Finding HopeWhy Sara Bareilles Means So Much To Me
Posted on February 9, 2019
Since I’ve already posted this week (tips for talking about mental health), I wasn’t sure whether or not to post again today, whether I wanted to write something else as well as that. But last night, I went to the opening night of Waitress the Musical in London. The music was written by Sara Bareilles (who I LOVE) and the songs I’d heard from it (she released some of them as an album) were absolutely gorgeous. So I was very excited to go.
The show was amazing, hilarious and heartbreaking, and exactly what I needed. It’s not the story of the chosen one facing ridiculous obstacles; it’s about a woman who found herself very unhappy and how she tries to find happiness. Jenna, a baker at heart, discovers that she’s pregnant and starts making plans to run away but of course it isn’t that straight forward. I won’t give anything else away because if you can see it, you really should. Plus they make the theatre smell like a kitchen full of freshly baked pies. It was lovely.
It was a great evening but what made it all the more special was that Sara herself was there, introducing the show and then bidding the audience goodnight. I haven’t seen her since her two London shows in 2014 and I’ve really missed her. She’s funny and warm and genuine and she even sang us a little of her latest single. It was so nice to see her again.
I went to both London shows in 2014 and at the first, I left her a letter. I was really struggling with depression and social anxiety and I just wanted to thank her for all her music had done for me, how much it was helping me with all I was dealing with. And during the second show, she dedicated her song ‘Uncharted’ to me. It’s my favourite song of hers and it was such a special moment. That show was just a beacon of joy and having that through the difficult stuff that followed is something that means so much to me. I’m more grateful than I’ll ever be able to express.
I’ve been listening to Sara’s music since I was thirteen and I’m now twenty four. A lot has happened in that time: I got through sixth form, took a lonely year out, decided that I wanted to be a songwriter, worked through my degree, moving out of my childhood home, plus all my mental health stuff. I’ve had her music through all of that and it’s helped me process it and get through it.
When my depression is at its worst, I can’t listen to music. I find it hard to put into words because it’s so deeply rooted in feeling but it’s suffocating and miserable and painful. It takes me a long time to recover from that state and coming out of it leaves me feeling fragile and raw. It’s like I’m made of glass and anything too loud will shatter me. It causes me a lot of distress. I can’t listen to music straight away – it’s just too much, in terms of both emotion and sensory information – but I can listen to Sara Bareilles songs. They’re gentle and genuine and they strengthen my soul. I’ve had her music in the best of it all and the worst of it all and that means the world to me.
I also really connected to and loved her book, Sounds Like Me. I read it in one sitting and just fell in love with this new form of her writing. Again, her writing was so gentle and I loved getting even more of the stories behind the songs. If you want to understand me, read the chapter ‘Red.’ Reading the book, I felt connected to her and that was very strengthening.
She’s also one of the reasons I got into songwriting. Her lyrics are beautiful and honest and heartbreaking and I learn something from every song. If I could write songs half as well as her, I’d be ecstatically happy. And when it comes to pursuing music as a career, her choices as a creative have really inspired me: to be authentically me, to try out everything I can, to be brave, to stick to who I want to be and to what I want to create. When you’ve got people trying to mould you or redirect you at every turn, that’s magic.
Sara Bareilles and her music will always be so special to me. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to thank her.
My Personal Warning Signs of Depression
Posted on January 26, 2019
In a recent therapy session, my therapist and I were talking about this latest depressive episode and what I’ve learned from it. Because I’ve learned A LOT. I’m not ‘un-depressed’ yet but coming out of it a bit has given me a new perspective on it, on my depression and how it affects me. Hopefully that perspective will be helpful to me in the future. Because depression can creep in very slowly, you don’t always notice the signs but in hindsight, there are a handful of things that should be red flags in my mind. Maybe being aware of these things can help me prevent the depression getting as bad as it did this time.
- Unable to write songs – I don’t mean a bit stuck. I mean a continued inability to reach the level of functioning necessary to write songs. Songwriters, do you know what I mean? I know exactly the feeling I mean when I write this and although it does sometimes come out of nowhere, it is the biggest sign that depression is creeping in again. It’s very distressing to be unable to do the thing I love the most.
- Losing my excitement – This was something I didn’t realise was gone until it returned. I’d get excited about things in theory but I assumed the dampened emotional response was just part of the depression numbness. But since I’ve started to feel better, my excitement has resurfaced about as dramatically as a volcano. It’s fun but a bit disconcerting. So, in future, if my excitement seems to have gone AWOL, I know that it’s a potential sign of depression.
- Overwhelming anxiety about the future – I am always anxious about the future so this is a tricky one but when it becomes overwhelming and it feels like more than I can cope with, than I could ever cope with, and it goes on for an extended period of time, it’s a symptom of my depression.
- Feeling hopeless – Similar to the previous one, feeling overwhelmed by hopelessness is a real sign of a depressive episode. It feels like everything inside me has stilled, like there’s a new, sharp clarity to everything. Everything becomes very simple and really pointless. We all feel hopeless now and then but when this feeling doesn’t pass, I know I’m in a depressive episode.
- Increased suicidal thoughts – This one is the final straw, the most telling sign. I’ve always felt very strongly against suicide so when these thoughts start to filter into my everyday thinking, I know I’m in trouble.
There are symptoms common in everyone – like low mood, fatigue, low self-esteem, and so on – but these are my personal warning signs. Do you know what yours are? Are they similar or different?
The Next Chapter in the Medication Chronicles
Posted on January 19, 2019
Just over two months ago, I finally stopped taking Amitriptyline and started taking the new medication I’d been prescribed, Clomipramine. I’d had the prescription for over a month but I just hadn’t felt able to start taking it: I felt so drained and so worn down by what felt like an endless train of medications that made me feel worse instead of better. And on the off chance that it worked, I didn’t feel ready to feel ‘better.’ It’s hard to explain but it felt like I’d physically feel better – chemically happier – but still have all these ‘depressed’ thoughts, a juxtaposition that I did not feel strong enough to cope with.
But on this particular night, I felt a little more steady and so I took advantage of that: I stopped taking the Amitriptyline and started the Clomipramine. I felt different almost straight away; it took less than a week. I felt physically lighter, like a fog had lifted, a fog that I hadn’t felt settle. It was disconcerting – I felt a little bit like I might just float away – but it felt good too. It felt cathartic.
Suddenly, I was excited again. I was excited about pretty much everything, from swimming and playing with the cats to bigger things like future writing sessions and far away holidays. I hadn’t realised that that was something that had disappeared. I’d been excited about things in theory, in the way I thought about things – I could recognise that something was exciting. But I wasn’t actually feeling it. So to have it back was exciting in itself. It was amazing and I savour the feeling every single time it appears.
The most exciting thing is that my creative brain woke up and started firing again. It’s like my depression completely suppressed my creative brain and so I was physically unable to write songs, to function at the cognitive level necessary to write songs. I wrote about this in a post a few weeks ago. I’ve got several writing sessions coming up which I’m really, really excited about so I’ll keep you guys updated as to how they go.
I’ve also been taking Pregabalin – for several months now – to manage my anxiety. It has reduced my anxiety to a degree but I’m still dealing with A LOT of anxiety, so I need to talk to my psychiatrist. But it has helped. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been side effect free: I’ve been experiencing muscle twitches, mostly in my legs but sometimes in other parts of my body too. And it’s gotten worse as I’ve increased the dosage. That can feel quite scary, to not be in control of your body… I’m in the process of trying a new anti-anxiety, Flupentixol. It doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect so far but I’m trying not to lose hope.
The excitement and the giddiness have faded a bit since the initial boost. I’ve had a pretty bad week: my depression got overwhelming for a moment there. I’m coming out of it but it was pretty scary and I still feel quite shaken by it.
So that’s an update on the medication front. As per usual, it’s been a bumpy road but things are better than they were and for that, I’m really grateful.
Finding Hope 