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November 24, 2003 In which I get knocked down, but I get up again. For some reason, when I code a horizontal rule into my entry, it shows up as vertical. So you'll have to cope with asterisks, I guess. Weird. Ah, the madcap mayhem of keeping an on-line journal! ************************************************************** My mental health has been a particular project of mine over the last three months. I am mostly a well-adjusted person. I emote when I'm supposed to, I'm generally cheery and optimistic, and I keep my temper under control. I can multi-task like nobody's business, and have enough energy to get myself through the day, usually with some to spare. Except that I was noticing myself getting all throat-chokey and eye-welling at Hallmark commercials, and Folgers commercials, and anything featuring or having to do with babies. I was getting exasperated at things that don't usually bother me a bit. I had paralyzing anxiety of a constant nature about everything under the sun. I thought about death a lot - not in a suicide kind of way, but in a someday-we're-all-gonna-die-how-terrifying-is-that kind of way. I could not concentrate to save my life, and found myself staring off into space for long lengths of time. I'd lose my place in conversations to the point that I couldn't remember five minutes later what had been discussed. I went home at lunchtime to sleep, I was so tired, and yet woke up every hour on the hour at night. I craved to be alone, absolutely by myself, in absolute silence. In short, I had issues. So I made an appointment with my Fabulous Doctor to talk about it. It's an indication of how bad things are that I actually started crying in the waiting room while watching Lady and the Tramp. You know the part where the wife has just had a baby, and everyone's racing around and all consumed with the baby, and Lady just tries to get a little attention and makes those big eyes, then looks so sad when everyone ignores her? Yeah, well, that set me off. The aid didn't even bother to weigh me (she figured I'd cry harder, probably), as they usually do before putting me in a room. She just lead me to the room, shut the door, and a few moments later the doctor came in. She took one look at me and said, "Oh, honey!" Lawsy. What a mess. She asked me some questions about how things were at home, with my relationship, and at work. My response was "Great", "Fantastic", and "The usual". She asked if there were anything in particular about my life that was causing negativity. There isn't. She asked if I had ever considered therapy. I said there'd be nothing to talk about, I love my life! We talked about the chemistry that involves the brain - serotonin and dopamine and whatnot. How prolonged exposure to stress causes the body to slow the production of one, the other, or both. I told her I didn't feel particularly stressed, and she laughed. She reminded me that in the last six years I've taken on helping to raise two kids (not to mention a very messy and dramatic divorce before that), vastly accelerated my job scope, went through a home improvement project from hell, lost my grandmother, sent my beloved step-son off to the Marines, to be shortly followed by a war that we all worry he'll have to get involved with, got married, and planned a vacation of epic proportions that came with a lot of expectations (she knows a LOT about me. I love her to pieces). All hugely life-altering things, not all having to be negative, but taken one on top of the other like they were, caused a prolonged exposure to stress that wore me down without me noticing it. Well, gee. When you put it that way... Huh. Who knew? How can someone be generally happy and think life is wonderful, yet get herself so screwed up at the same time? How can you think life is a joy, and yet be diagnosed with depression? Well, here I sit. It was actually something of a relief, to know that there was something physically, logically, diagnose-ably wrong with me. I was worried that I was just falling to pieces for no real reason. And I'm glad for the strides that modern medicine has taken to correct this little problem of mine. The stigma of "Mental Illness" (gasp!) is fading, doctors are understanding the causes and solutions, and there are some really great pharmaceutical products out there nowadays. Used to be, it was Valium or nothing, buddy. Not so anymore, which I have personally experienced. I've had to go through a few different kinds before I found the one that (I think, at this point) works. Here's what I've tried: Lexapro: This is the first one that my doctor put me on. She gave me a month's worth of samples and told me to make an appointment for four weeks hence. I noticed a leveling out of my emotions by the third day I was on it. No more teary eyes, back to my old patient self. And, fun! Lack of appetite! And yet, I experienced a very debilitating "medicine head" feeling that was making it HELL to get up in the morning, never went completely away during the day, and was putting me to bed at 8:30. Couldn't deal with that. So at my one-month check-in, I told my doctor what was going on, and she decided to try something different. Zoloft: Again, it worked well a few days into it. Then I noticed a distinct leveling off of effectiveness at about the third week in. Plus, this stuff was making me a zombie. I mean, I wasn't low, but I wasn't high, either. My emotions were so leveled out that I didn't have any. I was in a total "whatever" state of mind for the last couple of weeks I was on it. And, still, there was a noticeable decrease in energy, and what I call "the stares" - staring off into space for long periods of time. So, again, when I went in after a month of being on it and described what was going on, my doctor decided to try something else. Oh, and I did ask her what the hell that little bubble guy was supposed to be on the commercials, and she said she had no idea. Wellbutrin: I was a little concerned the first few days I was taking this. It made me slightly nauseous, the way my birth control pills sometimes do on the first week back on (TMI? Maybe.). Plus, it made me rather dizzy, particularly when I'd turn my head while standing. I felt a bit of the emoting coming back in the three days I had to take off between switching drugs - I forget now what it was that set me off. Something stupid, I'm sure. But then at about the fifth day in, I noticed a considerable difference. My lows were gone, but my highs were coming back. I felt an upwelling of good feelings, and a definite increase in energy. The nausea disappeared, as did the dizziness. Now, I'm wide awake as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning, though I still try to convince myself that sleep is the better option. But I'm up a good half-hour or forty-five minutes earlier, and less painfully. And most importantly, the "whatever" mood is gone, and I don't feel like an emotional zombie. I'm not troubled by small things, but I accord circumstances whatever emotion and concern they truly warrant. Anxiety is back to the role it's supposed to play in my life. Oh, and there's some other fun side effects to this stuff, as well. Heh. It's only the second week in, but I'm feeling optimistic that I'll stick with Wellbutrin. My doctor says she'd like to see me stay on the one that works for me, for nine months to a year. Just to make sure that my body's chemicals are back at the levels they're supposed to be, and producing normally. So I don't have to take this for the rest of my life, which I didn't know. I always figured that once you go on an anti-depressant, you have to stay on it to feel normal. But it's actually repairing what is wrong with the production of the chemicals I need, and once that's fixed I can stop taking them. Calvin has been FANTASTICALLY supportive throughout all of this. I know I bewildered him a time or three (trillion), bursting into tears at the drop of a hat, or losing my temper when I hardly ever do, then dealing with my various conditions as I tried to find the drug that was best for me. He could have felt abandoned and unloved while I was being a zombie, but he never got angry or impatient with me. Back in the beginning, after that initial visit, I told him what the doctor had said about the amount of stress in my life causing my issues. He said, "Great. I broke you. I'm sorry!" Which is so NOT the case, but he's such a sweetheart. Poor guy, this hasn't been easy on him at all, and yet he's never blamed me or downplayed my issues. He didn't disbelieve my condition (that sounds dumb and melodramatic, but I can't think of another way to label it) or tell me to "buck up and get over it". My God, I love that man. So. That's the deal with me. Some folks might feel a certain negative stigma toward having to "take a pill" to get better. Other folks think that depression is a load of crap, and it's all in the person's head (which it is, really, but not in the way they think). And some people are embarrassed about their condition and diagnosis. I know and have met examples of all of those people. I don't happen agree with any of them. There's something wrong with me. It has a name. There's something I can do about it. It comes in a pill. End of story. It is a very personal thing, and not something I'm likely to discuss in an, "Oh, I have that!" kind of way with anyone I'm not close with (except, well, hello internet!). But I believe in personal health and happiness. There are some types of depression and mental illness that aren't as easy to deal with - I happen to be lucky in that. I'm also intensely lucky that I have such a supportive foundation and happy life. I think therapy is a good thing, I just don't happen to need it, and I am grateful. I would advise anyone who feels any of the ways I did, to talk to your doctor. If medication is right for you, don't feel bad about it. It doesn't make you a bad person, it won't make people treat you like a leper. It's just medicine you take, just like any other medicine for any other illness. However, it is NOT a cure-all. It won't make the issues of your life disappear. For that, you need to face them armed with something other than a pill. With that said, though (yep, I'm done a-preachin'!), I can honestly say that it feels really, really good to feel better. It may be the understatement of the year when I say that happiness is a good thing. ************************************************************** In other news related to my health (I'm going to be one of those old people who sits around telling people about my gout, I just know it), I'm rather disappointed. I was plowing right along with my Personal Fitness Challenge, doing great and seeing some results. Then at about week six, my back decided to completely give up on me. My upper back felt like someone was stabbing two icepicks right underneath my shoulder blades. Looking down or to either side caused a very uncomfortable pulling sensation that I could feel all the way down my neck and into my back. Looking up hurt my neck. I lost a lot of mobility turning my head from side to side. My shoulders hurt constantly. Sleeping was next to impossible. And so was working out. There were a couple of days where I had to leave work early or risk vomiting, the pain sucked so much. And the thing of it is, there is no specific thing that caused my back to get so jacked up. I didn't take a dramatic fall down a flight of stairs. I couldn't brag about an old football injury. I didn't try to bench press 150. I just woke up one morning (with a blue moon in my eye... no), and my back said, "You know? Not so much." I figured it would pass - I'd slept wrong on it or something. But it didn't go away, and ibuprofen didn't even make a dent in it. I figured a visit to the chiropractor was in order. So I sent out an e-mail to the folks in my group, asking if they had anyone to recommend. Six of the folks who answered back recommended the same person, and since his office is right across the street from AcronymCo, I called and made an appointment for the following day. Can I just say, I LOVE the roller bed? Let me see if I can find an example of it on the web... ah, here it is. It's called a Spinal Roller Table. Uh. Mah. Gah. They stuck me on that thing for twenty minutes before my appointment, and I almost fell asleep. I could have stayed on that thing for HOURS. Love. The chiropractor was a nice guy, if a bit too chatty for my taste. I really wasn't interested in hearing all about how his divorce was ultimately caused by his wife's boob job. Really. But, as he talked he also worked on all the sore spots in my upper back and neck. He dug his thumbs into the knots until they loosened a bit, and spent a good half-hour just massaging away. Then he put me on the adjustment table and did the Hong Kong Fooey neck snap thing that he says most people hate, but that I LOVE because it makes my neck crackle like bubble wrap. That's the only pops he got out of me, though. I rolled over onto my stomach, and he did that abrupt pressing thing that's supposed to make your back pop. Except mine didn't. He got me up off the table and had me "Place, Brace, and Face" - that is, weave my fingers together, put them behind my head with my elbows squeezed forward, and face away from him so he could pick me up and arch my back over his chest. Didn't work. And it proceeded to not work the four times that I went to him. I'm not sure, but I think that in the end I wound up feeling worse in my shoulders (though a bit better in my neck). Two other ladies in my group that went to him recently complained of additional pain, as well. One of them recommended acupuncture, but, um, NOT. So, perhaps he is a quack. He didn't do X-rays on me, but I don't know if that's a standard thing with chiropractors or not. I got a recommendation from my Fabulous Doctor for a massage therapist, whom I am going to see today. So I'll let you know how that goes. I'd just REALLY like this pain to go away. If for nothing else but to get some sleep already! Anyway, the upshot of all this nonsense is that I wasn't able to proceed with my Personal Challenge as I wanted to. So my revised plan is to work out according to my pain level and schedule until New Year's, then start up on the Challenge with Phase Two (I'll HAVE to be feeling better by then). I don't need to go through with Phase One again, since it's just useful for folks who are really starting cold from a working out standpoint. All information you were dying to know, I'm sure. Back pain and mental issues, oy, what an entry. Comments on this entry? Head on over to Colloquial!

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