When Depression Shows Its Ugly Head

I’ve been pretty good depression wise.

At least, I was all things considered this past year. Everything actually fell apart in the first couple of days in May. When Cid got arrested for things I’m still not able to get into on my very public blog.

I did great despite it for awhile. I got tired of the side effects and the general inefficiency of my meds and gave them up in lieu of various vitamins and supplements that ended up surprisingly working as well as what I was on, without the side effects.

That said, what I’d been taking wasn’t doing that much in the first place. It just kept me from crying at everything, being too hair trigger angry, and kept most of my deep depressions suppressed enough that suicide wasn’t really something I was considering. But damn if it didn’t ramp my anxiety up like a god damn bitch…

And there, in all of that, in all these 20 years struggling with depression, we’ve finally discovered that I’m ‘treatment resistant’ when it comes to medication, and most typical talk therapy. So basically… there’s not a lot to be helped. Unless I want to go on Lithium with its crazy side effects and frequent blood tests.

I was doing, all in all, pretty well until the sentencing hearing which I spoke at… and then the snow hit.

We haven’t had a lot of snow the past couple of winters, and I’d forgotten a bit just how bad my SAD can get. Yes, I suffer SAD on top of major depression. It’s pretty much a wonderful thing that multiplies my depression and can throw me into a downward spiral that threatens… everything. My ability to stay calm, my ability to care, my ability to feel. I end up feeling too little, too much, the wrong emotion. Things that should be sad make me angry, things that are happy make me sad, things that are sad make me … nothing. It’s a strange and awful thing.

When I drove to get my kids from their week of Winter break (the first week this year) with their dad I survived the trip okay. But the snow had been around for days and I was already bottoming out in my ability to be… human.

Their next weekend visit, I wasn’t so lucky with the drive. Accident after accident littered the freeway, and right after one there was another. But sudden, people slowed down quickly and were rubber necking. I couldn’t get the car to slow down, my ABS made that horrible ‘you have no freaking traction!’ noise as the light on the instrument panel said ‘low traction’ and my heart felt like it couldn’t beat.

I did everything I knew to do, I didn’t let myself cry, I didn’t do anything drastic, but the van wouldn’t stop. “Not now car… not now..” I begged, getting ever closer to the car in front of me in my lane. Then quickly looking to the lane on either side of me. There, to my right, two extra feet!

Throwing on my turn signal and glancing into my blind spot I prayed the person coming up on the side noticed what I needed to do, and did my best to gently ease my car over that direction. Even if I managed to slow down just a bit more and maybe got the corner of that other car… that’d be better than smashing into the rear of the car in front of me!

Half way into the lane I managed to come to a stop, the movement of the wheels getting out of where I was sliding apparently working enough to help me regain some traction. I breathed, waved apologetically in my rear view mirror to the person in the lane who had to ‘let’ me in, and nervously moved carefully back over to my original space.

My entire body felt electric, I hurt, it was like I’d been zapped but at the same time hadn’t been zapped. It was like that nervous feeling I’d had for days on end had been a premonition. Often I get this nervous feeling that I’m about to be in a car accident. It’s been something that’s happened ever since the wreck I was in while pregnant with Lisi back in 2006. I held a tight grip on the wheel as I continued to drive to my ex’s house, completely forgetting to tell Siri to text him when I was off the freeway. I didn’t cry, despite feeling like I needed to break down into tears, pull off the road, and never ever drive again.

The drive back was much easier, there was a single accident on that side of the freeway, and I managed not to lose my ‘shit’ and cry the entire way. I even got home and just managed to cook.

I recounted the story on Facebook, to little response but that’s okay… and then retold it to Lisi’s dad who said he was proud of me for not crying.

On Tuesday I woke up feeling like shit. No energy, like I’d get into a wreck, but I managed to get the kids to school and managed most of the day. Though I yet again skipped therapy but at least this time told the truth. I just didn’t feel I could make the drive up there (about 15min away when the streets/traffic are bad..) … and didn’t want her to come here because the house… well.. it needs cleaning help and I have no private places I can have therapy in my  home. It just isn’t happening.

Tuesday evening after Sisi’s therapy I made dinner and all was well until Ris did her usual refusing to eat things aside from a few things she liked. I got angry, spanked her (not very hard and through her diaper and clothing) and pretty much tried to hold her still so she’d at least try it. She’d liked this thing before, so I just didn’t get it. I yelled at her, and was so frustrated. It was one of my worse moments that’s for sure, I ended up giving up and running into my room and hating myself. I just wanted to die, I thought about trying to hang myself, but the logistics didn’t work. There isn’t anything in my room that would carry my weight and actually allow that to happen.

So, I hid there a little longer, crying and trying to get a grip on myself. Finally went out and apologized like crazy to my poor little girl who doesn’t deserve to have me lose my shit over something so simple as her refusing yet another food I’ve made. Of course, like usual Var complained about what I made.  He does with just about every meal, even if it’s something he likes.

After everyone had gone to bed save for me and Aussie I talked to him about my day. He was… pretty flippant/unconcerned in his tone of voice. At one point I mentioned that it’s hard for me right now trying to handle things and his schedule leaves him gone 10 hours of the day while people are up and I have to do all the things, and how my depression is making even simple things harder right now. Not to mention he wakes up/gets home and goes right to reading Harry Potter fanfics and tends to zone out…

So he says “Well I’m sorry I have to work” and I lay there in silence in the dark. He hisses, “that… sounded a lot worse than I meant it,” he managed out. “That’s… really not what I meant.. you know that, don’t you?” of course he needs to work, it’s just him being gone from 10:30am to 8:30pm is hard at the best of times, it’s downright killer at my worst of times. Yes I know some people have it worse, yes I know I am lucky that he is home and awake four hours of the day total when the kids are up out of the fifteen of them.  You don’t have to tell me it could be worse. I get it, okay? I know that so many of you are likely stronger than I am. Trust me, I’ve been told it enough by Facebook ‘friends.’ That stuff doesn’t help a depressed stress out person. So please, don’t do this right now.

From that bit of conversation alone my self loathing spirals further downward, and suddenly I hurt all over. I feel like I’ve been in a car wreck, like suddenly shock wore off, and it hit all the way down to the center of my being and wanted to consume me and I couldn’t take it. I wanted to get in the car and go drive it off the nearest bridge, to go find a gun and finish it. I wished I had killed myself all the times I’d tried before.

I haven’t felt that bad in months. It was a disgusting painful scary feeling, and I knew I was in a bad spot.

The next hour and a half was me planning on going into the hospital to get help and trying to figure out how the hell to do that without my kids losing their shit and falling apart and doing something awful. In the end, my parents came over to take me but we talked instead, and just having someone who wasn’t going to give out snarky ‘apologies’ for things helped a lot. Though emotionally and physically I still felt… bad. No one had really seen me this bad in awhile, it’d been fairly decently managed. I mean, I hadn’t felt this shit since last time the snow hung around for too long.

 

My parents have since offered, and have started, picking Sisi and then Var and Lisi up from school. So I can just take a nap when Risi naps. Since my fibro leaves me exhausted and in pain a lot, stress makes it worse. They started doing that on Wednesday and just the three days of it so far are helping.

Lisi’s dad though, I’d texted him to let him know that I needed him to try and help my parents with the kids when he was off work if he could because his schedule is better than Aussie’s. Plus… he can drive and do things…

Wednesday around lunch I woke up from a nap (Aussie stayed home because I was up really late with my parents talking to bring myself down) to flowers in the kitchen from Lisi’s dad. Later that afternoon he brought me my usual coffee when he was off work. Today, Pizza randomly showed up at my door with dessert, and he bought me coffee again.

I’m behind on a lot of things blogging wise right now. Well maybe like three, but it’s looming and trying has … not really panned out. So that one post since the Dec 22nd has been what little I could manage, and even that took a lot of effort that left me full of doubt and self loathing even though there was nothing overly negative or bad about the entire situation.

I am trying to get back into the swing of things. Between my parents, therapist and Lisi’s dad, I’m managing to work little by little out of the hole that has been pulling me down. Granted, the snow melting has been helpful… so had been getting a shower even though our pipes had been backing up and it took three days (and it getting worse two of those days!) of the plumbers working on it to fix it.

This kind of thing has further cemented my need to move away from an area that gets snow as soon as we can afford it. I hate when people say “if you hate the weather where you are, just move” it’s like, are YOU going to pay for me to do that? No? Well I sure as hell can’t afford it, so shut up! Insensitive assnuggets.

I’m not doing perfect right now. I’m not even doing great. But I’m doing a little better, I am trying to do things little by little, and I have the number for the hospital and my therapist if I go too bad off again and I my safe plan (talk to people, and ask for help) doesn’t work.

 

If you’re struggling too.. I’m so sorry. From one depression sufferer to another. I know how much this stuff sucks. More so if you’re in the same place I am. Where most meds have negative side effects that completely outweigh any benefits. I’m still fighting the weight gain (and need to eat because of fear I’ll feel sick if I don’t like a previous med I was on) from one med and I’ve been off of it three years now. Once you get into habits though, it’s hard to get out of them. It’s really hard to make new ones too… but… I’ll get there.

First I just need to survive this awful bullshit that is snow and winter.