Friday, October 12, 2012

Wrapping up a week of awareness: Depression

This week I’ve written more about OCD than another mental illness that I have, depression.
Today I’m writing about depression.
This past Wednesday was the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Day. It had the theme of “Depression: A Global Crisis.” According to the WHO website, more than 350 million people are affected by depression.
Here are some ways that depression has affected me in the past and still does to a lesser degree now that I have received treatment:

*I felt a deep fatigue most of the time, no matter how much sleep I got. I slept long hours and still had trouble getting up in the morning. But then sometimes, I had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.
*I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I couldn’t think of any good reason to go ahead and get up except for the fact that I had to.
*I felt hopeless, like nothing mattered and nothing would ever get better.
*I felt empty. I didn’t feel happy, didn’t feel sad, didn’t feel scared, just felt empty.
*I wished I were dead. I wrote my obituary in my head.
*I sat for hours in front of the TV, not laughing, not crying, not really watching, just listening to the noise and sitting.
  *I had a hard time focusing on anything. I couldn’t read, keep up with a TV show, follow a conversation.

This is a journal entry from a bad time I went through several years ago:

My doctor listened to me tell him how I felt empty (I didn’t tell him that my heart felt empty, something that had come to my mind yesterday and seemed to really describe how I felt.) He talked about upping the medication and coming back in three weeks to re-evaluate. I was tearful and said that I didn’t even know what I was like normal. The doctor said, probably when you are really low—and he meant the low without any meds—that is your normal. That struck me. That was my normal? But that wasn’t normal! But the doctor said that a bright side to it was that there were so many meds that could lift me up from the bottom and things were getting better in the treatments for depression. He said that I would probably always—the rest of my life—have the low times and have to have the meds tweaked and changed. But like people who were born with something physically wrong with them, I could learn to adapt.

I am forever grateful for the medication and therapy that have helped me to “adapt,” to be able to feel again, to participate in life again, and to not feel empty anymore.
What helped me: medication, talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and CBASP (Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy).
There has been no magic pill for me. Medication alone has not taken away the depression. Therapy alone didn’t work. It has been a journey in learning the combination of treatments that have given me relief.
As my doctor told me years ago, treatments for depression are getting better.
  There was hope for me then, and there is still hope for me and for everyone suffering from this debilitating disease.

  What hopes do you have about the future of those who suffer now or who will suffer in the future from mental illnesses?

16 comments:

  1. There is definitely hope, Tina! My personal hopes are that we are more understood, that we are more accepted, and that mental illness is treated as any other ailment - with no stigma only empathy and encouragement to get better!

    Thank you for writing about depression today, I too had one last guest blogger who wrote a beautiful post for me about depression. I don't want to ever minimize depression, because in my experience it has been the most painful time I have ever experienced. I would appreciate if you and your readers checked it out, it is written by a man and I know it sometimes is that much harder for men to open up.

    I know I've thanked you in private, but I want to thank you on a public forum for being so kind as to guest blog. Your post was so informative, and personal. It even helped me focus on my OCD which is a diagnosis I refused to accept or focus on, since I already had so much on my chart. You are wonderful and so are your readers who came by to my weird little blog!

    Yaya

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    1. Yaya, I like your hopes!

      Thank you for having me on your wonderful blog--I appreciate it! And I enjoyed today's post and hope readers will go over and read it, too!

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  2. My hope for people with depression is that they will have someone they feel they can tell so they don't suffer alone. That they will have the courage to make the phone call and get to a doctor and then follow through with the medical advice. That they will have the strength to get out of bed or off the sofa and do what they need to do to because isolation and inactivity only strengthens the depression. I also hope that everyone has access to good mental health care, not a professional who just writes a prescription, but someone who cares and is willing to explain the illness, the medications and lifestyle changes that can benefit us.

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    1. Couldn't have said it any better Krystal Lynn!

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    2. Thank you for your thoughts, Krystal Lynn. I'm with Klaaske--couldn't have said ti better!

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  3. I hope those who suffer from depression have the opportunity to read your post and know they are not alone and there is hope. Things can and will get better. You do such a wonderful job of explaining what depression feels like.........I am so sorry you had to feel that way, and am so glad your hard work at fighting depression has paid off.

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    1. Thank you, Janet. Things are better, for which I am very grateful. I hope others who are depressed can get the kind of help they need, also.

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  4. Being around other people helps me a lot, too. (Even though it's hard to GET around people when you're depressed)

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    1. Kristina, I know what you mean--sometimes I have to force myself to be around others, but I'm usually glad I did.

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  5. My hope is that we can dump the stigma of mental illness so that all who suffer are treated with compassion. I also hope for greater understanding of brain chemistry so that the healing professionals can come up with more targeted medications with fewer side effects.

    Super work this week!

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    1. Thank you, Nadine! I hope for the same things. There is such a need for more compassion.

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  6. I have only felt that kind of depression a few times in my life. Most of my depression is more functional (if that makes sense).

    I'm so sorry you struggle so much with that kind of deep depression.

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    1. Elizabeth, I'm a lot better than I have been at some points in my life, so I am grateful for that. Thank you!

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  7. Do you feel much fear over returning to where you were? I worry a lot about falling back into a depression, even though I'm fairly proactive about taking steps not to.

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    1. Lisa, Yes, I do worry about it, because it has happened numerous times before. Fortunately, I am under the care of a great doctor and a therapist who keep close tabs on my level of depression. And I'm pretty sensitive to it, too. In the past, I've waited to get help, but I don't do that anymore.

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  8. People should be more aware of mental health problems, we live in hard times... This mental health week should open eyes to the people.

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