Finding HopeWhen You Don’t Want To Feel Better
Posted on June 30, 2018
I have now been clinically depressed for thirteen months. I’ve been living with depression a lot longer than that but, in May of last year, everything spiralled and I was diagnosed with clinical depression for the second time. So I know my depression pretty well now and there are a few differences between those two states. One is the presence of hope: while living with depression, it’s a constant battle between my depression and the hope that things will change and get better. But sometimes that hope just disappears and the depression takes over. That’s when things start to get really bad. Another difference is the ability to cope; when my depression is particularly bad, I feel completely overwhelmed on a daily basis and devastated on a weekly one. I feel like one more impact and I’ll never recover.
I’ve been in what feels like the lowest place I’ve ever been for the past month. I wish I could describe it but I don’t know if I can; I don’t know if there are words that accurately capture that feeling. It’s like that feeling after you’ve had blood taken, after they’ve pulled the needle out, and your arm hurts in a way you’ve never really felt before but it’s everywhere. It’s like you’re drowning inside your own body. It’s like having a black hole in your chest that’s sucking everything in, leaving you aching and empty. It’s like all of those things and none of them at the same time.
But recently there’s been a slight shift. It’s so slight that saying ‘I feel better,’ feels like a gross over exaggeration and fills me with anxiety. But it is there and that’s really frightening to me. I’ve spent weeks feeling like I’m suffocating, like I can’t possibly survive feeling like this for another minute, but now that that’s not the case, I’m honestly terrified. As miserable as the depression is, ‘better’ is unknown. And scary. As much as I wanted to feel anything else, being depressed is somehow safe and… comforting is the wrong word, but hopefully you know what I mean. It’s clear. I know where the edges are, how it feels. In some ways, being depressed is easier because it’s familiar. I know it sounds weird but it’s like nothing can hurt me because everything hurts already. So, if I step out of that, it opens me up to really feeling hurt again and that is really, really scary.
But what if I’m not ready? Being depressed takes up so much space within me. What if I’m not ready to process everything that I’d have to if that space wasn’t being monopolised by the depression, if it was being filled with more life than I’ve had up until now? That’s overwhelming. I feel so raw and so fragile. What if I’m not strong enough? What if something happens and suddenly I’m crashing down even lower than before? I’m not sure I could survive that. I feel like a fractured windowpane that will shatter if it takes one more hit.
I feel like a little like I’m being dragged into ‘better’ regardless of how I actually feel. I do feel better physically: the brain fog has receded significantly, I don’t feel so numb, to the world and my own emotions, and so on. I’ve even had flashes of future plans, like going to the gym and learning how to bake something new; I haven’t had thoughts like that in a long time. But despite all of that, I don’t feel better mentally so it’s confusing and overwhelming and stressful. I know that that kind of change takes time, conscious processing, and most likely therapy, but that’s hard to remember when I’m feeling so overwhelmed by anxiety.
And part of that anxiety is this suffocating feeling that something bad is about to happen. This is something I’ve struggled with for years (it’s on my list to write about) and although I know it’s completely irrational, it doesn’t feel that way when I’m in it. It feels completely logical. A good thing happened and so a bad thing must happen to balance it out. I dared to want more than I already had and so the universe must punish me for it. When I write it out, I can see how ridiculous it is but it’s how I FEEL. It’s like the instinct that you’re in danger: it’s that strong. You can’t just ignore it. I want to write more about this in the future because it’s important and complicated and distressing.
This is all really overwhelming and scary. And it’s really confusing to suddenly feel like I don’t want to get into a better space after desperately wanting it for so long. It’s really weird when your physical emotions and your mental emotions don’t match, if that makes any sense. I don’t really feel like I understand it so I end up feeling like I don’t want to tell other people because they might assume that it’s as simple as feeling better and therefore expect more from me, more than I’m capable or feel capable of giving. This is a learning curve and I seem to be moving through it very quickly but also very slowly. It’s a mess. I’m a mess. Thank you for sticking with me through this very ramble-y description of it.
Mental Health Awareness Week 2018
Posted on May 21, 2018
(Blog Note: I was hoping to post this yesterday but I just had to take a break from everything so it’s a day late. Sorry!)
As many of you will be aware, this last week, 14th to 20th May, was Mental Health Awareness Week and although I fully intended to have a series of mental health related posts ready to go up, life conspired against me to make that impossible. A big part of that was putting my first single out (available hereeeeeee!) so I’m not complaining but it has been stressful and taking up a lot of my brain. So my posts have been a bit all over the place – I’m working on that, I promise. But I did want to acknowledge this week because it is important.
I have seen so many social media posts this week where people have shared their stories and struggles with mental health and I’ve been blown away by each one. Sharing this stuff is such a big deal and I’m in awe of everyone who chooses to do so. This sort of stuff can make you feel like the world is shrinking around you but feeling understood opens it back up; it’s incredibly healing. I didn’t know how much I needed it until I found it. In my experience, talking about all of this has gotten easier, over time and with ‘practice,’ but it’s still hard. I still find myself hitting an invisible wall, choking on the air in my lungs, knowing that everything might change if I say the words out loud. It’s happened before. But I know that that’s the fear talking. And most of the time, I know better than the fear.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I live with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Social Anxiety, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, although I wouldn’t blame you for losing track. My posts tend to jump around a lot, between different experiences and different diagnoses. Plus, things can change over time. Over the last twelve months, I’ve struggled particularly with the OCD, the anxiety, and the depression – the depression most of all. This time last year I was in a really bad place and one of the consequences of that was the decision to change my medication; it wasn’t the right thing for me anymore. Since then, I’ve been trying to find a new one without much luck; the side effects have been a rollercoaster ride and most of the time, I’m too numb to really feel any of my emotions. True, I’ve had very few meltdowns but, if meltdowns are the price of feeling things and therefore feeling like I’m actually alive, I will take them. So I’m not done with the medication search. Not yet.
I guess I’m surviving. I’m getting through. Hopefully, by next year, it will be more than that.
This week might have been about speaking out but that doesn’t mean it’s the only course of action that requires courage. Simply living with mental illness requires courage and as long as you are doing what you need to do to be safe and happy (or what will get you there), that’s all that matters.
Hello and Goodbye to Lithium
Posted on March 7, 2018
About a month ago, I went back to my psychiatrist. We discussed the Venlafaxine and since it hasn’t had the effect we’d hoped for, it was time to think about what to do next. The most obvious option, the one most likely to work in the shortest amount of time, was to add an ‘augmenting agent’ and so I started taking Lithium. I’m aware of the perception of Lithium but it didn’t worry me, not any more than any other medication anyway. I’m always hopeful that a new medication will work, and if that comes with the opportunity to defy expectations then it’s even better. So I was feeling optimistic and, as I did with the Venlafaxine, I took notes so that I could track any progress and/or side effects.
FIRST NIGHT AND NEXT DAY
As the first night and then day was pretty interesting, I thought I’d write this one up separately. I slept restlessly and woke up multiple times with night sweats. The first time I woke up was very surreal: I was overwhelmed by the physical sensations in my body. I remember thinking, “I can really feel my hands. I really have hands.” It was very strange. I struggled to get back to sleep and when I got up in the morning, I felt very nauseous. I had a headache all day and by the evening, I felt very spaced out and tired.
WEEK 1
The restless sleep and night sweats continued, joined by complicated and busy dreams. I found it very difficult to wake up and I was so sleepy that I was falling asleep multiple times during the day. When I was awake, I was tired and weak, like there was no strength stored in my body. It was frustrating and upsetting to struggle to do everything I would normally do. I was spaced out and nauseous and shaky; if I stood up for more than about thirty seconds, I got dizzy and nauseous and my vision went white. It was horrible.
WEEK 2
I was still having difficulty sleeping and was struggling with sleepiness during the day. I continued to struggle with nausea and feeling spaced out but I also felt low; I think I would’ve felt depressed if I was able to really feel anything. The shakiness and weakness also continued.
WEEK 3
And we STILL have difficulty sleeping. It was taking me hours to get to sleep and hours to wake up and in the few hours between, I slept very restlessly. Then when I was awake, I was very sleepy. The shakiness, weakness, and nausea combination was still around. I also started to struggle with almost constant anxiety; there were stressful things going on but I couldn’t seem to shake it off once I’d done those things so it was around all the time.
WEEK 4
Continued difficulty sleeping, especially staying asleep and then I was so tired that I fell asleep during the day. Those short sleeps were actually the best I’ve had in months, much better than the hours I got at night. I was also still struggling with the shakiness, dizziness, and nausea, as well as the anxiety.
WEEK 5
The restless sleep continued, as did the struggling to wake up. On several occasions, I fought to wake up only to fall asleep again; I also fell asleep during the day multiple times. I was constantly tired. The nausea and dizziness also continued, as did the anxiety.
I did not like taking Lithium. It didn’t actually help my depression – I’m still feeling very emotionally numb and the fatigue has only gotten worse – and the side effects were constant and actually got worse over time: the difficulty sleeping, the shakiness/dizziness/nausea combination as well as all of those as separate symptoms… I was struggling so much that I had multiple doctors’ appointments to make sure that nothing else was going on. I had blood tests and blood pressure tests and even an ECG. They didn’t show anything outside the normal ranges but the fact that it was bad enough to warrant those tests meant that I booked an appointment with my psychiatrist for as soon as possible to look at my medication.
I have now had that appointment and we’ve decided to stop the Lithium; he was surprised and impressed, I think, that I’d stuck with it so long considering how bad the side effects were. Since the Venlafaxine hasn’t done much for me, I’d like to try something else but given how much is happening in the next couple of months, I’m reluctant to put myself through the ordeal of getting off it, the period of no medication, and then getting onto something new. So for now, I’m trying a new augmenting agent and I guess we’ll see how that goes. I think the emotional numbness is preventing me from getting too low about anything but regardless of that, I’m still optimistic about medication, even with all the bad experiences I’ve had recently. I fully believe that it was Phenelzine that made going to university possible and even now, years later, I still remember so clearly how good I felt when I started taking it. It felt like I was flying. It was amazing. Searching for that will always be better than letting the depression take over, even if I have to let it take over to remember that.
Finding Hope 