friend of mine decided to stop taking her medications (in the dream MAOI's and Ativan). She phoned me and told me to watch for them in the water flue beside my house. Every morning, first thing in the morning I would go to the flue and there I would find her 4 perfectly preserved pills sitting on the edge of the water. I felt suicidal, so I began hoarding these pills.

One day when I went to pick up the pills there was a note beside them. It had been torn in two, along the bottom. I pieced it together. It was written by my friend and read: "Dr X will be seeing only 9 patients a week. He will no longer take new patients and will stop seeing the patients he has until he sees only 9 original patients"

I was desperately sad, and severely depressed. I needed help. I wanted to kill myself. I was planning on taking the hoarded medication, not because I thought he was leaving me, but because I was depressed. The only hope I felt was in my therapy sessions with Dr. X.

I had an appointment the next day. I got to his office and found a man in his office. Dr X walked in and didn't say anything to me. Inside I was getting angry, because clearly he knew he was going to dump me as a patient and he wouldn't get rid of the other man in the room. Someone knocked on the door and two women came in. Dr. X began reading the paper, the 3 others began talking amongst themselves. I tried to talk, but no one was listening and I felt uncomfortable bringing up Dr. X's impending departure and my impending suicide.

I was becoming both distraught and absolutely furious for the way I was being treated in my appointment (i.e. ignored, other people in the room, no respect for my privacy, Dr. X obliviously reading the paper). I could not bring up my suicidal thoughts, or my hoarding medication, because I was afraid he would think I was being manipulative and trying to make him not leave me. No matter how much I knew this was not true, I could not stop believing this is how the information would be perceived.

I started yelling very loudly at him..."Are you leaving your practice? Am I one of the 12 patients? Why are you ignoring me? Can't you see I am having trouble? Can't you see I am not well yet?

He looked at me and said he had found money in his child's account. $45,800.00 (maybe $43,800.00??unsure). He had figured out that financially he did not have to work like he did anymore.

I asked him if I was going to be able to see him. He ignored every question I had, and everything I said except he told me I was being unreasonable for wanting the others out of the room. That if they stayed in the room maybe I would get better.
I raced out of the room, climbed out an open window and took all the pills I had hoarded.

At What Point is There No Hope Left?

I volunteered to teach a class today. I was dreading teaching the whole time beforehand, even as I drove to the studio. While I was teaching I felt some relief; I was too distracted by the complexities of the lesson to think about how much I wanted to die. The second I touched the door to leave I was exhausted and fell once again into myself and all the hell that brings with it.

When I look objectively at what I have tried to do to to help myself make the depression go away it frightens me. It scares me that I have tried so much, and so many things, and still nothing is consistently helping my depression dissipate. My mood still continues to cycle, I still feel angry and frustrated and depressed, anxious and panicky, and can't sleep, or sleep too much, eat too much, avoid everything, have difficulty leaving the house, doing things, cleaning, cooking, laundry, dishes, sex, lose interest in everything, lose hope...All this never goes away for any length of time. When it does it feels like temptation threatening to drown me as soon as I begin enjoying myself. I feel like Satan sits and waits for a good mood to begin inside me...and then BLAMO! he whacks me upside the head just to show me I am still lost to hell. Paradise; a life of enjoyment and happiness, is lost.

It gets to the point where I begin to ask: Is it worth it? Am I worth it? There is a lot of money, medication, time and effort, both on my part, and the part of others, going into helping me become well. If, as I suspect, I will always cycle in and out of depression: What is the point of all this trying? From a utilitarian perspective it makes no sense at all to keep me here.

Why take medications? Why continue in therapy? Why continue living? If life is going to be as hard as it has been these last 7.5 years and the two years, with a two month reprieve before that...and the too numerous to remember episodes of depression before that, if life is going to be this hard a struggle forever...why keep trying? At some point don't you just give up and say it will never get better. Live with it, accept it, give in, or die. Dr. X said let him carry my hope, but at what point is that futile? At what point to we both concede to having been beaten by this illness? If you review all I have tried you will think the same thing:

1. 19: Journals filled with writing

2. 304: Number of blog entries

3. 425: Psychotherapy sessions with Dr. X. (give or take a few)

4. 21250: Minutes of therapy with Dr X

5. 14.75: years in my life lost to depression (conservative estimate)

6. 6.2: Number of years spent unemployed because of my depression

7. 104: Number of days on top of the 6.2 years lost employment because I could only manage working 4 days/week

8. 29: Number of years underemployed because of my depression

9. More than 8640: Number of pills bought to try to treat my depression if prescriptions were all one pill per day (many weren't/aren't)

10. 288: Number of bottles of pills purchased

11. Hundreds: of Visits to the pharmacy

12. 33: Number of psychotropic medications tried**

13. 9: Number of different vitamin/supplements tried

14. 8: Number of ECT sessions received

15. 177: Approximate number of months I have spent depressed in my lifetime

16. 5384: Approximate number of days spent depressed

17. 40: Number of years spent anxious and wanting to hide

18. 36: Number of years I remember having difficulty sleeping

19. 6: Number of therapists I have seen

20. 3: Number of psychiatrists I have seen

21. 2: Number of psychiatrists/ therapists I connected with

22. 1. Number of Psychiatrists, Doctors, Health Care Workers I trust.

Supplements/Vitamins I have tried/++Supplements/Vitamins I am currently taking:

1. St. John's Wort


2. Valerian


3. Salmon Oil (took 6 grams/day)


4. L-Tryptophan 2grams/day


5. Iron supplement twice daily++


6. B100 Complex (B1 100mg) ++


7. B12


8. Folic acid 1.0 mg


9. 100mgs of each B vitamins++


10. Multivitamin++

SSRI's

1. Prozac 60 mgs
2. Paxil
3. Celexa
4. Effexor
5. Luvox
6. Zoloft

Novel Anti-depressants:
7. Wellbutrin.
8. Remeron
9. Moclobemide

Tricyclic Antidepressants:
10. Nortriptyline
11. Amtrytiline (took for trauma symptoms...for 5 days after a traumatic incident)
12. Desiprimine

Anticonvulsants/Mood Stabilizers:
13. Lamotrigine 200mg
14. Lithium
15. Epival
16. Gabapentin
17. Lithium (800-1200mg)
18. Carbamazepine (800-1000mg)

Benzodiazepines:
19. Clonazepam
20. Diazepam
21. Lorazepam
22. Temazepam

Beta blocker:
23. Propranolol

Other:
24. Low dose Doxepine
25. Clonidine

Atypical Antipsychotics:
26. Seroquel
27. Risperdal
28. Olanzapine

Hypnotics/Sleep Medication

29. Trazadone (25/50mg/100mg/200mg/300mg)
30. Zopiclone (7.5mg/15mg)

Stimulants:

31. Ritalin
32. Dexedrine (tablets and spansules 5-20mgs)
33. Modafinil

Note: Also tried numerous combinations of above medications

Am I doing something wrong? Am I making things not work? If so What? and Why? Does this happen to other people? Am I the only one who never gets better? Why? I used to want so badly to live a beautiful life. Now I have no desire to live.

Who AM I?

Today has been a strange day. I have felt my mood going all over the map, from feeling joyously happy, to grieving the loss of, and missing, my Mom (I felt her near me, and had reminders announcing themselves to me, all day today...it began to feel eerie and frightening...like I was having a premonition).

I was very anxious most of the day; so anxious I could not breathe properly most of the time. Even when I felt joyous, I was also feeling really, really agitated, or intensely filled with energy.

I felt paranoid I am being spied on numerous times today. I feel lonely; alone, uncared for. Some moments during the day I felt relief I have been feeling better. Some moments I felt the fear that tells me I am slipping into my old ways.

When I say I feel agitated/energetic it is hard to tell which it is. I feel compelled to move, to tap my fingers, to tap my fit, to move my toes, to squirm and fidget. There is some force inside me pushing me to constantly have some part of my body tapping out rhythms at a quick pace. Drumming, tapping, tapping, drumming, squirming, swaying, knees moving up and down...annoying, but I can't seem to stop. I feel wired in the mornings and early afternoon and tired in the late afternoon.

All day I was "obsessively" singing. I say obsessively because I couldn't stop. I kept having a song go through my head, and felt compelled to sing it, over and over and over and over and over...ad infinitum. "Willow weep for me, willow weep for me, bend your branches green into the stream and cover me, listen to my plea, listen O willow and weep for me." I kept singing those lines over and over all day. No matter that I wanted to stop, it was like I was stuck on repeat. This seems similar to when music was stuck in my head before when I first began Prozac.

Then I have a strange noises in my ear/s. It's hard to describe. sort of a crinkly, tinny, sharp sound that happens beats or clicks loudly for a few seconds then disappears. It is happening in my left ear, but I think I heard a similar sound in my other ear yesterday...but maybe I am mistaken and it was the same ear. Its really high pitched. Almost like a crickety sound. It scares me when it happens, because it seems like it might stay, or not go away.

Speaking of going away...I feel lonely, not because I am literally alone as my husband is away for the week. I feel lonely and alone because he's been gone since Saturday and he hasn't called me. I am not really one to talk too much on the phone, or even to expect my husband to call me, but for some reason his not calling makes me feel unimportant. When I go away for a week I usually call for a few minutes every few days, just to tell him I love him and am thinking of him. I think there is something about not having that kindness returned that is urksome. Is it too controlling of me to want a call from him when it's only a week?

Sad thing is I am actually glad he is away. The break is good for me. So not sure why I care if he calls. It is amazing how self sufficient I am when I'm by myself. Without him telling me I'm a loser all the time, without him pointing out all the mistakes I make and all the things I don't do well, without him trying to control my every move consciously, or unconsciously, without him trying to force me to do the things he wants done, I begin to feel I actually CAN do things, and AM good at things.

So...happy to sad, to grieving, to anxious and so agitated I can't stop moving, to angry and frustrated and lonely...to okay again. My mood is as labile and unpredictable as the weather in the city where I live. Who am I? What do I feel?

Am I the Only One?

**Addendum added: I just went for a walk and I realized that another reason I don't understand is because of my difficulty understanding, or accepting anything that is not black and white. I get completely confused when something is in a gray area. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

I often feel annoyed, frustrated, and maybe like I am being lied to when my pdoc and I discuss my diagnosis. I was talking to a friend about this and she asked me, "Why does it matter?"

That is a good question, and at first I really couldn't think of why it mattered to me. All I knew was that it did. It really did. It really, really did. It annoyed me, frustrated me, made me question my illness, made me worry about my illness, and made me not understand my illness.

Here is a "stream of consciousness" discussion with myself about WHY this bothers me so much. (***I have not edited it, because I was feeling a bit angry as I was writing...and if I edit I will remove some of the feelings):

First my pdoc says, I have major depressive disorder with cycling that takes me almost to hypomania, but not quite. Fine...I think that is close to accurate, although I can think of many times when my own feelings were that I was way to high for this to be "normal". Not that I want to 'be" a label, or be labelled, but it is kind of like when a person is diagnosed with something, they want it to be the right diagnosis...for example, if I have liver cancer, I don't want to be told I have kidney cancer, only to find out later I have liver cancer. I just want to know.

My confusion is compounded when my pdoc and I decide to use medications that work for BP disorder, when he expresses that I have a "bipolarlike": depression...(huh?) ...and when I find my mood increasing dramatically, my not sleeping more than a few hours a night and my mood ranging from super high, to wired, to happy, to high again and back. When I see myself doing more than I have done in years, all initiated within the time I have not been sleeping, and yet felt high and energetic.

But I still haven't figured out WHY it matters to me so much...partly sometimes I feel like the truth is withheld because of the stigma many attach to bipolar disorder, partly it seems my pdoc doesn't really put much emphasis on diagnosis, rather he looks at symptoms and how to address those (which makes sense)...but what happens if something happens to him and suddenly people who do base their treatments on diagnosis, see I am on a "bipolar" medications combo, yet I do not have bipolar. What if they decide I don't need the medications I am on? what if they don't recognize that I cycle despite not having bipolar?

I still don't understand why I feel frustrated that my mood disorder doesn't fit into a simple descriptive diagnosis. I can't be the only one. Some people have Major depression with no cycling, some have cyclothymia: "The highs of cyclothymia are called hypomania, a milder form of mania. The lows consist of mild or moderate depression"...Mayo clinic), some have BPII Mayor depression and hypomania, some have BPI, major depression and mania...where are the people who have major depression and a milder form of hypomania...sort of a reverse of cyclothymia? It doesn't make sense. And if people exist along some kind of spectrum, why don't they simply have some kind of, for example, 1-10 rating for mood cycling of all different kinds?

Also, how do you explain to your family what is going on? to your spouse? your friends? if there is officially no such thing as what you have? How do they find out information that might help you if what you have does not exist in any "official" context? How do they know you are just not making it all up?, or that you struggle both with the highs and lows?

I'm not sure if any of this makes sense, or if it even matters to anyone. Am I the only person confused by a psychiatric diagnosis? I guess the big reason I feel irritated is that I just want to know. I need to attach a name to how I feel. I want to know if my mood cycling is my fault, if I am in control of changing it, if I have done something wrong to create this type of mood hell. Or do I have an illness that causes me to feel this way? Is change my responsibility completely? Or are parts of my highs an illness which I need to control with medicine/therapy/lifestyle changes? Do I really go high...or do I imagine it? For some reason right, or wrong, I need to understand more than I do.

Short Fuse

It is possible that I was angry and not recognizing it. My husband brought it up again last night, saying I was really short, defensive, and a little to quick to snap angrily at him for certain things. This morning I feel the way he was saying I am...except worse.

While much of my mood is still bubbly, I am also feeling explosive. I have this gnawing feeling in my stomach that I might mistake for extreme hunger, if I hadn't encounter the mood state before. I'm not sure if others know what I mean. It's like when you are famished and inside you feel cranky and short, and about to begin raging on someone if you don't get some food...now!

However, I'm not hungry. I ate breakfast and afterwards still felt the feeling. Plus my shoulders feel tight, there is a sense of anxiety...not being able to breathe properly, and an irritability and anger that is simmering and steaming into a rage.

I have tons of energy, my mood feels both hyper and angry. This is a very uncomfortable feeling. The worst part is I cannot understand why I feel this way, because I don't think I am mad at anything, or anyone.

Alliance Intact

I am extremely happy to report that I forced myself to go to my session today despite feeling anxious and worried. Actually forced is a bit strong a word. I really like going to my appointments and deep inside I knew, if I could just get myself there, I would talk about my worries and everything would be okay. I often get scared of things because feelings take over my understanding of situations. It is like my intellectual knowledge gets lost in the emotion.

Dr. X was so encouraging and understanding. He told me patients feeling love for their therapist is common. He also told me he believes we have a strong therapeutic alliance which made me feel better about having been so open with him. I felt stupid in the early stages of the conversation, but once he spoke openly about it being normal reason took over my brain once again and I felt comfortable with having exposed and expressed my feelings so much.

On another note, my husband is insane! Truly. I was super busy today and then after my singing lesson (going so well and I LOVE it). I got stuck in traffic for at least an hour an a half...maybe longer. Anyways, after arriving near my house I had a few things I had to do at the mall, which took me another 45 minutes.

I got home and my husband was all snarky about where I had been all day. I didn't react just told him I was exhausted and needed to nap. So an hour later I wake up, cook dinner (which I hardly ever, if ever, do lately). When dinner is ready he starts saying I'm mad and angry...and really giving me hell for how "angry " I am. I just looked at him completely perplexed. When I didn't respond angrily, but expressed no I'm not angry. Maybe I'm a bit quiet, but I'm exhausted. He began screaming at me that I just have to cook and clean once in a while and be okay with it, and not expect him to say thanks, but just do it because it's the right thing to do.

I tried again to explain I'm not angry. It seems like it is him that is angry...then he just explodes at me and storms out of the room. So much for trying to make dinner to please him. It was very strange.

I wish I could stay calm when he gets like this, but he kept pushing me and pushing me about how angry I was, until finally I did become angry. I really don't understand. Next time I am going to try to remain really calm and not let him rile me up. We get nowhere when we are both angry. All it ever does is make me feel bad for an extremely long period of time; while for him he blows up and then forgets the whole thing. It only hurts me when I fall for the anger trap.

It's Real

I take back what I said earlier about imagining how I was feeling yesterday. I am was not being neurotic yesterday. It is happening again today. I am speedy. My brain is moving faster than I can make my body act. I am flitting from one thing to another, not really getting anything done. Even now as I type my hands are shaky and cannot go as fast as my brain. I am getting speedier as the day goes on. I don't feel angry today though, just flighty, maybe annoyed, and a bit irritable.

Yesterday I whipped off two letters, one to my bank and one to a person, that were a bit harsh in tone. (The bank one was really snarky, which is unlike how I usually present myself, but may be like I am when irritable and speedy. Looking at it now I don't think I should have sent them, or would have sent them if I was feeling right.

My libido has returned full, full, full swing too (well maybe more than full swing)...that could be attributed to my new found sexual insight. It could also be that the Tegretol was dulling me.

Anyways...I guess what I am saying is I am speedy, which may, or may not be a bad thing. I am a bit concerned because I haven't slept for 3 days now and wasn't sleeping much before that the past while. You know how it is when you second guess how you are feeling? When you think maybe you are imagining you are going too high because you are afraid of flipping into a hypomania/mania. I should try to relax, because according to Dr. X I have nit been manic, but I guess I feel a bit out of control right now and have done a couple things that are not like me to do, and I feel so hyper I can't stop.

Arghhhhhhhhhhh! I feel so angry for NO reason.

Something is wrong. I feel so wired I am buzzing. My husband says I am talking fast and extremely irritable. He says I am talking over him and interrupting, being "pushy" and loud he says. I see it too. I feel out of control.

Yesterday I woke up and inside I felt like blowing up. I felt rage like I have not felt for a long time. The rage where I want to destroy the house or beat down all the bushes in the yard. I feel speedy inside; like I am FULL of adrenaline. It is not a good feeling. My heart is racing in my chest to the point that sometimes it is feeling like it is jumping, "buddle ump", or fluttering.

I feel confused and find myself pacing back and forth in the house...it seems like I am pacing in preparation to do something, but I always get into the room and forget why I went there and what was so urgent that I get there NOW.

This morning I woke with the same feeling: extreme anger, rage filled, irritable, cranky, speedy, get out of my way or I will run you over and keep going. I haven't been sleeping at all. Dr. X gave me a prescription for 10mg Doxepin to help me sleep. He says it can help with the later sleep cycles. So it helps people SATY asllep. Which has always been my big problem. Usually I fall asleep no problem. I just cannot stay asleep. Recently though that has changed too. I lay in bed awake for what seems like forever and cannot get to sleep, or stay asleep. It is getting worse.

I was taking 100 mg Trazadone and it was doing nothing. I don't think the doxepin is helping and even though the dose is small I think it is contributing to some of my feelings of strangeness in the morning. I feel buzzy, speedy, off kilter, tippy, unfocused...strange, fuzzy, a bit of a sleep med hangover even though I can't sleep? There is a feeling of depersonalization on some level...like I am not completely in my body. I am not me.

Previously, I thought maybe I was staying awake because the dog was on the bed, but last night I put the dog on the floor and realized it has probably been me keeping the dog awake, rather than him keeping me awake. He slept like the baby he is. I on the other hand rolled around and tried to sleep all night; catching snippets of sleep here and there only to find myself awake not long later. I was awake almost all night last night and the night before.

Maybe I am just not used to this much energy. I have been off Valium for about 3 - 4 weeks now and I am going off Tegretol (I am down to 400mgs from 1000mgs). Maybe the Prozac and Dexedrine is energizing me in a way it couldn't when I was on a mood stabilizer. That is the point of my going off the Tegretol and Valium, to energize me. Why is it when I get more energy I start worrying it is too much energy?

I think maybe because it doesn't feel like the good energy I have when I am well, or when I am even "high". It feels uncomfortable, obsessive, speedy and really irritating and negative. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!

"This Madness Has Got to Stop"

I left my last session mad at myself for a post I had written the week prior. The post titled "Anxiety" was read by Dr. X, who in turn phoned me to ensure I was okay. I felt like a complete idiot for writing the post; embarrassed that I triggered Dr. X. to worry about me, and stupid that I had not stopped to think about how my posts might affect other people.

Whatever the case I was really mad at myself for not being more thoughtful and careful about what I say, but also afraid that I might need to censor myself if my pdoc was going to read my blog. I had not thought about the possibility of that dynamic when introducing my blog address to Dr. X. and inviting him to read it. Now there is a therapeutic dynamic to consider that hadn't crossed my mind before.

I really love that my pdoc periodically reads my blog. The problematic dynamic happens in part because I am not one to reach out between scheduled sessions. I believe keeping this boundary is very important because I respect that Dr. X has other patients, I am one of many, and it is not fair for me to expect more than what we have agreed upon. So sometimes when maybe I should reach out I express myself on my blog instead.

There is a sense of awkwardness in me now about writing exactly how I am feeling. I can see how for a pdoc it would be awkward territory too. If he reads something, where his patient is clearly thinking suicidal thoughts, it seems the caring and ethical thing to do would be to follow up with the patient and ensure they are okay.

So...I was mad at myself for expressing anxious suicidal thoughts and feeling like my inconsiderate behaviour led Dr. X to worry for me. In our session last week I tried to express how I felt, but I think it came across that I was mad for him calling me. I wasn't. That call was a very kind thing to do on his part. I was mad at me....for creating a situation, where I didn't really leave him a choice, and I was embarrassed for what I wrote. I was angry at me.

Today, I angrily and very expressively(read loudly) was telling Dr. X how perturbed I was about about the outcome of something else this week: a call I made to our government's tax office yesterday. I went on and on.

Here's the ANNOYING scenario:

Me (calling the tax office):"In August I qualified for a disability tax credit for the years 2003 through 2013. For the years 2003 through 2007 I was told to send a request for an adjustment to each of my tax years. I did in late August. It has been months and I have not heard from your gov't department whether or not my taxes have been adjusted and whether my taxes owed each year were lowered. Can you please let me know what is going on?

Tax Guy: You sent in a request for the adjustments the beginning of July, but we did not send you a letter saying you qualified for the adjustment until late August.

Me: That does not make sense, because I brought the letter that said I qualified to my Accountant, asked him to send in the request for an adjustment and then he sent in a request for the adjustment. There is no way I sent in an adjustment request before I received that letter. Why would I if I did not know I qualified.

Tax Guy: It shows here you sent a request for the adjustments the beginning of July, but we did not send you a letter saying you qualified for the adjustment until late August. (repeating verbatim what he said before.

so I try from a different angle...

Me: So you are saying I qualify and that a request for an adjustment sent in a bit earlier than I was sent the letter saying I qualify. However I qualify from 2003-2007 (all years which are in the past) so can you do the requested adjustments for those years because I did, in fact, qualify and a request was sent in?

Tax Guy: It shows here you sent a request for the adjustments the beginning of July, but we did not send you a letter saying you qualified for the adjustment until late August. (once again repeating verbatim what he said before). We cannot process an adjustment request that was sent in before the letter saying you qualify was sent out.

Me: I do not understand why? The adjustment request will say exactly the same thing the original one said. It doesn't make any sense that you cannot process the one you receiver PLUS there is no way you received that adjustment request before I received the letter of qualification...because I DID NOT KNOW I QUALIFIED. I had to bring the letter saying I qualified to my Accountant in order for him to put through the adjustment request.

Tax Guy: Ma'am [that word sets me off] we cannot process the original adjustment request because it was sent before you qualified.

Me: (About to explode inside and blow a gasket at the "Kafkaesqueness" of this entire conversation). "I will call my Accountant and have him resubmit it. Thank you."

Then I looked at my original application and it says "If you think you qualify for the tax credit fill out your income tax forms AS THOUGH YOU QUALIFY" Isn't that like applying for an adjustment BEFORE you qualify???? And you thought Kafka's, "The Trial" and "The Castle" were absurd!!!!!

So I relayed all my anger over this conversation to Dr. X today. I bet the entire waiting room could hear me rant. I was rather boisterous in my anger. After I finished I apologized for "losing it". My anger was excessive, and I was out of line. I get so mad at myself for not being able to control how I feel.

Dr. X. said, "This madness has got to stop". I thought he meant my madness at him and at the tax office, so I explained again I wasn't mad at him, but at me. "I know, I know, I am an angry person. I hate that about myself".

I missed his point altogether.I should have known he was referring to my madness at myself , not my anger towards others. Then I felt like laughing..."Yes indeed, This madness DOES have to stop!"

He told me my anger at the tax office was the energetic, exuberant side of me coming out...maybe not the bubbly/happy version of said energy, but the energy nonetheless. I recognize energy is good, but I do not like how angry I get over small things. I wish I could let things go and instead laugh at the absurdity of some of the bureaucratic rules in this world. Argh!

Lost and Need to Find...

Lola, over at "Marine Snow" has written a brilliant post that struck me to the core of my being. I feel so very much like she expresses. She thought of her post at the same time I was writing my last post, so there is an eerie sense of synchronicity for me in what she writes.

My last post makes me cry when I read it. I feel like that little girl, who had so much hope and promise has disappeared. She is forever gone.

This morning I woke up and wanted to write to myself:

• "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
• Shut the F$&# up!
• Get all those words and noises and condemnations and all that self-hatred out of my head!
• Please stop!
• Stop thinking! You will never "think" your way out of this mess you have created.
• What the hell did you do to yourself? How did you become this person?
• How did you so drastically lose your way?
• How did you destroy that beautiful and promising little girl?
• How did you become so worthless, when, as a child, you were so valuable?
• What have I done to myself?
• I worked so hard and did so well in school, how did I allow myself to sink so far?
• Why did that sweet little girl become the waste of space she has become?
• Why is she so filled with so much self loathing?
• Was there an exact time I became "worth" less?

I feel so existentially lost and empty. I have absolutely no idea how to survive this life and manage to find something that I am consistently able to do, something I find fulfilling and something I feel contributes, rather than takes away from, society.

I have no sense of purpose, or meaning. I have no sense that I have any value, or any worth. I feel like all I do is take and take. I'm a burden on my family, on the medical system, on the government. I have lost my intrinsic value. I have no idea how to create, or make myself, a useful and valuable human being. I feel really, really lost.

Stigma and Discrimination

I'm going to disappoint Lola at "Marine Snow", because I won't solve world peace, or the existential crisis problem in this post... I promise I will discuss my ongoing existential crisis and how it affects my wellness and resilience maybe tomorrow or the next day.

This post is a public apology to a fellow blogger, whose anononimity I would like to protect, but also whose situation is so similar to others I hear from that the story is an important one to write. The post is also a post about my feelings about how the mentally ill (vs. the physically ill) are treated. Yesterday, I sent a ranting e-mail yesterday to a blogger I very much admire and I am sorry if it was too forward, or preachy.

I sent it while I was in the throes of feeling passionately angry about both your situation, and my own experiences and fears. I did not mean to place the injustices of our mental health systems onto your shoulders. If I were brave I would take it on myself, but, like you, I am afraid.

The premise for the e-mail I sent was inspired by someone else, and I honestly cannot remember who. I thought it was another blogger, but now I think it was someone from the Art Clubhouse. If you are the dear reader are the person who first broached the "Stigma" vs. "Discrimination" differentiation observation thank you for the idea for this post.

This person had mentioned that when we see people being turned down for jobs, or promotions because of physical health issues, or illnesses that are physical we call it "discrimination". However, when we, as people with mental illnesses are being discriminated against we call it "stigma".

I thought about my old job and how they also made it clear that concessions would be made, not only for physical health problem, but also for religious purposes. For example, if a person was Jewish and needed to not work Saturdays for Shabbat, or a Christian person felt strongly about not working on Sunday, due to it being their Sabbath.


At my place of employment I saw concessions made for women who had children to take care of: single moms, new moms, all kinds of moms. I also saw the workplace dramatically altered to assist people who had physical disabilities. For example, flexible work weeks were easily obtained by new moms. Ramps, and handicapped washrooms and elevators were built for a person in a wheelchair. I saw extremely expensive software purchased for an employee who was blind, so they could "read" the computer screen with a voice, rather than their eyes. I saw bells that signalled incoming work replaced by lights for some hearing impaired people.


I also heard the derision in people's voices when someone went off on "stress leave"; a passive aggressive code word for "mental health leave". I heard the snickers, and the jokes about theses peoples' "inability to cope", about their "weak characters", and how they "were bucking the system". I watched as people ridiculed a person who obviously was having a mental breakdown. I tried to speak up, but I was one voice among many and no one listened. The person was blackballed in the workplace for the rest of their career.


I listened in manager's meetings as the managers discussed "problem employees". Many of these employees I knew personally and knew had mental health issues. I listened as the managers tried to find convenient ways to let these people go, to fire them. They did not believe depression was incapacitating, and even if it was there were medicines to make them better. These "depressed" people were simply finding a way to work less and get time off.


I did all this while at the same time listening to the vice president and managers ask me to create and run workshops to help inform managers and employees about how well the organization managed to create a welcoming environment, an environment without barriers, for employees with disabilities. My duty was to rah, rah the troops, to make them aware of how concessions were to be made, all barriers removed, when it came to hiring and retaining people with disabilities.

I watched as they requested I remove "schizophrenia" as a disability in the workshop, because "it might scare people". Anyways, someone with schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder couldn't work in a place like this. It wasn't a suitable workplace for those kinds of people.




I cringed at the words "those kinds of people". I knew I was one of them. I told a few people I trusted, but I never managed to fight the good fight and "out myself" to all in the workplace who challenged mental illness as an illness.

I should have, and I should now. I have a powerful voice and as a person with a mental illness I should let my voice be heard loud and clear...but I am scared.

I am scared of the "stigma", the discrimination. I am afraid to be labelled, laughed at, and punished. I am afraid if I bring too much of my power to the forefront, the powers that exist, the insurance companies, my company, the government; all who support me financially in some way, will begin spying on me, watching my every move, finding any way they can to shut me up.


I am afraid old friends will hear my voice and know it is me, that old coworkers will finally have the proof that what they suspected all along was true, that people who know me will feel I am a disgrace to my country, my employer, to myself.

I was walking in the mall one day a few years ago and I ran into an old co-worker. Her first words to me were, "it must be nice to have all this time off". Inside my head I felt like crying. I felt so misunderstood and so guilty. I realized people thought I was someone who "got a good deal" by being sick, that I was the person people were talking about, that people thought I was using the system. Inside my head I felt like saying, "yes, it is just wonderful wanting to kill myself everyday".

I didn't say that. Instead I said I have been sick. They walked away and I could tell, nothing about my being sick was a reality to them; to them I was a person who got a break and did not have to work, but still got paid to do nothing.

Back to my original apology. I have no right to ask anyone to rally against an unfair system, because I myself have not done the same. I actually really and truly believe that there should be no distinction between a "mental", and a "physical" illness.

Mental illnesses are physical events; chemical mix-ups in the brain, neurons firing the wrong way, neural pathways developing a certain way because of abuse, or neglect, or an environment that did not nurture healthy neural pathways.

I wish we would just call "mental illnesses", an illness, like heart disease in an illness, or diabetes, or gall stones, or cancer. Environment and genetics play a part in mental illnesses, yet they also do in heart disease and diabetes, even gall stones and definitely cancer.

Why then do we differentiate mental illnesses from the above physical illnesses? Genetics plays a part, as does environment, along with physical changes in the brain. Is it because society somehow finds us, the mentally ill, complicit in our becoming ill? Do we, more than the person who has heart disease, somehow cause our illnesses?

Stigma does not begin to describe how differently many people view and treat a person with a mental illness; and I include many doctors, psychiatrists and other mental health staff amongst those people who are inclined to see the mentally ill as an "other". Discrimination is a more apt term. The mentally ill are not simply stigmatized, we are discriminated against; in the workplace, on the streets, in terms of finding available and affordable housing, in terms of being treated as equal human beings with an illness that while different than heart disease and diabetes, is no less an illness.

I feel blessed to have a pdoc who respects me as a person, who recognizes it is the illness and not me that causes me to behave and feel the way I do. Many people are not so lucky. Many are so ill they should not be working, but their needs to remove the level of stress from their lives are not supported by either their employers, or the their mental health professionals, or the governments in terms of offering both moral and financial support for an ill person.

It makes me sad to see people talk of being on the verge of killing themselves because they cannot manage the stress and responsibility of work, and to see that it is sometimes doctors these people are afraid to approach for help, for fear of being discriminated against.

My dear blogging friend, I did not mean to sound like you should take matters into your hands and make the world change its approach to people with mental illnesses. I am very worried for you and was feeling very frustrated by your situation. With my frustration my contempt for those not helping you, those blocking your path towards taking care of yourself, grew. I may have been too quick to rant in my e-mail to you. I pray you will become well, and everything will work out for you.
...aqua

Loving Kindness Meditation

I don't know why I sometimes get so much anxiety before my pdoc appointments . I always look forward to meeting with Dr. X. I love sitting in the chair across from him. Generally, within a few minutes of sitting in his office, even if I am really stressed out, I feel a calming effect coming from him and his side of the room. That happened on Thursday.

My appointment began with me feeling intensely stressed, but I soon became aware of what was happening (that I was anxious), and that awareness helped me refocus. I'm not sure what helped me become aware.

Maybe it was Dr. X wittingly, or unwittingly, wrapping me in calmness. In a way, it feels like a Buddhist "Loving Kindness meditation" taken to the next level, the level of practice, when I sit across from him.

So many of us are compassionate and loving beings. Unfortunately, to often, for me anyways, my depression, anxiety, mood swings and frustration with not becoming well, or remaining ill take over my compassion and I become anxious or angry.

A good example is how I sometimes become filled with road rage at small indignities done (of course from my perspective TO ME), by other drivers. The driver who races to the front of the left lane and then butts in right at the front, while all of us other driver's patiently wait our turn, or the driver that cuts me off, or races past me at mach speed. I become angry sitting in my car and the anger begins to turn into anxiety.

Why do I do this? I have been really trying to let go of this rage, and accept that others may have good reasons for doing what they do, or there may be a reason I do not know that makes them need to get somewhere faster than everyone else. I have no idea what is happening in the person's life to make them need to get to the front of the line faster than anyone else.

I remember a story from when my mom was dying. She was visiting me and suddenly began going into shock. We dialed 911 and the ambulance took her to the hospital. At the hospital the Dr. told us that they believed she had sepsis(?), that she had infection raging through her body and she was going to die that night.

I called my sister's to come over. My one sister had to fly from the island. She had 10 minutes to get to the airport or she would miss the last plane. She lives in the country and was racing down the road when she came upon her neighbours car in front of her. She tried to pass him, but he kept driving into the middle of the road to stop her passing. He also slowed to a speed well below the speed limit to physically force her to slow her down. She began honking and flashing her lights to no avail. Finally she managed to pass him despite his efforts to "keep her in line". She was mad as hell, but she made the plane, and managed to see my Mom, who pulled through for another month.

What if she had missed the plane because this man tried to aggressively stop her from passing him. What if she had missed the plane and my Mom had died before she was able to say goodbye? He may be right in that the speed limit was lower than she needed to go, but he had no idea how important her race down the road was. I try now to let go and to understand that I only see the behaviour, I don't see WHY people are behaving the way they do. I try to be more compassionate.

Dr. X. just seems to live and breathe compassion. I do not think I have ever heard him say anything negative about anyone. My Mom was like that to. The only other person I met like that was my grade 12 English teacher. He was a Buddhist and he was calm in the face of daily interaction with a bunch of riotous teenagers. It always amazed me.

On Thursday, part way through my session I felt my body relax, my hands stop twirling my hair and tapping my eyebrow (this is a strange habit I picked up over the past few years when I'm really stressed. Either that or I did it before and was unaware of it), my shoulders and arms became relaxed, and I leaned back in the chair. I suddenly felt calm. It felt like the presence of Dr. X was making me calm. It reminded me of the power of a Buddhist "Loving Kindness" meditation. He seems like loving kindness personified.

A Loving Kindness meditation is meant to fill your heart with compassion and love for yourself and then extend it towards all other beings.

• In the loving kindness meditation I know you begin by imagining yourself wrapping yourself in warm white light. You say to yourself, "may I be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy , well and happy.
• You then think of someone who is a mentor or leader to you, and you take the warm white light that is wrapped around you and you extend it to surround them, and you say out loud, or in your head, e.g. "May Dr X. be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• Then you extend the white light to wrap around yourself, your mentor and someone you love, and repeat the mantra, "May (my loved person) be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• You then think of someone you are having difficulty with and you then extend that radiant warm white light around the person you are having difficulty with and say, may (the person you are having troubles with) be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• then wrap the light around all the beings in your family and repeat: may all beings in my family be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"

Then you continue to increase the size and magnitude of the warm white light and wrap it around:

• All beings in the house: "May all beings in this house be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings/people in the building: "May all beings in this building be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings on the block:" May all beings on my block be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings in your city: "May all beings in my town or city be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings in your country: "May all beings in my country be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings on the continent: "May all beings on this continent be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings in the world: "May all beings in this world be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• and finally out into space: "May all beings in the universe be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"

Note the meditation is embracing all "beings", not just people. I would suggest beings in my version of the meditation includes all life; plants and animals, the ocean, the lakes and rivers, and also all the earth, space, planets and universe. The meditation is a means for a person to embrace all beings lovingly and compassionately in their mind. It feels really good to do.

The more I do this meditation the more compassionate I feel. When I do it my anger towards others subsides and I begin to recognize that we all struggle, we all want health and love and wellness, and we all deserve love and compassion.

Helpless and Hopeless

(aqua, study in charcoal of a poppy/2005)

That helpless/hopeless feeling is setting in again. That sense that I am falling deeper and deeper into depression again and no matter what I do, or how much I struggle I remain intensely fatigued, depressed, apathetic, dissociative/depersonalized, confused, isolating and unable to sleep.

I want to hide out, in bed, in my back room with the curtains closed. I am so angry at myself for being this way. When my thoughts turn to angry depression I begin visualizing about ways and places and times to hang myself, suffocate myself...die. I feel like my life will never get back on track.

It takes all my energy to get going in the morning, even to take the dog for a short walk, or to write this post, and those are things I usually like to do. Everything seems like a chore: a dreaded chore. The real chores, housework, cooking etc. ,simply are not getting done and it is making me feel intensely guilty for not contributing to the running of our household, and my husband increasingly hostile towards my "laziness".

On top of feeling helpless/hopeless I had that same feeling of dread I had last week as I headed to teach my Youth Art Class Monday night. I tried to sleep all day in preparation for it, but just lay there awake wishing I didn't have to go. At 2: 00ish I dragged myself out of bed and went to class. When it began I felt myself becoming more social than I expected. At the same time I also felt it was harder than usual to do.

When I woke up Tuesday morning I wanted so badly to not go teach my drawing class that morning. I felt I just couldn't do it anymore. I feel overwhelmed with two classes and a puppy to look after. However, I pushed myself, because I committed to teach the class.

On my way to class, despite my exhaustion, apathy, and depression; I also felt an intense sense of ennui. That made me begin to thinking maybe I need to do more, not less, stimulating, "scheduled/regular", work like things everyday. Maybe my husband is right. Maybe I should get back to work.

If I am at home all I feel I can do is lay down,sleep, or watch t.v. If I am doing something work like at least, for a while, I get a sense of accomplishment, and my mood lifts while involved and distracted.

The problem is I cannot even manage to do what I want and/or need to do: like keep my house clean, cook, grocery shop, do household chores and even paint like I want to. How do I work more when I can't manage the little I do now?

I feel extremely frustrated by my lack of stability, by my not working, and by my not contributing. These all feed my bad mood and anger. I know that. I know I need to do more, but how?

He Lives With Me. Why Can't He Get It?

I feel so angry at my husband right now. Not just my husband, but some of my friends too. The final "straw" that made this camels back break came from comments my husband made last night. While I had been able to let some of our friends comments go, it finally set me off when the person who sees me struggle everyday vocalized the same ignorant beliefs.

We went out last week and when one of our friends asked me how I was doing I told them the truth; that while I was feeling better than I had been I was still struggling with mood swings, fatigue and depression. He proceeded to lecture me on how everyone has mood swings, no one's mood stays the same and everyone gets tired. I hear this kind of response so often that I have really tried to learn to let it go.

I commented that I believed most people did not have the extensive mood swing I had, and that I didn't believe most people struggled with the depth of depression I do and then tried to move the conversation on.

I honestly feel like screaming when someone suggests what I am struggling against is a normal human occurrence. It negates how much pain I feel and the depth of my difficulties. It is dismissive.

I am pretty certain "normal" (I use that word loosely) people do not want to sleep all day, kill themselves on a regular basis, become absolutely exhausted after two or three hours of volunteer work, feel so tired that shopping for food and cooking anything, even Kraft Dinner, seems an impossible task. I am pretty sure most people don't feel so tired they feel sick.

I know when I am well I do not feel like one thing a day: meeting a friend for lunch, painting for a couple hours, or participating in a short class, is the only thing, (besides sleeping and watching t.v.), I can manage that day. I have had periods of "normality" and I had a zest for life, loved cooking, i didn't have time to sleep, because I had too many things I wanted to do.

Anyways...Argh! A few weeks ago a well off friend had made a proposal to my husband to purchase a resort on a remote island and have my husband run it. Part of the proposal was to have me involved working in the restaurant, or something like that. At the time I told my husband it sounded exciting for him, but that given my mental health I was not able to work yet and also, I needed to keep doing the things here that seemed to be helping me (Art, Teaching Art, Participating in the Art Clubhouse etc.). I told him to do it and I would come visit on a regular basis. (It is an 8 month a year operation). He seemed to to be okay with that and to understand.

Last night on the way home from a friends I asked him if the proposal was going through and he said the people who owned it would be willing to pay me more than I receive on disability. I just looked at my husband...Huh?...and explained (why the hell do I have to explain this) I am not on disability because I do not want to work. I am on disability because I am too sick to work. Do you not understand that if I was able to work I would be the first to be out there looking for a job?

I felt angry at our friend too. I felt like they must think I'm simply sitting here watching the money come in when I could be working. I can't even express how angry I felt about that, but especially about my husband thinking the same thing.

He started telling me I would never get well unless I started to work. I think the rage came from within because I struggle so hard with my not working. I looked at my husband and asked him what he saw me able to do during the day. Did he really think I was able to work given my mood lability and my inability to do hardly anything without feeling like I'm going to collapse?

My husband just kept saying if I worked all that would disappear. Fuck! I wanted to kill him (figuratively). He began to blame the whole falling through of the resort deal on me. That if I worked there he would do it, but because I'm making money doing nothing I was not willing to help him. He wasn't going to accept the deal unless I agreed to work there too. So the weight of his future lays in my hands and is suddenly my responsibility.

I live with this man. I expect that he sees how much I struggle. Maybe he is in complete denial that I need the help I receive. He kept saying over and over:

"As long as you receive help from Dr. X, as long as you receive disability money, as long as you get support...you will never get better. I can't wait for the day Dr. X. won't see you anymore. I can't wait for your disability to be cut off. You will never get better until Dr. X kicks you out of therapy. No ones mood is perfect . Everyone's mood goes up and down. You will never have a perfect mood....[etc.]"

I went to bed enraged and so angry that he thinks I'm not trying to get better, and that he thinks the things that help me keep me sick. As I write this I am becoming enraged all over again. I don't even know how to explain to him how his view is mistaken, wrong, dismissive of how hard I try and extremely hurtful. I am so mad I don't even want to talk to him, or be with him anymore.

If he has been with me/lived with me for the last 16 or 17 years and he can't notice this last few years is not me, he obviously pays no attention to how hard I am trying. He obviously is missing the fact that I sleep much of the day, feel depressed much of the time, want to die part of the time still and that I am not ready to work even minimal part-time, let alone full-time, at ANY job.