October 6, 2004

Out of the deep dark.

This is an entry that I wrote back in August, which I decided not to publish at that time. This all pretty much explains why I needed to take a break.

"I have a sense of how I want to feel, but no idea whatsoever how to get there.

One part of me is convinced that there's a pretty pink pill that exists somewhere that will put my exact set of symptoms to right. Depression. Anxiety. Irritability. Fatigue. Listlessness. Disinterest. Disconnectedness. But what I want to know is, if all that's wrong with me is a chemical imbalance, how the hell did the chemicals GET imbalanced?

Another part of me is mad at the thought of taking yet another drug for yet another problem. If my head is messed up, I can damn well figure out what's making it messed up, and fix it.

Yet another part of me is willing to give therapy a go. What I need therapy FOR remains a mystery to me. Does one go to therapy when life is good? I don't feel qualified.

And yet another part of me is getting all Dr. Phil with the thought that I can "Behave My Way To Happiness". Act like I'm happy, calm, pleasant, upbeat, rested, engaged, connected. Act and I shall be. And some day it won't be an act.

This is how I feel now. I don't want to talk to anyone. I want to be alone. I don't feel like faking a pleasantness that I don't feel. I can't concentrate and don't care about the things that are being left undone. I don't feel like reading or watching TV. I don't feel like moving, and I don't feel like sitting still. I want to sleep, sleep, sleep. But I can't - my eyes just pop back open. I want to be able to turn my brain off for a good long while. I feel anxious over nothing. I feel guilty that I'm not paying quality attention to my family, I'm just going through the motions. I don't want to worry about hurting people's feelings. I want to go HOME. I want a major life change that involves leaving this state and leaving my job and uprooting Calvin and Marie and starting over completely new somewhere else. I don't want any of the responsibilities I have right now. I want someone to cater to me and kiss my ass and do all the things I don't feel like doing. I want to lose my temper with immunity and have people understand and let it go. I want to be able to whine without someone telling me to suck it up. I want it all to be about ME instead of someone making it about THEM. I want my fucking boo-boo to be the biggest. My feelings are legitimate and my problems are priority and sometimes it's okay for it to be all about me. As a matter of fact, it's okay for it to be all about me until I feel completely better again. Then it can go back to being all about them.

I want to be able to write all of this stuff down and purge it and not have Calvin and my family and my friends take it personally, because it isn't. I don't want them to offer advice. I don't want them to look at me with that confused/hurt/irritated expression that tells me that I'm being selfish and that I'm failing them. I feel like a complete tool for saying, "It's not you, it's me." But that's the complete truth. Then again, I don't want people to take advantage of the way I feel as a way out of accepting the responsibility for shit that really IS theirs. Like blaming PMS for any irritation voiced by a woman during convenient calendar dates. "She's sad? Mad? Oh, she must not have taken her pill." Just because I can't explain some of my feelings doesn't mean that I don't still have legitimate ones.

All I know is, I like how I used to feel. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of everything I stated above."

Now? Well, what a difference a couple of months, a couple of prescriptions, and a couple of therapists makes.

There are telling signs that I'm coming out of the deep dark that I was in. I feel like taking care of myself again - eating right, exercising, taking my vitamins, taking care of my skin, drinking water. I feel like singing again, and listening to music at home and in the car, instead of craving absolute silence. I can deal with people again, instead of feeling a wave of irritation when someone arrives at my cubicle with a question or a task or just to say hi. The clenched knot of anxiety that was a permanent fixture in my midsection is blissfully, totally, completely, wonderfully gone, gone, gone. My mind is quiet, the hamster wheel of random and continuous thoughts and worries has finally ceased. I'm sleeping better than I have in a long time. I'm feeling the urge to write again.

The relief is a palpable, comforting, nearly physical thing that I pull around me and revel in.

Or, to state it in a more prosaic fashion, it's fucking great.

It's the drugs (maaan) that are making the biggest difference. They're certainly working a lot better now than they did last year. The doctors did say it might take some trial and error to find the right combination. All I know is, my brain chemistry must have been all screwed up. I did have a helluva time the first month getting used to the Effexor that my psychiatric practitioner prescribed. I felt tired and wired at the same time. My brain was noisy. I had periods of dizziness. It was hard to concentrate. But once I passed the third week, things started to normalize. Then, when I went for a follow-up visit last week, I was prescribed Wellbutrin to go along with the Effexor. The combination apparently enhances the qualities of each drug, making them work more effectively together than they did separately. I was worried that the drugs would make me an emotional zombie - no highs, no lows, no nuthin' - like some of them did last year. I knew I was okay when Calvin and I watched the season premiere of "Extreme Home Makeover" and I cried over the wonderful people who provided such a lovely home to the widowed father with eight children.

I wouldn't say that I'm completely back to normal - I still have my (diminishing) bouts of depression and the urge to avoid life. But those feelings are getting fewer and further between, and when I do feel like that, it's not to as much of a degree as it was before.

I'm still seeing a therapist a couple of times a month, though I feel like I'm not getting much out of the sessions. Which is pretty much what I expected - that my issues were more physiological than psychological. We've talked about my grandmother's death and how I deal with grief, my family history and the prevalent occurrence of alcoholism therein, my ex's psychosis, and the therapist's thought that I might have a co-dependent nature. I'll probably give it a couple of more sessions to make sure that I don't have some deep, dark think hiding in my psyche before I call it a done deal.

So that's what's going on with me. I hope by sharing all of this that someone out there who is suffering from General Anxiety Disorder and Depression benefits from my experiences and knows that they're not alone. If you're feeling bad, there is NO SHAME in needing to talk someone - sometimes that's all it takes to get on the road to mental health and recovery. There is also no stigma in having an evaluation to see if drug therapy will work for you. While the combination that I'm taking may not work for everyone, it's a fact that the brain's chemistry is a delicate thing and sometimes it needs some help to balance itself out.

Thanks so much to all the readers who dropped me a line to check in on me... I'm still here, and I'll gain momentum, gradually, to write again. Sign up for notifications of when I update, if you haven't already. Talk to you again soon!

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©Laura Charon 2000 - infinity.