Me versus the Depression

For a long time I thought the depression was going to win and here's the thing:  when you are depressed you always think the depression is going to win.  But here's the other thing:  it doesn't if you keep fighting.

When I was first diagnosed I wanted to know when I would get better, how long is the recovery period?  Like when I broke my ankle, I knew I would be in a cast for 3 weeks, then physio for 6 weeks and then I would be almost good as new.  For the most part, this was true, give or take a few weeks.

With depression, there is no defined recovery period.  I have seen people bounce back after a 3 month dose of citrolapram and never look back.  I've seen people who have fought all their lives against this insidious illness.

In the early days, my psychiatrist assured me I would get better.  I asked him how long that would take.  He said something vague like "a while".  When I pressed him for something more concrete, he was unable to provide any time frames.  At the time I thought he must not be very good at his job.  But now I can see that there really isn't any way to predict recovery.

The effectiveness of medication changes over time.  The effectiveness of therapy is wildly variable.  What happens in life is outside a clinical study and therefore cannot be factored into a recovery timetable.  In other words, you just have to ride it out and have faith that eventually you will get better.

But if you think that getting better means going back to the same person you were before you were ill, you are in for a big surprise.  You never come out of depression the same person you were going in.  Many of the behaviours and thoughts you had before were the very things making you ill.  It's like drinking poison, recovering, and expecting to stay better but going back to drinking the poison.

Everyone comes out of depression fundamentally different than when they went in.  Same as when cancer survivors come through but their lives are fundamentally changed thereafter.

Here are some of the things that have helped me recover to the point where I am today:

1. Take the prescribed medication as and when your psychiatrist prescribed it.  Don't mess with that.  If you think you might be ready to make a change, discuss these with your psychiatrist and agree a plan.  Follow that plan to the letter.  Trust me.  I once took myself off my meds because I thought they were making me worse.  That was simply put, one of the worst decisions I have ever made in my life and probably set my recovery back a year, perhaps more.
2. Get a tribe.  You will need to be surrounded with people who get you and get your disease.  You will need people who will allow you the freedom to discover a new you.  You will need people who will love you unconditionally.  You will need people who will come to you even when you tell them to go away.  This tribe will consist of some old friends and some new friends.  Family may not or may not be included.  My children get it better than my husband does.  Maybe that's because children generally get unconditional love better than adults.  I have lost a few people I thought were my friends along the way but I have more than gained in the overall friendship sweepstakes.  Ask that tribe for help when you can.  Give back to that tribe.  They are invaluable and deserve your investment.
3. Find contentment in the present moment.  Don't strive for happiness.  It is fleeting and impossible to sustain.  Instead be at peace with what is happening, good or bad, in the present, right here, right now.  When the shit hits the fan, feel free to duck and cover but be at peace with the exercise.  Know that this too will pass.
4. Invest in yourself.  Increase your self awareness.  Change your habits if you don't like them or just accept them as part of your rich tapestry as a human being.  Be as kind to yourself as you are to others.  Forgive yourself and those around you.  Embrace yourself as a totally unique individual that has limitless potential.  Sounds new agey and hippy groovy, but when you stop having expectations and judgements of yourself and others, you will start to feel contentment in the moment.  Avoid drama.  Not your monkeys, not your circus.
5. Breathe.  When all else fails, breathe.  I know this sounds stupid and I've lost count of the number of times I've rolled my eyes when someone tells me this.  But it works.  When you think you can't face another moment, stop.  Stop thinking.  Stop moving.  Just stop everything.  And breathe.  In slowly.  Out slowly.  And again.  All day if you have to. 

I am certain my journey has not ended.  The shower (& bath) proves to be an ongoing nemesis.  I find contentment when once in I'm there but getting there is a major struggle every day. So I've changed what it means to be ready to face they day.  That may or may not include, as is more often the case, a clean and fresh smelling me.  My tribe loves me regardless.  Social situations are challenging but I am taking them one at a time and engaging more often than not these days.

But the proof is in the results.

1. I am writing again!  This is the biggest achievement so far.  I abandoned my first novel as it had me in knots.  I started a whole new one that had been assembling itself in my brain for a few years and in just 10 days over 110,000 words came out of my head through my fingers and hit the keyboard.  I hit save.  I'm actively sending it out to potential agents every day and have some interest.
2. My life modelling becomes a bigger and bigger part of my life.  I model nearly every week at least once and most weeks more than 3 times.  It helps me to be still, physically literally and mentally in practise.  I use the time for positive affirmations, meditating, and breathing.  It also helps me to accept the beauty (both inside and out) of who and what I am in that moment.  I can't envision how I would have recovered without it.
3. I don't listen to others thoughts on how or what I should or should not be doing unless they are part of my tribe.  Even those in my tribe, know that whilst I may take their advice under consideration, I am free to choose what I feel is best for me.  And they love me still.

Near as I can tell I am winning, 1-0.

 

A Week in Cornwall

A week in Cornwall can work miracles, at least that is how it appears to me.

As many of you will know, I have been suffering from the debilitating effects of depression and anxiety for several years now.  I have been hospitalised on 3 different occasions.  I take no less than 13 pills every single day to keep the chemicals in my brain finely balanced.

The good news is, they appear to be working finally.

I remember when this all started asking my psychiatrist how long it would be until I was better.  He said "A long time."  I thought he meant 6 months, maybe a year on the outside.  I had no idea that it would take several years and several tweaks of the medication, several more years of psychotherapy, and even more time just trying to overcome the demons that ranted inside my head.

For now, the demons are quiet.  They aren't completely silent.  I can tell when I've missed taking my medication.  So can my friends and family.  I leave the house regularly now without the pit of dread tightening in my stomach.  I still find social situations uncomfortable which is annoying because that isn't how I see myself or how I used to be.  

But the demons have reduced their screeching to a mere whisper.  And some days, I don't hear them at all.

In mid-February, a very generous friend offered us the use of their seaside cottage down in St Ives in that gorgeous southwest corner of England known as Cornwall.  The cottage is absolutely delightful and exceeded every one of our expectations.  We took my daughter's best friend and her mother with us.  It was an eventful few days to say the least.

On the first day we were there, our one-year-old black Labrador puppy, Guinness, decided to take a flying leap (literally) off a sea wall.  I have that moment of her suspended in midair between her jumping and her falling etched into my mind's eye.  She looks like a cartoon.  She fell 30 feet to the rocks and grass below.  I ran to see her landing on her rear haunches, yelp, and try to stand.  She struggled and whimpered.

My husband managed to get down to her.  He tried to get her to walk but it was clear she was hurting and had a minor cut on her knee.  She was shaking and her heart was racing.  She was going into shock.  My husband carried her down the hill and went to get the car.  We raced to the vet.

Fortunately, after several hours at the vets on a fluid drip, antibiotics, opiates, and tranquilisers, she made a full recovery and was just sore for a couple days.  Talk about stressful!

The next night we were informed that a combination of spring tides (when the tides are at their highest) and rough seas caused by the gale winds and torrential overnight rains would mean that the sea was likely to breach the seawall at the harbour in St Ives.  Our cottage was perfectly placed just a few doors up from the seawall at the harbour which was a great location until that warning was issued.  

Every few hours we made our way the few steps down the street to evaluate the threat.  It was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure as the waves crashed over the wall and into the buildings on the seafront.   In the end, this also passed without any real danger posed to man or beast.

We spent the days walking on the beaches (there are no fewer than 5 beaches around St Ives) and walking around the town exploring galleries and art museums and used book stores and odd little shops.  We ate out.  We cooked in.  I even got breakfast in bed one morning delivered by my daughter and her friend.  What a treat!

I was surrounded by positivity and tranquillity on the trip. When I returned home I felt as if a fog had lifted.  I started writing.  At first it was just in my head.  A story had taken hold of me and was busy organising itself.  Then 2 weeks ago it felt like the harbour wall had collapsed and the sea of words was rushing to get out.

I sat at my computer every day, some days for more than 14 hours.  I managed to write over 110,000 in 10 days.  It was emotional.  One day I started crying about 5 pm and kept crying through the night until about noon the next day.  The tears lasted on and off until I was finally able to finish that chapter.

The book, All My Loves, is about a woman dying of a brain tumour.  She is in the hospital and in the final stages of dying.  She is revisited by the memories of the men she loved and those who loved her.  Some are good memories.  Some are excruciatingly painful memories.  Same are hilarious.  Woven into the story is also the love of her parents as they divorce and remarry, and the love of her grandmother towards her alcoholic husband who died with their youngest son in a drunken car crash.  It is about how love changes us, not always for the better.  It's a little bit saucy.  What book about love could possibly avoid sex?  It's sad but it is also hopeful, I think.

I am now in the editing phase.  I have edited the first three chapters with the help of a very dear friend of mine who is labouring away on the next 8 chapters.  The editing was more difficult than the writing.  Who would have guessed?

I am now looking for a literary agent.  I have someone who has expressed a possible interest which is very exciting but I'm not counting my chickens until a contract is on the table.

The road to publication is long and winding.  But the words are still flowing out of me.  So, I am back to blogging.  I also have an illustrated children's book that I completed a few years back with a very dear friend who did wonderful illustrations for me.  I've got to get that all gathered up and repeat the agent process for it.  I have several more ideas for novels inside my head.  I need to let those organise themselves but one is already starting to take form.  I might be back burning the midnight oil when that comes out of me.  Finally, I've got the novel I started before my depression took over my life.  I want to go back to it and see if I can do anything with it.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my musings.

Better than the Day Before

Yesterday I was better than the day before or the day before that but today I feel worse than I was yesterday.  And that's the only way to really measure any progress.  Or lack thereof.  One day at a time.

Yesterday morning I actually cared about whether the sun was shining.  I noticed the pretty flowers around the clinic grounds.  I moved to a new room which is very quiet with a wonderful view and lots of space.  I started to make eye contact with the other patients and learn their names.  Haven't really had the courage to say anything to them but I am starting to feeling a little less invisible.

I have slept well the last couple nights, in comparison to the first couple nights.  I can tell that I toss and turn because the sheet will be all bunched up and nearly off the bed.  The duvet was on the floor when I woke up this morning.  

But the last couple nights I didn't wake up even when the nurse delivered my early morning coffee.  I can't recall any of my dreams and I certainly don't remember screaming out at the various baddies that used to try to choke and smother me at night.

Last night I took a new drug to help with my fear and anxiety which lies at the root of my depression.  Ever since July 2011, I have been afraid of everything:  driving the car, leaving the house, attending social gatherings, cooking a meal, finding a new job, speaking to strangers, answering the phone, going to the supermarket, opening the post.  Everything.  Some rational.  Some completely irrational.  The point is one cannot avoid falling into depression when one is constantly in a heightened sense of fright of life itself.

Even here in the clinic I am afraid.  I am afraid I am more crazy than everyone else.  I am afraid that I will never recover.  I am afraid everyone is staring at me.  I am afraid I do the meditation wrong.  I am afraid that I don't say enough or that I say too much.  I am afraid that I think all wrong and that I will never have the right thoughts.  Or that I don't smile.  Or that I do.

To keep my adrenalin under control I take a drug 3 times a day which does a pretty good job keeping my anxiety from grabbing hold of me.  When my fear and anxiety begins to win against that particular medication, I take a little bit of a half a tranquiliser and I can usually muddle my way through.  Rarely, however, does one enjoy muddling through.

 

I spoke to my psychiatrist about this fear and constant anxiety.  He recommended a drug called Olanzapine. He said it was good for treating fear and anxiety and he would start with a very small dosage twice a day.  I thought, "Cool. why haven't they given this to me before?"

Within 20 minutes of taking this drug, I thought I was losing my mind.  My limbs, legs and particularly my right arm, began to move uncontrollably, like restless limb syndrome.  My balance was off.  I felt like I was on a rolling ship at sea in a huge storm.  I bumped into walls trying to get downstairs to get some help.  I was dizzy and kept thinking I was going to black out.  I was agitated and highly paranoid.  I was more afraid than I've ever been.

The nurses were cold comfort telling me that since I had already taken the pill, there was little more they could do.  I just had to ride out the storm.  They offered to have someone sit with me.  Well, what kind of help is that?

In the end, I fell into bed and fell into a very restless sleep very early in the evening.  I woke up confused several times during the night.  I reported this to my nurses this morning who assured me that when they looked in on me I appeared to be sleeping soundly.  Well, that's ok then, isn't it?  I was so out of it last night that I didn't even get my sleeping meds which I am sure made my situation even worse.

Today I await the visit from my psychiatrist for Plan B, or rather, Plan G.  None of these plans seems to be working.  I am angry.  I am frightened.  I feel so alone.

I have more voice mails, texts, phone calls, Facebook messages, tweets and visits from my army of friends than I can respond to.  It is genuinely a pity that depression strikes even those who are loved so very much.  If love could cure depression I wouldn't be paralysed with this fear, this anxiety and this sheer and absolute darkness.  Please don't be upset if I haven't replied.  Please don't think I don't love you.  Please know your message meant a lot to me and sometimes I just can't cope with the world right now.

I want it to get better but on days like today it doesn't seem like it ever will.

Invisibility

Thursday was the school's performance of Oliver.  This was the same day I was admitted to the clinic.  I had spent most, if not all, of the day in tears.  Not for any good reason only that mostly I just wanted to die and couldn't.

My son had a role in the chorus so it wasn't like I was going to be missing his lead performance.  But for him, being in the chorus was a big deal.  It was one of those moment that I looked into the future and could see him telling his therapist in 20 years time how his mother was so ill with depression all the time that she couldn't even come see his breakthrough stage performance.

Suitably tranquilised and against doctor's orders, I made my way to the theatre.  My daughter had planned her own special little party.  Laden with a vast quantity of sweets with her best friend in the seat next to her, we all sat down and watched the tremendous performance unfold before us.

The interval was excruciating.  When one is depressed, one wants nothing more than to be invisible.  I didn't have the energy, the courage, or the desire to talk to any one, even the people who love me more than their luggage.  Luckily, those people understood that.  I was given some soul engaging hugs and hand squeezes.  I was given encouraging winks and nods.  My efforts to keep my head down and my gaze averted did draw numerous stares but those seemed to unsettle my husband more than me.  You can't see what you can't see.

Back in the clinic, my night's sleep was interrupted continuously with nightmares of people crushing me, sitting on me, pushing me, suffocating me.  I yelled out numerous time.  By 5 am I had given up on the idea of restful sleep and started the morning off with a good long cry.

I've managed a shower today.  I managed to go to the art class.  I have eaten all three meals today.

My back pain is being alleviated by anti inflammatory and pain meds.  My whole body itches and I keep scratching until I bleed.  This is probably anxiety related.  The anti depressants haven't kicked in yet but they will soon.  I hope.

What I can tell you is that the outpouring of support and love is overwhelming.  Don't take this the wrong way and sufferers of mental illness will understand, it doesn't really help but it is nice to have.  I really appreciate the flowers, the chocolate, the biscuits, the STRAWBERRY shower gel, and the words of encouragement and motivation.  I am most grateful for the unconditional love.  Thank you.  You know who you are.  xxxx