Sunday Mornings -

[kyburg]

Again, lots like Saturday Mornings, just chibi.

Got up, lazed around yesterday morning, went out to Mitsuwa for lunch (always a plus) and then back home for naps. Got a phone call from Cedric to remind us that it was That Time of the Month and tonight was radio club.

In Chino.

*beep*

*sighs*

And my evening of doing housework so I don't have to do it alone tonight is toast. Add the fact I have to spend an hour in the car on the 91 and 57 through Orange County in a car. Each way. I swear, I feel like the crawdad tossed into the air by the herons in a Heather Alexander tune - "I live another day!" Why yes, yes I did call the Highway Patrol on the way there - some poor sod got smacked on the 57 going south and it was hard to say if they were going the wrong way or just over the side.

Jim likes the freeways because the traffic tends to be one direction and he doesn't have to be so concerned about the direction people are coming. Me, I prefer surface streets because at least the traffic isn't hurtling by at 90 mph, and half of it isn't heading for me.

I'd admit here that I never liked driving, but that would be a lie. I do enjoy driving - when I have plenty of space and no crowding. The fact I drove airport shuttle for two companies still makes me shake my head - both of them at LAX. The nutso capital for driving anywhere.

Which I guess speaks for my talent for bulling my way through things.

I was given space, growing up, for being weird. Which is to say, they looked at me like I'd sprouted horns and a tail and backed away. No, you're not staying home from school. No, you are not going to stay up all night because you're panicking. No, you are not going to get a single allowance for being depressed. And in the end, that was the one thing they did which was a kindness. It wasn't being kind; they were clueless - but it was the one thing they did which didn't make things worse.

I wasn't hospitalized. I wasn't drugged against my will. I was taken in for therapy and expected to use it. I was 8, I was 14 (and wasted years with someone who should have been a manager for a Del Taco) and changed hands at 18 when I stopped eating. Not to be thin. I was so anxious anything that went down, came right up again. It got so bad I got queasy at the sight of commercials on television. To this day, if I get whacked, my stomach rebels and it's the last thing to stop giving me trouble when the crisis is over.

I left home at 19 and lived alone until I spent the next summer as a camp counselor. Alone, in a place where I knew no one. I finished my Associates degree and then planned to transfer to my four-year school. Again, where I knew no one. I made friends - acquaintances, got work (worked two jobs all through school - didn't qualify for any financial aid, ever), got through school with a 3.0, made the Dean's List one quarter - most of that time living entirely alone. I moved 14 times - back home to work and save money in the summer, but every time I tried a living situation with other people involved, I got screwed over.

I was painfully thin all the time - struggling to keep my weight above 115. I was broke most of the time and was living on cartons of milk and candy bars. I wouldn't wonder that low blood sugar was partly to blame for the constant on-edge feeling I had.

I met George the last year I was in school, and he introduced me to chicken with herbs, stuffed with lemons - just lemons, quartered. Roasted. Yummy. And he introduced me to Cliff the last quarter of my last year of school.

Neither Cliff or I were doing well, to be frank. He had just broken up with someone he'd lived with for two years and I was the walking wounded poster child. Cliff needed someone to remind him to eat on schedule and take his medication regularly - and I quickly learned that when I was getting hungry, he was getting ready for a reaction. Co-dependant? Nobody quibbled. We were both out of our parent's hair and taking care of ourselves - nobody complained. When we married, we were each other's problem now - and not theirs.

Does this sound bitter? I can't say - both of us grew, matured and became more independent. We had someone who did what nobody else had - we had someone we could depend on to do what needed to be done, without getting weirded out by it. Cliff would take aspirin for headaches caused by insulin reactions he'd had at night, with his cornflakes and end up throwing everything up, plus blood. After I showed up, we'd have dinner, a snack and watching the insulin intake at night, he'd wake up hungry and ready for breakfast - with no aspirin. I gained weight, kept it on and mellowed out. I had one more huge depressive episode and it changed our relationship forever about two years after we married - not to push responsiblities back at him, but in that I wanted to be myself, not my role.

I can't say the marriage was a happy, uneventful one. But when the rubber met the road, neither of us would abandon the other.

I see many of my friends on LJ going through depression, much as I have. I keep popping up, saying some version of "I know that!" Well, yeah.

I can tell you in great detail what happened. When, and my version of why. I can relate all the diagnoses I've been labeled with over the years. Some were useful - some are laughable.

I was depressed in an age where medication wasn't an option except in a hospital setting. Prozac wasn't invented yet. (And to this day, the only Prozac that ever was good to me was a little blue parakeet one of my therapists had - little bugger adored me.) Anyone who works in the field - or has worked in the field more than twenty years - will tell you than any depressive illness will break on its own in five to ten years, without treatment. Depression is fatal if you kill yourself, but it goes away on its own - all the work, drugs and therapies are means to hurry that process along.

It's as old as human history. You can go back and find the hints of what was tried (and everything in the world has been touted as a depression cure, from vibrators to snake skin) to treat everything labeled "bad humours" to "hysteria."

I was depressed at 8. I was treated with talk therapy and jelly donuts. Nobody got down to the bottom of the problem, which plagued me each and every time I had a depressive illness. Today, they'd diagnose me with PTSD - I had a father who died when I was nearly 7 of a drug overdose after abusing the big offenders of the day for a year and a half prior.

I didn't learn of this until I was 31. I didn't know. I was terrified of him. I didn't know why and I was chided each time I expressed this.

He was unpredictable, violent and I hid from him. That's what I remember. I wished him dead - and all of a sudden, he was. Just like that.

I was in my thirties before I knew why I was a piece of shit. Or why I thought I was. After my last depressive phase, after years and years and years and years and years.

I tell you. There is something - something unique to you - and sometimes it is so subtle and well-ingrained it's hard to discern. I was trained out of my self-hatred with cognitive therapy. Learning its source, I doubt I will ever be depressed again - the experts say once you have it, it tends to cycle in ten year intervals. Well, 8, 18, 27 - but now I'm nearly 43. And survived Cliff's decline and death without a relapse.

I tell you.

I'm no expert; my only gift is insight. But I tell you. You're not crazy. You're not sick; sick is how you feel. And you can do something about that. You have a born right to be here - you are not a mistake. Being alive is not a mistake. Being anxious is a sign something hasn't been thought through to its end - you fear the answer, but there is nothing to fear. And that hasn't been learned yet.

I was told I obsess too easily. I'll take it - I'll also take that some people are more biologically inclined to this and medication "fixes" it. I believe children of abusive homes can have lingering biological changes in their brains. I believe retraining your thinking process can fix that, too. I've seen it. I've felt it.

Depression and anxiety are not forever. Being aware of it is forever.

All you have to do is ask and I will go in more detail. I will tell you what I know.

After having the truth withheld from me all those years, you can understand why I have no problem discussing anything. Ask silverkun - or varna. I will discuss anything - anywhere.

It's the least I can do.

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Having the sort of brain which is more prone to depressions than 'average' may mean is never seems to go away, because it's so very easy to slide into depression over almost any little thing, and so hard to get or stay happy. Before meds, I was always anxious and easily depressed; the only reason I don't htink I stayed 'down' longer most times was ADD. But the hyperactivity waned as I hit puberty, and the depression got worse. It was much harder to fight. I could manage to fake social normalcy, mostly because I was terrified of psychiatrists. Sheer terror of what mighthappen to me if someone found out I was messed up in the head kept me going. (I expected to be institutionalized.)

Even in situations where I wasn't fully clinical, I wasn't a happy person. Happy, for me, never lasted for more than half an hour. People told me I could be happy if I tried hard enough. It didn't work. A massive overdose of sugar could make me manic for that long; something truly beautiful or wonderful would make me feel good for maybe 15 minutes tops if I held on to it very carefully.

As I got older I thought I was chronically depressed because I'd been fighting ADD and had had a rather displaced childhood, and so I tried to concentrate on treating the ADD. Meds didn't work; retraining and hard work on my part helped some. But I still couldn't get or stay happy.

Shortly before my last big breakdown and suicide attempts, I managed, with a combination of being massively in love and one of those perfect days, a secure job and everything soemone could want, to be happy for four hours or so.

Clinical depressive episodes triggered by something do generally go away witin a decade at most. But some folks can become clinical even without an outside trigger worthy of mention. I spent far more than half of my life either in full clinical or fighting it off. I have no childhood traumas or causes for this, and can remember being unhappy and depressive as some of my earliest memories - but I can't find a 'happy' childhood memory.

Some of us just didn't get the right neurotransmitter levels. There's no trauma to heal from; it may not go away. THose cases do need treatment, and may need medication.

I agree that most cases of depression are a)triggered by events and b)going to go away on their own in time - although even then, while I'd rather not recommend medication, I'd rather someone have meds and counseling than jump off a bridge.

[turandot.livejournal.com]

But some folks can become clinical even without an outside trigger worthy of mention.

I, for one, totally agree. I'm not speaking out of personal experience, but rather I have a cousin whose depressive episodes no longer have any situational triggers. They just happen whenever she goes off her meds, which makes each new episode a lot worse than the last.

In cases like that, where there is a history of depression and suicide (two people on her father's side of the family committed suicide within a decade or so), where for whatever reason one episode will be triggered by a situation, but each new one will appear just because the person is cycling or spiraling through a bipolar condition, medication is necessary to keep them from doing something stupid that will make everyone around them sad as well.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Bipolar is treated with lithium (last time I checked - Cliff's mother is one of those) and it is the only maintenance drug that I know of that is for life.

As far as triggers go, I never knew of mine until it was all over - I'd been "cured" for years before I found out.

I'd also have to emphasize that I was never given any room to "act out" because I was depressed or being anxious. Matter of fact, I was not spared knowing that they found the whole thing embarrassing, sickening and frankly an entire too-big-a-pain-in-the-ass-why-us situation. If I wanted anything but a sneer and a put-upon sigh, I had to conform and get my shit together. In a single parent family with four children, there wasn't room for screwups. Life's not fair - this wasn't either.

And I never knew what "triggered" a spell - very few people really have triggers. You can get stressed, you can get a bug - you can get hungry, have a hormonal imbalance - but in most cases, you know these things are there and the smart ones allow for it. Those of us who weren't lucky enough to pack all the right tools, cope less than optimally than the rest of the population.

My bias really shows on this issue - I think there is too heavy a reliance on medication to manage depression. *shrug* That, and five dollars gets you a latte at Starbucks.

Everyone has to figure this out for themselves, but from where I stand - you can easily waste too much time fixing the blame and not fixing the problem. I spent years in "traditional" psychotherapy getting patted on the head, told "poor you" and sent home to coast through until I saw the guy a week later. 14 or so through 18, every week.

27, six months. And I saw the guy only two months every other week. He also wouldn't take panic calls after hours - and he was not someone wearing a sweater and acting like Mr. Rogers. His goal was to get me out of his office - period.

Initially, cognitive work feels as unnatural as wearing your shoes on the wrong feet - while you are dead scared it's not going to work. I'm not saying it was fun, easy - anything of the sort.

It is hard, intensive, work. A lot harder to do than writing a prescription and an appointment for a doctor to monitor their levels.

I hated being depressed. I kicked and bit and clawed my way out of it - I wanted my life back. Nobody could help me, and if I didn't accept myself and find a way to live with myself, I was going to die.

That said, I've also noted that when someone goes off a medication regimen, the side-effects are often worse than the depression they were initially began to treat. This just doesn't sound like something I'd want to do.

There are people who benefit from this class of medication - no doubt. But for me, I didn't use it - and don't need it now. And IMHO - I'm better for it.

This is me. Your results may vary.

I understand

[turandot.livejournal.com]

But there are people who try therapy alone for years, and it doesn't help them enough. It's kinda like being stranded in the ocean after a shipwreck. Some people can swim it alone to shore, others need the help of whatever is floating around them to help them hang on, and not drown.

I think of medication as that: a flotation device for those who've found they can't swim vigorously enough to keep abreast of a tide.

I'm not saying it's for everyone, I'm saying that if you've tried everything, and medication is the only thing that will make a difference, we shouldn't make those people feel like they haven't done enough to get themselves out of depression on their own.

My aunt and uncle felt like they had to try a no-nonsense, tough love approach with their daughter. They couldn't bear the financial and emotional burdain anymore. Mind you, she lived independently (i.e. own apartment, own car) for very many years prior to finally becoming non-functional for a brief period, and an insurance liability (that's when she became a drain on her parents' resources, never before).

Anyway, tough love eventually landed her in a halfway house, with no assetts of her own left, trying to find employment, having to justify to prospective employers why she had been out of work for two solid years.

It made them, of course, feel like that's the worst thing they could have ever done to her, letting her sink into near doom: I'm pretty sure she was suicidal at some point, that's how she could be taken into the heavy duty psychiatric facility she was in before being released into said halfway house.

I usually make a point of telling people that say that medication in cases of depression is to be avoided that they shouldn't speak so lightly: after this ordeal, the counselors at the halfway house finally got my cousin to admit that the reason she kept going off the medications is that eventually she'd run into an old friend who'd tell her she should and could probably do it alone, without medication, with just therapy.

These people were always well intentioned friends, but they unwittingly made her feel bad about needing that extra help that it turns out she needed to stay alive, to be functional. It took being with other people who, like her, would probably go off the deep end without meds for her to start feeling less ashamed about it.

So yeah, medication isn't for everyone, but I usually try to tell people I know who are depressed and suspect they are that if it turns out you're prescribed some for your depression, the last thing you want to do is feel ashamed about it and not take it. I wish at least a friend had said that to my cousin, once in a while. Maybe she would have gotten better years ago.

Re: I understand

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Good grief no - if you've done everything and medication works, then medication works. As I said, your results may vary.

Cognitive work also goes a long way in treating the "societal" stresses being in treatment can cause - there is no allowing someone else to make you feel bad or ashamed. You are responsible for those states of mind, no one else. Nobody can insult you, hurt your feelings or shame you without your express permission. If you need medication, you need it and being ashamed of it is your own problem. Good grief, you'd put your well-being at risk for someone else's approval? That's trouble in and of itself - neh? It's a pity your cousin did not get work done by people at that halfway house before she got there - it sounds like they did good stuff with her.

No, my objections are to medication first, and only as treatment for depression. And yes, IMHO, it makes sense to try hard to avoid it - the side effects, the cost and the availability of these drugs make that an important part of a care plan. I know of at least one case this year where the patient was discharged without a follow-up appointment with a doctor covered by the patient's health care plan - and nearly had to go cold turkey on a number of these medications because she simply couldn't get the prescriptions refilled. Ludicrous - so not only are you not going to continue therapy, you really aren't able to continue medication either!

I believe in giving someone every benefit of the doubt - but if you won't do some very simple things like putting your own well-being at the top of the list instead of trying to please everyone around you - I get to be a very hardass to deal with, I'm sure.

It's also much harder to get help these days - even if you're declared a danger to yourself or others, you can only be hospitalized for a few days. It used to be, under those circumstances, that you had to prove you were safe enough to release before they would.

I think we can come to agreement that if you need medication - and you and your doctor have come to this place together after exploring all the available options - you need to be a good, compliant patient. Accept the changes, the requirements and don't let the CW sway you out of what you know needs to be done. Either way, you got work to do.

It's also important to remember that opinions are like assholes; everyone has one and sooner or later they all stink.

[zou.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

Do you mind if I share this with my friend in the hospital? She gets out Thursday and I think she is terrified of starting over from scratch. What you've written here is so brave and wise and I think it might help her out.

Thank you, Donna.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Sure - knowledge is always power. I was never hospitalized, but I had been threatened with it more than once. It's always hard to pick up where you left off - and if you've been gone, you've got to rush to catch up. That can be pretty intimidating.

Just tell her to relax, take baby steps and not worry about the small stuff - things have a way of taking care of themselves, given the chance. When she's ready for more, it will present itself. Aim for average. And average is never perfect.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing that - depression seems to hold onto people so hard and its good to read of ways out, success stories, life being lived beyond drugs or therapy or the rest. And someone willing to talk, and help others battle through.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Speak for yourself! Good heavens, I don't know how I would cope if I had your challenges on a daily basis - you bear up with such good humor and creative energy, it's remarkable.

And I envy your harp-playing sk1xx00rs.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

*huggles* thanks.. you've no idea how good your timing is, as I've had a particularly trying couple of hours getting very upset, compounded by an idiot on LJ (and am kicking msyelf for having gone down to his level and insulted him), and feeiling very fragile, pathetic and weak so that *really* is alovely thing to say.. thanks :)

[safran.livejournal.com]

Kyberg, I read the post because I'm listed as Dansa's friend. Your post was very moving. You're clear as a result of very hard work and personal courage and I applaud you for all that. I just wanted to send kudos to you over the ether. I hope you have a good day and good life to come. You are a mark of strength, and in the dark that comes to us all, that counts. Thank you for being here. I'm sure many others feel the same.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*bows* You are most welcome - courage? *shakes head* I'm a stubborn Dane, and I'm willing to work hard. If that passes for bravery or courage, so be it. IMHO, it can also easily be considered mere selfishness. I want what I want and I won't quit until I get it.

I think everyone has to come to grips with this. It's a part of the growing process. Women come it to earlier than men, but we all have to come to terms with our limitations, our fears and self-acceptance. To simply be able to take in what a day can bring you without having it knock you off your feet - that is the goal. To embrace it, understand it, accept it - you see this in the people who live past 100, you see it in the people who survive disasters, holocausts.

And probably the most surprising thing of all was I wasn't particularly spiritual while I was depressed - my relationship with God really began once I accepted myself as I was, and became the person I wanted to be. *laughs* I'm hardly a mainstream Christian - I often refer to myself as the family heretic (every family should have one!) - but I sense the divine now, where I would have dismissed it before.

I'm not strong. I don't know how that word ever gets applied to me - tenacious, oh yes. I'll take that.