Trouble in this World

The weeks surrounding my 40th birthday are memories I will cherish forever. I received the most wonderful, thoughtful gifts and sentiments from my family and friends, a surprise trip to Florida that became a surprise trip to the Keys, and massive and overwhelming amounts of love. In fact, I’ve never felt so loved.

When things started to return to normal, I remained enamored with a magic new age that held so much promise and basked in the afterglow of all the love. Last week, I crashed. Although, I’ve never used cocaine, I’ve heard you experience a super elated feeling and when the drug wears off, that feeling is replaced by intense despondency.

Well, I was high on love and adoration, and when things went back to normal, I let my guard down, the anniversary of my dad’s death crept up on me, and before I could grab a lifeline, depression had me in its unrelenting grip. Granted, I’ve dealt with bipolar-ish disorder for most of my life, I self-diagnosed it in grad school, and then a doctor confirmed a few years ago. I say, bipolar-ish because I have depressive episodes and manic episodes but they are not usually long enough to meet the diagnostic criteria.

One time I actually had to be medicated out of it. Technically that was too close to my dad’s death to be a major depressive episode. Since it doesn’t happen that often, I mostly just deal with it.

I explained, again, to my darling husband that depression is different than sadness or the blues. He has witnessed these episodes many times over 22 years and encourages and hugs and walks on eggshells around me reminding me to pray and count my blessings. For me, it’s as if someone throws a wet, black, blanket over my head, which I can’t lift no matter how hard I try. So, I quit struggling and just give in to the darkness. I pray so much. I am overwhelmingly grateful for my blessings. No amount of prayer and blessing counting changes it.

Last week brought a really discouraging realization. I honestly felt that as I drew nearer to God, as I made myself smaller so that He could be bigger, as I focused on using the gifts He gave me for His purpose and His good, I never questioned that I would suffer, but I didn’t think it would be from depression.

I was blindsided. Why is this happening again? Am I not following You? Am I not doing Your will? Have I not fasted and prayed and sacrificed as You wanted? I didn’t feel as if God had left me, but I did feel confused. In the past I viewed my depression as caused by emptiness, and I thought that once I was filled with God’s love, filled with the Holy Spirit, I wouldn’t suffer from it anymore. I was wrong. I thought my depression was situational. I was wrong about that too.

It just happens. Sometimes bad things happen, and we can’t understand why. God wasn’t punishing me or using this to show me that I was on the wrong path, I fully believe that now.  In John 16:33, Jesus reminds us, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Fortunately, I don’t have to have to figure out or overcome this world because Jesus all ready did. Fortunately, I am surrounded by amazing people–many of them mental health professionals, go figure that. Fortunately, I recognize the symptoms and the onset even though I am powerless to control them. Fortunately, this time, it lasted only days rather than months. Fortunately, I was rewarded with a day of manic cleaning energy to make up for the days that I wandered around in a stupor managing only to work and nothing else.

I am not a mental health professional just someone who has dealt with this for many years. If you suffer or have suffered from depression: You aren’t alone. You aren’t crazy. You aren’t being punished. If people tell you to cheer up and get over it, they might be trying to help, but they aren’t the right people to help. Find a doctor, counselor, friend, pastor or someone with knowledge about depression. Don’t suffer alone.

Baggage

For the past month, I have been fighting with myself about whether or not to continue taking medication. I don’t feel depressed anymore. I feel as if I can deal with my feelings. I am tired of being tired, and I really am tired of gaining weight. Faced with this dilemma, most people would go talk to their doctor; that would be the right thing to do. Alas, I’m not most people, and while I always try to do the right thing, it often isn’t the socially acceptable thing.

I made a list in my head of pros and cons. Pros–I am happy. Cons–I’ve gained 20 pounds, and I’m tired all the time. When the doctor initially put me on this medication, she said that she didn’t think I would have to be on it long-term. She said that she just thought I was going through a rough patch, and I needed some help to get through it. I felt as if I had that help, and now it was time to put my big girl panties on and deal with the issues I’d medicated into submission.

So I prayed for a sign whether or not to keep taking the medicine. That morning, on my way to the gym, I heard “Your help comes from the Lord,” on the radio, and that was my sign. Instantly, I felt a wave of relief, and thanked God for showing me such a clear sign so quickly. Throughout the day, I had little signs that reinforced my decision, and I felt pretty confident that I was doing the right thing.

That was two weeks ago. Today, without medication, I feel tired, overwhelmed, and unsure. I think it was the right decision. I think it was what God wanted me to do, but the signs that so suddenly appeared to guide me have now vanished, and I find myself on a desolate path wondering if I’m going the right way.

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew when I stopped taking the happy pills I was going to feel all the pain I’d been numbing for the past few months. I knew that I was going to have to deal with the fact that my baby is going to college in a few short months. I knew that when I looked at my dad’s laminated obituary, the fact that my dad was dead was going to tear my heart to pieces, again. But I also know that if I don’t feel these things, if I don’t face that pain head on and deal with it, I will be stuck in a state of suspended animation.

I realized that for me, taking the medication was taking the easy way out. I don’t want to be artificially happy anymore, even though it was nice for a few months. I want to be a better person. I want to grow and change and develop, and in order to do that, I know I have to walk through this pain. My vacation from tears was nice, but it was just that–a vacation. I needed it and am grateful for it. Now, it’s time to unpack my bags and get to the business of dealing with all of this shit.

F you, scale.

So I wrote about how great I feel taking my medication and how being medicated is so wonderful and everyone should do it and how I’m embracing my weight gain, and blahbiddyblahblahblah. And those of you who know me, well two of you who know me, called bullshit on that. Said, and I paraphrase, “I know you, and there is no way in hell you are okay with gaining twenty pounds.”

I’m not. I’m trying to be, but I’m not. The things that I wrote about, the curves, fewer wrinkles, yep, I like that, I’m good with that. What I’m not good with is getting on the scale and seeing a number that I’ve only seen when I had to view the scale around a pregnant belly. Why does that stupid number have so much power over me? Why should it matter so much? Why, when I feel good about everything else, does that number get to strike me down every single day? I don’t know why. I only know that it does.

I eat very well, no meat–lots of fish–no dairy, only whole grains, lots of fruits and veggies. I go to the gym at least 3 times a week and work out hard. I mean seriously? I’m really not sure what else to do. One other time in my life this happened. I took a medication–that time it was birth control–and gained a bunch of weight. I stopped the medication; the weight fell right off, and I was good. Oh, except that I got pregnant, but that ended up with my sweet little L Bears, so that was good too.

I am contemplating stopping the medication. I just read an article about how depression is our body’s (I read that as God’s) way of helping us deal with issues. We get flattened, debilitated, so we have no recourse other than to ruminate on our issues and deal with them. Brad asked me what I thought about the article, and I said, “I think it’s probably true, but I don’t have time to be flattened. I’ve got three people who need me to be on top of my game.”

What do I do? I take the medication, I guess, so I can function. I deal with the weight gain, I guess, because the good outweighs the bad. I just keep on keeping on.

Symbyaxally Sublime

For most of what I can remember of my life, I’ve had mood swings. I’ve been crazy, neurotic, unpredictable, and many other less-than-favorable adjectives. When I went to grad school for counseling, I spent a lot of time diagnosing myself–and everyone I knew–with a variety of mental disorders. I meet diagnostic criteria for several disorders. I may have obsessive compulsive personality disorder, I may be bi-polar, and so forth. I don’t know that my findings are conclusive since I didn’t finish my degree, and I was assessing myself, which I’m pretty sure is a no-no; I did complete the professional ethics class. 

Brad agreed that I was crazy, just not necessarily with the notion that it was a diagnosable, treatable kind of crazy. Once, I laid out all the diagnostic criteria and how I met them, and he laughingly acknowledged my findings but suggested, “That’s who you are, and that’s who I love. I don’t want you to be medicated into a different person.” I halfheartedly agreed. I usually only stayed depressed for a day or so, and the manic episodes most often resulted in a clean house or some sort of project–the red and white bookshelf, for instance.

When I went to the doctor, she asked me various questions to determine my degree of mental illness. She asked me if I spent money impulsively. I don’t really because we live on a very tight budget, I responded. She suggested that many people experiencing manic episodes don’t stop to check their budget before going on spending sprees. I got that. I remember my friend’s mom, who is bi-polar, would spend thousands of dollars when she was manic. Well, that’s good, so I’m bi-polar with a conscience?

Anyway, she prescribed me an anti-depressant/mood stabilizer. After two weeks of taking it, I can honestly say, if I’d known that I could feel this good, I would have started taking medication 20 years ago. I am not angry, I’m not sad, I haven’t cried, I haven’t really yelled. The other day, I started to yell at the kids for arguing and stopped myself after realizing I was only yelling out of habit, not because I was really mad. I will acknowledge that I have been a little bit tired, and a lot hungry, but I also had PMS, so I am gonna blame that for the hunger and sleepiness.

I used to think that taking medication wasn’t for me. I used to feel empowered that I could handle all the things that came my way because I was so strong. Initially I felt ashamed that I had to go to the doctor and ask for medication as if that in some way made me weak and unable to handle my own problems. I now feel that I don’t really give a shit if I’m weak because I feel like a million bucks!