I was inspired by several mental health activists who use art as a way to express their thoughts about what it is like living with a mental health issue. However, my artistic abilities never graduated beyond stick figures. What I decided to do was combine the art that I could do with my ability to make short videos.
The following is a result of that combination:
Yesterday, I spent the day at the Georgia Aquarium with my family. When I first found out that we were going, I really had mixed emotions about the trip. I wanted to go because I enjoy that kind thing, however, because of my anxiety issue it has been YEARS since I have been any place filled with that many people. I decided to go with an open mind, prepared to have fun rather than worry about my anxiety.
It was crowded, and there were definitely a lot of screaming kids, but I really enjoyed myself. What really surprised me was how well I did during the dolphin show. When I walked into the area where the dolphin show was held, and saw the crowd, I almost walked out. It was huge, and even though it was about 15 minutes before the show was supposed to start, people were packed into the seats.
Mom and her friend were already seated -they had been escorted to the handicap section. While I was looking for my own seat I saw mom, and stopped to say something to her. The gentleman who was in charge of that section was nice enough to get me a chair so I could sit with her. That turned out to be a great place for me to sit. Because of the way the handicap section is set up, I did not feel all packed in like I would have if I had sat in the regular section. There was no feeling of my personal space being invaded.
No offense to any of you parents with small children, but the sound of a screaming child will send my anxiety levels shooting sky high faster than just about anything else. While we were waiting for the dolphin show to start a toddler -who was probably very tired -had a meltdown. Unfortunately, the toddler was right behind me. Even then, I managed my anxiety better than I would have in the past.
I think the beluga whales, and the jellyfish were my favorite exhibits. I enjoyed watching the whales gracefully move through the water, and jellyfish are weird, and that is why I like them.
Overall, the aquarium trip rocked! Here are a few the pictures I took:
Last week was tense, eye opening, and freeing all at the same time. I have not experienced anything like it before. Emotionally, I am doing better than I had expected. I have spent a lot of time thinking about all kinds of things. Obviously, a big portion of those thoughts revolved around what is going on in my marriage, as well as my daughter. I also spent some time thinking about the huge knot in my stomach, and how it reminded me of the constant nervous feeling I had before I began depression treatment.
Before depression treatment, all my mornings started out the same. I would wake up feeling like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was always waiting for the next bad thing to happen. It was a feeling that stayed with me all day, every day. I was so convinced that something bad was going to happen that my heart jumped a little every time the phone rang. I hated the mail because of that feeling, but there was no way I could allow it to stay in the mailbox for the same reason. It also made my world smaller. It limited how far I could travel from my house. It created a fear in me that made me think that if I went too far away, or stayed gone for too long that something bad would happen. That feeling gradually lessened, but never entirely went away.
Something occurred to me while I was thinking about that awful nervous feeling. In part, bad things did happen. (Before I go further, I want to clarify that I am in no way implying my husband and his behavior caused the anxiety. I am saying that his behavior and my reaction to it, made the anxiety worse.) In my house, I never knew what kind of mood my husband would be in when he got home. If it was a bad mood, nothing I did would be “good enough”. Even though I rarely went anyplace without him, if I was not home when he got home from work, it really upset him, and he would say some very mean things. Then there were times when he would explode, and I could not figure out a rational reason for his anger. I lived in a house full of tension, and stress, never really knowing when the next explosion was going to come, nor how bad it would be.
With the certainty that bad things would happen – combined with my already existing anxiety – my extreme anxiety makes much more sense to me now. I guess the distance from my husband, and being in an environment that has much less stress, has allowed me to see things more clearly.
I did it! I drove all the way to Augusta! I did not even experience much anxiety during the trip.
We started on our way towards Augusta around 10 Sunday morning. Dad was driving the truck, and I was driving his car. We made our one and only stop at Costco. Dad wanted to get a few things there. I also picked up some awesome tasting oriental chicken wraps there. I thought those would be a much healthier lunch than stopping to get fast food. Anna – a very picky eater – liked them, so they were a win all the way around.
Dad was not feeling well during the trip. He said that he began to feel bad on his way to Talking Rock on Saturday. I decided to follow dad to Augusta. I knew I could have made the drive without doing that, but I felt kind of bad that he had been doing all that driving while not feeling good. I thought that if he had to stop for a while because of how he felt, then he would not be alone.
The only part of the journey that had me nervous was driving through Atlanta and getting onto Interstate 20. It went fine, and there was very little traffic. It was not nearly as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. Which once again proves to me that things almost never turn out as bad as I imagine they will.
Getting onto I-20. The truck in front is my dad.
I am sure my dad drove slower than he normally would, however, I still think we made good time. We arrived in Augusta before 2 pm. Anna and I managed to find our way from the interstate to my parents house by ourselves, since my dad had to stop at the drugstore.
I accomplished what I set out to do, which was prove to myself and my family that I could drive that far of a distance from my house and gain some independence. I am very proud of myself. I am also very proud of my daughter, Anna. She was the perfect traveling companion. She was as excited about our adventure today as I was, and also was a great cheerleader. She kept a nice conversation going while I was driving, and told me a few funny stories. She also made sure my twitter and facebook statuses were updated as we were traveling down the road.
I am looking forward to my next adventure!
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.
When I look back on my anxiety filled days, what I remember most is feeling like I was on something like a hamster wheel. Instead of a hamster wheel, I guess it was really an anxiety wheel. One physical symptom would lead to another, one thought that caused me anxiety would lead to another. Just over and over again. Running in circles, never getting anywhere, never finding a solution to my anxiety.
Those of us who experience chronic anxiety and worry have this type of thinking that causes us to spend a great deal of time on that anxiety wheel. The technical term for that type of thinking is Cognitive Distortions. I prefer simple words that are easy for me to remember, so I call this type of think warped thinking, or my not well thinking.
For me, in order to do away with my not well thinking, I had to recognize what was going on in my head when I was experiencing it.
Identifying these types of thinking was an important key for me to learn how to not be filled with constant anxiety. If caught myself engaging in any of these not well thoughts, I would instantly try and replace it with something more positive. Eventually, I was able to move completely away from this not well thinking. Once I did this, my life on the never ending anxiety wheel came to an end.
If you happened to be on Interstate 75 or Highway 20 and you saw the lady who looked something like a bobble head doll, you were one of the few who caught a glimpse of me outside of my natural habitat. More elusive than a snipe, trying to avoid a group of Boy Scouts on a snipe hunting trip, I snuck out of my safety zone and traveled many miles away.
The purpose of this foray outside of my carefully constructed hide away was to help my parents flee their bat infested house. My job was to supervise the move, and like many supervisors, I did my best work with my eyes closed, while many snores escaped into the air. I was so adept at my supervisory position that I managed to fall asleep sitting up in the floor, with my legs crossed and my computer in front of me. My husband was quite impressed with my skill level when I accomplished that. My daughter was also impressed with me and took the following picture of me as I was hard at work.
There was some nervousness displayed by my daughter the first night we were there. The beds were still located at the bat infested house, which meant the first night we were there working we had to sleep in the bat habitat. Anna shared with me that she was a little concerned about a bat joining her in bed, so she spent that first night sleeping with the covers over her head.
The next day my brother joined the work party, which meant my job as a supervisor became more stress filled, and required me to spend more time with my eyes closed. I welcomed the break we all took at a local hot spot called Rhinehart’s Oyster Bar. This place is known for its beyond casual atmosphere. What that means is that your food is served on paper plates, your iced tea is served in disposable cups and graffiti is encouraged. The food….ROCKS!
I loved the reading material found on all the tables 
This trip represented a lot to me. Not only did I leave my safety zone, I went really far away from it, without having to deal with a panic attack. Actually, I did not have any anxiety until we were headed home. Weird, I know. However, that is when my usual anxieties started acting up, and I began to fret and worry about what horrible thing might have happened while I was gone. Guess what horrible thing happened? Nothing! Nada! Zip! You heard me right, my unfounded worries were just that, unfounded and wrong! If my unfounded worries keep being wrong, then something drastic might happen…I might actually stop worrying about much of anything.
I am so glad I got to see my counselor on the same day that my water went away. It was not an emergency session, it happened to be one already scheduled. I think that is great how that worked out. I had been sort of bummed to be back to once a week sessions, but not anymore. I know that things happen for a reason, and if I had not been back to once a week sessions it is possible I might not have seen her the same week I had a huge anxiety problem.
Part of my anxiety on that day came from the fact that in my effort to pack things up to go to my grandmother’s house, I was also packing several food items. I had to pack them because with no water I could not really cook them here, and food is just too expensive to let it go to waste sitting in my fridge. Especially, when I know grandma enjoys my cooking. When I got to my grandma’s house, I realized I had left a roast sitting out on the counter. Which meant, that in my frazzled state, I became more frazzled and had to go back to my house, forgetting my house key, and break into my own home to rescue the poor, forgotten roast. Then before I was to leave grandma’s and go to my counseling session, I realized that I had forgotten my restless leg medicine sitting where it always does in the living room. I had two choices at that point. I could either 1. get the medicine and then rush to the counselor’s office for my appointment and be even more frazzled when I got there, or 2. I could get the medicine after the counseling session when I could take my time. The problem with choice number two is that by that time I was so out of sorts that I knew I would sit through my session with a worry in the back of my mind about getting that medicine. An unnecessary worry, because I knew that I would be able to get that medicine after the session, but when I am in that state my worries rarely make any sense. I went with choice number two, so I would not run the risk of being late for my appointment.
I told my counselor all the things that were causing me to feel like I was coming un-glued around the edges. She had a very simple, but for me difficult, solution. What she advised me to do, is that no matter how stress filled a situation is, if there are going to be things that I am going to have to remember, then I need to write them down. That way even when my brain is going in all directions I can still remember the things I need to. That is going to require me to actually sit down, be calm, and organize my thoughts during a time, when my natural reaction would be to run around like a crazy person chicken with its head cut off.
Now if I can only remember to get the notebook that is supposed to help me remember things.
Farrol came home and was able to fix the well pump. He said there had been a fire, but fortunately the breaker kicked off, which kept it from destroying the whole pump system. Of course about the time he was able to get out there and start working on the electrical unit, a nice thunder storm with loads of rain came through. The silly man kept working, and neither he or his assistant, Anna, were injured in the repair job. All of my worries about the hot water heater being destroyed or the part of the pump way down in the well being fried were completely unfounded.
Farrol believes the ants are at fault for the fire. Every year these rather large black ants try to move into the well house. I guess if I were an ant I would want to as well. It is protected from the elements, relatively cool, and damp, and most of the time there are no icky humans messing around in it. Maybe it is sort of the Summer vacation spot for ants.
There is a very good reason I have been mostly absent from my usual internet hang out spots. I was actually given not one but two freelance writing jobs. I was paid $25 for each assignment. That may not seem like big money to some of you, but for me it is. It was work I could do from home, so no gas was spent getting to my place of employment. The person who gave me the work is someone who has been a big, huge, enormous inspiration to me in even attempting to try my hand at freelance writing. Emcogneato is the one who trusted me enough to pass me the work, so I would appreciate if you would go spam leave her some comment love.
The money I made represents more than just money to me. It is the first money I have earned, all by myself (there was a church cleaning job, but my family helped with that) in fourteen years or more. It sort of represents a new beginning for me, part of a long line of new beginnings that have happened over the last year. I might have to get all sentimental and tacky and print out a copy of my paypal account and have it framed. That way the first money I ever made in my pajamas can be memorialized.
You know what really triggers my anxiety? When things do not go the way I want them too. Right now, what is not going my way is my well pump. No well pump means no water in the house. Ugh! This is very frustrating for me. I need to go look at the well pump electronics and see if I can fix it. If I can’t then that means I have to go somewhere else for a shower and stuff today. I have a counseling appointment today, which makes me even more frazzled. Not sure why, I know I can get my shower done, even some place else, in time, but yet it does add an extra layer of anxiety.
I checked the well pump. There is a serious problem. It appears there may have been an electrical fire in there. The box covering the points is completely melted. I cannot even remove it. There is soot on the wires that lead out of the box. So now I have some more anxiety. I am anxious about whether or not the problem goes all the way down to the part of the pump that is in the well. If it does, then I just do not know how we would fix and/or repair that. It is a very expensive part. Of course I am also worried about the hot water heater. If there was no water in it for too long then the electrical elements in it could be fried. It is turned off now, maybe I caught it in time.
I guess I will have to stay some place else for the rest of the week, at least until my husband can get home and fix the part. Which means I will not be able to follow my usual routine. My routine is important to me. I know what I will be doing and when I am going to do it, and it keeps me on an even keel. I really have a difficult time when unexpected and out of my control things happen.
Deep breath in, exhale. That is all I can do right now. The good thing is that I have an appointment with my counselor this afternoon. I can talk to her about my anxiety, which should help in allowing me to let it go.
May 17th, 2009 will be a date that I will always remember. It is the day I attempted to end my own life. My suicide attempt had been preceded by several years of severe depression and anxiety. I had experienced months and months of obsessive suicidal thoughts, and I had absolutely no hope. There is no one thing that caused me to attempt to kill myself, yet at the same time there was one thing that was the final straw.
My depression and anxiety had gotten to a point where I was barely functioning. Day in and day out, my thoughts revolved around the same things, how sad I was, that I was worthless, and my own death. I cried everyday, and I wanted to be alone all the time. I was miserable, and I wanted that miserable feeling to end.
Life got worse. My husband lost his job, and we lost our health insurance. I would no longer be able to afford the many medications I was already taking for diabetes, asthma, and restless leg syndrome. I went to a local, free clinic to find out if they could help me. The clinic was able to give me most of my medications, but they did not have the one I needed for restless leg syndrome. I knew what was going to be in store for me. Months and months of barely any sleep, horrible feelings in my legs, and never being able to be comfortable. As far as I was concerned, this was intolerable, and was the final thing that pushed me to the point of no return.
I did not want to commit suicide with my husband or daughter home. It seemed wrong to me. I did not have to wait long until the right opportunity presented itself. On that day, when everything was in place, I implemented the suicide plan that I had created months before.
The first thing I did was give myself a massive dose of insulin. My reason for doing this was quite simple. When you go into insulin shock, there is a period of time when you feel drunk, eventually you sort of go to sleep or pass out. I figured that if I was in that state or even unconscious then I would not feel the effects of the other medications I was going to take.
After the insulin injection, I started taking my other medications, just a few at a time. I did not want to take all of them at once, in one big dose. I was afraid I would vomit them all up if I did. So with a menu of about ten different medications in front of me, I would take three or four from a bottle and then move on to the next one. I kept repeating this process until my brain was too fuzzy to remember what I was doing. At that point, I just started taking whatever I could, not paying attention to how much I was swallowing down
Whenever I have heard suicide talked about or watched something about it on television, the only thing that was brought up was the person’s thoughts and behavior before the suicide attempt and the results of it. No one seems to want to discuss the middle part, the part when you are dying. I was mentally unprepared for that part. It was painful, confusing and messy.
Despite my best efforts, I began to feel nauseous. My body attempted to vomit a few times, but nothing came up. I could barely walk, and think. I lost control of my bowels. I was agitated. I could not sit down, but I could not walk. It was nothing like I had imagined it would be. Instead of peacefully going to sleep, I was feeling everything that my various overdoses were doing to my body.
Some tiny part of me must have wanted to live, because it was that tiny part that propelled me to call for help. My memory starts getting fuzzy at this point, because I was going in and out of consciousness. From what I was told, when the paramedics arrived at my house, they found me face down on the porch. I have a vague memory of waking up in the ambulance once or twice, and when I arrived at the emergency room. Other than that, I have no memory of anything until the next day.
When I woke up, I felt as if I had cobwebs in my head. I was exhausted and wanted to go back to sleep. It was then that I realized that I was tethered to the bed and there was a guard in my room. My nurse removed the tethers and I went back to sleep and slept for most of the day. It was not until late that afternoon and over the next few days that I found out what had happened while I had been unconscious.
Shortly after the paramedics had gotten me to the hospital, I went into a coma. It was caused by the huge overdose of insulin. During that time, the nurses and doctors worked to bring my blood sugar up and to bring me out of the coma. They also did numerous tests to try and determine what all I had taken. Things were touch and go for a while and I was almost successful in my suicide attempt.
They were able to bring me out of my coma. Unfortunately, I was not in my right mind and became violent. That is why I had been tethered to the bed. I was give several injections of anti-psychotics in hopes that I would calm down. Eventually, they took effect.
The on call psychiatrist came to see me during my time in the intensive care unit. He barely listened to me, nor did he do a proper psychiatric work up. He diagnosed me with Situational Depression and told me that I was to go to a local psychiatric clinic for counseling. Even I knew that what I had was not Situational Depression.
The hospital made an appointment for me at the psychiatric clinic. An intake appointment is what it was called. It was to take place the day after I got out of the hospital. My plan was to not go. Fortunately, my family had other plans and they made me go to the appointment.
I did not want to be there, even though I really needed to be. As the psychologist asked me question after question, it became more and more evident how badly I needed help. It was during this initial visit that the counselor gave me the diagnosis of Clinical Depression. When I left her office that day, the psychologist did not expect me to be back.
I did go back. That tiny part of me that wanted to live, knew that I needed to be there. This was the beginning of my recovery process.
