Depression, Thy Name is GOD-AWFUL. (A Downward Spiral in Three Acts)

When my depression creeps back in, the signs are usually there. What sucks is that I am very good at being willfully ignorant and pretending they are not happening.

Act I.

One day I just decide I'm not going to take a shower that day. I'm exhausted at the end of the day. I've hit the snooze button on my alarm in the morning a few too many times. 'I'll do it tomorrow,' I think to myself, and drag myself either straight to bed or straight into getting myself ready for work and Peyton ready for school.

(Spoiler alert: I might not actually shower the next day, either, but I am juuuust highly functioning enough to know that a sister has got to work and showering is just one of those things that need to happen if you want to be respectable enough to keep your damn job.)

I'm too tired to go to the gym. It would be a waste of gas and time if I just drove there and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes because I don't have any energy to do anything else.

I don't make the bed before I leave for the day. The next day, I just haphazardly throw the blanket over the mattress and call it good enough. See, I'm trying--I'm fine!

My limbs start to feel impossibly heavy. I am tired, so freaking impossibly tired.

I am forgetful. The brain fog is real. My routines, which I have painstakingly crafted and normally adhere strictly to in order to keep myself "on track," fall by the wayside.

What's for dinner? I don't know. I'm just going to wing it, but first I guess I should drag myself to the grocery store so we actually have something to cook.

I go to touch up a paint job in the kitchen. I use the wrong paint to touch it up and now I have to paint the entire wall all over again. I cry for two hours straight. It was a stupid mistake, and I am stupid for making it.

I started an Etsy shop! My creative juices were flowing not too long ago (back in February--a simpler time, apparently). I felt inspired. I bought SO MANY beads. I have photos of bracelets I need to edit and list...and I simply cannot be bothered. Now it feels overwhelming. It feels silly. There are so many other more talented jewelry designers out there, and I am kidding myself if I think I can have a full-time job AND sustainably do something creative that I actually enjoy doing.

I'm in the thick of my annual screenings for Lynch Syndrome. I made the appointments to see my general practitioner, dermatologist, OB/GYN, and gastroenterologist (Still fine, everyone! Nothing to see here! #ADULTING).

My dermatologist takes three biopsies my first visit. I still need four more, and she hasn't even finished my skin cancer exam. Two of those three initial biopsies require further excision. I hate myself for thinking all those tanning beds was a good idea at one point in my life. Now I am going to be a wrinkly old football soon with scars all over my body and maybe melanoma one day. AWESOME.

My gastroenterologist schedules an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. Whatever, I have to take a day off of work, but at least I'll lose a few pounds, take a great nap, and then wake up and eat a ridiculous meal. It'll be a great starting point if my energy ever comes back to go to the gym.

At the OB/GYN, I see the midwife who does my annual exam, but I have to make another appointment with the doctor for an endometrial biopsy. I ask for Xanax before I come in for the procedure because that shit hurts and "take an ibuprofen an hour before your appointment" does not cut it.

Oh yeah, and I need to go for more bloodwork and make another appointment for an ultrasound. You know, to check for all the cancer my body seems keen on never stopping once it starts. But my insurance may not cover it, so if they don't I guess I can either let it go another year or pay another bill I can't afford to have in order to get this stuff done (like a responsible adult would!).

Act II.

My four appointments suddenly bloom into 10+ appointments. But I have to do it because God forbid cancer starts growing in my body and I'm dumb enough to know that, at the very least, having the knowledge that I'm some sort of mutant gives me better prognostic outcomes than people that don't.

And somehow even that feels like a burden. But I go anyway.

I debate the benefits of going through with my complete hysterectomy sooner than I originally planned. That'll be fewer organs to worry about. I wonder if there are any other non-essential time-bomb organs I can dispose of early, because I am just so damn tired of dealing with it and checking in on my insides once a year to ask, "We're good, right? Everyone is happy in there? You aren't planning to go rogue on me any time soon?" I have an entire lifetime of this. It seems unfair. But then I remind myself that "unfair" is better used for people who actually DIE of cancer, and then I feel shame and guilty and selfish.

Don't I want to stay on top of this for my family's sake? Don't I? Yes, I do.

So I try to schedule my appointments at times that don't interfere with my work schedule, but that's hard and I do the best I can with lunch breaks or scheduling at the beginning and end of the day. I email my boss a list of times I'll be out, and he comes and asks if I'm okay. I smile and nod. "Just prevention!" I announce. I'm afraid I'll lose my job because of all of these appointments. I'll loose my health insurance. I won't be able to afford all these doctors' visits for the sake of prevention anymore.

Anxiety is a giant bitch because it fuels my depression. My depression makes it harder to recognize my anxiety for what it is. And so it goes.

I'm so tired.
My chest hurts sometimes.
My stomach and digestive system is a mess.

Is it cancer? Is my doctor going to tell me I have cancer after my colonoscopy? (Probably not.)

I go to therapy, even though paying another copay on top of all the other copays feels like a huge strain on my budget (Self care! Prioritizing taking care of my mental health! I'm still just fine, THANK YOU). I tell my therapist about all this.

"Do you smoke weed?" she asks.

"No," I answer.

"You probably should. And you COULD do it legally with your diagnosis."

She can't help me there, though. Because I am too chicken to see an actual psychiatrist because at some visceral level I am convinced that medical intervention on that scale isn't really THAT necessary. Prescribed medication, medicinal marijuana cards, trial and error of switching out one antidepressant for another--it seems TOO real. Am I that bad? Do I need to be told I NEED something to actually function effectively? Will it make me a zombie? Will it make me feel worse? What about all the other side effects? I KNOW there is no shame in medication, and I know I'm not doing my part to de-stigmatize a legitimate concern for millions of people (including me!), and yet.

So I talk to my therapist. I tell her I'll start taking CBD supplements. I tell her I'll meditate twice a day. I tell her I'll read the books she suggests. We talk about my anxiety and my perfectionism and my C-PTSD, and all of those unsavory issues. She tells me I have time management issues (I secretly call bullshit on this because when I am "on" I am the most efficient human being to grace this earth. And that's the damn tea, sis.). She tells me to focus on solutions and not my problems.

Act III.

And yet.

I barely remember to pop the CBD tablets I spent $60 on.

I checked the books she recommended out of the library. I've renewed them four times and they make a nice decoration to my nightstand because I haven't picked them up in weeks. I either fall asleep on them, or find myself rereading the same page over and over again because suddenly reading comprehension has completely escaped me. I've reached the library's renewal limit and I have to return them soon. I could simply return them, check them back out, and then start all over again--but that seems like so much work.

I'm lucky if I meditate once a week. Forget about twice a day. Who am I? The Dalai Lama?

My perfectionism isn't an issue right now because I am just in survival mode. Get me to tomorrow and that's just fine by me. Perfectionism be damned.

I laugh because I always think about how millennials are joked about as being snowflakes and are missing the whole "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality of previous generations. We expect to be "given" things in life.

LOL.

What if pulling myself up by my bootstraps looks a whole lot like functioning every day even though my brain is screaming and resisting and physically hurting? Seems pretty bootstrappy to me. You know what I would like to be given? NATURALLY OCCURING SOLID FUCKING BRAIN CHEMISTRY.

I don't feel like much of a snowflake at all, because society tells us we need to grit our teeth and get through it at all costs--so that's exactly what I do.

So here I am. The initial signs were there, and now here is the apathy and that's how I know I am in the very thick of it.

I get up every day, I do enough to get by, and even that leaves me an exhausted heap at the end of the day. If I were to be 100% honest with myself, I do it because I HAVE to, not because I WANT to.

Well, isn't that scary as hell?

I know that healing is not a completely linear process. I know there is no snap of the fingers and I'll get to revel in a magically un-foggy brain. It does take a bit of facing the ugly bits first. And these ugly bits are U-G-L-Y. I am not proud of it. I am not trying to romanticize or otherwise make excuses for it. Depression and anxiety are god-awful mental health issues, and I wish it were different. I so desperately wish it were different. Sometimes that means accepting things you are reluctant to accept.

I am not infallible. Sucks, but it's true.

Walt is concerned. He suggests asking my therapist to point me in the direction of a provider who can talk over medicine and other options. He cares so much, which is wonderful to know someone is my court while it simultaneously makes me feel awful because I can barely tolerate myself; I can only imagine how I must seem to someone else. He just wants me to feel happy again.

Happy. What a concept.

--

If you are dealing with depression and anxiety--please stay. Hope is not lost. We need you here. Here are some resources to help you:

National Alliance on Mental Illness Helpline: 1-800-950-NAMI
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: 1-800-662-HELP