Category Archives: Suicide

Scariest Time Of My Life – Part II

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This is a reposting of a series of posts I wrote several months ago.  It is about my stay at a state run psychiatric hospital.  Several people had asked me what it had been like there, so I decided that it would be easier to repost what I had already written.  Please keep in mind that this was written several months ago, when I was in a different frame of mind. 

This is the next section of how I ended up in a state run psychiatric hospital and my experiences there.

After the crisis team and I arrived at the hospital, and the psychologist left me at the front desk, he went back and spoke to someone about me.  Very quickly, I was taken back to triage and then taken to a room in the emergency department.  At that time, no one seemed to be making a big deal about anything so, I started thinking again that a mistake had been made and it would be straightened out.  A doctor came in, asked me a few questions and then everyone’s attitude towards me changed. 

A nurse came in and told me I had been 10-13nd.  Where I live that means a doctor or a judge has declared you a danger to yourself or others and has committed you against your will to a psychiatric hospital.  Shock began to set in again.  My guess, is that the decision to commit me to a psychiatric hospital had been made before I even saw the doctor.  It had probably been made when the psychologist from the crisis team went back and talked to someone in the emergency department and had left me out front.

I was so mentally unprepared for the things that happened next.  That same nurse who told me I had been 10-13nd, handed me a hospital gown and told me I had to take EVERYTHING off and put their gown on.  I asked if this included underwear and she said it did.  I let her know immediately that I was leaving my underwear on and that was that.  She said that she would have to check with the charge nurse.  She also told me they expected me to be leaving for the psychiatric hospital within a few hours, once they found one that had room for me.  I was told that I would have to go in the hospital gown and not my regular clothes.

The nurse left my room, leaving the door open and within seconds a security guard showed up with a chair, which he stuck in the open doorway.   By this time some of the shock was wearing off and I was getting pissed off.  I really felt like I had been handed a bad deal.  In my mind, I was thinking that all I had done was realized I was in trouble, and called my counselor and some how that attempt at getting help before I took any more pills ended up with me being stuck and guarded, waiting to go to a psychiatric hospital.  In fact, that thought is all I focused on for several days.

The charge nurse came into my room.  The guard left the room and shut the door.  The thought I had was that she had come in to take my underwear away.  That is what I was prepared for.  What ended up happening was much much worse, at least as far as I was concerned.  She told me she was going to have to strip search me.  A thorough strip search.  I remember staring at her for a few seconds because my mind could not fully comprehend what she had said for a few seconds.  I then let her know I am not a drug user, nor do I carry weapons, and that I was in here because I had called for help and I felt that things had gone awry.  I also let her know that she was NOT going to strip search me.  Her response was to let me know that all the security guards in the hospital were also sheriff deputies and she would have the guard outside my door arrest me and take me to jail if I did not let her search me the way she needed to.  I promptly burst into tears.  I sobbed.  I relented and let her do what she needed to do.  It was the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced.  My only consolation was she let me keep my underwear. 

After the charge nurse left my room and the guard was back in his place, the doctor let me know they were going to have to hook me up to some heart monitors since I had taken extra of my beta blocker.  Everything looked fine with my heart, but they did leave everything hooked up so they could keep monitoring me.  At that point, I found out that my husband had been out in the waiting room for quite some time and they had not let him come back to see me.  I asked the guard if he would let my husband come back and he said that he would.  My husband came into my room, I explained to him what had happened, and how I felt that if I had not called for help I would not be in there. I did some more crying.  He was great and stayed calm and calmed me down, and then the guard told him he had to go.  

During all of this time the emergency department had been working on getting me into one of the two psychiatric hospitals in our area.  The hospital that agreed to take me, said they wanted the medical hospital to monitor me for 24 hours, because of the beta blocker, before I could go there.  I was taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where they decided to start an IV and flush out my system to help get the extra beta blocker out of my system. 

I was getting angrier and angrier because I still felt that all of this was happening because I had called for help, and that things had gone awry.  I really was not pleasant to be around.  I knew I was only going to spend one night in ICU and part of the next day, and after that I was not really sure what was going to happen and when I would be going to the psychiatric hospital.  That also had me very worried. 

I have something called restless leg syndrome (RLS).  Basically, it means that my legs are very uncomfortable, especially at night, and with out my medication sleep is very difficult.  When it came time for me to take my night dose of my RLS medication, I was not given the correct dose.  I was given a much smaller dose.  I mentioned to the nurse that they should have a bag of all of my medication bottles somewhere and they could read it and see what my normal dosages are.  The doctor on call was contacted and he told them to give me the proper dose and I assumed that things had all been taken care of.

After the night medications were sorted out, I settled down for what I knew would be a sleepless night. 

To be continued…

Scariest Time In My Life – Part III

Scariest Time Of My Life – Part I

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This is a reposting of a series of posts I wrote several months ago.  It is about my stay at a state run psychiatric hospital.  Several people had asked me what it had been like there, so I decided that it would be easier to repost what I had already written.  Please keep in mind that this was written several months ago, when I was in a different frame of mind. 

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Not all of this story can be or should be told in one sitting.  There is too much that happens and is also very difficult for me to talk about to even attempt to put it all in here at one time. 

I have been on medication for my major depression and anxiety since I attempted to commit suicide at the end of May.  I also have been seeing a counselor once a week.  My counselor warned me up front that it could take several months to find the proper medication for me.  She was correct.  I took three different combinations of medications before we found a combination that we thought was working.  I was feeling very encouraged and thought that things were finally headed in the proper direction.
For whatever reason, there came a week when I was not seeing my counselor.  It was sometime in August.  I think all of her appointments were filled for that week or something and things had been going well, so neither one of us were worried.  She did say that if I ever needed her I could call her and she would work me in some how.

Without me realizing it my depression symptoms started sneaking up on me again.  I became very angry, too angry.  I was too sad, crying, and just was not able to maintain myself.  I had not experienced a set back like that so I did not realize that what was happening was that my medication was not working.  Things went on like this for four days.  Then one day things just seem to suddenly seemed to take a major turn for the worse.  I felt the same way I did when I tried to commit suicide.  It happened to be time for me to take my other medications, and I found myself thinking that I could just start taking extra medication, over a few hours like I did when I tried to kill myself.  Doing that way is fairly effective because the medication has tmie to get in your system and they cannot pump your stomach to remove it, also it prevents you from vomiting it back up.  I opened up my first bottle of medication, it happened to be my Beta Blocker.  I took what I was supposed to and then took ten extra.  I was getting ready to take my other medication and do the same thing, take a few extra.  Then in about an hour repeat the process. 

Suddenly it dawned on me what it was I was doing.  I mean really and truly in the forefront of my mind, I realized on every level that I was trying to kill myself again, that something was horribly wrong, and even though I wanted to die, I knew that I really did not want to.  I did not take anymore medication.  I made the decision to call my counselor and talk to her because I knew that she would be able to help me get side tracked onto something else so that I would not continue through with my suicide attempt and plans.  I was thinking as I dialed the phone and it was ringing that I was doing what she told me to do and calling her when I was having trouble and that everything would be OK. 

When the receptionist answered the phone, I let her know that I needed to speak to my counselor.  That is when I found out she was not in that day.  I explained the the receptionist that I did not have an appointment with my counselor that week but I have run into some problems and would she please set up an appointment for me to see my counselor the next day.  I told her the truth about everything, I have told my family that I would always be honest during my treatment/recovery process, and the receptionist said that my counselor did not have anything available for the next day.  However, she could transfer me to their crises line and they would be able to get me an emergency appointment.  I was still feeling like everything would be OK, because I had called for help and that I would be able to see my counselor the next day. 

After a few minutes on hold someone from the crisis line picks up the phone on their end.  She asked me what was going on.  I explained to her that I had not been feeling “right” for several days, and that a few minutes ago I had taken extra of my beta blocker and had planned to take extra of all my medications and repeat the process in an hour and keep on until I had committed suicide.  I also explained that I had tried to call my counselor and get in to see her, but she did not have anything available, and that I was told that the crisis line could set me up an emergency appointment with her.  I believe the fact that I told the crisis line lady the whole truth, about my suicide plans caused her a great deal of worry. 

She let me know that she was very concerned about me, since I had already started implementing my suicide plan.  She let me know that she felt that I needed to have their crisis team come to my house and assess me.  Of course I told her no, that I was fine, I just needed that appointment with my counselor.  She then gave me another option, I can allow the crisis team to come to my house and assess me OR she could send an ambulance and a sheriff deputy to my house to take me to the local emergency room against my will.  I chose the crisis team. 

The crisis team shows up to my house.  There is a psychologist and a security officer.  My daughter is very confused and concerned about what is going on.  We live so far out in the country that we do not get visitors often and under normal circumstances I would not invite two men I did not know into my house.  I ask my daughter to go to her room, while I talk to these men.  I repeated the whole story.  I had been experiencing a bad four days, I took extra of one of my medications, and had planned to do that with the others, and then I was going to repeat the process again in an hour.  However, when I realized what I was doing I tried to call my counselor so that she and I could talk and figure out what was going on.  And all that I really felt like I needed was to be able to get in to see her the next day.  I was convinced they would see things my way, because after all, I had called for help before I finished implementing my whole plan.

The next thing I know, the psychologist is letting me know that he feels I really need to be in a hospital setting.  That he feels my medication is not working properly and that he is afraid to let me stay at home since I have a “plan”.  I gulped.  I said “no”.  I said “I am fine”.  I said “you can leave now”.  Then they pulled out their trump card.  They are obligated by law to make sure I went to the hospital and I could go one of two ways.  I could get a family member to drive me there, with them following, or they could call an ambulance and a sheriff’s deputy.  All the time they are saying this, I am thinking that all I had been trying to do was get help from my counselor, how in the hell can this be happening?  I was in shock and I really did not understand what just happened, except that for some reason these people think I need to go to the hospital.

I called my husband and told him just a very little bit.  I called my grandmother and asked her if she could take me to the hospital, I talked to my daughter and told her t
hat “these nice men were worried about me and think I need to go be checked out at the hospital”.  I still remember being in shock.

My grandmother got there as I was packing a few things in a bag.  I was still in shock.  She wanted to know what was going on and all I could say was that these men felt like I needed to be checked out at the hospital.  I could not articulate anything else.  I asked her to just drop me off at the hospital, and that I would be taken care of.  I was still in shock.

The  crisis team followed us all the way to the hospital.  I got out of the car and the psychologist got out of their car.  I remember my grandmother going up to him and telling him that he better take care of me.  I think she was crying or was very close to it. 

He walked me into the hospital and left me at the front desk with the lady there.  I guess I had to have someone supervise me.  He went back and talked to a nurse or doctor, or both.  Within five minutes I was called back to triage and then taken to a room in the emergency department.

To be continued….

Scariest Time Of My Life – Part II

Checking Out Is Not Allowed

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I saw my counselor today.  I let her know about how I was doing this week.  I told her about not getting dressed for two days, and trying to isolate myself.  I did let her know that I did not have any suicidal thoughts, or any negative dialogue running around my brain, but I knew that I had been feeling down.  
She told me that in her opinion, she felt like the two days I chose to not dress and hide away in my room, was me attempting to “check out” again.  She did say that it was an improvement that I did not have the suicidal thoughts, or any negative dialogue in my head. 
She confirmed that it would definitely be considered depressive behavior.  That kind of disappointed me.  The reason it did, is supposedly there is something called depression remission.  If you can go a solid year with no depression symptoms you are considered in remission.  Of course, me of the unrealistic expectations, was convinced that I had this depression thing licked and I would be considered in remission by next summer.  Not going to happen now.
Then it was time to figure out why I was feeling this way.  We came up with a few reasons.  Basically, what it boils down to, is I have this habit of taking on other people’s emotions as my own.  Even people I see on TV.  That is why I have not watched anything about Haiti.  Someone being angry with me also affects how I feel.  It usually makes me very sad, and leads me to a very negative dialogue about myself. 
Someone I dearly love has been feeling a bit stressed lately, and down.  Plus with my wheezing, I was not feeling good.  So those two things got combined in my head, and all of the sudden I was taken on someone else’s emotions and feelings, and I was allowing it to bring me down.  Those two days of not dressing, were my way of trying to hide from how I was feeling. 
My counselor said she believed that unlearning this particular behavior is going to be one of my biggest struggles, since I do it without even thinking about it and have done it most of my life.  
I now have another home work assignment.  She is so darn good at giving out home work.  What I am to do is when I encounter a person/situation that I know is going to drastically affect my frame of mind, I am to tell myself that this is not my issue to take on.  I feel empathy for them, but this is not mine to take on.  Just like the home work of finding something positive in every situation, the idea is once I practice this enough, it will replace the not healthy behavior.  She reminded me that this was going to be much more difficult than the positive thinking home work, and I absolutely needed to be extremely patient with myself.  No unrealistic expectations and checking out as a way to not deal with something is not allowed.

She also discussed about me making some friends that I could count on.  She did not care if they were over the internet or in real life. She feels that having more friends would be a good way to have other people besides myself to concentrate on.  Also, having friends with people who are fully aware of my mental difficulties, would be more understanding than some people, who I thought were friends, have been in the past.  This sounds like another home work assignment to me, even if she did not use those words. 
I never was one for a ton of friends.  On and off for all of my life I have dealt with depression, this last time was much worse with the suicide attempt that almost worked.  So my need for friends has been minimal.  The few friends I had before I developed this round of severe/major depression sort of dropped away, because I never returned phone calls or emails.  I think they were also at a loss of how to be around me and what to say to me after the suicide attempt.  
I know that to have friends, I need to be a friend.  Honestly though, when I am depressed, it is just too much work.  

A friend of mine that I have not seen in several years wrote me a note the other day, she mentioned something about me and her getting together for lunch sometime.  That is something I really want to do.  I would like to cultivate that friendship so I have at least one real life friend in my life.  She is a good person and I think it would be good for me to step outside of myself and do what friends do for each other.  

Lately, there have been a few people I have met around the blogs that I want to get to know better.  One in particular I think would be someone who I think would turn out to be a good support for me and I could be a good support for her.
I already know that this is going to provide me with some extra anxiety.  I will do what I need to do, to deal with the extra anxiety.   

Confession Is Good For The Soul

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Confession is good for the soul is what I have been told.  I hope it is, because today is my day to confess.  

Since Friday my mental health has not been as good has it has been.  It is not as bad as it can get, but that is not saying a lot.  I have been down, wanting to isolate myself, quiet, and I have not felt like communicating with anyone.  I have a counselor’s appointment Thursday so I will be sure to bring it up to her then.  I have been faking feeling OK on my blog and with my daughter.  However, even over the phone my husband can tell that I am not in a good frame of mind.   I even lacked the motivation to take a shower and get dressed for a couple of days.  

Some positives are I am not having any suicidal thoughts, and I am not having a negative dialogue running through my head.  I mostly feel disengaged from things.  

It could be a normal “down” time that everyone goes through, but it is still a struggle for me to identify “normal” emotions as compared to my out of control emotions.  That is why running this past the counselor is a good thing, she helps me identify which category my emotions are in.  


So that is my confession.  I felt compelled to do it because from the beginning of my recovery process I promised I would always tell the truth about what was going on.  Sometimes the person I need to tell the truth to the most is myself. 

The Sky Is Falling

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I had yet another children’s book on my mind today.  The story of Chicken Little.  After re-reading it this morning, I realized that Chicken Little was having a major panic attack.  I also realized that there were several things in the story that I could apply to myself. 

Not only was Chicken Little experiencing a panic attack, but he was having a panic attack over something imaginary.  

“Chicken Little was in the woods.
A seed fell on his tail.
Chicken Little said,
“The sky is falling.
I will run.”

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I have had more than one panic attack over something I imagined.  Whatever I had created in my mind, became real to me, the feelings were absolutely real.  The things I created in my mind that caused me to have a panic attack, were huge.  Sometimes it would be imagining my whole family being killed in an awful car accident. Once after I tried to commit suicide in May, and the right medicine mix had not been found for me, I started imagining that my husband was done with me, because he could not handle being married to someone who was mentally ill.  

Very much like Chicken Little taking off and running, I can spend several hours pacing the house. not able to concentrate, and crying buckets of tears when I have a panic attack due to something I imagined.  Days like that lead me to have many bad thoughts. 



Another thing I noticed about Chicken Little and his panic attack is that the longer the panic attack went on, the more details his imagination added to his “story”. 

“How do you know, Chicken Little?”

“I saw it with my eyes.
I heard it with my ears.
Some of it fell on my tail.”

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I have done the same thing when something I have imagined has caused me to have a panic attack.  All it succeeds in doing is making the panic attack worse.   


Chicken Little’s reasons for having the panic attack were so real to him that he managed to convince a few of his friends that the sky was really falling.  They started having panic attacks, and they started running.  I would think that by this point all of those animal/people having panic attacks were feeding each others fears.  I know that if I am around people who are anxious or panicking about something, it feeds my own fears and makes things worse.  That is one of the reasons I choose to only be around people who are positive and not prone to drama.


The final outcome for Chicken Little and his panicking friends was not very good.  They got so caught up in their panic attacks that they lost their common sense.  They actually thought a predator by the name of Foxy Loxy was going to help them.

“Foxy Loxy said,
“We will run.
We will run into my den,
And I will tell the king.”

They ran into Foxy Loxy’s den,
But they did not come out again.”

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I cannot even count the times that I have had a panic attack and lost all the common sense I had.  No common sense means I make very poor decisions.  An example of this is when I tried to kill myself.  I had been thinking constantly about suicide for months and months but had not acted on those thoughts.  When my husband lost his job and and we lost our insurance, we could no longer afford my medications.  I had gone to the free clinic in our county, and they were able to provide me with all my medicines except for one. I became very discouraged and panicky over not being able to get that one particular medication.  I have restless leg syndrome.  It is fairly bad.  When I do not have my medicine for it, I do not sleep and my legs get in such bad shape that I am miserable.  I began to panic at the thought of how miserable I was going to be for who knows how long. I decided that I could not live without having that medicine.  It was at this point I chose to act on the suicidal thoughts I had been having for so long.  It was a very poor decision that I made while having a panic attack, it almost cost me my life.  


Chicken Little and his friends were eaten.  Obviously their situation got worse due to their panic attacks.  Often when I have a panic attack, I become paralyzed with fear.  I can take no productive action about what is making me panic.  That inaction due to panic, makes the situation worse than if I had just been calm and dealt with it.


The original version of Chicken Little was a fable.  It has been passed down from generation to generation, in an oral tradition.  Fables tend to have a moral lesson in them.  I find the things that I picked out that I could apply to myself interesting.  I know the “professionals” who dissect stories find different moral lessons than I did.  I suppose there is no way to tell fo
r sure what moral lesson the original story teller wanted people to learn from from Chicken Little. Maybe he wanted people to do exactly what I did and find themselves and their flaws in it and learn from it.  

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

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 Most of you who are reading this are probably familiar with the children’s book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.  At one point I had the whole thing memorized from having read it to my daughter so many times.  When she was hungry she would even say she was a hungry caterpillar.  

That book came to mind today.  I was thinking about how much I have changed in the last few years, and how much more change  I have to look forward to.  How I am in a transformation process, that I do not know how long it is going to last or what the final outcome outcome might be. 

Very much like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, who spends most of his time as a caterpillar preparing for a transformation, and in the transformation process itself, I feel as if I spent most of my life preparing for a transformation, or in the process of transforming.  For the first time in my life, I actually feel as if I have grown up.  

There was a question in one of the memes I did today that asked if there was anything I could change about my past, what would I change.  There was a similar question in a meme I did last week.  From what I can tell, it appears that I lot of people have something in their past that they wish they could change.  Each time I got that question, I answered it in a similar fashion.  

Remember when The Very Hungry Caterpillar had the tummy ache because of eating too much of the wrong things?  He learned from that experience.  I think if The Very Hungry Caterpillar were asked if he could change anything about his past, he would probably answer “No”. He became a different and slightly better caterpillar because of the tummy ache.   There is not one thing I would change about my past.  Nothing.  It is not as if I have had the most pleasant life, far from it in fact.  Some things in my past have caused me pain for years, yet they still help shaped who I am now and who I will be in the future.   


Would I be as aware of domestic violence issues, if a former spouse had not broken my nose in a fit of rage?  I doubt I would be.  If  something is not in my frame of reference I tend to not think about it.  I know I would not be so aware of major depression, its symptoms, treatments, and long term outlook, if I was not living with it myself.  Same with my anxiety disorder, diabetes, and asthma.  I know without my childhood experiences, I would have no clue about what it is like to live in an extremely dysfunctional family.  Those experiences allow me to empathize with people in similar situations, and maybe even  be able to provide them with effective support. 



Now that I finally feel like I am a grownup, I can see a few truths about myself.  I have used some negative past experiences as excuses for my own negative behaviors.  When my major depression was really bad, before I started getting treatment, I used the diabetes and asthma as excuses for why I had no interest in going anywhere, instead of being honest with people.  To some extent, I have control over my depression.  About a year before I started getting treatment for it, I knew there was something terribly wrong with me.  I even knew what it was.  I chose not to tell anyone about it.  I chose to go ahead with my suicide plans instead of telling anyone that those thoughts were going through my head.  


I wonder if The Hungry Caterpillar was afraid when he started his transformation into The Beautiful Butterfly?  I know that there have been times when I have been afraid during my own transforming process.  I have been afraid because, especially lately, I am changing a great deal.  It has caused a shift in my family dynamics.  I am most definitely not the same person my husband married.  That person went with the flow of things, allowed other people to make decisions for her, and did not stand up for herself.  Now, I am all about setting boundaries, standing up for myself, and finding and using my own voice to make decisions and participate fully with things, instead of just going with the flow all the time.


My transformation has been difficult for my husband at times.  It has caused some friction in our marriage.  There have been times when I have thought we were not going to make it through this process together.  What gives me hope that we will make it, is that I see him earnestly trying to keep up with my transformation and working on himself as well.

In my head, I keep seeing myself as a beautiful butterfly.  Not on the outside, but on the inside.  I will have a beauty inside me that I have never experienced before.  I will no longer be filled with negative thoughts, emotions, and actions.  Instead, I see my butterfly self as someone who exudes peace, tranquility, and positivity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        &
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The Skippin Ninja

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 I did a funny not-so-superhero name generator and loved the name it came up with for me.  The Skippin Ninja.  I instantly got a really cool mental image in my head.


When I was a kid and things were bothering me, or I was really sad about something, I would pretend I was a superhero of some sorts to get through the day.  That little game helped me make it through more than one really bad day when I was growing up.  


I played it only in my head, and no one ever knew that is what I was doing.  However, it always gave me the extra little bit I needed for whatever reason.  As a superhero, I had more physical strength, and I had more confidence in myself.  I had something that was secret, and it belonged only to me.


With that I game I could slay the dragons in my life.  I could right the wrongs that had been done to me.  I could become impervious to hands that hurt and words that hurt.  


I mentioned this little game and how it made me feel to my counselor a few weeks ago.  She suggested I use it now, as an adult, to help get through bad days.  Whether it was a bad day from depression, or anxiety, or my diabetes was making me feel bad, of if my asthma was acting up. 


I had not really given it much thought since then.  However, when that name came up from the name generator, The Skippin Ninja, I totally saw my new alter ego.  


I get this mental image of The Skippin Ninja kicking the snot out of any depressed thoughts, suicidal thoughts, or just plain negative thoughts I might have, and then just cheerfully skipping away, whistling a merry tune.  I can also see The Skippin Ninja motivating me to make sure I check my sugar when I am supposed to and not procrastinating when it comes to shot time.  The Skippin Ninja is so full of confidence that when I get anxious or am close to a panic attack, she prevents my anxiety from overwhelming me.  I can envision the Skippin Ninja, skipping around the people in my life that I need to set better boundaries with, all the while making silly faces and mocking them so that those people are no longer intimidating to me.

Watch out bad days, The Skippin Ninja is on the prowl. 

 


Eye Of Newt And Tongue Of Frog…..A Little Of This And Some Of That…

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Every time I do an internet search on depression and anxiety, I am amazed at the amount of sites that state that they have the best depression and anxiety cures.   They consist of  herbal remedies, prescription medications, yoga, spa, relaxation, lobotomies, the power of positive thinking, meditation, hydrotherapy, hypnotherapy, electric shock therapy, behavioral therapy, no therapy, instant cures, prayer, sweat lodge, leeches…  I am sure you get the idea.


I have a hard enough time picking a restaurant when I have more than two to choose from, there is no way I could see all those sites and then decide on what depression treatment would work best for me.  I would either be so overwhelmed by the choices and not be able to choose anything or I would close my eyes and point my finger and whatever ever my finger pointed to is what I would try for my depression and anxiety. 

I do not know how other people wade through all of that and pick what they think would work for them.  Most people I know who are dealing with severe depression are incapable of making decisions when there are that many items to choose from.  


Most of those sites claim to have the “best” cure for depression and anxiety.  Or they say they have the “only” true cure for depression and anxiety.  How can they know that theirs is the “best” cure or the “only” cure?  People are so different from each other and there is more than one cause for depression.  Even someone who takes a more traditional, medical approach for the treatment of their depression often end up having to try more than one medication before the right combination is found for them.  


After I tried to kill myself, I was not really given any choice about where I was going to get treatment from.  At the time we had no medical insurance, which meant that there was no way I could afford to go to a private psychiatrist.  The hospital told me and my family that I should go to a local mental health, out patient facility.  It is government funded, and the patients are charged for the services there based on their income.  


The only choice I really had at the time was whether I was going to get help or not.  If I did not get help, I believe my family would have had me committed into a state run mental health facility.  I chose the out patient facility.  I did not even have to worry about how I was going to get there.  My husband asked my mother to take me.  


I was pretty angry at the time, because I felt like they were treating me like a child.  However, now I see the wisdom in what they did.  They knew that I was not in a place where I could make any decisions about my own well being, so they made things very easy for me.  

After I started treatment there it took about 8 different medications and a trip to a state run mental health facility before the proper combination of medicine could be figured out for me.  I also see the counselor once a week.  So when I read the sites that claim to have the “best” or “only” cures, I am very skeptical.   I am not discounting their product and saying it has absolutely no value in the treatment of depression.  What I am saying though is that, in my opinion,  there is no singular thing that works on depression.  I believe that most people need to employ the use of more than one type of depression treatment/medication, and these sites advertising they way they do, can be very misleading to the newly diagnosed. 



I rarely recommend, or advise anyone about depression and anxiety treatments, but today I feel compelled to.  Choose carefully when deciding what treatment you think will work best for you.  Do not get discouraged if you have to use more than one type of treatment for your depression.  Finally, if you are like most people with severe depression and have a hard time choosing where to start, get someone you trust to help you make that decision.  There is no shame in asking for help.




 

Just going…..

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In the weeks that I blew off blogging, me and my life just kept going. Life was stressful for many reasons but I made it through experiencing less stress than I normally would have. I am sure that this is due in part to my medications, my counseling and where my head is at now.


One of my stresses actually came from the effexor I take for my depression. There seems to be a side effect to it that is not really talked about much. It caused me to miss the “big moment” more than once while doing the deed with my husband. I have to admit I really enjoy that part of my married life, so the thought of missing out on the “big moment” for years was a depressing thought. To make matters even more stressful, I tend to get a bit embarrassed when I have to talk about that particular subject, but I knew for the problem to be fixed I would have to talk to my male psychologist about it. For the life of me I could not figure out a way to say what I needed to say with out really saying it. The best I could come up with in my head was “Doctor, I am not having any orgasms because of the effexor.” Somehow the thought of being that blunt about it scared the stuffing out of me.


I called a female friend of mine for courage. She said I just needed to go right into the doctor’s office, the next time I had an appointment, and tell him exactly what the problem was. She assured me that he had probably heard that kind of thing more than once and would know just what to do. She did bolster my courage, but I was still tongue tied at the thought of actually saying it out loud.


A few days after I talked to my friend, it was time for me to go in and see both my psychiatrist and my counselor. I saw the counselor first. We had our usual session, things got talked about, and I avoided talking about the one issue that was in the forefront of my mind. Finally, when our session was about over I got enough courage to bring up the dreaded topic. I told the counselor that I had something that was very difficult for me to talk about, but that I absolutely needed to. She said “Ok”, and had a very strange look on her face. Almost like she was afraid at what I might say considering how serious I sounded. Then I just blurted it out “The effexor is making it so I cannot have an orgasm and I do not know how to tell the doctor that I cannot live that way for years because I enjoy it too much.” She laughed. Apparently, she was expecting me to bring something totally awful up and when I blurted out what I did she was shocked that it was something as simple as that. Her laughing actually caused me to relax and I was able to see a great deal of humor in how I handled the whole situation. The counselor assured me that this was an easy to fix problem, and that if I wanted her to, she would actually tell the doctor for me since the whole topic was embarrassing for me. I decided then that if I could tell her, then I certainly could talk to the psychiatrist about it.


After I left the counselor’s office, I walked over to the psychiatrist’s office. I was able to very calmly and without too much discomfort, explain to him the issues I was having with the effexor. He was great about it. He did not dwell on it, just let me know that if we added a low dose of wellbutrin to the mix it should take care of the problem. However, this fix lead to another problem. My husband would want to know why the doctor added another medication to my depression medications. That meant I would have to tell him that the medicine was to help me experience the “big moment” again, and then I would have to confess the fact that I had been faking things for weeks.


I thought and thought and could not come up with anything that would spare me any embarrassment with my husband. So I figured that I would just tell him, the way I did the counselor and the psychiatrist and be done with it. After much, hemming and hawing I got around to telling my husband about the medication and why I needed to take it and confessed my faking ways. I am so glad he is an understanding man.


All that stress over something so silly. It amazes me the amount of things I can turn into huge problems when the reality is, for the most part, that the problems are really just little bumps in my road and are easier to deal with then I think they will be.


At least this whole experience has made it so I get less embarrassed when I have to talk about this particular topic. Good thing too! The very next week I had an appointment with my medical doctor and one of his questions was to ask me how my sex life was, considering all the medications I am on. If he had asked that before I had dealt with the issue, I probably would have fallen out of my chair. As it was, I was able to look at him with a smile on my face and tell him it was just fine.

I Miss The Mom…

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quotes put here with permission from Anna Mashburn

“I miss the mom I used to have. I miss the mom who would do anything and everything.  I miss the mom who would spend time with me. I miss the mom that I could talk to.  I miss my fun and loving mom.” 


Sadness, hurt, abandonment, tears, and pain are some of the words I think of every time I read that quote.  I feel so sorry for the child who is expressing those feelings.  I feel such utter sadness because the child who wrote those words is my daughter.  



Maybe the best term to use for what depression has done to my family is collateral damage.  My husband and daughter are the innocent and injured by-standers in my war against depression and an anxiety disorder.  The wife and mother they had suffered an internal explosion, could barely function, and they were left to pick up the pieces and to hold the family together.

For too long my daughter felt like she had to “babysit” me when my husband was not home.  There were days when she had to remind me to take a shower or eat.  She felt this constant need to make me feel better, and she developed a habit of telling me she loved me at least twenty times a day as well as constantly asking me if I was happy. In essence she lost her mother.  I may have been in her life physically (sometimes), but I was certainly not there emotionally or mentally.   


Physically I was not with her as much as I would have been before the depression consumed me.  I could not leave the house most of the time, when she wanted to go do something.  That meant my husband and her would often have to go on outings without me.  Or because I could barely function, I would spend a lot of time in bed, so she was left to take care of herself.  


Having any type of meaningful conversation with me had to be very frustrating for her.  Most of the time I did not pay attention to what she may have been trying to talk to me about and if I did, most of the time I  would forget what she had said within about two minutes.


“I feel like you have pushed me away.  I feel like you don’t really mean I Love You.”


I just want to cry when I see those words.  I cannot blame her for thinking that though.  In my checked out, depressed state I did push people away, including her and my husband.  The thought processes going on in my head at the time rationalized me pushing them away. I told myself that by pushing them away, I was getting them used to taking care of themselves so that when I decided the time was right for me to end my life, it would make it easier for me to go through with it.

After seeing those words I went out and bought me and my daughter something special. I felt that it would reassure her that I do love her, even if I “checked out” again and could not express it properly.  I got us heart necklaces, the larger heart says “Mother”, the smaller heart says “Daughter”. 
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 I have also spent a great deal of time talking to her, reassuring her that I love her, and apologizing to her.  My hope is that once again she will feel as if I love her and not feel so sad and abandoned anymore.  I do not want her to  feel she has to be so grown up at her young age because she thinks she has to take care of me.

I have learned that my depression recovery is a family affair.  It is obvious what harm the major depression and anxiety disorder has caused me. What is less obvious is the harm and sadness that it has  caused to my family. Even now some days it is very difficult for me to focus on anything or anyone except for myself.  Just getting myself through the day is a huge task.  However, on the days when I can, I will make an effort to reassure my family that I still love and care about them.  Things will never be the way they were before the depression. I will never be the way I was before the depression.  It was not healthy.  I do, however, have a hope that when we all get on the other side of things, that we will be a stronger, healthier family because of what we all are struggling through now.