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.

Physically and Mentally Ill: Will this pain ever end?

I am not doing well at all, both mentally and physically. I feel so exhausted and fatigued that I feel sick. The pain in my hands and arms is getting worse too. On top of that my whole body aches in almost a flu-like way. I have no fever, and no other flu symptoms, but you know how your bones ache when you have the flu, I have a milder, albeit still achy, throbby painful version of the flu-ache.

Despite being so exhausted I cannot sleep, which makes me even more exhausted. I am also getting more and more concerned about my physical symptoms, because they seem to be getting much worse and I seem to be getting more symptoms. Last night as I tried to get to sleep I remembered that around the time my hands started to hurt/lose mobility I had used an powerful insecticide throughout my house, because a friend of mine had discovered an infestation of bedbugs at their house.

Although I never saw, and have never seen (thank god), any bedbugs at my place I was concerned some may have been introduced into my home on the clothes/shoes of my friend, so as a precaution I sprayed my place... (a lot...I was freaking out as I have a phobia of bedbugs and lice). I opened all my windows and door while spraying, but numerous times while spraying I was overcome by the fumes. Last night I started worrying that I have poisoned myself with the insecticide, and that is the cause of my symptoms.

On some level I know I should not try diagnosing myself, and should wait patiently to see the rheumatologist in mid-December...but I can't stop worrying about what is happening to my body. I just can't manage being physically and mentally ill.

My mood is also extremely low right now. Despite trying to push myself to do things I have cancelled my choir, and my singing lessons this week, because I feel so depressed and physically ill. I am so tired of trying to get better and failing so miserably. I'm not sure I can manage this much longer.

A Life Worth Living

I am so annoyed and irritated for so many reasons...but this time it was triggered by blogger. I just COMPLETED a post and went to put an image on as a finishing touch and all my edits to the original post (which was actually most of the post) disappeared.

I don't feel like writing it again...but my point was that unless I get my old life back...the one where I unselfconsciously sang out loud at the top of my lungs...I don't want to live.

...and I feel hopeless and pretty certain that life, the one worth living, is gone for good.

Will This Pain Ever Really End?

(William Blake, "Pity" 1795, Tate Gallery)

Like in Blake's painting...I feel like a woman who has had her child, albeit in my case, her inner child, ripped from inside her. Is it wrong to feel angry...even enraged, about my situation? Today I felt like walking into the hospital screaming, "HELP ME!...SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME!" I cannot take it anymore. I don't know how to get better.

Of course, I fucking "know" how to get better. Do all the goddamn things everyone tells me to do to get better. Get some exercise, see my friends, make more friends, call the friends I have, call old friends, smile more, look straight ahead, not at the ground, quit shuffling your feet, clean your house, challenge my negative thinking, stop thinking in black and white, go to church, read, go to school, take art classes, connect with my family, eat less, eat better, cook better, draw, paint, teach, take better care of myself, bathe more, dress better, tidy my house, get back to work, budget my money, breathe properly, let go, stop thinking about myself, stop crying, stop being self absorbed, do more, think less, drink more water, take vitamins, take supplements, go to sleep early, get up earlier, stop coffee, drink no alcohol, canoe, ski, hike, camp, work sing, paint, create, love people, stop being angry...STOP BEING ANGRY! STOP BEING DEPRESSED...you have everything you need. So many people have so much less than you and they are happy. Stop thinking about suicide. Participate in therapy, Do what you are supposed to do. Take your medication/s. Depression is treatable. You are just not trying hard enough.

So they say...but how do these things if I am so depressed I cannot do these things. How do I do these things if nothing I try, including medications, ever helps for any length of time?

I love Dr. X. I love him as a therapist, a clinician, and on some level, as a valued friend and family member. I trust him, his knowledge, his ability to help others, his ability to help people manage their mental illnesses. I know he cares about me and my welfare. He wants to see me well. I know he tries so hard to help me...but I think I am "unhelpable".

When I met him I felt so relieved that finally someone was helping me who knew how to help me. I felt so lucky to have met such a patient, compassionate and caring psychiatrist. Finally, I felt I was in good hands. ...and I was, and I am.

I still think I am in good hands. I still think Dr. X is extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder, other Mental Illnesses and their treatments. I still believe he is a great psychiatrist. I even think that for many with a "treatment resistant" depression he is likely able to help them.

I think the problem is that my depression is not "treatment resistant", rather it is "absolutely unresponsive". I feel angry because if I had a physical illness that caused this much pain I would be given something to at the very least stop the pain. If my illness was physical, I could get some relief. I have no idea what a similar "pain medication" would look like for severe depression...maybe morphine to knock me out, to not allow me to feel, or some kind of heavy duty tranquillizer combined with an extended stay in some kind of long term care place...like what a sanitarium was supposed to be.

I completely understand why some people with mental illnesses, especially chronic ones, turn to hard drugs. Last night even I was thinking...maybe if I got some heroin, and just injected enough to relieve some of this pain...even for a while, it might be worth it.

If there is nothing out there that helps me...how will I keep going? Better question is WHY would I keep going. I do not understand what I did to make this be happening to me. I always tried to be a good person. I feel like I must have done something really bad in my past life, or in this life, to be left feeling like this for so long. I feel like I am in Hell.

How do I Keep Trying if Nothing Works?

I have been both afraid to write and too unwell to do much of anything. I want my blog to show how I keep trying, but I am having trouble with that right now. A therapy appointment a week and medications that do not work are not enough to support me. I am really struggling to continue.

Why is it with physical pain they give people in excruciating pain some type of pain relieving medications? Yet when a person is in intense psychic/mental pain there is nothing that can at least numb that pain until the medications work? In fact for me, it seems, nothing will ever work.

Do you know how many years of my life have been spent in Major Depression? I wasn't diagnosed before, but I figure it works out to close to twenty years altogether. That is almost half my life.

The irony is that until this MDE of 8 years and the 4 years prior, I saw myself as a pretty happy person, except during the periods of depression: Happy go lucky, funny, charming, loved life, a bit wild, creative, outdoorsy, ntelligent, flirtatious, well read etc..

I am no longer happy go lucky. If my mood switches upwards I spend all my energy trying to maintain that mood. I don't have time for happy go lucky. I am fighting a brutally difficult and deadly battle now.

I don't want to keep trying. I am worn out. I am so exhausted by all my trying and failing. I am so sick of using every ounce of my energy to complete the smallest of tasks. So often I find myself unable to muster the mood, motivation and momentum to even do those.

I am not talking about tasks like getting back to work . I mean things like doing my dishes, my laundry, cleaning my bathtub, cooking food or eating better than Cheetos and peanut butter oatmeal cookies, even walking my dog sluggishly around the neighbourhood, or visiting friends who I truly love. For years these have been intensely difficult tasks for me.

These past few weeks I have been even more intensely depressed than my usual. I do not know what to do. I think of suicide, and plan how I am going to go, much of my waking hours. I have written my goodbye to my sisters, I feel so depressed that I feel sick to my stomach. My body aches. I feel like I can barely move. I have been sleeping, or trying to sleep much of the afternoon. The rest of the time I sit in my chair and stare at the wall. I am completely unmotivated, so fatigued that getting up to walk the dog takes me forever, just to get out of the chair, I sit in my p.j's all day. I am even too tired to put my suicide plans into action. It is possible to be to depressed to kill oneself.

...so I cry and cry and cry. I feel so alone. I feel hopeless and exhausted.

I am afraid to really tell people in my life how depressed I am. I am afraid of them leaving me because I am too difficult to be around. I feel like life is impossible to continue. I feel it is not worth continuing. I have tried so many things and still here I sit severely depressed faced with the rest of my life continuing like this.

Please there must be something to stop this pain. How the hell do I keep trying when nothing works?

Rivers Run Through Me

I'm just tired, depressed and worn out. I used to believe I would get well again; I mean almost completely well like I have after my other depressive episodes. I don't believe that anymore, and even Dr. X. has told me it is likely I will always have to manage some cycling up and down.

I know he is right. I see others having to manage cycling, even when it appears their illness is being well managed with medication

I have been having intense thoughts of suicide off and on all weekend. I envision myself hanging myself: how I will hang, where and what it will feel like. Most of all I daydream about all the relief I will feel as I slip into unconsciousness. I watch myself lift up a gun, arifle and shoot myself in the head. The violence of both ideas points to how anxious I have been all weekends. The more anxiety I feel, the more violent the methods of suicide I imagine.

My boyfriend told me to stop worrying the other day. He asked me why I worry so much. I don't know. I cannot remember a time when I did not worry. I remember, even when I was 5 or 6, worrying about all kinds of things. It seems like I was born worrying.

I told him, for me, worrying is a symptom of my illness. I think it is a material structure in my brain that makes me worry. Some kind of negative feedback loop in my brain has worn a path so deep into the forest of neurons and dendrites, the chemicals flow like a river down these worn paths; rapidly exchanging negative thoughts, beliefs and ideas down this canal. It is difficult for any positive ideas to cross the deep riverbed created by years and years of bad thoughts.

I feel like I do not want to keep trying; like trying so much takes all my energy. This past week I have slept, and slept and slept. I have slept in, slept late, napped in the afternoon, in the evening and then gone to bed early and slept in late. I want so badly to just disappear, for it to end, for my life to go away.

Try, Fail, Try, Fail, Try, Fail Ad Infinitum

A strange dynamic takes place on a regular basis in my therapy. I will sit across from Dr. X. and protest that I can't cook, eat well, clean, keep up, take care of myself etc. (which prior to the protest is the case)...and then either later that day or the next I end up doing the very thing I could not do earlier.

This happened last night. On Thursday I proclaimed an absolute inability to cook, eat well etc. Last night I had two friends over, made a beautiful salad of various types of lettuce and garden greens, mangoes, avocados, eggs and black beans. I cooked fresh corn; melted brie with roasted garlic and served it with a fresh baguette. I made raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing. Both the food and the process of cooking was enjoyable and seemed easy.

I believe my whining in therapy about the things I can't do rallies the fighter inside me to actually do that for which I confess a lack of motivation and ability.

I am a fighter, but I get tired of fighting to survive all the time. Last night I ate more vegetables than I have this entire month. Unfortunately, based on previous experience I probably won't manage to succeed like that again for a while.

Despite a sense of connectedness with my friends last night, this morning I feel morose, detached, and wish I weren't here. I walked the dog and most of the time I was somewhere else; some of the time visions of my hanging myself; separating my head from my body, ending my struggle forever washed through my head. I really wish I could either succeed at getting well, or get the courage to delete myself from this life. I can't seem to manage either.

All these experiences of trying so hard to pull myself out of the black pit that is my hell, and all the experiences of failing so miserably at doing so have led to my feeling an intense sense of learned helplessness. Giving up seems like the obvious next step.

Is It Over Yet?

It is 6:01pm. I woke at 7:00am, went back to bed at 9:30am, woke a couple of times for less than an hour, and slept the rest of the day...almost 8 hours more sleep, after I already slept 8 hours.

I know this is not healthy. I know it, yet I am so tired and fatigued and I have such little desire to be here that I sleep to disappear. My sleeping makes the day go away without me having to experience it as just another day I want to go away.

For someone with so much death anxiety you would think I'd at least experience what little time I have on earth, but I can't. I just want to know: Is it over yet.

My death anxiety is not really about being afraid of death, rather it is being afraid that I will not live a meaningful life before I die. I fear I will always be stuck, always cycling, depressed; avoidant. I fear my life will end before I have the opportunity to really live.

In my session on Dr. X asked me what I have been eating...because I have been eating very poorly, especially these past few months. On top of that my blood tests came back with low iron, which definitely could be feeding my fatigue.

So what do I do when I discover I am eating all the wrong things in all the wrong amounts, and leaving out the things I need (i.e. fruits and vegetables and iron and vitamins)? Do I eat better? Do I take my iron and vitamins consistently? And when I recognize that my exercise routine is much like a snail's daily workout...do I pick up the pace? Do I take care of myself?

Absolutely not. Why the hell would I do that. That would make too much sense. Why would I want top lose some weight, to have higher iron, to get important nutrients into my system?

Dr X asked me why I am eating so much food that is bad for me. I got off track and didn't answer, partly because I have no idea. Partly because I don't have the energy to prepare any food for myself, partly because I don't want to be here anyways, partly because I am self destructing.

All I really want to know about my life is this...Is it over yet?

Lessons Learned in Therapy

What have I learned in therapy? Here are some of the lessons I have learned, or am working on learning, in therapy. Some I have managed to learn by practising and failing, practicing and failing...over and over again, until suddenly the lesson becomes ingrained and followed. Some of them have taken medication to allow me to get to the place where I am able to abide by the lessons. I truly believe that medication has tipped the scales in my favour, but I also know that without therapy I would not have gained what I have gained over the past few years...

1. There are people who are trustworthy.
2. There are kind men.
3. Doing things...activities that feed my love for living is integral for my feeling better.
4. Guilt is a difficult feeling to dispense of. It is not helpful to me. In fact it harms me. (I am still struggling with this one.)
5. Lessons learned in therapy must be practised, not just thought about.
6. Hiding at home is not conducive to improved mental health. It takes the stimulation of others, the stimulation of challenges for me to slowly learn I am both a good and knowledgeable person.
7. That while a medication may work for some people, it may even have been shown to work for many people, I am an individual and it may not work for me. I require a personalized medication plan. Medication probably requires small changes here and there depending on my cycles.
8. That having a trustworthy, trusting, knowledgeable, and caring psychiatrist who never gives up on me makes all the difference in the world. I have learned I can lean on Dr. X and he will not give up on me. Knowing I have an advocate and a mentor has allowed me to keep trying and not give up.
9. Even if it takes 7 years to find the right medication/s, it is possible to find a combo that works to quell my symptoms. Again it may require "tweeking" here and there if symptoms change or become worse. It is not simply a matter of finding the right medication. It is an ongoing challenge.
10. The more I struggle against my depression and anxiety, the more depressed and anxious I become. This does not mean I need to give up. It means I have to accept my symptoms, yet continue to calmly try to find a way, or ways, to help myself.
11. That teaching others in a similar situation as me has helped me understand and learn more about myself.
12. That volunteering gives me a sense of purpose.
13. That others might actually like me.
14. That I am not a horrible person...I am an individual, with individual desires and needs. My needs and desires are not weird, they are part of a spectrum of human behaviour.
15. Even if you think you like being alone, it is important to have friends.
16. I have an artist inside me.
17. I should always sing.
18. Feeling guilty about not being able to work is not helpful, because working to get better, and all the energy that takes is working.
19. My sexuality is a blessing.
20. I am a passionate person when I feel better.
21. "Better" is on a continuum...For me I may not always be on an upward trajectory towards well, but the more I keep working on this difficulty, the more I accept there will be setbacks, the more I recognize that setbacks are a normal state or part of increasing my resiliency, the more I am able to recognize the little steps, the big and small activities I need to do to get back on track if I slip up.
22. I need to work towards a life I choose, not one that falls into my lap. It is difficult, but rewarding work.
23. That creativity helps my soul heal, as does helping others.
24. My blog is work. It is therapeutic for me, and perhaps to others. It has helped me to create and build a supportive community for myself.
25. That treatment resistant depression is common. That does not mean the depression will never be treatable. It means it may take a lot of support and a longer period of time to find the treatment that works for the person with treatment resistant depression and/or anxiety.
26. Despite being, knowing, believing I am being spied upon...Do things, Write in my blog. know I am being watched and do it anyways. It is hard to be so open if you think you are being watched, but it is important to know my gaining resiliency, my getting better requires I do all I need to get better, even if I feel afraid.

Here is My Truth

My appointment today was at first a bit stressful, but mostly it was uplifting. I am blessed to be a patient of Dr. X. I have known that from the first day I met him. I connect with him in a way that I cannot seem to with anyone else. I am learning, slowly, that connections like this are important to me and I need to search out other people I feel this way about.

I once again felt worried I had destroyed my therapeutic alliance with him, by "outing" my crush on him. A big part of why I am afraid it was the wrong thing to do is that it seems that everyone I say I love you to, or anyone I really really like and say so, always disappears in my life. It is so hard for me to get to the stage where I can actually speak my truth about someone. By the time I do it is too late, or the words magically destroy the bond.

Dr. X told me he was glad I told him, and that it was always important that I speak my truth with him. He also said we have a very strong alliance. I felt he was speaking truthfully, and that it was okay for me to feel whatever I did, and to talk about it openly, safely.

Part of the reason I feel drawn to him is the way he is: introspective, interesting, interested, thoughtful, never angry, calm, compassionate, always supportive, always available.

I have never met any man, my entire life who is these things. It's strange, but I was always drawn to the "bad boys". The men who always wanted to use me, or who wanted only one thing (I wanted that to)...but I also wanted more...and could never figure out why I always received less than I needed.

I watched as all my friends met men, who cared for them, and fell in love with them. By the time I was 27 I had slept with too many men to count, always enjoyed the experiences, but was always left wanting more than sex. I don't know what it is about me, but it seems I am not a lovable person. On top of that I am not sure I have ever loved. I guess that explains not receiving romantic love...you need to feel it to receive it.

This is my truth:

• The first man in my life, my dad, was the pattern from which all my relationships with men were cut. It was the relationship I learned to emulate. Unfortunately I have some of my dad in me. I get angry, and irritated, I am a bit overwhelming sometimes. I don't listen enough. I talk too much.
• My father was controlling, punishing, physically abusive and even worse a dismissive bully who believed the only correct views were his own. He scared me to death. He used intimidation; mental and physical abuse to keep me in line. I am still terrified by him. Almost every time I see him he does something that elicits tears in me. I know I am responsible for the tears, but I cannot make them stop. I cry on the way to his house. I don't want to go, but feel an intense sense of duty to be a good daughter. I humour him when with him to protect myself, but it always backfires. I never mange to stand up for myself.
• I left home the week after high school and moved to a different province. Less than a week after I moved far away from home I was date raped by the first boy I dated in my new town. I don't know what I was thinking, but I went back to his place after going to a club with him. We started kissing and then he began to take my clothes off. I tried to stop him, but he kept saying it was okay, we didn't have to do anything. When I was laying on the bed with him, partially clad, feeling cared for and enjoying the intimacy, feeling attractive and attracted to this man, he began trying to have sex with me. I said no numerous times, but he pushed me down and forced himself into me. As soon as it was over he told me to leave. I got dressed. Left, and cried all the way home. I felt dirty and used. I showered and cleaned myself up. Then I went to the payphone to beg my Mom to let me come home. She kept telling me I was just homesick and I had to stick it out longer and I'd get over it. I was so ashamed that I had let myself be in the position to have sex, that I had led the person on, that inside I had kind of wanted to make out, that I had not fought harder to get out of there. After that night I let men do whatever they wanted with me. If it got rough, something about that turned me on. It was like my being "taken" triggered a need to be taken. I think I lost my ability to love that night.

The truth is, the only man, in my real life (vs. people online), that has ever treated me respectfully is Dr. X. Even with other doctors, or professionals I have always felt either condescended to or dismissed. I can see that maybe my first male role model made it impossible for me to trust men, so all men get painted with the same black brushstrokes. Dr. X is consistently respectful. I need that.

My truth is that I have a lot of pain inside about how my relationships/nonrelationships with men have gone. I don't feel love, because I don't trust anyone. I always expect them to hurt me. I get what I expect.

I don't mean I get what I expect in a "The Secret" kind of way. I don't believe simply expecting others to be honest, fair, truthful and loving will make it so. That is magical thinking. I know that.

I mean I get what I expect, because I act and react to the people I would like to love me, in a way that creates a wall between us, in a way that projects fear and self consciousness. In a way that doesn't come across as genuine, or authentic.

When I am my authentic self I am full of intense passion and a desire to love. I sing loud, and laugh louder. I am overjoyed with being here on earth. I want to experience more, to witness more, to learn more. When I am my authentic self I draw people to me. Unfortunately my authentic self always eventually disappears for days, or weeks, sometimes months, and over the past 10 years into 2 and then 10 years of depression...which leads me to recede, to make myself small, to lose touch with all my talents and skills.

In therapy I think I have finally realized my truth. My truth is that I will always be besot by depressed periods. This is true. I will always have some sort of cycling appear here and there. This is true. What isn't true is that there is no hope, no way out. I have the power, both within me, and by reaching out to others, like my pdoc, to MANAGE to live with the depression.

If I have a structure to at least part of my day everyday, if I have other people or my cats and dog that I am responsible to, if I take my medication regularly, if I keep a regular sleep schedule, if I sit in front of my S.A.D. lamp every morning, if I keep in contact with people who care about me, if I continue to see Dr. X. for support...and maybe especially because I like seeing him, if I create art, if I sing everyday...even if I am sad...actually ESPECIALLY is I am sad, I can manage my life. I can make my life, even if it is a sad one, a life worth living.

It seems ironic, but without my struggles with depression, especially the intense despondency, hopelessness and despair I have felt this last depressive episode, I don't think I would ever have discovered my love for creating art. I may not have rediscovered my intense love for music and singing, I would never have began volunteering. I am not saying depression is a gift...I hate that misplaced platitude. I am saying that without my depression I would never have questioned what I wanted, or who I am. I would have continued on my weary way to a hellish existence. I would never have looked at my life from an existential perspective and asked myself if I loved the life I was living. I did not, but I am beginning to create the life I want. It is remarkable what I am learning about myself. It is remarkable that I am slowly learning it is okay to feel joy.

Singing Lessons

Eva Cassidy - Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Just came home from my first singing lesson. It was not easy to either go, or to actually get myself to sing in front of someone, but I know this will be so good for me if I can manage not to run away with my tail between my legs.

First off....all day I have been BEYOND wired. I have so much energy inside me I feel like trying to contain it is creating a bomb. I am afraid I will explode any second. Because I am trying hard to be and appear 'normal' I am so tense inside and I can barely breathe.

This was the big problem I had in my singing lesson; not the fact that I didn't know how to breathe properly for singing, but I was so anxious...close to panic, that I kept FORGETTING to breathe. Since when did breathing become a non-automatic thing to do? God anxiety is brutal. I swear I feel like I have shoulders as stiff and hard as rocks and my lungs want to clamp shut on me.

Anxiety aside, and I am still extremely anxious 2.5 hours later, and was anxious the whole time, ...anxiety aside I am so glad I went.

The teacher is really into old Blues/Jazz songs and our tastes in Blues/Jazz are the same. She taught me some cool exercises to help my voice loosen up and get myself breathing properly, while at the same time practicing scales.

Oh yeah...in one of the exercises I get to howl, as loud as I can like a wolf. Start as high as I can and go as low as I can. How fitting is it that I get to howl given how much wolves figure in my anxiety and fears. Maybe now I get to talk back to them!!! Look out!

After that I went down to the music store, bought a couple Jazz music books and looked into taking piano lessons (eeeeeehhhhh!) (Loud high school girl scream of excitement!) I really, really want to do this. I love music so much. More than any art form in the world. I really want to sing, and learn to play the piano.

P.S. The video above is the rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" I am going to practice and learn with my new teacher. I am singing "Blue Moon too...it is beautiful.

Oh yeah...the best part:

My teacher said I have a "gorgeous voice" ..."powerful" (quotes), she said. She said my tone is great and my pitch is good...My range is good. It's a matter of learning to breathe and train what I already have going for me.

She really did go on about how much she liked my voice. I could tell she was being honest too by the way she kept telling me. She is thrilled to have a student who wanted to learn the kinds of songs she wants to teach...And I am thrilled she likes those songs. Fifteen minutes into the lesson she asked me if I wanted to join the choir she teaches on Wednesday nights at a big arts centre in town. I am going to do that after I take a few private lessons.

This is so good for me. I think next time will be easier as hopefully in two weeks I will have slowed down a bit. Dr. X said I am still having Valium withdrawal and that's why I am so agitated. Regardless, I am going to be afraid and do it anyways.

"I Love the Whole World"

Yesterday, in my pdoc appt we discussed my going off my medication and trying to get a clearer view of what is/is not, or if anything is helping me; my starting from a blank slate. I am not certain my medications are helping me, though I do seem to have "manageable moods" more often than before, but maybe that is therapy, and teaching, and creating art, and developing friendships etc.

Dr. X said it was not clear to him that the medications were helping me. He also expressed "dismay"that I had increased my Valium, rather than decrease it as discussed. He said it is a worrisome trend. I said "dismay" in brackets, because he never lets it show if he is disappointed. The dismay aspect comes from how I felt he felt about my misstep.

I am terrified of discontinuing, or lowering my Valium. I always get so stressed out, stop sleeping, become miss crankypants from hell. Rather than express all that fear I make the excuse, "but it seem like Valium IS the only medication that helps me."

Last night I decided "fuck it" I am going of the Valium fast and I will deal with the sleeplessness, anxiety and irritability. The faster I get off it, the faster I will get over the withdraw effects.

Dr. X and I decided to have me go off the Mood Stabilizer I am on. I haven't had a joyous day in a long time, and my good moods are so good they outshine the happiest person out there in terms of radiance and pure energy, without the bad consequences of mania/hypomania. I feel like life and all its glory exudes and radiates energy through me.

I was watching the Discovery Channel last night and they have the best advertisement I have ever seen....this is me when I feel good:

I want ME back.

Last night I lowered my Tegretol from 1000 to 800mgs (as per Dr X's instructions)...but I also lowered my Valium from 20mgs to 15 and will lower to 10 tonight. Life is too short and there is too much to experience to be the way I am.

What? Why? How?

I usually start my pdoc appts by providing a recap of any symptoms I have been having. It's just always the way I start. I always forget something important. I should write what happens down. This is how it went this morning (as I remember it):

Me: I've been depressed, well all over the map actually.

Dr. X: All over the map?

Me: Yeah, depressed most of the time, but my mood has gone up when things happen, like I reconciled with my best friend, which I am very happy about. I visited another friend, Drawing with her one day, and that was fun. My mood went up. But when I got home I felt ashamed of how poorly I draw. I felt sad that I was as bad as I was.

Dr. X: This is something concrete we could help you with, your phobia of feeling ashamed, or embarrassed.

Me: Yeah. (Translation in my head)...nothing in the world will help me learn to trust people are honest with me. Nothing will ever make me stop feeling I am bad at things I do, and that people are always making fun of me, or dismissing me. Even when nothing in their actions suggests this.

There are so many times I have thought Dr. X was "most certainly ridiculing" my skills/talents. However, if I really think hard I can't see him doing that to anyone else. Why would he think bad things about me? Why would others think bad things about me? Why do I think bad things about me?

• I'm tired all the time and sleeping between 3:30 and 6, or one day from 2-6. I just get exhausted.
• I feel like I'm in a daze. It's not my memory as much as it feels like I am losing my brain cells. (I forgot to tell him I poured myself a drink and forgot the vodka...didn't clue in until I had drank half of it...duh!) (I did this again tonight...maybe my subconscious is telling me something)..."leave out the vodka"...Ya think?
  
  I picked up a knife right after making my coffee and looked at it wondering why I had done that, or I tried to put the martini shaker sieve on top of the vodka bottle. I take something out of the cupboard and have no idea why, I put thinks in the microwave that are supposed to go in the fridge. I momentarily look at the syrup (for my pancakes) and I can't remember what it is for...the list goes on.
  
  (Aside): I also forgot to tell him I am back to only two drinks a day. I was doing worse than that the past few weeks so that's good.
  
  This week and last week I forgot to tell him I have been falling....alot.
  
  At my middle sister's I took my dog out in the middle of the night to pee. I took a misstep on her porch (forgot there was a step there), fell, twisted my ankle, had a huge bruise and road rash on my back and on the palm of my hand. I thought I broke my foot.
  
  Afterwards, it was freaky, (but kind of funny), because as I feel I fell on the dog's leash, releasing him from his collar and there I am in agony unable to get up and my puppy takes off into my sister's back yard with no identification on him. I finally manage to get up, but at this point I have lost my shoes and am in my sock feet and I am limping all over my sister's soaking wet back yard in the pitch black trying to catch the dog...which, thank god, I did.
  
  I also fell twice in our driveway the past 3 days. I am destined to be one of those old ladies who falls and breaks her hip in old age. I have always been a klutz.
  
  Anyways...As the session proceeds....
  
  Me: Will you tell me how you see me? Tell me how you would explain me to a colleague if you had to pass me on to someone else.
  
  (Aside): So now Dr. X sits silent and inside my head I am thinking..."he's trying to frame bad news in some acceptable way, or he's trying to edit what he wants to say, rather than tell me the truth...and usually I interrupt and say it's okay to say what ever he thinks,
  ...but this time I slowed myself down and tried to think this silence is just his way. He is thoughtful about things before he speaks. He's just thinking. But deep inside I think he's thinking about how avoid giving me the truth, but I am struggling to believe he is, and always has been honest with me.
  
  Dr. X: First I would spend much of the time explaining your ongoing symptoms
• I would like to change the question, so rather than address a colleague, I am addressing you (this brings me a step closer to trusting he is going to be honest)

Me: Tell me what I am doing wrong. Am I doing something that is making nothing work? Am I resisting for some reason? Does my therapy need to done differently...can't think of the word

• I think it would be helpful for you to have some kind of benevolent structure in your life.

(I think he is referring to daily goals, plans and activities, that are both constant and positive for me. Examples, might be teaching at the Art Clubhouse, seeing friends, gaining more of a social network, exercise etc.)

Inside I feel the pain of losing my job, but recognize the structure there was too full of fear and stressful events for me to continue, but I long for that sense of accomplishment I got from working at something challenging. Deep inside I know I cannot manage the kind of stress that comes with a corporate job...still I long for the ability to work full-time again. So I ask about working.

Dr. X: You are working!

Me: (inside my head)...I mean REAL work. What I do is not good enough, I don't work enough, I am a burden on the system...but I don't say it because I know it must really annoy him that I can't move on and accept I am a different person now when it comes to the types of jobs I will be able to manage.

Dr. X: (Later on in the appt)...Actually I would like to see you go somewhere for a while, to the tropics or something, to somewhere that had a really structured longer term program.

Me: Like a sanitarium? (I was thinking of this in a positive way, as a place of rest with lots of support and stress relieving routines in place)

Dr. X: "No, that sounds too pejorative, something more like a retreat, where you felt you fit in with the other people there, where you did things together.

Me: (Inside)...that sounds more like a nightmare. I HATE group activities. I am a more one-one person or one - two person. Groups scare me.

(Out loud) I meant "Sanitarium in a positive way, like a place where a person goes to heal. (Inside)...I have thought about and tried to find someplace like that...you know like the places people with TB went at the turn of the century, or the places you read about where therapy is available and it is a beautiful, hospitable place to become well again)

There's more...but I will write about that later. I went into my session sad and feeling things will never change, but Dr. X soon began helping me feel cared for. While for the past few days and on the way to my pdoc appointment I just wanted to quit therapy and medicine and quit trying altogether. Sitting in the chair, across from Dr. X. for only a few moments changed my mind. He has a way of making me need to keep trying, even when I don't want to. I will.

Going away somewhere warm and sunny does sound like a good idea...hmmm.

Feeling Homeless

An Anonymous writer commented on my last post:

"You wrote "I want so badly to die." I'd like to challenge you by making an adjustment to that statement: "I want so badly to be loved and respected." It's what we all want."

This comment sounded like my pdoc talking...and you are sort of right.

In 2005 my Mom's Dr told her to have X-mas now because her end was near. Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of the last X-mas I had with my Mom. She died 5 days later.



The only place I ever called "home" was my Mom's house. It wasn't even my childhood home, because we moved all the time, and because when my Dad left us she had to move a couple more times. However, everywhere my Mom lived was "home" to me...it was her that made it so.

At my Mom's I could totally relax. I never had to ask if I could eat something, or make something, or do something. I always knew I could do what ever I wanted and I'd be loved and cared for and respected no matter what, no matter how I was feeling, no matter how depressed I was, no matter how little I was able to manage. She always loved me and told me so.

I guess in a way I am lucky. Some people may never have someone like that in their lives. As I was headed to my house and my husband, on the ferry from my sister's tonight I began thinking about love and home.

My little sister like to see me for short (very short) periods of time, but it becomes clear after a few days that she wants to be alone. My middle sister loves me, but she too wants me to go after a couple days, and her evil husband makes it so difficult to relax that I want to leave the second I get their. At both my sister's houses I feel like a "guest"; the need to ask if I can have something to eat, or make a coffee, or have a nap is made clear by the way they are. I never feel at home. I always feel I am on borrowed time.

At my Dad's it is even worse. Whereas when I used to stay at my Mom's I always assumed I could eat, drink, play with, watch, or do anything I wanted...it was home so all those were a given. At my Dad's I feel like I am a guest in a stranger's house. To the point that I feel the need to ask for a glass of water, rather than pour myself one.

I realized today that since my Mom passed away I have no one who loves me. I am desperately alone. I don't mean people who read my blog and care about me, I mean family, husband, or friends I see on a regular basis. I am so alone.

Even in my own house I feel on edge all the time because I am not a good wife, housekeeper, lover. I am criticized and made to feel bad about my abilities. I don't want sex, because I feel unloved, I cannot take care of my home, in part because I feel distanced from it.

I am, what I always feared I'd be: homeless, loveless, alone.

I watched the movie : "Into the Wild" last night, and I felt almost identical to the protagonist, except, even in an existential crisis, he knew where he was going. I feel lost.

On the ferry today it seemed like death is the easiest solution. I have tried and tried since before and after my Mom died to find my place in life. Maybe for some of us there is no place. Perhaps for some of us being alone is our destiny. I do not think I can live with that.

God, I miss my Mom so much it is unbearable. I miss her love, her non-judgemental and completely compassionate caring. The only place I feel is remotely similar is in my pdoc's office, but are 50 minutes a week of thoughtfulness and caring enough caring to sustain a person? I don't think so.

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.

What Do You Do: Are You Valuable?

A few days ago I went to the optometrist. A task I have been trying to get myself to do for more than a year now. Fortuitously, or not, my dog tried to eat my husband's glasses and I ended up at a glasses repair shop that had optometrists on site, so I booked an appointment and, because I have an intense sense of responsibility, despite not wanting to go when the time came to show up, I went and saw the optometrist anyways.

That is not the point of this post. Part of the point is WHY I do not want to see any health professionals outside my pdoc. It is because after the greetings, the first question out of their mouths is always, "are you healthy?"

My head always swirls with this question...my first thought always being, "I am desperately unhealthy if you include mental health as part of health. Then, "do they need to know about that?" Then, "well it would be lying to say I was healthy, should I lie?" Then, "but I don't want anyone to know I am WEAK" (argh... i.e. all that fear of discrimination, sense that I am doing this (my depression) to myself. It's my fault. If I wanted to change I would. I am such a loser for being like this." Then finally, "if I tell anyone they will think all these things about me too."

So I falter, and do not know how to answer the question. The Optometrist picks up on this and pushes from another direction, "Are you on any medications?" I feel so stressed out now, because as soon as I tell him my medications he will know I am a complete loser. I become hot, and I can feel my face become red. Embarrassment sets in. I list my medications, "Prozac, Tegretol, Valium, and Dexedrine". It is obvious to him now, that my hidden secret is out: I am mentally unstable. I feel little in the room; an "unperson".

Why? I do not feel this about anyone else with a mental illness. Just me. I don't get how I can be an advocate in so many ways for people with mental illnesses, yet feel as though I am less because of mine. I know that a huge part of it is that I feel devalued. I feel because I am not working I am incurring a huge debt to society. I am less worthy than others. I am, in fact, less than what people expect a person to be. These thoughts are drilled into my head. I can try to get rid of them. I can try to move beyond them by writing like I did in my last post, but they are always nagging me. They never go away.

Last night I thought about this picture. It is me, as a child, feeding the pigeons. I am certain that people found me valuable then. I am 100% sure that a little girl feeding the pigeons, a little girl doing what brought her joy, was a beautiful sight to others. I am sure no one was watching me and thinking, "That little girl should stop all this fun and enjoyment and get onto something more serious in her life". I am sure others would have seen me as valuable despite my not working.

What is it about children that makes the inherently valuable in a way that adults are not? Why would we never ask a child, "WHAT do you do?" Rather we might ask them, "What do you LIKE to do?

Why are adults so readily judged by the question, "what do you do? Why do we judge ourselves that way? Why am I obsessed with getting a job? Why can't I get that a job may follow a period of doing things I love to do, things that create meaning and purpose in my life. Why can't I get that a job is just one important aspect of life. Why can't I learn, or believe that a job CAN be simply a means to an end? Why can't I manage to give less power to the idea that a job is the what creates meaning and purpose for me?

Part of it is societal norms. Almost the first question out of a person's mouth when they first meet you is "What do you do?": As though with that information they will know everything they need to know about you.

When I was a banker I dreaded this question, because saying "I am a banker" elicits all kinds of stereotypes about who I am, and I was not those stereotypes, or if I was those stereotypes were the parts of me that I hated the most. The entire time I was a banker it was as though I was being the opposite of how I saw myself. The opposite of who I wanted to be, who I imagined I would grow into. I dread the question even more now that I am off work.

I have always fancied answering the question, "What do you do?" in another way: "I draw, and paint. I like to dance and listen to music. I love watching quirky crime drama's. I have a pretty good voice and I love to sing. I like the idea of tradition, but believe we need to envelope new ideas to. I write a blog. I absolutely love to read and learn. I volunteer at a mental health arts facility. I love to hang out with my sisters. I love my nieces and my sisters. I enjoy going out for breakfast with a friend, or going for long walks on the beach or in the woods. I love to garden, canoe and go camping. The problem is, for a long time, I have had trouble consistently doing and enjoying any of the things I "enjoy".

Of course, I love my sisters and nieces, but leaving home to visit them is frightening and exhausting. I am always afraid I won't be able to manage being away from home. I no longer garden, or hike, or camp, or canoe...I cannot muster the energy. I cannot seem to read. Yesterday I tried to read a book that I started a month ago. I knew I had read some of it before, but could not remember where I had read to so I began again. I remembered parts of chapter one and then nothing until I came to Chapter 6 (page 63)...I had read all the way to there before and remembered nothing except that I had read a part of chapter one. How is that possible? Anyways, my point being I don't even truly enjoy all the things I enjoy anymore.

I just don't get why, after years, and years, and years of therapy I can't accept my predicament; accept the life I have fallen into; accept that I am a different person and somehow learn that I am still as valuable as I was when I was that little girl feeding the birds.

I Am So Tired of Trying to Get Better.

(All photos by Aqua, November, 2008) These first two are the strangest mushrooms I have ever seen. At first glance I thought it was dog poop plopped on top of a stick, until I looked at it from ground level at the side (don't ask WHY I would do that if I thought it was poo!!!). When I looked at it from "mushroom level" it looked like something out of "Lord of the Rings"


I wanted to go into my appointment today and focus on all the things I DID do this week. I wanted to try to shift my appointments away from my morose and markedly anxious and depressed mood. Last week Dr. X. said we do not have to talk about my symptoms, or my depression in our sessions. We could have appointments where we just discuss other things and have a conversation about whatever I want.

At first that seemed weird. Why would I see a psychiatrist and not talk about my psychiatric problems. As the week wore on I began to think maybe that would be a good idea. Maybe if I focus on the things I enjoy, rather than the thing I least enjoy I would eventually forget I'm depressed (hey....I seem to forget everything else!).

I tried really hard this week to find pleasure in simple things. The most enjoyable moments were spent with my puppy, in the forest taking pictures of mushrooms.

Mushrooms? You may be REALLY worried for my mental health now,.but I cannot get over the diversity of these little things. I also cannot believe I never noticed all this variety of fungi sitting right in front of me my whole life. It is strange how when you start to look for something it is as though a magician has placed it everywhere in front of you .

Perhaps I should begin looking for, and recording, enjoyable moments. Maybe they would become as prolific and diverse as all the mushrooms I have been finding. Maybe eventually the damp, dark forest that is my mind would eventually create joy as abundantly and easily as the real forest breeds mushrooms.

Maybe each enjoyable moment would create a path in my brain, and finally all those paths would become happiness, or at the very least, the absence of depression.

Probably not. More and more and more and more and more etc. I sense this depression is never going away. I sense my Mom was right: I need to accept my depression and move on WITH it. Maybe some of us just never get better. Maybe some of us are destined to be depressed with only fleeting moments of feeling okay, or experiencing joy, insight, or happiness. Can I accept that as a life worth living?

Some may say I should feel blessed that at least I have moments of levity. Some people do not even get those moments.

I don't feel that way. Those ethereal moments almost feed my depression. I say this because the joy makes the sadness even more evident and profound. Every time the joy, the laughter, or the connection I feel with someone, or something, ends I feel even more depressed. Those short experiences of a lift in mood seem to be there only to show me what I am missing. While photographing these mushrooms I felt a sense that they had more of a meaningful and purposeful existence than me.

I am sorry that some people have no moments of joy, but I am losing patience with having no mood stability. I want the old me back, the working me, the proud me, the ideas me, the fun loving me, the free me, the gregarious and mischevious and loveable me. That said, I am pretty certain the old me is gone and this is the new me. If that is the case, I really would like would like this life to end ASAP. I'm not cut out for this anymore.

A Life Not Worth Living

I don't know about all the medications I am on. I feel like stopping everything and seeing what I'm like for "real". I do not see the medications consistently helping me. I felt a surge of okay to good mood for the first while on Prozac, but for the last couple months my mood has been all over the map...up, down, really down, down even farther and up again.

I would have to say my mood overall (in the last 3-4 months) is better than it was before the Prozac and Valium and Tegretol and Dexedrine, but is It good? No way. It is not good. It is still mostly very, very bad.

I do not think of suicide almost everday like I did before, but I still have days and sometimes more where I think suicide is the only choice. Where I dream about how to do it, how to make my life finally end.

I still feel hopeless much of the time. I am so tired I am finding it almost impossible most days to get going. By that I mean the basics like having a shower, brushing my hair, getting dressed in anything other than sweatpants, leaving the house, painting, doing the dishes, cooking, cleaning, do my volunteer work(come on now...it's less than 6 hours a week. How hard can that be? Anything beyond laying in bed, or surfing the internet seems like an impossibly difficult chore.

It is 3:54 and all I have I managed to do today is to get out of bed at 9:00, shower without washing my hair and get dressed at noon, play my guitar for 15 minutes and sit at the computer waiting for 4:00pm when I feel it is a reasonable time to have a nap.

I will nap until 6 or 7pm, not be able to cook dinner, but maybe manage to make myself a fruit/yougurt smoothie, watch t.v. for a couple hours and then feel like it's okay to go to bed and then it will all begin again tomorrow.

This is not a life worth living. This is waiting to die; waiting for it all to be over, waiting for an end to this search and struggle for purpose and meaning in a body that cannot find the will, the power, or the energy to create or develop that purpose and meaning.

In retrospect: Please read this

What if my Depression Is Related to Physical Brain Trauma or Illness?

I am scheduled to undergo a C.A.T. scan of my brain(?) head(?) this Wednesday. I am having some strange problems along with my depression that are worrying me. I am concerned that concussions and head traumas I endured earlier in life may be responsible for both my ongoing, refractory depression and my recent concerns. Here is what I am experiencing:

1) Extreme word retrieval problems. Throughout the day, and almost every time I talk with someone I will go to say something and I cannot find the word or the thing. It is always a simple words I cannot find.

For example, in my session three weeks ago I was describing my learning blues guitar techniques and then how the teacher and I would play together, each listening to the other and making up music that went with the other's playing. There is a word for this. it is simple. As soon as I described it Dr. X. said the word. When I got home it was gone again. After a week of thinking about it it finally came to me a few days ago, and now, for the past 4 days I cannot find the word, even if I try concentrating on the definition for a long period of time. (it is not "accompaniment, or duo, or duet...but something that expresses the making up of the music as you go along...if you think you know the word PLEASE share it with me...it's driving me mad)

2) Confusion/concentration/memory problems.
I feel a sense of being elsewhere (not dissociation) but confused easily by directions, where I am in my car, driving etc. I feel like I cannot stay on task for any length of time, my mind is constantly wandering from thing to thing. I put things down and can't find them a few minutes later. I walk into a room and cannot remember why I am there. I am putting things in strange places. The other day I was looking for the disinfectant wipes I keep on the kitchen counter. I had just used them. I looked everywhere; cupboards, bathroom, other room in the house..then 2 hours later I found them in the fridge of all places.

3) Saying strange things/speaking strangely.
Examples:

• My husband asked me why I wasn't watching T.V. I wanted to say "It's a commercial", instead what came out of my mouth was "It's a nude"...it was disconcerting.
• Then that same day I tried to say something and I started to speak, but it came out as a stutter. I couldn't get it out. I've never stuttered before in my life.
• Then last night I went to say "Turn it down" (the T.V.), but what came out was "make it soft."...which is sort of similar, but not what I meant to say....it's like my brain is shuffling my words.

4) I am tripping and falling and bumping into things much more than usual.

I have fallen and hurt myself 3 times in the past two weeks, before that I almost fell through our front window and about a month and a half ago I fell all the way down my sister's staircase. I am tripping all the time.

On Thursday I told Dr. X about all the head injuries I have had. I am pretty sure I told him before, but he said I hadn't. I have had two confirmed concussions (once at 5 or 6) when I fell from a 12 step stair landing headfirst onto the pavement below, and then at 17 when I was in a really bad car accident.

Over and above that I have had to have stitches due to head injuries twice, once at 16 when I dove into the pool and hit my head on the lifeguard chair's diving ramp and the other when I fell headfirst off my bicycle. I hit my head on the side of the pool in a diving accident. I fell at the pool at the top of the water slide and knocked myself out for a few seconds; I incurred a compression fracture in my spine in that fall, I was bucked of a horse into the hole we had dug to build our new house, again landing head and arm first...and the last one I remember was rollerblading for the first time (and of course being an idiot with no helmet...my feet went straight out from under me and I landed back of head first on the pavement. I ha a massive egg shaped swelling where I landed.

Anyways, I started thinking, what if my depression is caused by an undiagnosed brain injury. Does medication help if it is a brain injury that leads to mood disorders? (I know that can happen because the girl I was in the car accident with had severe mood changes and personality changes following the accident). I also am worried the problems I am having might indicate an illness above and beyond my depression.