Monthly Archives: September 2009

Did You Say Pineapple?!

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A few weeks ago, my counselor and I were discussing ways that I could let my family know I was feeling anxious or upset without having to give them a long explanation.  She suggested using a code word.  She said one couple she had counseled used the word pineapple.  So I decided to go home and think of my own code word. 

The day after that counseling session my family and I went Walmart.  At that time I still had not told my family about the code word idea, because I had not found one yet.    As we entered the parking lot of Walmart, my husband and daughter started bickering.  They had raised their voices a little bit, and it was getting on my nerves.  Raised voices in a small area really makes me anxious and we were all crammed into the front seat of our pick up.  I had asked them a couple of times to stop and they had not listened, so desperate for anything to make them stop I suddenly remembered the code word idea.  The only word that came to mind was pineapple, the one my counselor said that someone else used.  So suddenly, with no warning I yelled “Pineapple” as loud as I could. 

The result was an instantaneous silence.  Then my husband, out of shock I believe, started asking me if I “wanted a pineapple milkshake” or did I want to get a pineapple while we were at the store.  I explained to them that pineapple was my new code word for when something was going on that was making anxious or that things were going horribly awry.  My husband and daughter thought this was hilarious and kept telling me what a pineappled up idea that was.  Despite their laughter and making fun of me they did agree to listen for me saying the word pineapple and know that things were not going well.  Little did any of us suspect that something being “pineappled up” would become a regular part of our language around here.   

For example, while I was spending some time in the psychiatric hospital, my husband decided that my daughter was in desperate need of some new bras, so he was a brave man and took her bra shopping.  Things did not go well.  After they got home, my daughter called me and was telling me how it was so hard to go bra shopping with her father, that he pineappled everything up.  Then she said there was pineapple over the whole shopping experience.  In fact she spent about five minutes telling me exactly how her father pineappled up bra shopping and how she was never going to go pineapple bra shopping with her father again. 

Funny how a simple thing like the word pineapple can change how you look at a situation and put some humor in it. 

How Did I Get That Lonely?

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When I was looking for topic ideas for today’s blog, I came across a song, sung by Blaine Larsen, that was about suicide.  This part of the song really caught my attention.

“How do you get that lonely, how do you hurt that bad
To make you make the call, that havin’ no life at all
Is better than the life that you had
How do you feel so empty, you want to let it all go
How do you get that lonely… and nobody know”

Those lyrics get right to the heart of what my family was thinking and asking when I tried to commit suicide.  They get right to the heart of what I think as well.  How did I get that lonely and full of pain and no one really knew?  Were they not paying attention?  Or was I that good at hiding things?  Or did they just pretend not to see?  Or did it just never cross anyone’s mind that I would attempt suicide?

My personal opinion is that there is not just one answer.  I kept all my pain and suffering inside of me.  I did not know how to ask for help.  I did not know how to tell anyone that I was obsessed with my own death and was so full of pain.  I always felt that if someone had just asked me I would have told them everything.  I even tried to get people to ask me.  When I would go to a new doctor and I would fill out those forms they give new patients, there is always the question “Do you feel depressed?”  I always answered yes, and not one doctor ever asked me about it.  I think that they do not really read those papers, even though you are told how important they are. 

In some ways it was so very easy for me to hide what was going on.  Since I have other illnesses, it was easy to blame the fact that I had spent all day in bed on not feeling well.  Or to use the excuse of, “I do not feel good” to stay home when the rest of the family went somewhere.  It even came in handy when I had no choice but to go somewhere, I could use it to leave early.  The more I used my illnesses to isolate myself, the more sad and lonely I became. 

My husband knew better than anyone that something was really wrong with me.  He saw me everyday, he saw my in-ability to cope with normal, everyday tasks.  He saw me start crying for no reason, or saw my face after I had been crying for no reason.  He withstood the brunt of my anger for months.  I think though, it just never crossed his mind that I would try suicide.  I remember him telling me, after I tried, before I told anyone the truth about what happened, that the nurses in ICU told him that I had tried to commit suicide.  He said that he did not believe them and told them I was “too intelligent” to do something like that.  

Why didn’t I tell the love of my life that I was hurting so much?  Why didn’t I go to him and ask him to help me?  Even now I am still not really sure.  Embarrassment, maybe? Not wanting to worry him?  Lacking the ability to explain it to him, since I did not really understand it either?  I think that is close to why I did not, but not a complete answer yet.

Why didn’t I go to another family member and let them know what was going on?  That is a painful question and one that is fairly easy to answer.  I did not trust them.  Those lonely, sad, depressed feelings and thoughts are some heavy stuff.  I just did not feel  I could share those with people whose motives and/or actions I could not completely trust.  To be quite frank about it, I believe the poor state of my relationship with some of those other family members contributed to my feelings of loneliness, sadness and abandonment.

As I became more and more focused on suicide being my only choice, I realized I could not tell anyone anything.  If I did, they would have found a way to stop me.  By that point I was determined in my course of action.  I did not want anyone to get in the way of that. 

I was surrounded by people who loved me and I still felt an unbearable loneliness, and sadness.  I carried it alone, for months, years even.  I get sad now when I think about how heavy that burden was and how I felt like I could not share it with anyone. 

Things are different now.  My husband is very good about asking how I am doing.  How I am feeling.  I learned that there are some family members that I can trust with anything.  I learned that there are family members I can trust with nothing.  Now I know who I can go to when the thoughts in my head start pointing toward a dark direction.  I know now that I do not have to carry such a heavy burden alone every again.

Unrealistic Expectations

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Early on in my recovery process I  started forming expectations for what I wanted out of my medications, my counselor, my psychiatrist, my family and myself.  My family and friends started forming expectations as well.  I would go to counseling once a week, take my medications and I would “get over” the depression and anxiety really fast.  My husband expected the woman he married to come back.  My daughter expected me to be the mother she missed.   Other family members expected me to have no set backs and be back to my “normal” self in no time flat. After all I am an intelligent woman, it should be “easy” for me to do.  I would get back to my “old self” and take on the world.  The reality is that most of those expectations were unrealistic 

I fully expected the medications to work like a magic bullet and go to work immediately to take care of my depression and anxiety.  I was very disappointed to discover that they just did not work that way. Instead, what happened is that after only two weeks on the first set of medications, I had some problems and had to start on a different set.  Those lasted for less than a week, and I had to start taking something else.  The end result of those is after almost two months they quit working and I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Talk about a harsh reality check. 

With going to a counselor once a week, I expected to be able to better utilize the tools she is teaching me and have better control over my depression and anxiety by now.  Instead, there are days where I feel overwhelmed by anxiety or depression or both and no matter how hard I try I just cannot put into practice the things I have learned from her.  In fact, I fully expected to not have any more bad days by now.  I have been so disappointed.  Once again the reality did not meet my expectations.  I was not happy when I figured out that recovering from depression is not easy, and it does not happen overnight, or in a few weeks or months and that there was no magic pill to make me better immediately. 

I am sure I have disappointed some of my family members.  I know that they all had such high hopes for me to go back to being the person I was before the depression took such a firm hold of my life.  That person is gone forever, some where inside me is a new person who is a combination of who I used to be and who I am now.  Some were very disappointed when I was admitted into the psychiatric hospital.  I believe that they felt that at this point in my recovery that I should have better control over myself, actions, and my emotions.   It really hurt me that because of the unrealistic expectations they had, they were disappointed in me. 

What I have learned from this, is that unrealistic expectations can leave me disappointed, sad, frustrated and angry.  They set me or someone else up for failure sooner or later.  They are impossible to obtain.  I discovered that I apply unrealistic expectations to many more situations than just my recovery.  I also discovered that I form unrealistic expectations  about other people. 

That saying, “Just take one day at a time” is a good one.  If I can put it into practice and only deal with the things in front of me at the time, I believe I can put an end to creating unrealistic expectations.  If I can put an end to creating unrealistic expectations, there will be less opportunities for me to experience, disappointment, sadness, anger, and frustration.  That in itself should help with my depression and anxiety. 

Why Die?

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I have been asked, why is it that I thought suicide was a viable option for me.  There is no easy or quick answer for that question. From my perspective though, my choice of suicide was not a random or pointless decision. By the time I finally attempted suicide my thinking was so skewed, that unless a person has experienced similar thoughts, it is difficult to explain just how all consuming my suicidal thoughts were and why.

The last few months have been the lowest I have ever experienced.  Let’s face it, when a person gets to a point where they can see suicide as a logical, problem solving choice, it implies that, in their mind at least, they have reached a point where their life has very little meaning.   I felt abandoned, alone, unloved, afraid, sad, angry and unworthy.  I felt as if my back was against the wall and there was no other way out.  For months, it seemed as though every thought I had involved suicide.

I think I became obsessed with the thought of suicide.  If I encountered a difficult problem, my first thought was of suicide.  If my husband and I had an argument, my first thought was of suicide.  If I became sad about something going on in my life, my first thought was suicide.  I am sure you get the picture by now, I was applying the “solution” of suicide to every difficulty I faced. 

To me suicide represented an end of consciousness.  An end to the horrible thoughts of feeling like I had been abandoned, that I was unloved, alone, afraid, sad, angry and unworthy.  An end to a deep, searing psychological pain, that just would not go away.  I had no hope and I believed that there was no one or nothing that could help me.  Suicide was the ultimate way that I could escape. 

Fortunately, when it finally came time to enact my suicide plan, there was some small part of me, deep inside, that was not absolutely, convinced that suicide was the right choice.  That part, that little tiny voice, is the one that ended up calling for an ambulance.  Since that time I have learned that I am loved, that I am not alone, my sadness is not as deep, my anger is slowing going away, I am becoming less afraid and I am learning that I am worthy.  I no longer see suicide as my only choice. 


Depression and Anxiety as Seen Through Glasses

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As a depressed, diabetic, almost forty year old woman, I often feel as if I am controlled by my emotions.  At any moment, I can start crying over nothing, feel so angry that I cannot talk or I say things I should not, or feel so panic stricken that I cannot leave my house.   

I am at a loss to explain to most people how things have degenerated so far down to this point.  How do you explain to someone that your anxiety works in such a way that there is a certain square mile radius that is your “safety zone” and that if you leave it, you will have a panic attack? Or that your depression is so bad that even bathing yourself and getting dressed for the day can seem like an insurmountable task?   

In my quest to learn how to control my emotions rather than let them control me, I have encountered a few people who have shared some bits of information with me about depression and how diabetes, genetics, my childhood, brain chemistry and the changing hormones of a woman my age can worsen depression and anxiety.  I appreciated the information because it has given me a better way of explaining to people why I am an emotional, puddle of mud, however, when I take stock of all I have stacked against me it is rather dis-heartening. Did I forget to mention I am also naturally a glass is half empty kind of person? 

I wonder what things would look like, if I tried to see a few of the issues I have, through a glass that is half full?

Pre-menopause bouncing hormones can lead to depression and anxiety

Glass is half empty view – Ten to fifteen more years of bouncing hormones which lead to ever worsening depression and panic attacks.  My “safety zone” grows smaller and smaller until it only includes my house.  I become a shut in who is known as the dog lady (I prefer dogs over cats) 

Glass is half full view – Only ten to fifteen more years of bouncing hormones, depression and panic attacks.  Menopause hits and the bouncing hormones go away.  As an added bonus no more visits from my “monthly friend”.

Studies show that people with diabetes have a greater risk of depression than people without diabetes.

Glass is half empty view – Whenever my sugar levels get to high I feel depressed, when they get too low I feel depressed.  Giving myself shots is so not fun.  Checking my blood sugar is a painful and tedious project that must be done at least four times a day.  I cannot eat cake, cookies, bread, and pasta the way I want to.

Glass is half full view – Getting better control over my blood sugar means I will not get depressed from the sugar highs and lows.  In a few years all my finger tips will have developed callouses, so checking my blood sugar will no longer be a painful process.  With all that cake, cookies, bread and pasta I am not eating, I am bound to lose weight, and will be able to get back into my skinny jeans. 

I have depressed genes

Glass is half empty view- These are not like my fat jeans, where I can hope to one day be able to fit in my skinny jeans again.  There are no exchanges or refunds to these types of genes.  I am stuck with them!  My children are stuck with them!

Glass is half full view – There are medications that can help control the chemical processes in my brain that are a little off kilter due to my genes.  If some medications do not work that is ok, there are many of them out there and you are allowed exchanges of medications.  My children are already aware of their depressed genes.  They will know to be vigilant, and will always be on the look out for the signs of depression and anxiety in themselves.  They will have the ability to get  help long before they spiral down as far as I have. 

I think if I can remember to take the time to look at things from a glass is half full view, I will continue to surprise myself with all the positive things I can find.  I might even find a way to better control my emotions and no longer be an emotional, puddle of mud.

Are there any issues you have that you are currently looking at through a glass is half empty view?  What happens when you take the time to look at them through a glass is half full view?  Let me know what you discover.