Yeah, this again.

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In cruising around the Internet peeking in on people's lives through their blogs, I am somewhat alarmed at how often I find people, mostly women, talking about sadness and hopelessness. Not just - oh I'm having a really crappy day, but - how am I going to face another day? Why am I here, and is this all there is?

I know those feelings well. I know the feeling of being at the bottom of a well looking up to the circle of light above - just knowing there is absolutely no way to reach it. If you feel that way every now and then and it goes away, and you know how it feels to feel joy or excitement or happiness then it may not be a big deal for you.

But if you are hopeless and sad all the time, if you can't see what point there is to anything, or feel you are worthless or so flawed that you can never be loved or love yourself - that's not normal. It.is.not.okay.

If the idea of being considered mentally ill is frightening to you, look at it as being traumatized by your life events, or a chemical imbalance, or being more sensitive than most. However you look at it or label it, please do something. See someone. Talk to a doctor.

In my case, I did talk therapy but in the end it was my meds that saved me. That is not the case for a lot of people and I never want anyone to feel like I am pushing medication. Exercise and the natural endorphins it floods your body with, helps a lot of people. Getting out and facing your fears and sharing them with friends and family, helps others.

Please search for your help. Thyroid problems can cause depression, so can hormonal imbalances. There are all kinds of things that may be causing how you are feeling and you don't have to just accept that's "just the way you are". Go to the Mayo Clinic Online, or Web MD, or Women's Health.gov. Call your doctor or your pastor if that works for you. But please reach out because there is help out there.

Life really can be good, joyous even. Join us. :)
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There is just nothing easy about it. Part IV

It's a bit bewildering and can be very frustrating trying to find the right medication for depression. First you have to stop denying something is wrong and get diagnosed which is a huge step. In my case, talk therapy helped with immediate issues like damaged self-esteem and all the other gifts that go along with divorce. But when the talk stopped helping, it was time for drugs. For me anyway.

My therapist was a psychologist which meant he could not prescribe drugs. He wrote a request for me to bring to my regular doctor who is an internist, asking that he prescribe an appropriate medication for someone with dysthemia. Low level, chronic, depression. My favorite description for that is "a lack of joy."

I remember sitting on the chair in the exam room that day when my doc walked in. He is an excellent doctor (driver, excellent driver, buys his underwear at K-Mart) and he is also a smart ass. A gi-normous smart ass. He asked me the usual, how was I feeling, anything new, why did I come that day, etc. I handed him the note from my therapist feeling every bit the little girl handing a note from Mommy to the teacher. No, maybe the principal. He read the note and said "I won't be anybody's prescription pad. Hop up on the table."

After taking my blood pressure and listening to my heart, thumping on my back and pushing on my belly, he finally said something else. "So. What makes you think you are depressed?" I think he was sorry he asked. I immediately burst into tears. I tried to tell him about my divorce and my husband sleeping with half the western world and how I had anxiety attacks and would get diarrhea and I could barely leave the house and I was afraid I was a bad mom and.. and.. and .. by the time I took a breath I saw my doctors face with the look a lot of men get when women cry. The - 'I will do anything if only you would stop crying!' face. That may have been the only visit to his office, ever, that he did not make a crack about his wife, tell me how brilliant his son was or give me a tip on the ponies.

I left with a prescription for Prozac. It was the drug of the moment, everyone was doing it. It was not necessarily the answer for me but it was a place to start. Unfortunately the only way to find out if a med will work for you - is to try it. And if you don't know what you should feel like, don't know what "normal" feels like - it's an arduous and sometimes very long process to find the right drug for you. I tried many many drugs, some for as long as a year, some for as short as a week or two, and when I was asked if it was helping my answer was generally close to the same thing. "I don't know. Maybe. It's hard to tell." Which I know now, for me, meant NO. Because when I did find the right medication - or actually - combination of meds - I knew it.

It was night and day for me. But first I went through going to the OB/Gyne because I was sure I was experiencing peri-menopause and was put on the pill for a while. I tried drugs that made me physically ill and some that made my mouth so dry I could not spit. I took meds that did seem to help. A little. When I found the right med it just so happened it was at the same time I was on the pill. I thought hmmm, why not find out if it is the birth control pill or the anti-depressant that is helping me. Hormones on one hand, depression on the other. I'm a nutcase on one hand, I'm a normally hormonally crazy woman on the other. Hmmm.

I went off the anti-depressant first. I realized about 2 weeks later that there was this sort of darkness creeping in. Irritability, apathy, the hopelessness was starting to envelop me. It wasn't as bad as it had been - but I recognized it. It was almost like pulling a light blanket over my head, just enough to dull the world around me and put up a barrier. I knew for a fact that the blanket over my head would become heavier and more than I wanted to bear again. I went back on the meds. A few weeks later the light started to show through again. Ah-h-h. Picture a hammock, sunshine, and drinks with umbrellas ahh-h-h-h-h.

When I say it was like day and night for me - I do not mean the change was apparent immediately. It was a gradual thing, I needed to recognize 'happy' - and learn how to not be frightened to apply the word to myself. Surprisingly, coming out of depression can be a scary experience in it's own right. Sadness may be the only thing some people remember feeling. Being happy - or knowing just what that is and how to BE it - can be a daunting task when all you have known is NOT. It doesn't happen overnight but it is so worth it. It's much easier to learn 'happy' when you don't have bad feelings dragging you down. Hope becomes something you can feel - and oh what a gift that is!

I still have days when I get in a mood, feel down or sorry for myself, but the difference is that those days don't last. Everybody has those days and they don't frighten me anymore. I wish I could say now this is what you have to do to feel better. This is the way to achieve happiness. I don't hold the key, or any keys for that matter. I just know what I went through.

As far as trying different meds and wondering how to tell if one is effective or not? My advice - give it at least four or five months if it doesn't have side effects that bother you. Then ask yourself how you feel. If your answer is "I don't know" or "okay I guess" - and not - "good!" - then move on. You should know when you feel good. You need to have faith that you will recognize 'happy' when it hits you.

Some people never need medication, and some people suffer from a much more debilitating depression than I ever have. It's a complex thing, there isn't one answer for everyone and God knows I'm not a doctor - hell - I don't even play one on TV. So that's always the first place to start. Your doctor. And if your doctor doesn't listen to you - get louder, say it again, let them know you're serious. If that doesn't work - find a new doctor.

Being happy is not over rated I'm telling you. If you think you may need to seek help - you probably do. Just like millions (and I do mean millions) of other people out there. We aren't alone. It just feels like it when you are depressed.

Nite. :)

There is just nothing easy about it. Part III

That title is looking a bit pretentious to me, sorry. Part III. Oh well. For anybody using Firefox I'm sure you can see I got my way and the blog looks busier for you. Hope you can take my widgets! At the end of this post I will tell you how I fixed it. Now on to fixing me. :)

Unfortunately there never really is any fixing me. And that's okay. It's a matter of coping with a disorder and I'll be damned if anyone makes me feel ashamed about it. That's one reason I talk about depression. I have run into several people over the years who think someone who struggles with depression is literally just being a baby, they need to stop whining and move on. Honestly. I am never completely ready for that kind of response because to me it is so bizarre. People just don't like disorders of the 'mind', *creepy music plays*.

There was the day when I asked my husband "if you get rid of the girlfriend, can we go to counseling and at least see if there is anything left to save?" He replied - "What? You think she's the first?" At that point my world turned upside down. Not because I was crazy in love with him because by then I wasn't. It was because I had this plan in my head, the white picket fence, home, husband and kids plan, and this simply did not fit. Beyond that - I thought I knew him. All of a sudden this man I thought I knew better than anyone else in the world - was a stranger looking back at me. It sounds so trite but it was as if suddenly I was seeing him as a different person entirely separate from me and my life. Totally disconcerting and mind bending. For quite a while after that day you could have told me the sky was green and I might have questioned what I was seeing when I saw it to be blue. More than anything - more than crushing my 'plan', more than hurting me, my faith in myself was crushed. If I did not know this man, what did I know? Was anything what I thought it was? I could not trust my judgement anymore.

The day after that wonderful discourse with my husband, I made an appointment with a lawyer. Shortly after that - I made an appointment with a therapist. There was a little secret place inside me that was acknowledging that I probably needed to see a therapist anyway and this was as good a reason as any to start. I went for about 8 months and this Doc was wonderful. He reaffirmed the idea that I wasn't 'crazy' - that feeling disoriented in the midst of my own life was quite normal given the situation.

We started with my marriage, but slowly things turned more toward me and my IBS symptoms, my panic attacks, and finally - to my lack of happiness. For me - I couldn't even call it sadness most of the time. It was more - I lived my life at this flat line kind of place that was steady with no blips rising above the line, only dips where I would go below at times. Blips above the line would have been excitement and joy, all the things I did not feel. Dips below the line were anger, hopelessness and feelings of worthlessness. So either I was just at the line, or below it. I only recognized the bad feelings as self esteem issues which they were. But they were also symptoms of a low-level, chronic depression.

We did a lot of talk therapy, working on issues having to do with my Dad, the old - I married a man just like him while not staying with the original guy who simply treated me way better than I deserved. I thought. Eventually we came to a place where I was feeling healthier, not so disoriented and starting to understand why I did some of the things I did. I know I am being overly simplistic but I tend to dwell on the little details too much. The Doc and I also realized that I wasn't moving beyond a certain point and it was time to address the depression head on, as something chemical.

I don't know if I welcomed the idea of medication, I think it frightened me a bit. I asked how I would know if it was working - and if it wasn't the right one - what would it do to me? He told me that if it was the right one I would simply begin to feel better. If it wasn't the right med - it would just do nothing. The difficulty was that all anti-depressant medications have side effects, and it can take up to 6 months to judge the effectiveness of any one drug. Everyones chemical make up is different and what would work for me was an unknown at that point. And so began a medication merry-go-round that lasted for a very long time. There were times I didn't think I would ever find the right medication and doubted there was one for me. Thank God one thing I am - is stubborn.

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As promised - how I fixed my blog. I contacted a brilliant man named Stavanger at Blogcrowds, he is the one who originally helped me add my 3rd column. I posted my problem in the forum on his site and received an email that an answer had been posted. This is the answer I got:

change the 150px in .sidebar to 149px.

.sidebar {
width:149px;
float:left;
padding:6px 0;
margin:0;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

So I went into edit HTML, found the spot he mentioned and changed ONE number. I changed 150 - to 149. Saved it, checked the blog using Firefox and it looked the way I wanted it to. I'm telling you - I know I don't much about code or what makes the Internet work. But when someone can look at my blog and figure out I need to change ONE number - I think they are a genius!! Stavanger is a genius and I am a happy girl. :)

There is just nothing easy about it. Part II

I didn't know I was depressed. Didn't think in those terms. I had moments when I felt good - like going back to school and getting my diploma - for a little while I felt smart and accomplished. I went to night school where they were used to disruptive 16 year olds who couldn't be handled in day school. I was 19, living on my own, and I wanted to be there. So yes, I suppose I appeared smarter - I was definitely more motivated.

However whenever there was a special moment, like my graduation, I always wondered why it wasn't as exciting to me as to other people. For me things were - okay. Not fun! Or great! Okay.

On my wedding day I was nervous for sure. But it was stage fright - not excitement about marrying the love of my life. There were no feelings of finally getting to a huge milestone I had been waiting for - rather it was - is this all there is? It's not such a big deal.

Watching TV you see women having babies - I marvel at their emotion, their tears and their joy. When my first child was born, while I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment for getting that baby out with only a little bit of pain medication, I did not feel the surge of love and amazement at the new little life I had just brought into the world. The one clear thought I remember having was "I wonder what this would have been like if it had been with someone I was crazy about..." It was a moment of clarity about my marriage, but a huge disappointment in the kind of crazy joyful emotions I thought I would feel. I was blaming my lack of emotion - on the lack of feeling for my husband. Yes, had to be the reason, didn't it?

Something had to be wrong with me. When my baby came home with us I totally fell in love with him. I would get tears in my eyes just looking at him and my heart felt it would burst with all the emotion I felt. Maybe I wasn't a bad mother, but - still - something wasn't right with me. As soon as those thoughts entered my head, I pushed them out. I was not ready to entertain the idea that there may be something ABnormal about me. Young Frankenstein. A B - normal. That was me.

People around me were always more enthusiastic, more outwardly happy about things, many things. It was rare when something got me happy or excited enough to exclaim out loud. After a trip, or receiving a gift or doing something I enjoyed - no one ever heard me tell them how much fun I had or what a wonderful gift or show or car or cake it was. It didn't matter, there were no exclamation marks in my emotional makeup.

But depression? Still didn't think of that. I had been having panic attacks since my late teens, and if someone has never had one they are very hard to explain. The only way I can express it is to say that whatever situation I was in when a panic attack hit - I simply had to get out of it. Immediately. Definitely exclamation marks there. Some nameless fear would propel me - whether I was in a car or a store - to find a way out - right then. It wasn't just fear it was flat out panic as if I were looking down the barrel of a gun. Something would happen if I did not remove myself. Have no idea what - didn't try to figure it out either - and it didn't matter. The panic attacks led to anticipation of panic attacks which made me want to stay in my comfort zone, the only place they never occurred, at home.

I was in my mid-20's with one baby and another on the way and I was borderline agoraphobic. I have tried to explain to my kids that my divorce was not only my husbands fault - which my daughter tends to believe because he handled it so badly. But to live with someone who is almost agoraphobic - had to be horrible. I knew it too - I knew he shouldn't have to deal with it but felt completely helpless to stop my fear and anxiety. I was grateful he would do the shopping or wait for my several trips to the bathroom because of my nervous stomach while waiting to leave to go somewhere with me. I was no fun, that's for sure. I didn't know why he stayed.

At some point, and I don't know exactly when, but I had a realization. It didn't just strike me one day but it was a hazy buzz behind my eyes that would peek in and out of the fog and let me see it a little one day and maybe a little more the next. Until one day I actually allowed it to become a complete thought. I did not know what things I enjoyed doing. I was so afraid to leave my house, so afraid of panic attacks, and things were not that exciting to me anyway - I did not want to go anywhere or do anything. I realized that if someone asked me what I liked to do - I would have had to tell them I didn't know. I simply and truly did not know. I knew I wasn't living anymore. I was existing. And what was worse - I couldn't see any reason that I did exist. There just had to be more.

There is just nothing easy about it. Part I

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Depression. When someone suffers from depression they are so alone. Maybe not in actuality - but they may as well be. The overriding feeling is hopelessness. There can be a mind numbing nameless feeling of not being able to see the point in your being alive, what part you could possibly play in this life. That does not mean you are suicidal, although many are. There are levels. It is complicated.

I think my depression began in my teens. When I was 18 my Mom and I had to move out of our house because according to her divorce agreement - when I turned 18 she either had to buy out my Dad's half of the house - or it had to be sold. She could not buy it and my Dad had no qualms about sending his new wife over to paint the bedrooms in preparation for uprooting us, me, from the home I had lived in since I was 5 years old. My Dad was such a lovely man.

We moved into an apartment in a nearby suburb. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, dropped out of high school, and I locked myself in my new bedroom for over a month. I imagine I came out for the necessities, but for the most part I have very little memory of that time. I know I slept a lot. My Mom approached me one day and asked "are you okay? Do you want to talk to someone?" What??? My Mom didn't make things happen. She waited for things to happen and then reacted to them. Her coming to me like that was - uncomfortable. "like a psychiatrist or something? No. No I don't". And that was the extent of it.

I do remember the butterflies and feeling of sudden panic when she mentioned that to me - she had implied something was wrong with me. Nothing was wrong with me. I was very quick to assert that to myself. I was just at loose ends. We had moved and my friends weren't calling and my boyfriend was dating someone else and I had attended what was supposed to be my graduation - in the bleachers. But I was fine. Really. I repeated that to myself over and over again, for years to come. There is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me. Really.

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