Have you ever had to struggle, I mean really struggle in deciding whether or not you could manage to get the motivation to get dressed on a daily basis?  Or take a shower? Have you ever decided that it took too much effort to talk to your family….on a daily basis?  Have you ever been so overwhelmed by no motivation, anxiety, and worry that your memory seemed to be failing you and you really and truly could not function?  I can answer yes to all of those questions.


Before counseling and before medication, every single one of my days was a struggle.  As my depression progressed, the struggle become more and more difficult.  The last six to nine months before I started receiving treatment were the worst.  


I quit sleeping.  The lack of sleep combined with a fog of depression, made me feel horribly tired all the time.  I would try and take naps and the most I could do was to lay under the covers and just think.  Most of the time, I could not manage a shower before four or five in the afternoon.  When I did finally take my shower, I did not shave my legs.  I know that does not seem like huge deal, but it was.  People who know me, know that I shave every day.  Even when I would go  camping I would shave. So for me to be a hairy legged freak was highly out of character for me.  After my shower, I would put on a clean set of pajamas, so unless I absolutely had to go somewhere, I wore pajamas all the time.The only reason I would even take a shower was because I felt like if I could at least do that before my husband got home, he would not realize how bad things were. Ha!  I really thought that too.  My husband is not a fool, he knew something was way wrong, he just could not put his finger on it.  

My days always seemed to pass quickly, but I never really did anything.  I ached everywhere.  I had headaches all the time.  My stomach was a mess. After I started treatment, I did some research and those physical symptoms are typical for someone who has major depression.

I could not concentrate on anything.  Not reading, cross stitch, crochet, or even the television.  My mind was always racing with thoughts, so many thoughts that there were times when I could not create a sentence.

I felt like I was a shell of a human being who really was just operating on a kind of automatic pilot.  Toward the end, the automatic pilot I was running on seemed to develop sort of short in the electrical system and was no longer running properly.   


Waking up in the hospital, after my suicide attempt, was the first time in at least two years that I was not in pain.  Of course once all the medication they had given me wore off, I was aching all over once again.  


Even now,  I am amazed at the amount of physical symptoms a mental illness can cause.