Loss and Loneliness

These past few months I have really been feeling an increasingly intense sense of loss; frustration, irritability, anger, sadness, loneliness, aloneness, abandonment, fear, terror, hopelessness...

The most important thing to me, my entire life, has been my family. I would do anything for anyone in my family. I feel my connection to family has slipped away, and almost disappeared, since my Mom died. The disconnection began before she died. As my mental health deteriorated, and hope of wellness began disappearing, my family started distancing themselves from me. In the past year my sisters have really pulled away, and my Dad has taken on a detached attitude...not replying to my e-mails, or making sure our calls are short.

I understand why. I get that it is overwhelming to be around me when I do not feel all up and bubbly. I just really miss my family connection. I miss being a part of the family like I used to be.

I miss me. So far I have lost my young and middle adult years to this illness. Looking forward all I see is being old and even crazier. The future seems unbearable.

Believe it or not, before I became ill I was a person people wanted to be around. I was a bit wild, full of life, ready for love, open to new things, was passionate, compassionate, (I think and hope) kind and caring. I was active, always had tons of energy, was inquisitive, questioning...though often a bit naive and gullible...mostly because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by questioning their motives.

I loved all kinds of music, loved to dance, go to concerts, loved school and lectures, was passionate about learning, read everything I saw, swam like a fish, sang like a manatee, rode my bike everywhere, campsites were my favourite resorts. I really loved to canoe, hike, and rollerblade. I felt one with nature, one with the world, the universe, my friends, my family. Basically I absolutely, positively and actively LOVED LIFE and all it had to offer.

Now, today, this year and last, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that...etc., etc. , I feel disconnected, disaffected, disillusioned, dismissed...pretty much destroyed.

All day I felt like painting a big banner that says, "I HAD POTENTIAL..." and unravel it as I hang myself from the bridge. I feel like because I am mentally ill and not "recovering" like everyone else seems to, like all the literature and studies say I should, like my family expects me to, I am blamed, or dismissed, or left to fend for myself. It is as if no one knows, cares or understands I need love, care, help. I feel really really really hopeless and alone.

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?

"How Are You"? "I'm Okay."

I haven't really written for a long while. and for days now I have been wanting to write about this...and then in my last post I saw the last commenter comment about a similar dynamic when people ask how you are. So I am going to let it out...

It makes me crazy'(er) that I can never be me with anyone. When my sisters or stepmom, or dad call they sometimes ask how am. Sometimes they avoid the topic altogether. My usual response is either, "I'm okay", or "I'm not feeling so great". If I say the latter the topic changes so fast to something else that it is obvious the question was just a polite conversation opener.

My sisters and family are good, loving people...It must be the chronicity of my illness, the awful person it makes me become, and the neediness of myself that has them pull away from me so much.

A couple times I have tried to express how I need help because x, y, z is happening; i.e. I have been honest about how depressed I feel. The topic changes, or the person tries to get off the phone as fast as possible...and the stops calling or e-mailing completely to protect themselves.

What I most often want to write when they ask how I am , and I am unwell, is: " I am feeling really scared and depressed. I cannot stop thinking about suicide. The noise in my head, telling me to kill myself, telling why it is the best thing, planning how to do it, etc., won't stop. I feel like nobody loves "me".

They love the "me" who laughs and is funny and upbeat...that is part of me, but often that part of me comes out when I am trying to help others feel okay around me, or if I am trying to not act as crazy as I feel. When I want to be cared for, or loved, I try really hard to suppress, or minimize all the things about me that others either cannot handle, or understand, or will take as proof that for their well-being, they should get me out of their lives...NOW.

I understand why this happens. It would be hard to have a sister/daughter like me. I understand, but it hurts me so much that my family doesn't try to help me, or somehow let me know I can call them if I need help. I feel so intensely alone.

Even with my pdoc I am afraid if I tell him what I really feel he will think I am overstating, or that I am crazier than I am. I often leave his office thinking God I must drive him crazy. I try to be/say/express less suicidal thoughts/ideas/plans than I really have, or am, or really feel. I tell him I have the thoughts, but I don't think I have been able to express their relentlessness inside my brain; the way, over, and over and over, and over, the thoughts speed through my head, telling me to:

"...wrap a rope around my neck, wrap a rope around my neck, do it, do it, do it, do it do it...shoot yourself, kill yourself, hire someone to kill you, no one loves you, you are alone, completely alone, lonely, this depression just keeps getting worse, and the worse it gets the more people move away from you..."

"...your family doesn't want you anymore, they only want you when you are okay, they don't want to hear about how you need help, they want you to just go away. So my brain says to me, over and over, "...do it, do it, do it, hang yourself, wrap a rope around your neck, etc., etc." All the while, that Violent Femmes Song, "Why Can't I Get Just One Kiss?" is playing rapidly. obssessively, over and over inside my brain...like I can't get away from the song, or the thoughts.

I can't tell anyone these things. I even don't want to write them here, because all I want is to get them out of my head. I am venting; trying to help myself find some relief.

So I answer, "fine, been feeling a bit down, but that's okay"...WTF!!! "...that's okay"?."...a bit down"???? This will never end...end it.

My Heart Feels Broken...

...in so many ways.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Gets Worse...

It seems I am being blocked at every angle. After seeing Dr. X. yesterday I called my sister to see if I could drive 5 hours to her place and leave my dog with her while I went into the hospital.

She owns her own home on 2.5 acres of fenced in property. She has two dogs that my dog adores. When we go there it isn't anymore work to take care of one extra dog, because really all she needs to do is put out an extra bowl of food and water (which I, of course, would bring with me, so there is no extra cost). I have dog-sat all three of them for a few days at her place before and found it no more difficult than taking care of my one dog.

At first my sister said sure, bring him up. So I made arrangements with a friend to take the 10hr return trip with me. A couple hours after my sister said okay, she phoned me back and said, "Can you find somewhere else to keep your dog?" I told her I had no where else to go. She said she couldn't take the dog, and I could hear her husband yelling at her in the background.

I got off the phone and started crying. I felt completely abandoned at a time when I really need my family to help me. It was really hard for me to reach out and ask for help. I know the dog is my responsibility. I know when I got the dog I made a decision to care for him. I also know I am an adult and need to take care of myself...

I know all this, I am generally, despite being so depressed, very, very independent. I always have been. I rarely ask my family for help. I feel so intensely alone.

It seems like my family thinks I could choose to be different if I just tried harder. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I am being treated like a drug addict, or a family member who is a criminal, rather than a family member with an illness. It feels like my family has decided that tough love , cutting their ties and there losses, and allowing me to hit rock bottom is the only way to saveme from myself. It is as though they feel that if they just push me far enough away my problem will disappear.

My other sister phoned me last night and I was really honest with her about how I was feeling. I told her that sometimes I feel like no one in the family cares about me, like the only way my family would recognize I need help would be when it was too late to help me.

She said, "that is just the depression talking, and they love me, but they have their own families".

I replied," I understand that, and I know your families take a lot of love, attention and time. I try not to ask for help, because I know you are all busy with your own lives, but for me, you are my family. I have no family of my own to help me. I have tried to find help in the community, but I cannot afford to pay very much, and there are no resources that I can find to help me get the treatment I need right now" . I feel desperate for help.

"We cannot understand what you go through.", she said.

Very calmly, but assertively I decided to be completely honest about what it feels like to be me, with my illness, in my family. I asked, "Why have none of you ever taken the time to learn about what it is like for a person to be clinically depressed? Or asked me what would help me? Or even sat down and taken the time to find out what it is that I struggle with. Not one of you has read a book, or tried to see how incredibly hard it is for me to manage an illness like this. Why has no one in my family (except my Mom...but she is dead)...cared enough to learn how to help or be supportive of me?"

When I write what I said down, I feel guilty for saying these things. My intention was not to make my sister feel bad, but to get her to see why I might feel so alone and uncared for in the only family I have. For years I have avoided expressing how saddened I am by the lack of support I get from my family. I am desperately in need of some support now, and I don't feel like I can get through this alone anymore.

I cannot imagine one of my sisters, or my dad or stepmom, becoming chronically and severely ill for years, and my not wanting to help them in anyway I could. To me, that is a familial responsibility, and an extension of your love for that person. Caring for family no matter what seems to me what a family is all about.

I know I cannot dictate, or change, how other people feel. People show love and feel love in their own way. People understand the role of, and their role in, the family in their own way. Knowing all that doesn't make me feel any less alone.

I feel like I really am so depressed that unless I can get more help than I have, unless I can somehow get some relief for awhile, I don't think I can continue in this life. It is too much for me to handle. I feel like a person, screaming in constant pain, and there is medication that could help them, but no one is willing to give it to them, and they are unable to get it themselves.

You know what scares me and saddens me about this whole situation (trying to get outpatient ECT, lack of family support, lack of community support and resources, bizarre and unhelpful treatment protocols etc...What scares and saddens me is that I know there are people who are far more mentally ill than I am, whose families have either completely abandoned them, or were never there for them in the first place. Compared to lots of people I have a caring family and I have a difficult time living with my illness. How hard must it be for those who literally have no one? The world is a sad and confounding place to me.

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.

It Hurts

I cried myself to sleep last night. This week has been like that. I feel overwhelmed by all the responsibility to get better, to help myself, and to move on in my life.

I feel like I think I try hard, but really I do not. I vegetate at home a lot. I stare at the wall half the day and wish I could change. That is getting me nowhere. This life is no life at all. It is hell.

Yesterday afternoon I had a short period of hope, that if I could manage to do all the things I enjoyed, or all the things I wanted to do, if I just did all the things that made me happy, I would become happy. Just the thinking about how to get myself, how to force myself, how to push myself to do, instead of just think about doing, exhausted and overwhelmed me. I feel useless, hopeless, helpless. Completely lost.

Last night I opened up the bag with all my hoarded medications. I want so badly to end this life. I wrote my sisters a note a few days ago. As I sat staring at all the medicine I tried to figure out how to exit and make sure my dog is okay. That, and the fact that I don't even have the energy to kill myself, is the only thing that stopped me. How sad...that besides my dog, my low energy and inability to do, is the only thing saving me.

All and Nothing

Today was one of those therapy sessions that was all over the map, covering everything and nothing at the same time:

• How much I am drinking,
• Why I am drinking more,
• My mood is lifting
• My mood is down
• I am detached
• I am tired all the time
• I am having trouble doing things
• My attempts to catch at reverse my feelings of being watched and judged,
• My feelings of paranoia about my landlord
• My inability to successfully stop my paranoid thoughts
• My extreme worry (read major anxiety attacks) about my application for separation and divorce from my husband; my husband wants a detailed ironclad agreement between us, meaning I have to provide statements, tax info, asset info ( the list is 3 pages long)...This kind of scrutiny and information gathering is intensely disturbing and difficult for me to manage,
• That I had unprotected (no birth control) sex twice this week despite having had a birth control failure the week before last and knowing exactly how stressed out I get about the chances of getting pregnant,
• Why I had unprotected sex despite having had...blah, blah, blah,
• How I am making poor judgements
• How only the birth control write off an example of poor judgement
• I had two dreams,
• What I thought the dreams meant,

And then finally..about 7 minutes before I have to leave Dr. X's office, what is really bothering me comes up: Am I going to be able to work again?

Shoot me now, but I cannot manage my life with the uncertainty of not knowing what I am or am not going to be capable of . On one level I recognize Dr. X is not a "mind reader" ha, ha...but on another level I want to know, at the very least, the odds of my being employable again.

What got me thinking about this again is my boyfriend. He has a M.I. too and has been chronically ill since he was very young. I asked him if he ever thought he would ever be well enough to be off disability. He just, matter of factly said , '"No".

I then asked him if it bothered him and he said, "No", I have accepted that I can only do what I can. I work when I can and don't when I can't.

In many ways I see how his knowledge of the incapacitating nature of his illness protects him from the type of feverish get back to work type schemes I come up with...like volunteering even if I am really sick, and being unable to say no to teaching, panicing about not working/not being able tpo work etc.

On the other hand I worry that if I were like that it would be a kind of complacency that would make me give up life all together. What am I if I am not a worker? My whole life (until I got so sick) I was a worker.

Dr. X enthusiastically explained (once again) that I am working...but he knows, and I know it is not the way I mean. I mean getting off disability contributing to the social well being of our country and fending for myself.

He says I am contributing to the country and community. He says all the people I teach art to are benefiting from my volunteer work. He says if he was working for the insurance company he would be proud to see someone the company is helping, do as much for the community as I was.

I just sat there protesting and bawling. I feel so much like I have failed; like I am a failure. Like I will never get better, never get well enough. I left his office sobbing and went into the washroom and cried. I just want to know what to expect for my future.

Disorganized, Disconnected and Despondent

I had an appointment with Dr. X. yesterday. Thank god. I am not feeling well at all. Sometimes it really helps to just sit across from him and know even if I give up, he won't. That is what he told me yesterday. He never gives up, even if nothing seems to work there are always other things to try. He will never give up on me, maybe change the plan, but never stop trying to help me.

I feel like giving up. I cannot mange to do my housework. My dog is completely overwhelming me and I find myself sitting in a daze starring at the wall, or breaking out into tears because I can't keep up with life.

This is extraordinarily embarrassing, because I want so badly to have a clean house and to be seen as tidy and organized; or "together and a desirable human being. However, since I moved into my place in mid-April I have vacuumed once, I have made periodic attempts to tidy my house, but if I tidy the living room I return to the kitchen and it is a disaster. If I manage to clean my studio area I walk into the living room and it is a mess again.

I am having a difficult time grocery shopping for myself, and even if I buy groceries I cannot seem to cook anymore, or eat well. I feel exhausted all the time, so when I am hungry I grab something I can just eat.

On Wednesday my food intake consisted of 1/2 a cinnamon bun, 7-8 crackers with peanut butter on them, a very white sandwich consisting of turkey, white cheese and white bread, a store bought chocolate milk, and a very stiff drink. The piece of lettuce on my sandwich was my only vegetable that day. I barely had the energy to make the drink. Lame.

Dishes, dirty clothes, art supplies, books, newspapers, dog toys and treats, art props, easels and unfinished paintings litter my house. Anything I pick up, look at or use remains wherever I last touched it. Nothing gets put away. The mess grows in leaps and bounds.

My dog completely overwhelms me right now. He is big, powerful and extremely headstrong and disobedient at 1 year old. I thought I had been working so hard to train him and ensure he becomes a well behaved dog. I spend so much time with him, I socialize him with other dogs and people. I try to teach him the basics; sit, down, stay, leave it and come. He follows my requests when he wants to. When we are alone at home. The instant another canine steps into the picture I become a invisible and ignored. I get so frustrated with his jumping and tugging on the leash; his general unruliness and his misbehaviour. I do not have the energy, or patience for a misbehaving dog. Sometimes I just break out in tears at how much my training and love has failed. I am crying just thinking about it. How could I have tried so hard, worked so hard, spent so much time and energy to ensure I have a good dog, and failed so miserably,

My husband (we have separated) used to tell me everyone has to do all the things I have trouble with; everyone has to do things they did not like to do. He used to tell me I wasn't sick, just lazy, or angry at having to do all these things. He said it so often that I started to believe it.

My new partner is so supportive and understands. Last night when I was crying about how I cannot keep up with the housework he said, "It is okay, your house isn't that messy, and it's clean. your mess is a clean mess, just some things out of place, but it's not that bad".

He's sweet. I don't believe his assessment of the situation,, but it's nice to not be berated for being to depressed to clean. It's good to know someone is understanding and gets how hard it is to keep up with the basics in life.

I Am Disappearing

My sister and nieces have just left. I feel tired and exhausted. I feel nothing. We went bowling this morning and I cheered, and yelled good job when my nieces were bowling. I went through all the motions of being a supportive and loving Aunt, but inside I felt nothing. No love, no excitement, no passion...I felt gone; somewhere else, like I had disappeared.

I can't explain. If you saw me with my family you would believe I was a great Aunt, all loving and kind. I am not, because it is all a facade. I am really an empty vessel. A body missing its soul. The material that is left behind when the spiritual dissipates into the wind.

I am disappearing more and more every day. I can "act" like I am something, and almost fake my way through my daily routine. I can act, that is, if I can find the energy to act. Otherwise I lay in bed unable to move, or do anything. I am so tired and sleep does nothing for me. I hate this life.

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?

Happiness Sits Amongst the Saddest of Times

Warning: May Trigger...but may also provide some hope even in the bleakest of times.

As I went to bed last night I recognized it was okay to die, so I lay awake most of the night last night planning how to kill myself. I managed to get through the night and get up and go to my pdoc appointment. The whole way there, and as I sat down in the chair to talk I was feeling intensely guilty about making these plans, but also praying for some relief from both my life, and the thoughts.

I had one of those appointments where I felt so small, so insignificant, so worthless, until Dr. X started talking to me and caring about me. I have no way of knowing if he really cares, or if what he does is his "job", but he always manages to make me feel connected to at least him. For that I am grateful.

In my appt, amidst tears and anxiety, Dr. X asked me if there was anything good that happened over the past week. At the time I could only think of a couple things, but this is my exercise this evening, to remember any joy I felt even in the darkness of my thinking. To try to brighten the darkness I feel now with memories of happy moments:

Here goes:
1) My youngest sister has the most beautiful smile. She has a dimple when she smiles carried over from my maternal grandfather. I love her smile.

2) I love listening to her. She speaks with radiance and excitement about all her activities and her children. She draws you into her stories. She has a killer sense of humour

3) My youngest neice is 5. I completely cracked up when she did this to me...it's her latest gag

...imagine a perfect southern drawl coming from a beautiful sparkling (Canadian) 5 year old imitating someone between Scarlet O'hara and Mae West:

• She flicks back her hair and her head; looks directly into your eyes and says,
• "My you're a tall drink 'o water. Wanna dance?
• We proceed to waltz around the house and it begins again...
• this time with her looking directly into my eyes and pushing my hair off my forehead...
• "My you're beautiful. Wanna dance?"

4) Her sister 8 years old coming home with the most incredible report card, saying she is being put ahead into reading groups two years above her grade because she is such a great reader. The teacher commented "If all my students were as interested in learning, as thoughtful towards others and polite to everyone as A is, my job would be easy"

5) Listening to this niece read and recognizing her love for reading is even bigger than mine was at her age...and mine was huge.

6) Getting packed up to leave my sister's house and going to get my "pearly white" dog, (who I had, just the night before described to my little sister as "Super white, but you should see him dig holes, he's black, shakes of and he's super white again...it's a miracle).

Calling him into the house so we can leave for my Dad's in 5 minutes. The the dog is soaking wet and has BLACK mud all over himself. Needless to say I had to give him a bath and was late to my Dad's.

7) Had I known what an ass my Dad was going to be I would have "accidentally" let the muddy black dog into his house...but I am too responsible...sigh! That thought brings me some levity though. It would have been funny on some level.

8) Driving down to Victoria with my other two nieces (who had spent the night at there Grann and Poppa's) All three of us signing Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus songs that I downloaded for them on my ipod...We sang, and sang...they are adorable.

9) My sister and I went shopping and I found 3 beautiful bras...(I have a bit of a bra fetish)...a gorgeous khaki one, a black one that laces up the front and a lacey pink one. As soon as I got home the dog ate my lacey pink one...he too has a bra fetish.

10) I let my dog pee in my psychopathic/control freak brother in law's "perfect garden/lawn that even the kids can't walk on...just because every time I thought how mad my BIL would be if he knew the dog was peeing on his immaculate, useless lawn I felt like laughing (yes, I have a bit of a "spritelike" mischievousness about me sometimes..hee, hee.. I couldn't stop the dog anyways...he's a puppy and he really needed to pee right then and there.

11) I love my sister and it was good to see her, even if it is unbearable in her house because of her husband.

12) The whole time I was away I had my beautiful puppy with me. My love for him grows stronger everyday.

13) When I got home I went for breakfast with a friend I am getting to know and becoming close to. She really listened to me struggling, but after a while her company made me happier and my involvement in our conversations made me distracted from my own worries. She really helped me calm down.

14) Despite how desperately sad I was in my appointment today, Dr. X let me know I was cared for by him. At the time I struggled with believing that, but this evening I believe he does truly care for me. That helps.

15) I took a walk with my dog at the University today. A man came up to me and we started talking about dogs on campus and how there need to be more of them.

When he left he said, "It was nice talking with you. God bless you". I really felt it was my Mom talking through him...like he knew I needed to hear those words. He began walking away, then stopped and came back. He said, "my name is Kirk, what's yours? I told him and he said, "Have a Merry Christmas Aqua" and then disappeared.

I started to cry, because I am really struggling with Christmas and why , if there was a God he would take my Mom away from me at such a young age, and why I can't get better. I needed someone to bless me right then and there, and it happened and it felt very intentional, and personal.

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.

"[R]ound [s]he throws [her] baleful eyes"

May trigger...(Please click here before reading if you are thinking of suicide)

In my blog I want to be able to write EXACTLY how I am feeling. I do not want to worry about what how I write things will affect others (although I try to be conscious that others who are struggling may read what I write, and I try to ensure others are supported and cared for in my writing), but I do not want to censor myself and my thoughts. This is me. The (unfortunately) sad me.

I need the freedom to use my blog as I used to use my journal. It means that at times I NEED to write things that are difficult, or may be scary for others to read. Without that freedom my blog becomes less effective for me.

In my last post perhapsI should have prefaced it with "these are just thoughts". The problem is, when I was writing them they felt like more than thoughts. It felt like if I hung myself the feeling would be the same, but the thoughts would finally end.

Over the past few days I have been having increasing thoughts of suicide again. It's strange because on some level I feel like my mood is better than before, but on another it feels just as bad, only different. I feel nihilistic now. Like nothing is real. As though the entire structure of my belief system is crumbling beneath me. Like everything I thought my whole life is a lie.

It's a lie that I will get better.

Feeling desperately anxious and sad last night I typed "CPA (Canadian Psychiatric Association), Treatment Resistant Depression" in google search. One of the papers that came up was so harsh towards those of up struggling to find a way to get well.
http://publications.cpa-apc.org/browse/documents/236&xwm=true

The position was basically, ... (my interpretation): "people with TRD take up to much of a psychiatrist's time, that time could be better spent on helping people whose mood disorders were fixable, psychiatrists should try to end therapy with these patients and have them taken care of by a GP, and the principles of care should be that as a patient with TRD you have to understand your problems are psychosocial, not chemical/biological in origins, therefore we can't help you unless you are willing to change your life. Go see your GP.

I have suspected I won't get well for some time now, but telling me to go see my GP when I feel like this? Saying that patients need to reduce their expectations of recovery? When all I want is some symptom relief?

Am I supposed to simply tell myself..."its a fact of life, you will have suicidal thoughts, often obsessive and violent thoughts, for the rest of your life. Learn to accept that. You want to work? Learn to accept you will always be depressed, have memory and cognitive problems, be on medication that maybe, sort of, kind of helps some things.

Why don't you just tell me to kill myself and have it over with?

That's where the suicidal thoughts come in...the belief I will never see me or my old self again. Even beyond that, the old me is a state too which I cannot return. That that part of my life is over and unobtainable again. Not only is it unobtainable it is undesirable given how much stress I was under. I sense my life has been minimized. I have become less valuable, less desirable. I have become an outcast. Heaven on earth, or maybe even just a life worth living, is unobtainable.

That meaning and purpose are a bad joke, do not exist, they are an illusion that only proves to make me desire them more.

I feel stuck with the belief that my depression has made me become like the depraved and soul starved Satan miserable in his Hell in Milton's "Paradise Lost", when God kicked him and his miscreant, and treasonous army out of glorious heaven, and into the depths, and fiery darkness of Hell. "Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to Arms" forever lost to God and his previously shared Angel's heavenly home above:

"...Him the Almighty Power Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to Arms.
Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night
To mortal men, hee with his horrid crew
Lay vanquisht, rolling in the fiery Gulf
Confounded, though immortal; But his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay
Mixt with obdurate pride and steadfast hate:
At once as far as Angel's ken he views
The dismal stuation waste and wild,
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd only to discover sights of Woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed
With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd:
Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd
For those rebellious, here thir Prison ordained
In utter darkness, thir portion set
As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
As from the Centre thrice, to th' utmost Pole."

(Paradise Lost, John Milton, 1674
(Book I, Lines 44-74)
(Note: I have highlighted the bold and blue section)

Like Milton's Satan, I feel "unjustly" sent to Hell, although I know full well actions in my life that I take, and cannot seem to manage to take are/were complicit in sending me here. That is what my treatment resistant, chronic MDD, my anxiety, and my mood cycling feels like. It feels like I will never return from where I came. I am lost forever. I especially feel like the part that is made bold and blue...like my world has become this blackness with no light, like in the darkness all I can see is woe and sorrow.

I have thoughts of suicide still. I used to have them all the time. I have them less now, but they are still there. They come at me almost everytime I cross the bridge. I envision my self stopping the car and jumping of the bridge deck. I look for back packs and coats of those who have jumped before me. The thoughts come at me when I see strong solid trees or giant wooden beams; beams and trees that I could throw a rope over and end it all. They come at me on the ferry, where I try so hard to make myself step into the dark water and disappear. They come at me often, but less than before.

I write about them because getting them out of my head and onto the page seems to alleviate some of the power behind them.

I am sorry if I concerned anyone with my previous post. If I AM suicidal (vs. thoughts, images, and fantasies) I probably would call Dr. X. I lived 7 years, and a few more, in Hell. I am sure I can last a bit longer. They are thoughts. Bad thoughts, anxious thoughts, thoughts that are plans for relief. Sometimes the thoughts themselves ARE the relief. I know, I always know, there is a way out if I cannot keep trying. I have it within my power to decide enough is enough. There is relief in knowing I am never completely without choices.

Why Am I So Tired All the Time?

I feel so exhausted I can barely move. That includes my mind body and fingers typing this post. All I want to do is stay in bed, sleep; avoid life.

I get up no problem, but within a couple hours of am leaning towards a nap. If I crawl back into bed and cannot sleep I stare vacantly at the ceiling, or at the same section of the same tree outside my window. I feel hypnotized by these two things.

If I fall asleep, when I wake I literally cannot move. It is as if my body has remained unconscious while my eyes have opened up. The effort it takes to get out of bed is astronomical. In the late morning and all afternoon there are only three things that lift me out from under the covers for any length of time:

1. My puppy...he needs a walk, or at least to go out and go to the washroom. Today twice I managed to drag myself out to walk him. I threw a ball for him, back and forth, back and forth. At least he was getting some exercise.
2. Guilt...I feel immensely guilty about how sluggish I am and feel. The guilt pushes me to at least get up by 5 or 6 pm so my husband doesn't know how much I am in bed, and go on and on about how little I do.
3. Responsibilities and commitments I have made to someone else; a visit with a friend, my classes today and tomorrow, my pdoc appt etc.

Even with the commitments/responsibilities....most of the time I feel more exhausted for having them. In my mind they weigh me down even more and require extra sleep to get through the activities. An example of this is are the days I teach my classes. My classes are almost making my exhaustion worse. When I have an afternoon class I plan to sleep for 2-3 hours beforehand, and after my morning class I fall asleep exhausted from all the effort I mustered for the class.

I feel like I am a snail that weighs a thousand lbs. Simply squirming slowly across the dirt feels like a monumental ordeal, and the weight of my shell makes it almost impossible to go anywhere, or do anything.

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.

Hope Does Not Stick Like Glue

Maybe you noticed my mood fluctuates often, maybe you didn't. When I am in a mood state it feels like it will go on forever. It never does. I have glimpses and a teeny bit of insight that maybe I will crash when high, or feeling well. When low I really have a hard time seeing it will ever change.

This morning I replied to "S" that there is hope. A few ays ago I wrote about my new found discovery that hope exists. For some reason this afternoon that all seems to have dissipated.

I feel exhausted. I have a class to teach I am dreading going to. I have slept for the last two hours. Hoping the day would disappear.

Yesterday my Uncle (on my Dad's side) brought the last of my Grandma and Grandpa's friends still alive out to see me. They were my grandparents closest friends and I have fond memories of them. We had a very short, but good visit. It was good to see them, and nice of my Uncle to bring them to my city to see me.

However, as he left he rejected a hug I tried to give him, while U was saying thank you,to him. To top it off his last words to me were, "Don't work too hard".

He knows I am not working. In fact two weeks ago I sort of "came out" to my aunt and uncle about having panic and anxiety problems...though I never mentioned that was why I didn't work. The day before yesterday I told my cousin I had a mental illness and explained a bit more to her.

We had planned for my Cousins and Aunt and Uncle and my G'mas friends to get together, but only my uncle and G'ma's friends showed up. I think it is because they see me as a loser now. I believe my Uncle's comments were meant to hurt me. He is an intelligent man . There is no way he could not have understood that what he was saying was sarcastic, and that I would feel hurt by that.

So right now I feel like a loser for not working. I feel like he saw me as completely able to work; like he was testing my comments that I have a difficult time in big social gatherings, because I declined to go to my cousin's wedding due to my social anxiety.

Yesterday we were at the casino, but it isn't social gatherings where I don't have to interact with a large number of people I fear. It is gatherings where I hardly know anyone and am expected to be social. I'm usually fine with a small group, or somewhere with lots of people where there is no expectation I interact with anyone.

Anyways, maybe there is hope, but it waxes and wanes with both my mood state and my resiliency around rejection and authority figures. I am crying right now. I really hate this illness. I do not want to go to my class. I feal really stressed out about it. So "S" if my note this morning sounded too optimistic...right now I'm taking it back.

I Never Would Have Guessed it, but There is Hope.

I think I am becoming the person who always annoyed me. Let me explain.

It is coming up on the 7th "anniversary" of my having my first scheduled visit with Dr. X. "Officially" this MDE has been 7 years of chronic major depression as of August this year. Unofficially I'd say longer than that. Since at least 1999 I have been almost always depressed except for a one or two months. Before that I have had MDE's continuously off and on since I was 16 or 17. Between some I had one or two years of feeling good, but as the years have gone on there has been shorter and shorter times of feeling well/good between episodes.

This episode has been, by far, the worst. Not necessarily in terms of how bad the symptoms were, because in 1988 or 89 I had a 3 or 4 month depressive episode that was similar in terms of symptoms. It has been the sheer length AND severity of symptoms combined that until recently, completely enveloped me and stole me from my life.

As I approached 1 year in the MDE I couldn't believe the tenacity of my symptoms. Two years and I was completely overwhelmed, hopeless and distraught. Three years and I was certain I was going to kill myself, because I would always feel this way. 4, 5 and 6 years the same thing. Everyday felt like the only thing I could do was survive.

I would become so annoyed, and sometimes to the point of feeling enrage by the comment "Depression is a treatable illness". I felt like: Fuck you it is!! That's bullshit! What about the 10-20% of us who do not seem to respond to medications or other treatments.

No matter what I tried, or how hard I tried to get better, I seemed to sink further and further into the hell that was my depressed life. Honestly, I think the harder I struggled AGAINST it, the worse it got. I would repeat over and over to myself, "I am NOT this person. This is NOT me."

It is. It is me. I have a chronic mental illness. I can try all I want, but I cannot make it go away. That would be like wishing away heart disease, or diabetes, or whatever physical illness you can think of.

People often say "You are not your illness". I always found that trite and unhelpful. When you are depressed you are consumed with your illness. It makes you stop going out, stop eating, or eating to0 much. It jams its way between you and your partner. It takes over your thoughts and replaces them with often obsessive, violent and/or intricately detailed thoughts of exactly how you are going to kill yourself and make your hell end. Depression takes you away from your friends. It turns you into a pariah. It insists you never try anything, because you will fail. It tells you things are hopeless and that you will always feel this way.

When severely depressed you ARE your illness. It chains you to an agonizing life I would not wish on my worst enemy.

So, over the last 7 years I have obsessively read self help books, blogs, and any article I could find anywhere about depression; hoping I would find the secret to getting out of this way of living. I survived only because I had a pdoc who never gave up on me, who never once seemed overwhelmed, or discouraged. I am sure he must have been discouraged with my inability to make progress, or my lack of progress, but not once did he ever let me see that. He always provided(and provides me with hope). I so desperately needed hope, and the more I trusted him, the more I began to believe his hope was realistic.

So now I notice my mood is beginning to lift. Honestly, I am in shock that this is happening. I cannot believe I am changing before my eyes.

That's where I find myself becoming the person who always annoyed me. I am becoming the person that believes either that depression is treatable, or that it is self-limiting and eventually each episode ends. I am beginning to really believe (not just hope) that a combo of medications can be found for even the toughest of depressions. Oh my God....I am actually becoming optimistic...That, I absolutely am astounded by.

I am not well yet. In fact I am not certain I will ever return to the "well" I knew before. I am changed by my experiences with depression and anxiety. I am beginning to believe that, though my life will be different from well, it might be a better life. I cannot explain it, but it is as though the depression informed me, albeit in an extremely roundabout, and horrifying way, that my life needed changing. I'm not sure if the change is helping me, or the medicine, or my therapy. It is probably a combination of all of these.

Whatever it is. I hope it sticks around and I have hope that it will.

What Happened?

I don't know what happened in my session today. I have been feeling pretty anxious and my mood has been up and down, but for the most part this week apathetic and anxious...Is that possible. Seems to me the definition of apathy would include not caring one way or the other, so why the anxiety?

It is happening again; that same pattern that repeats itself ad infinitum:

• I begin to feel a bit better,
• I start doing things I like (art, volunteering to teach, visiting with friends)
• I take a look at myself enjoying things
• I think, if I can enjoy these things, do these things. I should go back to work! (even though it may only be a few days, or even parts of days of enjoyment)
• Then I start thinking, but if I go back to work I will only be able to work, and at a very part time level,
• And if I do that I won't have any energy to do anything else (given I seem to be able to manage one big thing or maybe two smaller things a day)
• So I will go back to work and stop painting, creating...doing all the things I need to do to help myself feel good.
• Then I will get more depressed
• Then I will have to stop work.

I know I talked about this a few days ago, but it is like a loud tape recorder in my head saying, : "I am doing something wrong, when I enjoy myself at the expense of working". "I am making myself vulnerable to ending up homeless and on the streets when I count on a third party for disability payments". "I am a bad person because I am not working" yadda, yadda, yadda.

So I spent most of my appointment crying. Stressed out about my vulnerable situation, stressed out about my (for some reason) returning angry feelings about my Dad and the way he treats me, and missing my Mom so much I told Dr. X her death feels like a bad dream.

Dr. X. tried to help me see I am on the path I need to be on. I expressed my frustration that I began seeing him in 2001 and here I am in 2008 with many of the same problems.

(Paraphrasing):

Dr. X: "You are making progress.

Me: "Who would say that? I don't think anyone would say that"

Dr. X: "I would, think of where you were in terms of art in 2001 (i.e. none) and where you are now with your art."

Me: Rolling my eyes at the comment.

Dr. X: Why did you roll your eyes?

Me: (Feeling ashamed I was so rude to have done that) I rolled them because I am not an artist. It is not like my art is going to help me get a job, or make money. It is not going to get me anywhere.

Dr. X: said something about it making me feel good doing it(my art) and myself doing myself a disservice by saying I am not an artist. It is not about the money, it is the doing it that is important.

Me: Crying and trying to explain how scared I am about not having a job, and not knowing if I was ever going to manage a job and stay well. (Thinking now: I kind of forgot about the part that I'm not well yet...I guess that is s/b the goal).

Dr. X: You have a stable, safe income right now. Try not to let that worry get in your way.

Me: Just sitting there silently, crying...(Inside my head thinking: " I feel like such a loser and that I will never get well and get a job. I feel like I failed at life. This is not what I wanted my life to be. I wanted to succeed, to prove to myself and my Dad that I am a good person, I am a hard worker. I do want to be something. I'm 43, and I still need to prove my worth to my Dad and anyone I feel thinks the same way as him...the definition of a person who needs to let it go and move on).