Depression? Not Even Close.
I have ECT this week and then I will go three weeks between appointments and then four. Yay! I can see the end of road.
Going to ECT when you feel good is weird. The best kind of weird, but weird. Part of me feels like an imposter, waiting for a nurse or patient to yell “Hey smiley, stop hogging all the shocks.”
Much of me feels empathy for my fellow patients, those who have not yet gotten to the point of feeling better that I have been fortunate enough to reach. Seeing people who are suffering is both heart breaking and eye opening, you want them to feel well so badly. You want relief to come to them so quickly. It is also a reminder, that while I may still be having ups and downs, I am no longer going through depression.
People often think someone who is depressed is just sad. While that is beyond annoying, it is not just an outsider problem. It’s also an inside one.
As I go through the ups and downs of everyday life, feeling any lowness scares me. I start thinking “Oh shit, no, not back here again.” But then I remind myself I’m not back there.
Many years ago I heard about an author, Martha Manning. I actually learned about her while watching an episode of the Rosie O’Donnell Show. (My unwavering love for Rosie is something I will never feel shame in, but thanks for trying.)
Martha’s book, Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface, is phenomenal, and a gift to anyone who has battled severe depression. She is a psychologist who also lives with this disease and her writings first taught me about the benefits of sharing how this illness feels, both for the author and for others who read their work. She so well describes the feelings of sadness vs. depression, especially in the following quote:
“Each time I feel myself slowing down, losing vitality and strength, I am terrified that I will be drawn like a magnet back down those dark stairs and long halls to that awful time and place and self. I am still having smaller depressions that typically respond to simple alternations in medication. I have good days and bad days. Really shitty things happen. I cry and curse in sadness, pain, and frustration. I get so mad I want to throw things. I get discouraged and demoralized. But it’s not depression. It doesn’t even come close.”
Really good, right?
Martha’s whole book, a story that involves depression, and anger, and hopelessness and feeling well again and ECT, and struggling with those you love watching you struggle, it is so beautifully written and I couldn’t recommend it enough.
Martha suffered through depression, got better, suffered again years after the book was published, and has shared all of it. I have reached out to Martha in the past couple years and she has provided me with words of comfort, and meaning, encouragement and most of all truth. She read my blog, enjoying the humor and honesty. She related to my words. Her telling me this was yet another gift I feel blessed to have received from her.
I re-read the above quote of hers this morning as I was feeling the ups and downs of everyday life, and like that, I felt comforted and instantly better. Feeling better and comforted so quickly was yet another reminder that what I am feeling right now is life, not depression.
I will no doubt be reminded of this again when I go to ECT this Thursday.
I Fuckin Get it.
I am surrounded by wonderful, caring, kind people. People who want me to be healthy, people who love me. And yet if one more person says “Oh, I get it, I’m not even having ECT and I forget things all the time,” to me when I talk about the difficulties of losing my memory, I’m gonna lose my shit.
Imagine you’re a bald man, and you have a friend going through chemo and your friend going through chemo says “Losing my hair is kinda hard, weird. It’s not a big deal, but it takes getting used to.” And you reply with, “Oh, I know, I don’t have any hair and I’m not even going through chemo.”
You would be an asshat.
I get that people are trying to make me feel better. I so get that. And really, I appreciate that that’s the intention. I do. But basically it comes off as “No need to complain. We all forget things,” which makes me feel like I should shut up or tell them to shut the fuck up. And frankly, I don’t like either of those options.
The thing is, sometimes we just need to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of not being able to make things better.
We have to be able to hear someone talk about remembering maybe ½ of the last year of their life and know there is nothing we can do. Of course we all forget things. But trust me, this is different.
I am so fuckin grateful I feel better. All the memory loss is worth not wanting to kill myself. I get that. I get that so hard. I never need to be reminded of that.
And yet even sometimes, side effects, however much worth it, still suck.
Attending birthday parties for close friends and having no recollection of being there, kinda sucks. Having days with your son that he loved that you can’t picture at all, kinda sucks. Having a play premiere and not remembering the majority of the process, kinda sucks.
And people who get that, people who say ”Wow, that must be hard,” and let me have my moment saying “Yeah, it is, it kinda sucks, but it’s toally worth it,” having that with people, that is just great.
Sharing is Caring
I have only attempted suicide twice in my life. Maybe that’s not something you put only before, but with as much as it has entered my mind, the fact that I have just (okay, that’s another word for only,) followed through on two occasions is pretty remarkable.
I owe this to many factors; family,friends, therapists, realizing when I needed to be hospitalized (fortunately, I’ve only had to be once.) And I owe it to one other thing; the internet.
I remember first considering suicide as a possibility when I was a teen. Some teens consider sex, but I wanted to have the option that felt less uncomfortable and damaging to my self-esteem.
Most people would never think about the possibility of suicide. The whole idea, no matter how depressed and hopeless they are feeling, is never a part of their plan.The fact that some people have it as an option in their minds confuses and angers them. The word selfish comes up A LOT. The weird thing for me is I have a hard time understanding how all these people have never had it as a choice in the back of their mind.
When I was post-college, alone one night and beyond despair, I googled the word suicide. Well I actually probably yahooed or altavistaed it. The first site I found had this very honest letter to the reader that told me exactly what I needed to hear. Among all the words that were impactfully written, it had the following statement:
“Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.”
Immediately I felt less selfish and more understood.The helpful words go on and on in a way that makes you say “At last, somebody gets me.” The person who wrote this has literally saved my life on more than one occasion.
In life we all want to be validated. Whether we are depressed, or bullied, or an old lady who really, really like gardening; we want to know there is someone who gets us, without judgement and with total understanding.
I have found this validation in comedy, in books, and in the internet. I can call friends at 2am, but the chance of me doing so is not too high, but what can I do, I can find comfort online, whether it is in a facebook chat or once again going to that website.
It seems on a daily basis I become more and more open on the internet about my own life. Most people in my life have been cool with that but for a few people, it has been unsettling.
I will be honest, a lot of the reason for the openness has been to help me, but I also hope somewhere, someone who is struggling, who is ready to end it all, might find this site or see something I write on Facebook and say “Fuck yeah and thank you for understanding,” I hope to be someone’s way to simply make it through, when it all seems anything but simple.
If it only happens once, it will be more than worth it.
Also, if you don’t like it, scroll the fuck past. Nobody’s forcing you to read anything.
Redecorating
When my husband and I were living in our first house after we got married, I came home one night from improv class as he was holding a table in his hands saying “What would Thom do?” He was referring to Thom Filicia, from Queer Eye for The Straight Guy. Leon was trying to redecorate the family room, guided by his inner-Thom.
Leon has always been more into the decorating aspect than me. I can tell someone what I love and what I don’t like, but putting it all together, that’s not my thing.
The second house Leon and I lived in, the one I left last week, I never knew what to do. Leon did most of the figuring stuff out. Maybe I did more of it than I remember, I just can’t remember shit these days.
The one room I loved in that house was my son’s room.
It has been put together with memory after memory and decorated with handmade artwork by cherished family members. There are needlepoints from both his bubbies, the one he is named after and the one whose house has become his second home.
Large canvases painted by his cousins hang on the wall along with wooden initials his Aunt painted, all done in the days right after he was born.
There is also a picture I drew. When you are a mom and your child starts bringing home art projects you hang them everywhere so of course my son wanted to hang the picture I drew. He’s cute that way.
Every so often my son would ask about one of the pieces of artwork. He liked to know where they came from and I am sure he feels the love that went into making these treasures. Also sometimes he just likes to stall before going to bed.
I assumed one day he would ask about the picture I gave him.
“Mom, when did you make that picture?”
“A couple years ago.”
“Where?”
“Well, you see son, there is this thing called the Intensive Outpatient Program for people with Mood Disorders. It’s kinda like a summer camp, if the majority of your fellow campers are suicidal. Anyway there was an art therapy class and I made it there.”
Though I wouldn’t have minded, Rafi never did ask about that picture.
But last night he did ask his dad “Will mom ever sleep in this house again?”
Some questions are harder to hear than others.
Love and Marriage
I breastfed my son for 14 months.
I don’t say this as a means of bragging. I am not one of those mothers, the ones who believe you should get extra credit for breasting it rather than bottle feeding. I did it because my life afforded me the flexibility to, I found it more convenient to not clean bottles, and frankly, I required less anti-depressants while doing it. In fact, I am fairly certain I would still be on hardly any meds at all if I had just become a wet nurse.
And though I believe I am deserving of no bonus points, it is something I felt pride in, and when I finish my 14 months of breast service, I was given the most beautiful gift. My husband went to Gap and bought me a super cool (RED) night shirt that said Admi(red).
How kind and thoughtful is that? This is not a surprise. He is both those things in spades.
And yet this month I chose to end our marriage. To separate.
Yesterday, I said goodbye to my husband, hopefully not to the man, or wonderful friend. I know not to the excellent father. But to him being my husband, I said goodbye to that yesterday and it sucked balls. We hugged and he said “I do love you.” And I sobbed and said “I do love you” back. Our words were filled with certainty and honesty and it broke my heart. Telling our son his parents are separating broke my heart too. And yet, my heart is still here, to love them both, and to take care of myself.
And you know what else is still here? That admi(red) night shirt. It is sitting in a drawer, and every time I see it I am reminded of the man I hope will always be my friend and the man my son is beyond lucky to have as his dad.
