Depression Sucks!

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My favorite Mental Health blog is one done by Chato B. Stewart.  He draws awesome cartoons, that find the humorous parts of having a mental illness.  You can find his site here at Mental Health Humor.  I really urge you all to check out his site.

I was just reading his blog and saw the title for a new post.  It was titled Depression Sucks! I thought the cartoon and the caption underneath it were extremely funny!  I decided to share it with ya’ll.

Please visit his blog and discover his other funny cartoons!

Something Cool About Depression Treatment

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As I was writing my previous post, something came to me.  There are actually some pretty cool things about being in treatment for depression.  Granted there are parts of depression treatment that suck, hurt, and are just plain yucky, but not all of it is that way.  Here are a few things that come to mind when I think about the cooler side of depression treatment.

  1. I really enjoy being more positive. When I first had to start finding a least three positive things about every situation, I really disliked it.  It was difficult and to be quite frank, I thought it was a waste of my time.  I was of the opinion that my life was always going to be difficult, and depressing.  I am so happy I was wrong.
  2. I think about other people more than I used to. This may be difficult to explain, but I am going to try.  Before my depression treatment, and even before this last depressive episode, I believe that I spent more time focusing on myself than I did on other people.  The focus I applied to myself was mostly negative.  For example, I would think about my pain and my feelings more than I would think about someone else’s pain and feelings.  Another example would be, I was convinced that most people in my life were thinking not nice things about me.  See, I would turn everything so that in some way, shape, or form until it revolved around me.
  3. I am grateful. I really do not think I was grateful for much of anything before I began depression treatment.  I hardly saw anything positive so I really did not see anything to be grateful for.  I find it interesting that making a conscious effort to be more positive led to me being more grateful.  If it were a math problem it would look something that this:   Me + Positive Thinking = Grateful Attitude
  4. I love how depression treatment has taught me to view myself differently. I have more self-worth and more self-confidence.  I am proud of my accomplishments.
  5. I like how depression treatment has made me willing to continue to work on myself.  Like early this morning when I identified that I chose not to use my tools to turn off my brain when it was time to sleep.  Instead of wallowing in self pity because I have gotten no sleep, or beating myself up because I was not acting very intelligent when I chose not to use those tools, I identified where I messed up and decided to do things differently the next time I ran into that issue.

Good Morning

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It is four in the morning and I still have not been able to sleep.  I think I know why.  Today is the day, that my change is depression medications is probably going to start.  I cannot say I am worried about it, but I have been thinking about it.  I have not been able to shut my brain off.  I keep wondering if the withdrawal from the Effexor is going to be as bad as I have read it can be.  It either will be or it won’t, but I still wonder how it will be for me.  I have also been thinking about what type of new depression medication the doctor will try.  If she is going to keep it in the same class of medications (SSNRI) or if she is going to go in a completely different direction?

I really should not have allowed this thinking to keep me up all night.  Unfortunately, I did.  I just did not get it turned off in time to allow me some sleep.  This is kind of like the old days of not being able to turn my brain off.  I have tools now to stop this all night thinking, tools I did not have in the past.  For whatever reason, I chose not to use them.

I have been productive in this time of no sleeping.  I changed my blog layout, and fixed breakfast for my husband.  Did some reading and caught up on some of the blogs I follow.  Even with all that productivity, my mind keep going back to what might, could, or would happen today.  Obsessive thinking.  No other way to describe it.

I think I had gotten so used to how good I felt and my brain felt on Effexor, that until all the recent medical issues with it, I had willingly accepted the fact that I would probably be on it for the rest of my life.  That was MY plan.  Once again, I am being shown that I do not need to create so many of my own plans.  I need to be more flexible. If I had not set my mind on Effexor being my forever drug then chances are, I probably would not have spent so much time thinking about the upcoming changes.

I will chalk this up as yet another lesson learned.  I hope everyone has a great day!

The Tale Of The Almost Meltdown

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Monday I had my group therapy. I was looking forward to it. I had several things I wanted to bring up during Group. However, when I walked into the treatment center, I almost turned right around and went home. Sitting in a chair, very close to the check in window, was a woman who had been in the State Psychiatric Hospital at the same time I was. I have no idea what her diagnosis is. What I do know is that during the time I was in the hospital, she was violent at times.

For those of you who have not had to stay in an under staffed, under budgeted, government, psychiatric hospital, I probably need to explain a few things. The environment is very rough. I am sure not as rough as jail, but still rough. It was a completely foreign environment. It was stressful. It was loud. At times it was very chaotic. There were fights, and riots. Violent patients are kept with the non-violent patients. To protect myself, I had to be loud and forceful when someone crossed my boundaries.

This woman had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks before I got there, and I am guessing she ended up staying for a while longer after I left. When I was there she was refusing her medications, behaved violently at times, and would call her husband, threatening him with all kinds of bodily harm if he did not get her out. For some reason, during my time in the hospital, she began some weird competition thing with me. She was acting as if she felt threatened by me for some reason. Everything I did, she made sure she did it too, and did it better. I tried to stay away from her but she followed me.

On the Sunday that I was in the hospital, one of the nurses turned a radio on and let us listen to the one station that the radio could pick up. It was not playing loud, or at least it did not seem to be. It was hard to tell in that place, because between the TV and all the people it was always loud in there. This woman decided that she did not want to listen to the radio, and went to go turn it off. The rest of us were enjoying the music as a nice change from the blaring TV. I told the woman to not turn off the radio, since the rest of us were listening to it. She came back over to me, grab my arms, and began to tell me all sorts of things including the fact that since she beat me in a game of Hearts we were equals. It was strange stuff that she kept saying, and my arms were hurting from the way she was holding me. I had to raise my voice and ask her several times to let me go. Eventually, she did. That interaction made me even more uncomfortable around her.

Before I was released from this hospital I found out that she lives in the little town next to mine. We do a lot of our grocery shopping and etc. there so I kind of always have expected to see her around, but I never did. I was happy that I had not seen her. After her altercation with me and hearing how she threatened her husband, I was more than slightly nervous about running into her.

Walking into the treatment center and seeing her sitting right there was a shock for me. However, she did not seem to recognize me. As I was checking in, I leaned into the window and asked the receptionist if that woman was going to be in group. Of course, she could not tell me because of privacy issues. She got the office manager and she also said she could not tell me because of privacy issues. When my counselor found out what was going on, she had me sit in her office and she said she would find out if that woman was going to be in group that day. She also remember me telling her about the altercation that woman and I had so she understood why I was concerned. While I was sitting in the office, I was shaking and really felt on the verge of a panic attack. I decided to call my husband. I hit the wrong speed dial number and got my mother. Which worked out fine.

My mother was really calm and helpful on the phone. She said some things that really helped get me off of the melt down ledge. For example, that most likely since the woman did not recognize me, she probably did not even remember what had happened in the hospital. Especially, since she was not taking her medications and was not completely in control of herself. She did not make me feel as if my anxiety was not normal or that I was acting silly. She told me that while she could not understand how I was feeling, she could understand why I would be having the feelings that I was.

My counselor came back into her office and let me know that the woman would not be in Group. She also did reassure me that the woman was doing much better than when I had seen her last. She was taking her medications and doing other things that seemed to curb any violent tendencies she may have had.  I attempted to apologize to my counselor for making her have to do all that and causing group to start late.  She told me not to apologize and was very glad that I had spoken up.  She acknowledge that had this happened last year I would have reacted differently.  I either would have turned around and left the treatment center and never gone back or, I would have sat through Group, not saying anything and then when it was over, left and not gone back.

I am going to count that as progress for these reasons.

  1. I made people aware that I had a problem.
  2. I gave them a chance to fix the problem
  3. I did not actually have the panic attack
  4. I called someone and got some emotional support.

Thankful Five

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I did not do a Thankful five last week.  It was not because I was slacking, it was because I had so many appointments last week that when I did get home, all I wanted to do was sleep.  I guess that means I will have to list ten things today.  That is fine with me, I have loads of things I am thankful for.

  • I am thankful for being alive!
  • I am thankful for my wonderful family!
  • I am thankful to know the sex of my grandbaby, now I know to stick to the pink section.
  • I am thankful that I have access to free and awesome medical care
  • I am thankful that Autumn is getting closer and closer.
  • I am thankful for awesome people in my life, they are inspiring!
  • I am thankful for my computer.
  • I am thankful for my blog.
  • I am thankful for finding happiness.
  • I am thankful for finding a purpose for my life.
  • I am thankful for the people who read my ramblings on my blog.
  • I am thankful for the people who teach me things.
  • I am thankful for the people who let me teach them things.
  • I am thankful for Cherry Coke Zero!!!!

I know that was more then ten, but I did say I had so many things to be thankful for.

What are YOU thankful for?

If you decide to list the things you are thankful for on your blog, you are more than welcome to leave a link to it in the comment section.  Or you can put your list in the comment section.

Not My Plan…

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There was a time, during my deepest, darkest depression days, when I lost my faith.  I could not believe that my God would allow me to live in so much pain.  I was angry with Him, and no longer trusted Him.  I felt betrayed by Him.  As my mind began to heal, so did my relationship with God.    I realized that He never wanted me to go through so much pain. I believe that a series of choices I made during my adult life cleared the way for depression to take a firm foot hold in my life.  Once that happened, my ability to reason and make logical choices flew out the window.

Despite what I chose, death by suicide, God had a different plan for me.  Even though I could not see His presence through my pain, He never left me.  He never betrayed me. He made sure that when I finally chose to seek help that the right people were placed in my path. He gave me the inspiration to start blogging, and then showed me that I was good at writing.

He showed me that my pain filled past could help someone in their pain filled present.

This week has been so full of that message.  I really needed that reassurance.  Like everyone else in the world, there are days when I struggle.  There are days when I need reassurance that I am helping.  I think God filled that cup up this week, so that I would carry His message of Hope with me every where.  So that on the days that I struggle, I have His message to sustain me.

Every Friday, I create a guest post for @MargaretsBlogs of The World As I See It.  For this week’s post, she had asked me to do something for Invisible Illness week, the topic was depression.  I started on a post for her, then I got side tracked.  I decided to create a video about depression for myself.  While I was creating it, it came to me that I should give the video to @MargaretsBlogs for the Friday guest post.  It was a struggle to make the video.  When I thought it was finished, I attempted to upload it to YouTube. YouTube would not accept it.  It seems there were some copyright issues with the two songs I had planned on using.  So then I spent hours going through YouTube’s approved music list to find two more songs.  The two new songs I found are wonderful.  Not only do I like them better than I what I had originally wanted to use, I feel that they also have more meaning.  In fact, one of the songs is one of my favorite Hyms. It feels to me that God was directing the video and the music.

When I sent the link to @MargaretsBlogs, I was so nervous.  I was not sure if she would want to use it, or even if she would like it. What I got in response showed me once again that there had been Divine Intervention.  She said, “I want you to know that this video is something that I needed to watch.  It is like God told you just what I needed right now.”

You can see the video on The World As I See It.

I have a friend who lives in Scotland.  I have known her for many years.  She taught my 20 year old son when he was in First Grade. So if my math is correct, we have known each other for….a very long time.  She and her husband own their own Bed and Breakfast, 1883 Guest House.  I hope I can go visit her there someday.  She has become the head supporter  of my book writing efforts.  I sent her a link to the video.  In response she wrote me a note with some very good questions.  I decided to answer them in this blog post.  To me, with this added to the other things that I have been brought to my attention, I am convinced that there is a message from God in all of this. He wants me to pay attention to it.

My friend wrote:

Have you ever stopped and thought about the reason for your depression? Without it would you have discovered your talent of writing and creating help for other people? Would your family be as strong as it is today? Lots of questions to ponder. I am in awe of you.
L
xxxxx

  1. I do not think my depression and the pain I went through were part of God’s plan for me.  What I do think, is now that I have gone through it, and am starting to see the other side of things, God is using what I went through to help other people.
  2. I cannot even image my life in the past without the depression, or previous depressive episodes, or my negative thinking.  It all had become such a part of me.  I think getting my mind healthy is more of the reason I discovered that I had a talent for writing and could use it to help other people.  I thought so little of myself before my treatment started that I never would have written about things so publicly.  I would have thought that it was not good enough.  The process of getting mentally health is what showed me that I had a great many more talents and gifts than I ever thought I had.
  3. I think  my family is stronger because of what we all have learned as I have been getting my mind healthy.  Our family dynamics are healthier as well.  Once I began demanding that  I be heard, and saying what I mean and meaning what I say, and insisted on certain things, all of our relationships began to change.  As I progressed in my treatment, and I became happier, my family enjoyed being around me more.  Although, I was the one technically in treatment, the way things have worked out, it is like we all were in treatment.

I am also in awe of you, my friend.  Since I have known you, you have had a strength that I have always admired.

There is still more that was said to me that reinforces that I need to pay attention to what I believe God is trying to show me.  When I was at my appointment with the new psychiatrist she asked me if I knew what I had been diagnosed with.  I believe she was asking this because she wanted to make sure I was self aware.  I was able to tell her my diagnosis was Major Depression with Anxiety components.  She asked me why I thought I was given that diagnosis.  I told her about how long the depression lasted and about my suicide attempts.  Then out of the blue she said, “With all that you tried to do to kill yourself and it did not work, you must be here for a reason.”  When I started telling her about my blog and the other activities I have been doing to bring awareness to mental illness, she let me know that she thought that was at least part of the reason I was meant to be here.

Finally, last night on Twitter, one of my favorite Twitter people sent me several tweets about this same topic.  Her Twitter name is @diesel_lady. The following is a copy of the Tweets:

@MelissaMashburn I’m so proud of you and all you’ve accomplished. I keep up with you and your work for the “suicide” cause. So proud.

@MelissaMashburn I think you’re brave, caring, and genuinely concerned with people contemplating taking their own life.

@MelissaMashburn I’m sure you’ve inadvertently helped people online who thought about it until they read your feed.

@MelissaMashburn You’ve shared your personal story, blogged, and shown support for various causes.

@MelissaMashburn I’m so glad your attempt was unsuccessful. We would have missed out on a great lady and dear sister. Love you

I feel blessed.  I am blessed that these ladies (and others I did not list here) took the time to share their thoughts with me. These reminders of my purpose are exactly what I needed.  I am very thankful that I am not alone in my journey, God has gifted me with the most amazing people.

Rolling Rolling Rolling

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What a busy week I have had!  Group therapy Monday, blood work on Tuesday, psychiatrist on Thursday, doctor appointment Friday.  I made it through all of that, learned a few new things, and had some questions answered.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling is an excellent way to describe this week and the changes it represents for me.  I had to keep rolling along all week, keeping up with all these appointments.  I had to roll with the punches when the treatment center called me Thursday and moved my appointment time up by hours.  I also have had to roll with the news that I will have to change depression medications.

I met the new the psychiatrist Thursday.  I thought that doing the appointment by webcam would not work out good.  I figured I would feel uncomfortable, and not be able to discuss things with the doctor like I needed to.  It was the total opposite of that.  The new psychiatrist is a woman, she was very personable and pleasant.  Very quickly I forgot that we were talking to each other through a monitor and it was like talking to someone who was right in front of me. I brought up the topic of my depression medication and that it might be having a negative affect on my body.  I had some blood work a couple of months ago, and one of the results suggested that something might be going wrong with my liver.  There is also the fact that the medication seems to be affecting my ability to keep my blood sugar under control, as well as my blood pressure.  The psychiatrist agreed that it was something that we needed to look into and told me to come back and see her next week, after I got some more blood work back.

Yesterday, I got the results of the blood work.  This time my liver looked great, my other numbers (A1C and blood glucose) were horrible.  Just horrible.  My blood pressure was insanely high, 183/128.  The doctor seeing me for my medical stuff was so appalled by what she saw, she was ready to write me a new prescription for a different anti-depressant right then and there.  I asked her not to, because I wanted my psychiatrist to do that, since she will understand more about what to give me.

I go back to the psychiatrist on Thursday and I suppose that we will start putting plans into place to change my anti-depressant.  There has to be a plan.  My anti-depressant is Effexor.  The withdrawal for Effexor has been known to frequently have terrible withdrawal symptoms.  I have read that the withdrawal can be so bad that many people fire their psychiatrist after they come off of it, because they are angry that they were prescribed it in the first place.

I am rolling with this as well.  What choice do I have?  I suppose I could choose to be angry and upset that I have to go through the process of finding the right medication…again.  I could be whiny about the withdrawal, that might be bad.  I have the option to obsessively worry that this might cause me to go into a depressive episode. However, to be quite frank about, what good would it do if I chose any other option but rolling with it? Not a darn thing.  In fact, I believe choosing any other option would be more detrimental to my mental health than the process of having to change depression medications will be.

These are the things that I have going for me.

  • My state of mind is soooooo much better than it was when I first started treatment for my depression.  I believe that will make it easier for me to deal with the changes in medication.
  • With my state of mind being better, I believe that even if I have a depressive episode as a result of the changes, it will not be anywhere close to how bad the depression was when I first began treatment.
  • I have created a super, terrific support system.  They are aware that I might be in a horrible mood during this process and more than willing to put up with me and support me.
  • There are so many options for medications that I know the right one will be found for me.
  • Physically, I should feel better once we find the right medication.  My husband pointed out that most likely the reason I frequently have days where I feel rotten is because of the high blood sugar and high blood pressure.
  • The psychiatrist very clearly said to me “This will be a difficult process, but I WILL get you through it!” I take comfort in knowing that she feels such concern about me.

There was a time, not too long ago, that I would have freaked out about anyone messing with my anti-depressant.  I still vividly remember how awful I felt before I started treatment.  I never want to go back to feeling that way.  It affected my brain, body and soul. In the last few months, I have realized something…

As long as I am doing what needs to be done to protect my mental health, including being willing to change medications, I will be okay.

Group Therapy

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GROUP THERAPY SMALLOne of the reasons I had wanted to start going to group therapy was to relearn some social skills.  Too many years of isolating myself sort of left me without normal real life social skills.  I had not really had a chance to immerse myself in the whole group therapy process because, since the first time I attended it has been three weeks before the group met again.  On one day it had been scheduled  the counselor had to cancel it due to illness and the following Monday was a holiday.

One of the women in the group and I had exchanged Facebook information, so we were kind of learning about each other that way, but it was still in a virtual kind of way.  Apparently, she had sent me a private Facebook message that I totally did not see.  What I found out yesterday, is that she is the sister of someone my husband and I know and…….she practically lives across the road from me!

I think this is totally cool!  I actually know someone other than my family that I can talk to.  Get this….I explained to her my aversion to having people come into my house.  I get really freaked out by it.  I do not like people in my house, I am afraid they will touch something or judge me about my house keeping skills.  I also asked her if she would be willing to come over to my house for the sole purpose of stressing me out.  I know that sounds strange, but what I have discovered about myself is that if I gently push myself outside of my comfort zone I tend to be able to work myself past what makes me so anxious.  I figured since we live so close to each other and are in the same group therapy together, she would be a good person to help me with my issue because she would understand how it would make me feel without me having to explain it.  She agreed, and we exchanged numbers.  I cannot even remember the last time I exchanged phone numbers with someone.

As you can tell, I am very excited about actually getting to know someone who “gets me” in real life.  I am very happy that I made the decision to start group therapy,

Learning To Be Around People

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I probably enjoy being alone more than the average person.  Some people crave social time, I crave alone time.  The problem is that in the past, there was absolutely no balance between my social time and alone time.  The scale was very much tipped toward being alone. One of the things I learned in this last year of treatment is that my alone time and time spent with other people needed to be more balanced.

I believe that I need to maintain balance between my desire to be alone and being with other people for several reasons.  For me, the most important reason was to make my relationship with my family healthier.  It was not right that I spent almost no time with them. Even when I did spend time with them I was “off in my own world” so I was not really with them then either.  This made them feel as if I were rejecting them, especially my daughter.

I have discovered that sometimes, mostly when my mood is down, when I spend so much time alone, it makes it easier for me to slip back into old patterns of behavior.  Not just any old patterns of behavior, but the ones that I used to display before my depression treatment.  Kind of downward turned, almost pessimistic type of thought pattern and actions.  The more my thoughts were sort of depressed, the more I would start feeling that way.  Turning into an unhealthy cycle of sorts.

After having spent so many years avoiding people and social situations, attempting to be more social was not exactly easy. In fact, for the most part I really disliked it.  As it turned out though, the people I ended socializing the most with was my family, including my parents.  That is probably the best possible outcome for me.  By now they understand that there are times that I need to be alone, and they allow me that time without bugging me.  However, they also are very good at checking on me when they sense that I am struggling a bit.  Nothing major, maybe a check in phone call from one of them, or asking me if I am okay.

Slowly, as I let go of my anger, and gained more self worth and self confidence, I began to feel more comfortable in social situations and even going to stores.  However, it is still not something I really enjoy.  Especially the stores.  All those people being crammed around me makes me extremely anxious.  It helps that when I need to put myself in a social situation I am always with a member of my family.  Mostly because they are at least the one, sometimes more than one, person who understands how I am feeling at the moment.  They do not have to do anything , except just be there, to make me more comfortable.  Experiencing social situations with my family allows me to gently keep pushing my comfort zones, which is helping me learn how to be around people.

There is more balance in my life now when it comes to being alone and being around people.  I will probably never be one of those people who enjoy big social situations, and most likely shopping is never going to be my favorite activity, but at least now I am willing to do things with my family. That makes all of us happier.  I am creating great memories with my family.  My daughter feels like she can talk to me more.  My husband feels like he has a partner again.  I laugh more.  Being around my family distracts me when I am having a bad day.  It fills a need we all  had.

No September 11th Memorials For Me

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While I was busy tweeting about World Suicide Prevention Day, I saw quite a few tweets about September 11th. A lot of the tweets seemed to center around public memorial services, some television shows that were going to honor the September 11th victims, and quite a few people planned to blog about where they were and what they were doing on that awful day.

Not me. I will avoid all the September 11th television programs. I will not attend any memorial services. I am definitely not going to blog about that day. What I will do, is take some time in my home and pray for the families of those who died on that day and think about those who lost their lives.

I am not taking this position to offend anyone.  I am being so adamant about not participating in any September 11th memorial events, because, even though it has been nine years since all those people died, my emotions about what I witnessed that day are still very close to the surface. After that day I cried for weeks thinking about all the sons, daughters, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles lost on that day.  I cried about the terror many of them felt as they tried to escape.  I cried when I watched the news and saw all those family members carrying pictures of their loved ones, in hopes of finding them.

It has only been a year since my hospitalization for depression.  I am still at a stage that in some cases I must choose my mental health over doing something for other people.  This is one of those times.  The sadness about what happened on that day still overwhelms me.  It may always overwhelm me.