The (Profound) Difference Between Anxiety and Depression

I am fortunate enough to live with both anxiety and depression. They create different obstacles in life and those obstacles create myriad opportunities to be misdiagnosed and/or ignored. That is always lovely. Always.

On Mothers Day weekend this year I had terrible stomach pain. It started in my belly button area and I went to the pharmacy because I refused to go to the Urgent Care as the predominant feature of my anxiety is agoraphobia and being in places that are new to me or crowded or lack windows with clear views of escape are triggers I avoid like the plague. I might prefer plague, to be honest. Anyway, my pharmacy is in my grocery store and that is one of 3 places I've become comfortable being outside of my home or car. The pharmacist said I should go to the ER. I said that's not a choice and determined the ulcer I'd been treated for a couple of months earlier was probably the culprit. I explained my nausea and pain and she recommended Tums and Tylenol (the only pain killer I'm allowed to take because of previous surgery). I bought them and went home. The pain gradually moved lower and to the right and I could actually see a swollen area by my hip bone when I was laying down in the tub and thought whatever was there in my body was the problem. It looked like a sausage link. I just kept taking the Tylenol and hoped for the best.

The best happened. The pain was finally gone but the nausea persisted. I went to see my doctor that following week and she ordered a CT scan. I'd already googled and determined it was my appendix but figured if I wasn't dead I must be fine. I'd read that 'chronic appendicits' was a thing and felt sure this was my issue. My appointment for the CT scan was the following week on Wednesday. The doctor called me Thursday morning and said I have appendicitis and need to go get it taken out. Again rationalizing that if it had been an issue for 2 weeks now and I was not dead, it must not be a big deal and I told my doctor that my daughter's bachelorette party was this weekend and her sister was flying in from Florida especially for the event. I was not willing to ruin that with her having to worry about my having surgery. My doctor called a surgeon and an appointment was made for next Thursday to see him in his office.

On Memorial Day the nausea and vomiting into my plate whenever I tried to eat became more of a pain in the ass than I wanted to deal with any longer so I called the on call surgeon at the hospital who read my CT scan and she asked why no one did my blood work to count the white blood cells. I, of course, had no idea. Because I was so sick she determined I may very well have a blockage as the swollen appendix was putting pressure on other organs. Her encouragement that I go to the ER registered and I had my daughter drop me off.

Upon registration into the ER, I answered all of the usual questions. One of them was 'Are you suicidal?' to which I explained 'I have clinical depression and always want to be dead but I'm not doing anything about it'. She asked me several more questions about depression and I told her, 'Look, if I was trying to be dead today I wouldn't have come here for you to remove my appendix, I'd just let it go and not tell anyone.' That logic was lost on her and she informed me that she was going to flag my admission as needing to be watched by the Psychiatric department. Whatever. That's fine. Do what you want to do. Just get this stupid appendix out, thanks.

Of course, what she failed to explain to me was just what the 'watch' would entail. What it meant was that I was going to be taken to the ER ward specifically for psychiatric patients and, because I said I always want to be dead they would list my issue as being depression. My depression had nothing to do with my visit or my unwillingness to go to the hospital. My depression would not have had any problems in that space. My anxiety, however (which they knew all about as evidenced by the electronic record and instructions they gave me upon release shown below), was going to make my visit a complete and almost unexplainable nightmare.

When I left for the hospital I took 3 anxiety pills that don't actually do anything but are the only ones I had and took the maximum my doctor said I could take in one time. I also packed a bag with my iPad and headphones so I could avoid looking around and experiencing the uncomfortable and unfamiliar place that I was in. I brought my laptop so that I could write or design and keep my brain busy as I knew it would certainly be a long day and my anxiety was going to get the better of me if I didn't try to stay on top of it. I was as prepared as I could be to go to a regular ER and have the regular ER experience. I was woefully unprepared for the experience they would offer me, however.

When I was taken to the special ward I was not actually aware that it was no longer part of the ER. They gave me a purple gown to get into and told me I had to give them my clothes. They questioned whether or not I had any weapons or hard objects in my shorts. I said, 'just my cell phone'. The nurse said he needed me to give that to him. I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea and let him know it. He said I wasn't allowed to have electronic devices because of a hospital regulation about not having your 'treatment' recorded. I then told him that I also had my iPad and laptop and assured him that I was going to need to keep them. He told me that was not a choice. As I recall that moment to write it for you now the fear comes back and my anxiety and tears are just as real as they were in that moment. That is anxiety. But they didn't want to hear about my anxiety. I was there because the fucking woman at registration asked about the depression on my chart with no note or concern of the anxiety/agoraphobia listed directly below it.

After all of my tools to deal with my anxiety were taken away, I tried very hard to calm myself the only way that works for me. I count back from 73. I have no idea why 73 is my number, but that's what I do. Over and over. Sitting in front of a television that wasn't on, I put my ball cap down low and counted inside of my head. After a couple of hours of being in this room and having little attention aside from giving a urine sample and having my blood drawn, a very angry and large man was brought in by the police. He was very forceful and demanded that he was neither drunk nor on drugs and he refused to do the things all who entered that room were told to do. He was not going to change his clothes and he was not giving them his stuff. As he was screaming he used words and a tone that, as it turns out, were a trigger for me. They were reminiscent of the words my former abuser was screaming the day I got a police escort out of my home. I began having a panic attack. The police had left and this room was now, for this moment, occupied by the intimidating man and myself (a 43 year old woman with a shitty attitude but who honestly poses no threat to anyone), a 4 foot something 70ish year old woman who weighed 75 lbs (I know this because when a nurse came in to give her meds she questioned her weight for fear the dosage would be too much) and a 23 year old nurse who had a sweet heart but I doubt would be much of a counter to anything this man may want to unload.

My panic attack started slowly, as it always does. I couldn't count backward any longer. It was not working because my brain was too preoccupied with the memories of my former abuser and the worry that something might happen to my young nurse. I made my own anxiety worse by shaming myself because I was allowing this attack to create a limitation if I needed to take action to protect her. My breathing became more difficult and my body began shaking uncontrollably. This attack lasted about 20-30 minutes. Eventually the security guards took care of that man and another nurse who'd seen what I was dealing with asked if she could give me something for anxiety. 'Yes, please.' I don't really take anti-anxiety meds so when she asked if I had ever had the one she was going to give me I honestly replied, 'I don't know. I doubt it.' It started with an A. It worked. Eventually I fell asleep sitting up in the chair.

When I woke up that man was sitting next to me. I had had a panic attack that they witnessed and worked to cure. They told me they assessed that it was the loud and angry man that had set me off and I assured them that is what caused my anxiety and recounted my flashback of my abuser to them. They were good enough to set me to sleep and then allow me to wake to the same fucking man sitting next to me.

No worries... This story gets much worse.

At this point, several hours in, I still didn't quite understand why I was being given so much psychiatric attention and so little medical attention. I was sent for a new CT scan and after two more hours of waiting, I was told that the antibiotics I'd been given last week when the appendicitis was diagnosed were working and the infection was dying. They were concerned because there was a blockage due to the inflammation and they wanted to take care of that, as well.

After 6 hours of sitting in the psych waiting room they found a bed for me. At this time, I still believed I was there to get my appendix out. They put me in a room with no door, no windows, white walls and a television on Nick Jr showing some goddamned show I wouldn't have suffered well if my toddler was a fan (and I can take a lot - I still know every word to every Barney song), but I certainly couldn't watch it that night. The remote was broken and that show was my only choice. I turned off the TV.

When the TV was off I realized just where I was. I was in a mini version of the awful psych wards you see in movies. There was a catatonic woman walking up and down the hall. There was a faceless woman in another room moaning and crying and there was the angry man from earlier that afternoon who seemed to be well drugged up and harmless by this point but with a booming voice talking all nonsense echoing through the halls for actual hours. His nonsense was eventually countered, however, by an even louder and more offensive newcomer. Her name was Mary. I know this because I was out in the hall demanding for the *nth time that I be removed from this ward when three police officers came down the hall escorting a tall (at least 6 foot) and rather large woman to our happy group and she was cheering her own entrance with arms raised announcing, 'Mary's back. Is Curtis working tonight?'

Mary was good enough to rant for the remainder of my stay. She was a good Christian. And she hated gay people. And she shouldn't be expected to abide gay people. Apparently a man showed up at a Memorial Day cookout she was attending (who the fuck would invite Mary to their cookout, honestly!?) and she got in a fight with his new boyfriend. I imagine that is what precipitated this night's lodgings. I was beyond pissed about her homophobic rant and went to the hall to ask a nurse if they could just at least give her some drugs and put her to sleep. I said, 'You have no idea whether or not you have someone here who is depressed and gay and this is going to make it worse.' The woman who had been pacing the halls for hours looked at me with tears streaming down her face and said, 'Like me?' My heart broke for her. No one did anything to quiet Mary but they did escort the other young woman to the showers so she could get out of the area and cool down.

Once that young woman was taken care of I, again, went to the nurses station and said I needed to talk to my surgeon and figure out what was going on. I told them I would rather just be released and take care of this with my own surgeon on Thursday and reminded them I had an appointment. I was told that I did not have a choice to discharge myself because I was on suicide watch. Fabulous. Nevermind the fact that I never said I was going to kill myself and I came to the hospital today because a surgeon said I needed to get my appendix out. Finally a surgery student came in to tell me that my new CT scan showed that my appendix was going down and that I could get it out later. 'Great', I told her. 'Then I need discharged immediately.' She encouraged me to stay so they could work on the blockage. I asked how they did that and she told me that they would give me the meds I'd taken for the recent colonoscopy that found my ulcer. I showed her around my surroundings, explained my agoraphobia and anxiety and told her I should not be expected to stay there. They were literally perpetuating my own fears and making my mental health less stable with this 'treatment.' She agreed and went off to see what she could do for me.

An hour or so later the surgical student returned and said she had cleared it for me to be admitted into the regular part of the hospital but said they would need to have someone 'watch' me 24/7. This watch meant that someone was going to sit by my bed and watch me the entire time I was there to make sure I wasn't going to kill myself. I told her, again, that I had no intention of killing myself. She explained that she was bound by hospital liability policy. It appears their liability superseded my care. I told her that I was unwilling to stay and that I wanted to be discharged. I assured her that I was quite capable of taking the meds as I had several months earlier all by myself and make it to the bathroom without supervision whenever the meds kicked in. I demanded that I be released at once. This demand was as effective as all of the rest.

At midnight, it turns out, I was standing in the hallway being a bitch to the nurse at exactly the right time when a psych doc came down the hall and I explained my situation. He heard me. He said he would place a request to the doctor everyone else said I was waiting to see (I was there for 12 hours being promised to see the chief psych doctor who could clear me). Another hour or so later a young woman came in who was lovely. She asked me lots of questions. I answered her questions respectfully because she treated me with respect. She, too, agreed that I was not a danger to myself or anyone else (at this point, I'm not sure that I was not a danger to some of the nurses, not gonna lie). She called this phantom chief psych doc 'on call' and asked that I be allowed to be discharged. It turned out, after all of this, the man I was waiting to see was NEVER in the building. He was not tending to anyone. He was just 'on call' and, apparently, not taking his calls. I got to go home at 2am.

Upon release I was given all of the documents one would expect. I was informed that I should still get my appendix taken care of. I was given 'care' documents, as well. They literally gave me paperwork about depression even though they never witnessed or treated my depression. They did, however, witness and treat profound anxiety and agoraphobia. This fact was not even given a secondary nod on my way out.

These were my discharge instructions:

Dehydrated, you say? Interesting. It is important to note that the only way they could've determined I was dehydrated was the blood work done early in my visit. No one ever told me I was dehydrated. No IV was ever put in to hydrate me. Toward the end of the evening I asked them if they ever actually feed the patients and reminded them (what paperwork surely would have told them if my care were being documented properly) that I had not been given any food or water the entire day. I was given a plate of food and an 8oz solo cup of water.

My discharge did not mention my appendicitis. It had been (re)confirmed during my visit. At this point, however, I can not even confirm that it was noted in my chart. My online chart was updated to say I was seen and treated (treated? really?) for abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting on 5/30/16. I was given something that started with a Z for nausea. That is as far as I will support a single line of the bullshit in my chart.

I still should have my appendix tended to once the infection is gone. I can honestly say that there is little chance of my doing it. If I have been flagged as needing to be in a psych ward whenever I have a medical emergency, I feel confident that I will never seek medical attention again.

My anxiety makes situations like this more than a simple challenge. You would have to live inside my head to realize what a fucking rock star I was yesterday in getting through it at all. My anxiety is something a psych ward should be well equipped to handle. No one dealt with any depression. I wasn't given anti-depressants. I was, however, given anti-anxiety meds. Twice. My anxiety was the only thing that was treated yesterday. It was created and perpetuated by the psychiatric ‘care’ I was afforded when I went to get my appendix out. My appendix and I are still quite attached.

The truth is, after having lived with anxiety for a minute now, I’m not even surprised. I’m Just Pissed. Please share with anyone who has a voice in creating models meant to sincerely care for those who suffer with mental health issues.

Kiss Kiss ... Mean Progressive

Absolutely NEVER Again

Legacy

My 2nd installment for Adoption Awareness month. Legacy.

My childhood home had a family room with no functional familial use beyond offering a great spot for hide and seek behind the couch. It was merely the room we walked through to get to the garage whenever we went anywhere. There was a large black and white portrait hanging prominently in the center of the room that always scared me when I was young. It was of a gentleman from the 1800s who didn't look the least bit friendly. Our home had black and white pictures everywhere. For a reason I have never quite ascertained, it was very important for the images of those who came before us to be displayed throughout the home.

I was so proud when I finally asked the story of the scary man in the family room. It turned out he owned a home that had a secret basement which was a stop on the Underground Railroad. My young mind was always trying to understand, and my tender heart was always trying to differentiate between right and wrong. There was nothing more right to me than a person making personal sacrifices to save others from the evils of slavery. I was excited to tell people that I had such a cool ancestor in my family tree. At the same time, I was aware that it wasn't really my family tree.

Having been adopted, there were never times that either I felt 100% like a member of the family or that others went out of their way to make me feel 100% like a member of the family. Because of this, I was always careful to preface any recountings of my great-great-great-great grandfather's story with a reminder that I had been adopted. Its pretty sad just to type that. Imagine a child excitedly telling you something about their family but believing that you needed to know it wasn't really her family. Take that revelation one step further to acknowledge that she was comfortable in that place and those who should've taught her there was no variable didn't feel it was necessary to do so.

When I was in middle school, I remember being frustrated telling my friends about my family legacy because they didn't feel like it was as cool as I did. I was even more frustrated by the fact that my family didn't seem too incredibly impressed, either. It was more of a matter-of-fact and his picture was something my mother had basically won in a family lottery of items passed down when someone or other died. The portrait was added to the wall of the room that no one really used as many other pictures of people no one could recall had been throughout the house.

To this day I wonder if my brother and sister, who were not adopted and are related by blood to this man, would be able to tell you his story. I wonder if they even remember the amazing history we were given about our family and the strength of those who came before us. It feels as if they have no knowledge or care of actual legacy whatsoever.

I recently started creating my own family tree on ancestry.com. It was a journey to see how far I could go back with the very limited information I have about my natural family (my grandmother came from Italy and I have her Americanized name). But I was really excited to see if I could work on the tree of the family I grew up with and know as my family. I was hoping to eventually get back to a place where I could learn more about this house and its place on the Underground Railroad. During my search I got several hints from the website about family members that others had in their trees and I would open them to get the information they had already found. I got a hint last week that my sister had created a family tree and I excitedly went in there figuring she would have all of the same people I did and it would make my job pretty easy. Instead, I found a family tree quite devoid of very important information. Apparently, in the legacy she is willing to leave to future generations, she did not have a sister. She had a brother, my brother. She had parents, my parents. But she did not have me.

Family?

It is really hard to imagine that a human being would want to omit a person from their history who was the sister she had grown up with; who bought her a maternity wardrobe with her first pregnancy and then flew to Virginia on New Year's when that first niece was born; and who drove to Virginia when the second niece was born. I guess not having had an actual drop of blood in that bloodline overrides any actual remembrances of sisterhood, however.

The word legacy is powerful. It reminds us of all that has come before to create and enrich all that exists in this place. The lessons one generation determines necessary to pass on to the next are inside of that legacy. The traditions of community and interdependence come from that legacy. The stories of pride and remembrance come from that legacy. Even as a child I felt not quite entitled to the legacy of what came before me. But because it was the only one I had, I wanted to claim it nonetheless. I would certainly, at least, be thoughtful about the legacy I would leave future generations. The pain of realizing that my legacy will be quite irrelevant and forgotten to those whose lives I have shared is indescribable.

The saddest part about all of this is the fact that the very members of my family who have known me my entire life and should, by now, have found a way to empathize when I explain my feelings, refuse to hear this retelling beyond waiting for the pause so they can defend themselves. But many people who are completely removed from this story with no emotional connection to me whatsoever will come much closer to understanding my pain than those who can actually witness and lessen it.

Throughout my life I have gone through phases where I would remove myself from my family completely to dispel the pain of their carelessness and intolerance. I have always allowed criticisms, both internal and external, to counter my own better judgment and reenter my family out of commitment and dedication to the thing which it was meant to be. But the truth is: It is not what it was meant to be. It is never going to be what it was meant to be. The thing that it is creates pain. And alienation. The thing that it is expects acceptance of things I find unacceptable and ignorance of things I find to be imperatives.

Loneliness is the only substitute I've found for vulnerability. Neither are exemplar. Neither are healthy. But let no one question why those are the only two alternatives I have found after considering the legacy I have been afforded.

(Repost) Mental Health Stigma

I don't have it in me to think or write right now but this is important so I thought I would repost for any who may have missed it.

Have you ever been unable to find the energy to get off of the couch for over a week and started to ask yourself, "I wonder if I stink and I just cant tell because its me?" Not only have I not done anything remotely physical, but I haven't had the energy to hold my hands over my head long enough to wash and condition my hair. So I just keep it in a ponytail and ignore my own hygiene and care altogether. My house is pretty much a wreck, too. The parts of the house I use, anyway. I gave up on going to bed a long time ago. I am on the couch. My pillow is on the couch. I have a blanket on the couch. Its too much energy to carry it all to bed every night and back in the morning.

I am too tired to take care of myself. My body doesn't have the energy. My mind doesn't have the energy. And I don't even think that bothers me any more. That is depression.

Every year I ride in a 50 mile bike tour that raises money for cancer research. I never train for it. I literally get my bike out of the shed, go to the gas station to fill the tires, and go line up for the event to ride for 50 miles. I finish my ride and come home exhausted with a body that hates me every year. Never, after finishing my ride and coming home, have I been this tired.

While raising my daughter, I always promised she would make it to Disney before she was 10. We were always poor and 10 seemed so far away. I refused to let her down, though. So the summer before she was to turn 10 I took a second full time job. Both of them required overtime. In one week I worked 96 hours. At the end of that week, I wasn't this tired.

When my dad was dying in hospice 3 hours away, I traveled to and from his bedside every weekend and spent more nights without sleep than I did manage to find sleep. I probably cried, exhausting all-encompassing cries, more in those last 3 weeks than I had in all of my life combined. By the time he passed I was not this tired.

There is a big difference between the kind of tired that comes from having run your body or mind too hard and from having run your soul too hard. I don't know the words to describe it. I'm not sure those words exist. My tired comes from having given up. The energy I have to write is the only energy that I have. My mind does not stop. My mind is tired and requires up to four naps a day, but my mind does not stop. So writing has become my outlet.

When I was an adolescent, I was diagnosed with severe depression twice. I didn't understand that depression was anything more than being sad. Mental health not only had a stigma back then, but it was often dismissed or discounted. My father had taken me for them to confirm that I was a bad kid and tell him how to fix me, not to justify my 'pity parties.' He pulled me out of them each time and determined they were quacks.

I am presently experiencing my third major depressive episode in my life. I don't know if they are precipitated by having had too much to deal with or having a chemical imbalance that makes it harder for me to deal with things that come my way, but each time I had more going on than I could find a way to endure. The first time that I was suicidal, my daughter was a toddler. I begged my parents to watch her so I could commit myself. My dad still had no use for such nonsense and told me "You created this, you fix it." Because he refused to believe in depression he thought I was looking for an escape from my life. And, as anyone would imagine, the best vacation I could think of was a mental health facility. Anyway, I did find a therapist and, with counseling and medicine, I was able to pull through it eventually. I believe now, however, and I believed then, that if I didn't have Audrey, I wouldn't have even tried.

I recently found this picture from when my daughter was little. It speaks volumes, I believe.

This episode has been much worse. My daughter is grown and off to college now. I don't have to take care of anyone. Care for myself has never even been something I have ever really thought about. Of course, that is why I find myself where I am now. I don't care. I never managed to find a value for myself beyond being a mother. Although I am still a mother, she doesn't need me to take care of her now. When my life began falling apart a year and a half ago, I had nothing to hold on to. I had nothing to fight for. I didn't need to be well. And I think my brain just kind of started giving up.

Initially around Thanksgiving of 2013 my life hit a wall that no one could have ever seen coming. I still can't talk or write about it because the tragedy is not just mine. But the pain and its mark will, undoubtedly, be with me for the rest of my life. At that time I only had my job to hold on to. I have always been loyal to my work and proud of my work ethic. Aside from Audrey, my job was the other thing I found external from myself to attribute my own value to. Even while things were collapsing personally, I managed to keep up my workload, but often had tears streaming down my face while I was doing it. Because of this I told my manager what I was dealing with so she understood because it must've looked very unprofessional. Having told her, I was sure, she would understand.

At this time I was 41 years old. I had been ignoring all evidence of an anxiety disorder for years. I really didn't even know that anxiety was a disorder, to be honest. I had accepted claims from those who knew me that said I was 'high strung' or 'neurotic' as truths. It was just the way I was. It didn't make me a bad person so I just figured it was my nature and never thought more about it. My body had been telling me for almost 20 years that it was more than just quirkiness but I had always found ways to ignore it. Hives. "Sure people get those." My back would go out and make me immobile but x-rays would find nothing wrong with me. "I must've pulled something and forgotten." My stomach would get incredibly sick every time I was upset. "What did I eat this time?"

So last year I guess my mind finally determined that it would give me a sign I could not ignore. My body literally betrayed me. In public. My boss, who knew that I was already on the edge and suffered from severe depression had been harassing me to a level which was so bad that by the time the legal department saw the evidence of both the harassment and Human Resources deciding to completely ignore and, thus, condone it, they offered me a settlement check to never tell anyone what she had done. But one day her harassment pushed me over the edge and my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it and hear it pounding in my ear. I was hot like I was immediately sick with a high fever. My entire body started shaking and I couldn't control or stop it. And my breathing was out of control where I could not catch my breath. I literally thought I was going to die from not being able to breathe. It was terrifying. I had no idea what was going on. Before that I day I thought a 'panic attack' was something else. "I'm having a panic attack" is a phrase people used when they were stressed out. I had no idea its actual reference was to a complete physical collapse.

I went for months after that day completely unable to leave my home. I was diagnosed with agoraphobia. It pissed me off. I finally looked it up and read that it is very common with people who have panic attacks, especially after their first, because your subconscious is trying to protect you from having a similar situation. I then accepted that this was a thing and that it made sense why it was happening. But I can also completely rationalize that it is irrational. So it still pisses me off.

Ironically, I honestly think that if my anxiety didn't keep my mind going at this seemingly fast pace (although compared to what my life usually offers when not combined with depression its not really fast at all), I would probably already be dead. The writing is the only evidence I have that something inside me is trying to counter my daily revelations that I would rather be dead. The fact that my life insurance doesn't pay out if I kill myself is the only thing that has kept me from thinking seriously about finding a way out.

I feel like my world is so dark that if I didn't have something to focus on I could actually fall asleep and just not wake up. I could stop eating and drinking. I already ignore the phone and repel visitors. My writing allows me to look outside of myself, like I always have. I can focus on something else and ignore whatever hurts. I'm sure that's not healthy. But spending time inside my mind isn't, either.

Of course, because I can't leave my house, I don't have a job. And because I don't have a job, I cannot afford insurance. So I am, at present, on a very long waiting list for psychiatric care. My writing is my distraction and my care at this time. To prevent a panic attack I don't even spend time thinking about what kind of anxiety I will have to deal with whenever I finally have a psychiatric appointment and it is time to leave my house and go to an unknown place to meet an unknown person and offer them my life story and my fears and entrust them with my mental care. That complete notion is so overwhelming that I cannot find the words to express it properly. That is probably the worst thing about mental health issues. You won't find them in an x-ray or in blood work. And I don't imagine I am the only intelligent person with a large vocabulary who cannot find the words to tell you just how terrifying and awful it is to be in this place.

That's where I am. That's what I call depression.

But for many in our society its easier to just call it lazy. Or crazy.

And that's a shame.

Mental Health Stigma

Have you ever been unable to find the energy to get off of the couch for over a week and started to ask yourself, "I wonder if I stink and I just cant tell because its me?" Not only have I not done anything remotely physical, but I haven't had the energy to hold my hands over my head long enough to wash and condition my hair. So I just keep it in a ponytail and ignore my own hygiene and care altogether. My house is pretty much a wreck, too. The parts of the house I use, anyway. I gave up on going to bed a long time ago. I am on the couch. My pillow is on the couch. I have a blanket on the couch. Its too much energy to carry it all to bed every night and back in the morning.

I am too tired to take care of myself. My body doesn't have the energy. My mind doesn't have the energy. And I don't even think that bothers me any more. That is depression.

Every year I ride in a 50 mile bike tour that raises money for cancer research. I never train for it. I literally get my bike out of the shed, go to the gas station to fill the tires, and go line up for the event to ride for 50 miles. I finish my ride and come home exhausted with a body that hates me every year. Never, after finishing my ride and coming home, have I been this tired.

While raising my daughter, I always promised she would make it to Disney before she was 10. We were always poor and 10 seemed so far away. I refused to let her down, though. So the summer before she was to turn 10 I took a second full time job. Both of them required overtime. In one week I worked 96 hours. At the end of that week, I wasn't this tired.

When my dad was dying in hospice 3 hours away, I traveled to and from his bedside every weekend and spent more nights without sleep than I did manage to find sleep. I probably cried, exhausting all-encompassing cries, more in those last 3 weeks than I had in all of my life combined. By the time he passed I was not this tired.

There is a big difference between the kind of tired that comes from having run your body or mind too hard and from having run your soul too hard. I don't know the words to describe it. I'm not sure those words exist. My tired comes from having given up. The energy I have to write is the only energy that I have. My mind does not stop. My mind is tired and requires up to four naps a day, but my mind does not stop. So writing has become my outlet.

When I was an adolescent, I was diagnosed with severe depression twice. I didn't understand that depression was anything more than being sad. Mental health not only had a stigma back then, but it was often dismissed or discounted. My father had taken me for them to confirm that I was a bad kid and tell him how to fix me, not to justify my 'pity parties.' He pulled me out of them each time and determined they were quacks.

I am presently experiencing my third major depressive episode in my life. I don't know if they are precipitated by having had too much to deal with or having a chemical imbalance that makes it harder for me to deal with things that come my way, but each time I had more going on than I could find a way to endure. The first time that I was suicidal, my daughter was a toddler. I begged my parents to watch her so I could commit myself. My dad still had no use for such nonsense and told me "You created this, you fix it." Because he refused to believe in depression he thought I was looking for an escape from my life. And, as anyone would imagine, the best vacation I could think of was a mental health facility. Anyway, I did find a therapist and, with counseling and medicine, I was able to pull through it eventually. I believe now, however, and I believed then, that if I didn't have Audrey, I wouldn't have even tried.

This episode has been much worse. My daughter is grown and off to college now. I don't have to take care of anyone. Care for myself has never even been something I have ever really thought about. of course, that is why I find myself where I am now. I don't care. I never managed to find a value for myself beyond being a mother. Although I am still a mother, she doesn't need me to take care of her now. When my life began falling apart a year and a half ago, I had nothing to hold on to. I had nothing to fight for. I didn't need to be well. And I think my brain just kind of started giving up.

Initially around Thanksgiving of 2013 my life hit a wall that no one could have ever seen coming. I still can't talk or write about it because the tragedy is not just mine. But the pain and its mark will, undoubtedly, be with me for the rest of my life. At that time I only had my job to hold on to. I have always been loyal to my work and proud of my work ethic. Aside from Audrey, my job was the other thing I found external from myself to attribute my own value to. Even while things were collapsing personally, I managed to keep up my workload, but often had tears streaming down my face while I was doing it. Because of this I told my manager what I was dealing with so she understood because it must've looked very unprofessional. Having told her, I was sure, she would understand.

At this time I was 41 years old. I had been ignoring all evidence of an anxiety disorder for years. I really didn't even know that anxiety was a disorder, to be honest. I had accepted claims from those who knew me as being 'high strung' or 'neurotic' as truths. It was just the way I was. It didn't make me a bad person. So I just figured that was the way I was. My body had been telling me for almost 20 years that it was more than just quirkiness but I had always found ways to ignore it. Hives. "Sure people get those." My back would go out and make me immobile but x-rays would find nothing wrong with me. "I must've pulled something and forgotten." My stomach would get incredibly sick every time I was upset. "What did I eat this time?"

So last year I guess my mind finally determined that it would give me a sign I could not ignore. My body literally betrayed me. In public. My boss, who knew that I was already on the edge and suffered from severe depression had been harassing me to a level which was so bad that by the time the legal department saw the evidence of both the harassment and Human Resources deciding to completely ignore and, thus, condone it, they offered me a settlement check to never tell anyone what she had done. But one day her harassment pushed me over the edge and my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it and hear it pounding in my ear. I was hot like I was immediately sick with a high fever. My entire body started shaking and I couldn't control or stop it. And my breathing was out of control where I could not catch my breath. I literally thought I was going to die from not being able to breathe. It was terrifying. I had no idea what was going on. Before that I day I thought a 'panic attack' was something else. "I'm having a panic attack" is a phrase people used when they were stressed out. I had no idea its actual reference was to a complete physical collapse.

I went for months after that day completely unable to leave my home. I was diagnosed with agoraphobia. It pissed me off. I finally looked it up and read that it is very common with people who have panic attacks, especially after their first, because your subconscious is trying to protect you from having a similar situation. I then accepted that this was a thing and that it made sense why it was happening. But I can also completely rationalize that it is irrational. So it still pisses me off.

Ironically, I honestly think that if my anxiety didn't keep my mind going at this seemingly fast pace (although compared to what my life usually offers when not combined with depression its not really fast at all), I would probably already be dead. The writing is the only evidence I have that something inside me is trying to counter my daily revelations that I would rather be dead. The fact that my life insurance doesn't pay out if I kill myself is the only thing that has kept me from thinking seriously about finding a way out.

I feel like my world is so dark that if I didn't have something to focus on I could actually fall asleep and just not wake up. I could stop eating and drinking. I already ignore the phone and repel visitors. My writing allows me to look outside of myself, like I always have. I can focus on something else and ignore whatever hurts. I'm sure that's not healthy. But spending time inside my mind isn't, either.

Of course, because I don't leave my house, I don't have a job. And because I don't have a job, I cannot afford insurance. So I am, at present, on a very long waiting list for psychiatric care. My writing is my distraction and my care at this time. To prevent a panic attack I don't even spend time thinking about what kind of anxiety I will have to deal with whenever I finally have a psychiatric appointment and it is time to leave my house and go to an unknown place to meet an unknown person and offer them my life story and my fears and entrust them with my mental care. That complete notion is so overwhelming that I cannot find the words to express it properly. That is probably the worst thing about mental health issues. You won't find them in an x-ray or in blood work. And I don't imagine I am the only intelligent person with a large vocabulary who cannot find the words to tell you just how terrifying and awful it is to be in this place.


That's where I am. That's what I call depression.

But for most in our society its easier to just call it lazy. Or crazy.

And that's a shame.