depression

Wrong in the head.

April 8, 2016 by Merry 1 Comment

This is not a post about my physical health (which is good, so far as I know) but about my mental health, which has not been. If you’ve wondered where I’ve been for a year, I’ve been locked in my head, or fighting to get back, latterly at any rate.

It starts though, with my body and what went wrong with it. A curious spiral of events that perhaps began a year before with a breast lump scare and triggered every “the next thing is just waiting to destroy us” circuits. And last summer a whole set of things came to a head in a row that sent me into a spin I simply couldn’t get out of. For the first time in my life I just couldn’t write about it; some combination of a need for privacy, the girls being able to read and online life now clashing with real life made it impossible – without that release and with a desperate need to appear normal and functioning, I completely lost it.

It started with a run where I lost my breath half way round and simply couldn’t get it back. it didn’t come back for days and I found myself struggling to feel ‘full’ of oxygen and with a pain under my right ribs. Eventually I went to the doctor, got a trainee who told me it was asthma and tried to send me away. Luckily another doctor came in, took my blood pressure which was sky high and sent me for an scan while looking rather horrified I’d ignored a nagging pain in my side for 2 years. I was a bit shocked by my blood pressure which was well into ‘deal with it’ levels and terrified when the scan came through in 3 days. by the time I got there, I’d developed a second horrible and constant gnawing pain in my left too, undoubtedly linked to the horrible burpiness and upset stomach that I’d been struggling with. i tried to summon the courage to ask the scanner to look there too, but couldn’t and anyway she was busy checking out my other bits.

Unsurprisingly I had gallstones, a nice healthy pancreas and rather unnervingly a ‘growth’ in my liver. “It’s not an uncommon thing,2 she told me. “I think it’s a haemangioma, but it’s bigger than typical and it needs checking out with a different scan. We’ll be in touch.” The follow up call told me that I had to have an MRi as sometimes these are all through you, including in the brain.

Well. So much for my blood pressure.

I’d already convinced myself I had stomach cancer (and I really believed it) and that wasn’t helped by going back to the doctor and being sent for an ovarian cancer blood test. I was falling apart quite fast. I couldn’t impact my blood pressure and I was non-functioning to the point I couldn’t have a conversation, not even with the husband, any more.

Luckily I got myself to the doctor and happened upon an amazing one who got me on to antidepressants for anxiety, worked out I had an ulcer, booked me for CBT and agreed to do a whole raft of blood tests to calm me down about EVERYTHING, one of which revealed my iron levels were too low. (Turns out so were 2 of the daughters.)

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe how dark those months were. I was really, horribly, properly mentally ill. I know it. I lost myself utterly. If the girls ached I thought it was bone cancer, if I twitched, I thought it was a heart attack. I couldn’t look at DH for fear I would see an oncoming train of destruction – illness, betrayal, loathing. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t write, I didn’t function, I didn’t work, crochet, tidy or even really parent.

By the time the CBT happened, chemicals (not least the iron I suspect) had begun to take effect and I was better, though still struggling. After the first appointment I was given a diagnosis of OCD, not the helpful house tidying variety (I’m being ironic, I know it controls live just as badly) but a form of ‘thought OCD’ – compulsive thinking, intrusive thoughts, habits and patterns in ways of doing things. After I stopped laughing, I realised it was true.

All my life I’ve chewed and rechewed conversations, obsessed about what people think or said or did to slight me. I’ve controlled little bits of my life utterly and been made anxious by small changes. I’ve assumed things will happen because I can see them in my head as if they are happening and life has rather led along the path of us being the ‘1 in xxx’ part of statistics, which re-enforced that. I had, for example, to buy secret stashes of face masks and gloves because I just assumed that ebola would get here and I needed to do something to feel like I was prepared. I always feel like I have to worry and have a plan for disaster or it will be my fault if it goes wrong.

Getting that diagnosis was like a light bulb came on. Suddenly I could see that all my little habits I used to control life and turned on me and were controlling me, that I was ruining my life fearing death instead of living it until I do die. And the relief as I began to realise that in fact not everyone lives like this, that the reason I often felt so misunderstood was because so many people just couldn’t understand, was amazing. I thought everyone lived like I did. I thought it was only DH who didn’t and he was weird.

It took a good few sessions but I started to test and push myself, a trip to London, letting the girls go places without texting me, pushing myself to wait out poorliness before needing to check with a doctor, learning to make rational judgements again, not hyper-vigilant ones. And the high point was when the 2 big girls went to London on their own for the day and I didn’t worry all day, not once.

I hold that moment like a glass ball of reality in my hands, my bubble of knowing how it feels inside other peoples’ heads. I think of myself, sat waiting for them in a sunny carpark and suddenly knowing I could handle life again, maybe better than ever before.

I’ve always struggled with depression, I can remember depression at 7 years old, at 11, at 14. What I never really got to the bottom of was how much of that was anxiety. I understand now that much more of my difficulties stem from that, crippling, horrific, incapacitating anxiety, of a level I can only really cope with by maintaining an internal dialogue against it and taking pills alongside that. I’m accepting that now, with the tools to combat it beginning to lodge themselves inside my head.

It’s been quite a journey but, as they say, at least I’ve got my health. (I hope!)

The Ouch.

April 24, 2015 by Merry 3 Comments

I spend a lot of my life managing someone who is strong on the outside and as soft as water underneath. I often describe her as an uncooked egg; she seems hard and perfect and impenetrable but drop her and she shatters. For my brashest child she has the least reserves for dealing with enmity of all my kids. That’s difficult for me to understand because she’s the very epitome of what intimidated me as a kid: pretty, talented, cocky, smart, physically confident and able to scamper with the crowd, toss out banter and volley with the pissartists.

I was none of that and I’m still not. I have always seen myself as small, dull, plain, average. And I was all of those things with the core of internal confidence that others of my children seem to have; 2 at least are quiet but confident, with a sense of self and belief that makes them resilient to harm. Not all the time, of course, but less battered by social bullying and pressure than I was.

These days I build my world among people I believe value me. My husband, first and foremost who is my honest, faithful friend and has made me far stronger than I ever once was. My children who do, it seems, think I rock. My sister who has glued herself to my side these last 5 years and kept me upright when no one else could. Friends of 15 or more years standing. More recently some newer friends who I found myself working alongside to save a club. Bloggers I’ve come to know and love – only a few of them, because I’m not a numbers person and I like to keep to knowing people I connect emotionally with better than knowing everyone not at all.

I know that some or most of those people value me. In my heart I know it. It’s just that if you’ve grown up battling depression, or being the fat one people didn’t go out with because their friends would laugh, or being the person too boring to invite to parties, you never really learn to believe it. I rate myself by who rejects me, not by who welcomes me. I have to self correct that every time. It’s an internal monologue that’s exhausting: ‘you are worthless, pointless, tedious’ alongside ‘he is dead, he is dead, he is dead,’ that requires constant resistant pressure to turn the wheels of thought against it.

Last week a curious turn of events required me to sit in a room while I listened to someone vent their utter loathing of me. It’s not something that happens often; I’m the boss of my business and work alone and tend to absent myself from situations personally that are confrontational or painful. It was the other side of the coin for me, I’m not normally the underling and rarely does anyone really dislike me openly so much they want to take me down. I tend to have relationships that build over time with a few battling corner rubs to start with and then better friendship develops later. Generally people like me more when they know me better, even if they found me hard to take at first. Because I can be hard, I know. I’m intolerant, temperamental and easily frustrated at times.

But it happens. I don’t believe it was deserved on this occasion, so while irritating, I almost feel better for it. It gave me a better understanding about a lot of things,not least the aforementioned daughter who has recently experienced being cut out of a group and taunted with the power that gave them over her. It’s not nice and it is damaging, even if you know they are the ones with the problem, not you. I can do rational when I know someone is being horrid, unkind or responding to feeling threatened by me with vile behaviour.

Far harder to cope with are types of pain that come from realising that a place you thought was safe is not quite what you thought. It’s painful when it’s someone you like and value and believed reciprocated that. I’ve not had the misery of my marriage fall apart but I’m all too aware I might if time and effort isn’t put in, it could. That rejection potential terrifies me. I’ve lived a lesser life because rejection is too hard to contemplate or risk.

And maybe it’s arrogance or a lack of self awareness but I’m not used to people deciding I’m of no value to them, or not something they want to see or have in their daily life or occasional life. And it hurts. It’s not rational to be hurt by that, it’s not even rational to mind really. We all have our baggage and our right to live our life as we want. But it does hurt. It keys into that deep sense of worthless and unlikeable-ness that I have to ride like a wave each day. It awakens the devil that says ‘you always get it wrong, you always fail, we don’t want you ‘ that is at the heart of depression.

That sinking feeling, stomach deep, that turns the world grey while you battle the knowledge you are already failing by even minding.

That sinking feeling that leaves you lying awake at night wondering why you alone are not invited and failing to think ‘sod you then’.

That waft of sad, stale air that says – again – ‘you suck’. And knowing that so low are you on their list to care about, that they won’t even know you minded. Knowing that that wasn’t in their mind, that they didn’t consider the impact because you don’t make it into their list of important people with feelings to guard. It’s not rational, but it leaves a mark.

How I wish I only ever felt the colour and not the creeping suck of grey.

Just be happy.

December 10, 2014 by Merry 11 Comments

It’s not proper depression.

It’s not the kind that has you locked away to be safe, cared for and talked to, analysed and understood. It isn’t the type of sadness that people name, hushed voiced, wide eyed.

I don’t alarm anyone, as a rule. Generally speaking, no one calls for back up.

I don’t go mad, become frightening, or lose myself in a world I can’t find my way back from.

It’s not ‘proper’ depression.

There have been times; times I circled our street in the dead of night, times when I drove to a friend because I didn’t trust myself to stay sane unless the words came out of my mouth and landed somewhere safely heard. There has been a time – once – when I contemplated driving hard and fast at a wall. It wasn’t when you might think. It was the time I was judged and ridiculed and left with nowhere to speak, no friends, no willing ears. Not the time you might think.

You might find that surprising, to know the worst time was not at the worst part of my life.

I’ve had times when I’ve huddled beneath the duvet, too consumed by self hate and guilt, grief and the unmanageable emotion of worthlessness. There have been times when the pain inside my head, of knowing I was not good enough to even stand upright in the light became so huge that I couldn’t make my bones obey anymore. There have been times when my most overwhelming instinct, to protect the mental safety of my children, got put aside by my own madness. Times when I couldn’t even care that losing mummy to her room, the dark, the underside of the duvet was scaring them from the inside out.

And that, I suppose, is ‘proper depression’. The times when medicine is the only way back. And it has been a while since those feelings lived in here.

It’s not politically correct to say it, but those bouts are almost easy by comparison. When something terrible happens and all the pain is easily attributable to an event or a loss, I can handle those. I can handle wading through grief and shock and difficulty (I’m well practiced) and getting the help that needs.

I know the drill. Get help. Get pills. Get out more. Wait till the chemicals settle back into place. Keep going through it until the thing, the event, fades away and the seesaw stops bouncing wildly from one end to the other. Step back into the middle of it. Balance. Breathe.

I comprehend the chemicals. I know what they do and what they sometimes choose not to do.

***

I’ve been struggling lately. Life has been busy and difficult and I hold that balance and equilibrium only very delicately. It doesn’t take much to wobble it. Too much on, trying to do too many new things, too many days away from home, not enough time with Max, the girls or Bene. Not enough time with Freddie too, in our own special way that we can/have to spend time together.

The bells rang after the health visitor called; she offered me some listening visits. She asked me if I cried when I was alone?

“No,” I said. “I don’t even cry any more.”

And then I said “If I can just hold on for another 5 years, then I can get some time to deal with all of this. Until then, I just have to hold it all together.”

And I realised how ridiculous it sounded.

I might be dead in 5 years.

***

When I get the ‘wrong depression’ and the ‘improper depression’ I don’t see it coming. It isn’t triggered by something, it just creeps up.

I’m not built for wild. I’m not built for fast or exciting. I can’t live life at a pace.

I’ve been trying to build a freelance career and realising that I can do this, but I probably couldn’t actually work full time anymore.

The creep comes up through my bones.

I start to sit still.

I start to waste time.

I start to self harm, not conventionally, but by eating things I know will make me fat, not going running but hating myself for not doing. I start to stay up too late or squander precious creative minutes.

I stop writing.

I stop thinking.

I stare past Max and disengage and wonder why he isn’t spending time with me.

I panic about my health and start to see symptoms in every twinge of some dreadful death.

Paranoia creeps in; if I write something that is a cry for help and no one answers, I delete it because I disgust myself at having asked.

***

A couple of days ago someone replied to a tweet about Freddie with “move on”. I blocked, because I’m better at that these days and that night I told Max how proud I was that I had done so and shrugged it off.

He didn’t reply.

Now *I know* that he didn’t think a reply was needed. I know really that he isn’t good at those conversations and didn’t know what to say. I know he loves me and he’s proud of me for still standing.

What I heard in his silence was “Yes, well you should move on.”

What I hear in no reply is “Stop making us listen to this grief now.”

***

That’s the problem with improper depression, the type I can sometimes fix with more sleep, non-rocket fuel levels of pills and some self care.

I can’t validate it. I can’t quite allow myself to believe that I deserve to be sad and that really, there is nothing I can do about this physical propensity I have for imbalanced chemicals.

It creeps up, twists my bones and sends white noise through my brain and all I hear is…

“Why can’t you be happy?”

It’s like the whole world is saying it.

Creative: Tired.

November 13, 2014 by Merry 1 Comment

The end of the day.

Shouting stops, taxi service ends, the meals are eaten and the quiet purr of the dishwasher, punctuated by occasional sloshes, is the only noise left. Downstairs, the detritus of the day is strewn across the corridor, the kitchen perfunctorily cleaned, the door locked and the car remains a crumb filled carcass of its former self, packed to the gills with forgotten bags, shoes kicked off by tired feet and coats that will be hunted for frantically come morning. The lights are off, or glow dimly in the room where one of four bulbs still work and the time to replace them, or perhaps the inclination, has not yet occurred. The carpet – so recently vacuumed – carries the marks and mess of an ordinary family day; AstroTurf pellets sprinkled out of socks and trainers, a half eaten biscuit trodden in and not removed, packaging ripped from a much desired purchase and dropped where they stood.

Clattering, bickering, tired and dragging the bags, folders and armfuls of kit and coats that have become essential for their day, the kids have bundled themselves upstairs, bathroom door banging, tap left running (it needs replacing but when to find the time?) laundry discarded on the floor where tomorrow the wailing will commence as incomprehensibly it is too crumpled to wear again without the torture of using the iron. The lights flick off, the ‘one last drink’ is drunk and the youngest trails back upstairs to try again to find some way to sleep.

Lying down in the dark might help.

And peace descends. The living room softly lit enough to hide the homework strewn on the desk that in a Pinterest world would lightly tell the story of the woman who worked there, the sofa hastily buffeted and shaken, protective cloth tucked in, to give a semblance of serenity. And the toys are kicked under the table with a mental promise to do messy play tomorrow and spend less time on phone and screen, to do the things that find the joy and bring the smiles and make the moment count before childhood is all sucked up in rush and growl and fleeting chat as kid and gym kit jump from car to club.

And suddenly… silence. Too tired to talk, parents slump on Chesterfield sofa, propped up by late night coffee cupped in hands to tired to touch and stroke, explore or love. Slump is what they do, shoulder to shoulder, a rueful look at each other, wondering where the days of evenings of conversation, passion, creativity went? When there was still energy at half past nine to make and do, invent, play. How did the sofa, silence, book in hand, blanket made in freer times tucked around the knees and companionable friendship become an fleeting evening joy too good to miss? When did a few rows of knitting become a job well done, a worthy payment for a day fraught with other peoples’ needs? When did sofa, restful, soft, moulding to their backs, become a more inviting embrace than a lovers tumble?

They are tired. So very tired. And sleep, which ought to help, only seems to rob them of the time to rest.

Disclosure: this post is in collaboration with the company mentioned within the post.