Day Five: No Tears

The days fly past and my appointment with Dr. Alt is upon me before I realize it. As he calls me back, I take a deep breath and exhale, trying to shake off the anxiety that has been with me since Pendragon mentioned that I needed to consult with him to talk about the possibility of medication. It doesn't really work and the knot in my chest tightens a bit as I follow him to his office. His office is cozy and interesting with a myriad of things all over it to look at as I sit down on the cushy sofa across from his desk. He shifts a stack of what look like patient files from one part of his desk to another, removes mine off the top, and opens it to the first thing inside it. He peers through the bifocals perched on his nose, reading silently for a few seconds and then turns his attention to me. "So," he says in his pronounced German accent, "I spoke with Pendragon and he said you've been having symptoms of the depression, hmm?"

Day Four: Symptomatic

I pull the car into a parking space at the large psychiatric group where Pendragon's office is and where I have been going for the past four years and turn off the engine. 7:50am Ten minutes to go. I have never felt like this going into an appointment with Pendragon. Over the past four years, I have come to trust him implicitly. I have gotten to a point where there is absolutely no subject that I cannot discuss with him and no vulnerability that I feel it necessary to protect in our sessions. Despite this immense trust, as I walk toward the door and feel the cool metal door handle beneath my palm, I realize that my heart is racing and I am, for the first time since I began therapy with Pendragon, nervous.

Day Three (extra content) -- Five Minute Friday: New

Note: Obviously I am rather immersed in the 31 Days writing challenge at the moment, but I am going to try to continue with the Five Minute Friday posts too. It's a good way to keep my writing skills sharp and also to foster good habits with regard to writing daily (which is a goal I set myself about three weeks ago). I thought about writing something totally unrelated to my 31 Days topic of depression for these FMF posts, but I think I am going to try and use the prompts given at Kate Motaung's blog to continue some of my ideas or write a bit more briefly on a particular facet of depression or my experience with it. If you don't know what Five Minute Friday is all about, click the link in the previous sentence and go check it out! It's a fantastic community of folks. Speaking of the community there, I will be continuing to link up with that community as well. So now, without further ado, here's today's Five Minute Friday prompt and post:

New 

 

Writing about what I'm going through is a new experience for me. Sure, I've written about depression before, but never like this. It is new inasmuch as it is something kind of public and much more detailed than I've even shared with some of my closest friends. Beginning this was an interesting and, I'll be honest, very scary thing. I felt my heart racing rather fast the first time I hit the "publish" button and sent my words out into the ether. Baring your soul and sharing your heart on something as personal as depression can be a new experience every time you talk about it. I have shared some of it with friends and family and of course, my therapist has heard pretty much all of it, but even he hears different things every time we talk about it. Obviously, that's his job to push me to new insights and a better understanding of this illness, but I think that just points out how incredibly complex a disease depression really is. Most people see it as an unrelenting sadness accompanied by certain other symptoms, but that only scratches the surface. A list of symptoms is just that -- a list. It doesn't even begin to encompass all the complexities and nuances of this experience. If I'm being totally honest, in some ways, each depressive episode is new and different from the one before it, although there are patterns there. For me, the current episode I am experiencing has been the MOST different from any I've ever been through and the longest lasting. I think that's why I felt it important to embark on this new experience of writing and sharing it. It is my hope (again with my discomfort at that word!) that it will provide a new understanding or insight for those reading along with me.

Day Three: Fighting Back and Falling

Some people who feel a cold coming on will employ various methods of staving it off like taking certain vitamins or getting more rest. After that Sunday in February, I had a moment of clarity and realized I had a few tools at my disposal to perhaps ward off what appeared to be on the horizon. In the past, I used to sort of slog through a depressive episode and just do the best I could to get to the end of it once it took full effect, but this time, I decided to take the bull by the horns and fight back. Since our minds, bodies, and spirits are inseparable and often improving one winds up affecting the other two, I decided to work on my physical health by way of exercising regularly and eating more healthfully. I was going to fight this thing like a boss, so with that in mind, I started using our Wii Fit Plus to exercise. I began counting calories on My Fitness Pal while trying to eat smaller portions and less processed, fatty, sugary junk.

For a few weeks, it seemed like it was working. I was dropping weight and being more active. I found more focus for housework and other necessary tasks. I still had the odd day of what I'd call a significant blue mood, but it wasn't persistent. By Easter, I felt reasonably confident that I had successfully put the smackdown on this depression thing before it was able to really begin. Ah, hubris. What fools these mortals be! Not only had I not been successful, I had so convinced myself that what I was doing was working, that I had failed to really see how bad those blue mood days were and how quickly I was sliding down the slippery slope that plunges into darkness.

Day Two (extra content): A Little Plug for A Fellow Blogger

If you are interested in the subject of mental illness, there are a lot of great resources online and elsewhere to educate you about it. You can find information about any illness, treatments, medications, support groups, doctor recommendations, and even personal stories like the one I am attempting to tell here, but one of the areas where there seems to be a dearth of both information and support is for families of people who suffer with mental illness. There is even a shortage of personal stories out there because of the stigma attached mental illness as a whole and a lot of the misunderstanding that surrounds it.

As they say in the public service announcement, "knowledge is power," so in that vein, I wanted to share a blog from Tara Ulrich, one of my fellow 31 Dayers, who is writing for 31 Days about her experience as the daughter of a mother with mental illness. I came across her blog and immediately knew it was one I wanted to follow and one that deserves a wider audience. To quote my friend Chez, "check thou it out!" While you're there, give her some love in the combox too! In addition to posting it here, I'm going to add it to my blog roll on the sidebar of my blog so you can find it there too! Happy reading!

Living As A Daughter: 31 Days of Mental Illness

Day Two: The Beginning

Looking back on it, I can see now that it wasn't quite as stealthy as I initially thought when it happened. Everything began on a Sunday in February of 2013. It was an ordinary Sunday and our family was driving home from Mass. The day was cold enough for a jacket and long sleeves, but not freezing. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky with only a few white fluffy clouds scudding along. It could not have been a more lovely, happy looking day. The earth was turning as it always has since creation began, but then everything shifted. I felt the sun dim and the sky fill up with gray clouds. The change happened so dramatically that I was dumbstruck by it and felt very much as though I'd been hit over the head with a sledgehammer of depression.

Day One: Stumbling through the door

I don't want this.

I don't want this.

I don't want this and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. The decision is made. We ride down the road together, rain making rivulets against the glass pane and mirroring the tears that streak my face. Every time I think I have cried all the tears within me, I begin all over again. What I don't know in this moment is that these tears are only the first of many to come over the next several days and months ahead.