Depression Talk

I was riding my bike today in the warmest, most summer-like day we’ve had yet in the Great White North. I spent my entire 5.6 kilometre bike ride on the verge of breaking into a really good sweat, and I could feel the sun beating down on my back the whole ride.

I’ve really started treasuring my time on my bike. I haven’t done anything physical with my body since 2003, when my parents sold the cows and there was no more real work to be done on the farm. I remember the afternoons in the summer when I would be mucking stalls, cleaning gutters, and bagging corn quite fondly.

One thing I love about working my body to its limits is the breakover feeling, when you go from being warm and slightly clammy to working up a full-blown sweat. I love the feeling of my T-shirt sticking to my back, the way my muscles feel when they flex beneath the damp material. One moment you’re minding your own business, irritated by the sticky, overheated feeling you get at the beginning of a good work out. The next minute, sweat pours down and you feel like you have accomplished something, like you can measure your success by how hard you have to wring your shirt before your mother will let you in the house.

I have hated exercise my whole life, have never been one to get my lazy butt off the couch to work out. But lately this bike-riding thing is really adding a lot to the quality of my life: I’m outside, I’m getting fresh air and vitamin D, I’m getting some exercise and I’m sleeping more soundly at night.

I hate those irritating people who go about extolling the virtues of exercise and how important it is to a healthy lifestyle. I certainly hope I never become one of those people. At the same time, if you can work yourself up to it, I really think its worthwhile to see if exercise might help the fight against depression because thus far, I haven’t noticed any drawbacks.

Exercise, Depression, Treating Depression, Cycling, Insanity

5) My hands are always very clean.

4) People get to laugh at my quirks, and laughter is the best medicine.

3) It gives me an excuse to own hundreds of pairs of socks. And you can never have enough socks.

2) You find out really, really quickly who your true friends are: And I love nothing more than true friends.

And the number on reason I love being Crazed and Maniacal:

1) S~E~D~A~T~I~V~E~S

I’m not sure what the thing with me and cats is, but every time I get a cat, it ends up really neurotic. My last cat, Odysseus, died when I was in second year just after I got my current cat, Copernicus. I don’t really know what the deal is with my love for naming cats ridiculous names, except that it makes them unique. And its fun to watch the people at the vets’ office squirm when they don’t know how to spell the names. I’m thinking of throwing a silent H and a few Y’s just to muck things up a little bit.

The addition of Copernicus to my life has been… hectic. She has been a sickly kitten, a cranky kitty, a depressed and unhappy cat, a cat living with her owner’s parents; she has been thin, unhappy, growly, un-cuddly, and generally unpleasant.

Last year Copernicus had to come and live with my parents in the last month I lived in my first apartment. I called the place Hell for a reason, and the cat seemed to agree with my assessment of it. In the month she spent with my parents she became a glossy-coated, healthy looking cat.

She then lived with me for the following eleven months, and she didn’t seem to mind it too much. She was never exactly a happy little scampering about type of cat, but she was fine. She ate, she slept. I figured she was just an individual.

For the last month I lived in the Big City, Copernicus lived with my parents because it was just a hassle to have her while I was living it up.

The first thing I did when I got home was go to the stairs and call out for my little kitty. Then the strangest thing happened: She came to me. Not only did she come, but she allowed me to pet her, cuddle her, hold her briefly. And then an even stranger phenomena occured: She began to purr.

I have never seen Copernicus so happy. She is still very vocal, and for a nickname I occasionally call her Yowly Gonzales. Because she is very, very yowly. Her hair is shiny, she purrs regularly (Which, I swear? She totally did NOT do for the first year I owned her), she sleeps on my bed and plays with her blanky.

I have no idea what caused this change. Perhaps it was being away from me that allowed her to behave like a normal cat, but I tend to think that she is just not city cat material. She needs more space than an apartment can provide, she needs other animals about to torment (Or to torment her…).

I have to say that it is nice that I’m not the only one who feels like there is one, and only one, worthwhile place to live. I can really commiserate here, because I know what it is like to be unhappy in your living arrangements… And sometimes I feel guilty for subjecting her to the life that she led for her first year.

And then, I realize that I’m obsessing over a frickin CAT and that maybe, just MAYBE I should find something better to do with my time, like watch Degrassi: The Next Generation and listen to country music because even mindless television about teenagers who decide to become strippers has to be better than obsessing about what a terrible cat owner I am.

As I’ve mentioned a few times lately, I am in a really good place right now. I feel normal, I feel capable. Its been weeks, or even months, since I’ve lain in a heap on my bed weeping for reasons beyond my understanding. Its been weeks, or even months, since I’ve sat and stared off into nothing, only to realize on my next glance at the clock that four hours have gone by. I’ve been sleeping and eating like a normal person: food has taste and I can even consume it in normal quantities.

Every time I spend a few months feeling this way, I start to wonder if perhaps I’m cured. I’d love a cure for this thing that I deal with, I’d love to wake up one day and feel about it the way you feel about getting over the common cold: Thank the Lord that’s over!

And every time I start to wonder if I’m cured … I start to wonder if perhaps I should take another go at this life un-medicated. I start to wonder if perhaps my brain has re-wired itself and that I don’t need to take medications at all any more.

The reason I tend to think this way is because when I was initially diagnosed, it was with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and I was told that I may outgrow it. I was hopeful as a teenager because I never wanted to be crazy for the rest of my life.

But now I’m nearing 23, and I have to say that I think less and less that I may outgrow my issues.

My mother and I have taken up riding bicycles in an effort to pretend that we are fitness enthusiasts. We’ve been biking for a day or two now and I have to say that being out in the fresh air, with the sun beating down on my back has lifted my spirits substantially.

I’ve heard people say that it is possible to regulate some mild forms of depression with exercise and diet. I’m skeptical. However, considering I am on the highest dose alloweable of my medication, I have to say that I’m willing to try a continuation of exercise in hopes of lowering the amount of drugs coursing through my veins.

I’m only at the thinking about it stage right now. As I’ve said, I’m in a good place and I really don’t want anything to mess that up, but at the same time, I’m desperate to see if I can maybe change my lifestyle and see if it has an effect on my mental health.

Anyone here have any experiences with this?

Jumoke sent me an article last week, one that I have been hesitant to post about because I’m not really sure what I make of it at all.

The article, found here, tells of a young girl and what she has done to raise awareness with regards to mental health issues. I always applaud people who do what they can to normalize people with mental health issues. Mental health is one of my pet peeves: I detest the misinformation that abounds about some of the problems I have.

Alyse has about six thousand rituals that she adheres to in order to quell the anxiety that she feels each day. Like me, she is open about her issues: I imagine her medications, therapies, and some of her obsessions are not secret from very many people. I don’t know why she chooses to be open about her issues. I know that I choose to be open about mine because I just don’t care to hide it anymore. I’m sick of feeling like there is something wrong with me because there are things that I do and feel that are beyond my control. My attitude about my behaviors is that I have them. I do what I can to keep them under control, but if people don’t like me because of these issues? I’m not likely to lose any sleep.

What bothers me about the article is this line: “She has woken up with a smile on her face every day of her life,” Ms. Benzvy Miller said.

I often speak of the network of people around me who help me when times get tough, especially my family: they see the worst of me because by the time I’ve hit my absolute bottom, I’m not generally capable of leaving the house.

And this is why I’m wary of a girl’s mother proclaiming that she wakes up every day with a smile on her face. When I’m having a really hard time of it, I generally can’t get up at all: I tend to lay in my bed, chain smoking and praying for the next day to come because certainly it has to hold more hope than the one I’m living at that time.

This is the thing about mental health issues though: Every single person suffering from mental illness is so completely unique and different. We all have our own ways of dealing with the behaviors and feelings we have.

So part of me wants to think, what a load. How could you deal with all the crap that comes with OCD/depression/anxiety and get up with a smile on your face?

At the same time, however, waves of guilt wash over me because who am I to say that one way of dealing with mental health or another is better or worse? If I’m deciding what the “real” way of being OCD is, then doesn’t that make me just as bad as the people who hold improper beliefs about me?

This is the crux of the matter, I suppose. And in the end, I suppose that I should just be grateful that there is someone out there doing a hell of a lot more than I am for raising awareness about OCD and other mental illnesses.

I watched an old episode of Grey’s Anatomy tonight, an episode that made me want to lay in my bed weeping and clinging with every bit of my might to something warm and soft, something that would gaze at me with loving eyes; the type of glance that can cure everything that ails you in the quiet seconds between blinking.

Unfortunately, I am single and my cat hates me. Not that its unfortunate that I’m single, or that its unfortunate that my cat hates me… just sometimes it would be nice to have what ails me cured by the glances that can occur in the quiet seconds between blinking.

So rather than go off in search of somethign that would gaze quietly at me, I decided to open a can of Coke. Diet Coke, even. But before I opened the can, I had to get it out of the case, and I have to stop here and wonder WHAT IS WITH THE COKE COMPANY AND THEIR INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH CARDBOARD CASES?

Now, I wouldn’t classify this as actual anxiety, but really. I couldn’t get the damn thing opened, and it was hurting my chewed-to-the-quick fingernails with its industrial strength toughness. So I did the only thing I could think of because DAMMIT I WANTED SOME DIET COKE. (Actually, I wanted real Coke. But that is neither here nor there.)

So I did the only rational thing I could think of doing: I looked for a large, sharp implement. That implement came in the form of kitchen scissors.

And while I was standing in the kitchen, being showered by Diet Coke and trying to keep it from my eyes, while my mother yelled in horror to put it in the sink, you Ninny! …

Well, I thought for a brief moment that perhaps it is unfortunate that I didn’t decide to curl up with my cat, forcing her unfriendly, biting-prone self into a furball beside my pillow because if I had done that?

The Diet Coke would have never been sprayed about the entire kitchen.

Amanda

Every now and then, I go through a time period where I feel fine. I feel like a person able to get out of her bed, a person able to function as a normal and fine human being. I am in one of those times right now.

Every day I wake up and I have to take large doses of drugs. I’m sure that diabetics don’t feel guilty for needing insulin, and I’m sure that people with a host of other illnesses don’t feel guilty for needing their medications either.

But my need for medications bothers me. Every now and then, I think about what my life could be like medication free. I think about the money I could save and never feeling that ‘Oh, God, the pills are stuck in my throat and I’m going to choke to death’ feeling ever again. I think that I could pack an overnight bag and if someone else were to lift it into the car, they wouldn’t wonder what that strange rattling sound is.

At the same time, especially with the new medications I’m taking these days, I have to say that I am in the best place emotionally that I have ever been in. I feel sane and rational a lot of the time, I sleep at night… that in and of itself is miraculous. I’m less prone to hysterics, although they jump out at me from time to time, and I spend much less time staring at nothing in space than I used to.

At the same time, I occasionally have this wild desire to never look at a prescription pill bottle with my name and fifty gazillion repeats on it ever again.

Every morning, when I take my drugs, I have to stop and look at them for a moment. I have to tell myself that these are the medications that allow me to be the way I am today.

I like me. I like being me. I like the life I live and the people I know and the things that I do.

But sometimes, it’s really, really hard to like the fact that I have to take drugs every day in order to actually like all these things.

Amanda

I think that a recurring theme here has been that I have no idea when I should differentiate between being a crazy person and being a normal human being. I never want to be the type of person who has a run-of-the-mill bad day and ends up sobbing in bed, blaming my medical issues. And so, I have trouble knowing what should be taken as a medical problem and what should be taken as life.

The hard thing is that I can’t really pretend that I don’t have the issues that they do. I’m affected daily by my neuroses: Today my best friend was waiting forever in McDonald’s while I fastidiously washed, scrubbed, and completely air dried my hands. I can’t leave a public restroom with even a hint of moisture on my hands because I fear that remaining germs will end up multiplying in the moistness of my hands.

An event occurred today that was not really that big of a deal. It was the type of event that you expect to come into contact with in the country, the type of thing that happens on farms, the type of thing that you should really stop and say, Wow. That’s really too bad… And then you shake your head and you go on about your business.

Instead this event moved me to a state of hysteria; one of those states in which you can’t breath or speak; causing you to choke on your own saliva as it builds inside your mouth.

I’m not sure what to make of my reaction to this event today. I’m not sure if I should run out and find a shrink, or if I should focus more and more on working hard to become a person who is not so affected by her emotions that she ends up choking and gasping for breath.

Is life really what you make it? If I want to, can I avoid this type of outburst if I want to? Of course I want to: These things are upsetting for me and more upsetting for those around me. I think that right now, if I had ten minutes to prepare myself for an upsetting event, I might be fine.

The problem is that life never pauses for us ten minutes in advance, and never whispers in our ears to take several deep breaths before proceeding.

I’m not sure how to make those much-needed pauses happen without stopping the world altogether.

There are a few people in this world who I allow to openly tease me about my insanity. My best friend often greets me in the morning shaking about any number of pill bottles, depending on my current regimen, singing “Take your meds, Crazy Girl!”

I love to laugh at the things that I do that are insane. I can’t stack dishes that haven’t been rinsed, and I can’t possibly have my socks arranged in a manner that is anything less than … military? Insane? Over the tops? Who knows.

I try not to take my issues with anxiety and depression too seriously. I think, though, that if the wrong person were to make some of the comments that my mother or best friend ever made, I’d be tempted to remove his or her teeth from his or her head. With my right fist.

The Internet provides me with a level of safety in discussing the things that are wrong with me. My Network allows me to discuss freely the things that are on my mind. I once admitted to my best friend that I lied to her: I refused to go to a social gathering of hers because I was too scared of interacting with other people to leave the house.

And like any best friend would, like every best friend should, she laughed at me in the end, asking why on Earth I thought she would want me to go to an event that would leave me dry heaving and erupting in hives in the restroom. And she looked at me, and she laughed. It was real laughter, the kind that erupts from deep within you and escapes like an oil spill, taking over everything it can, and leaving nothing untouched in its wake. She laughed for so long and so hard that I was concerned for her well-being and when she stopped, she put a hand on my knee and looked directly in my eyes.

She said:

“Amanda. My God. You are so fucking crazy! If you didn’t want to go, for God’s sake, just TELL me. Oh, my nutbar.” She stopped and chuckled here once more. “Oh, my lunatic, my crazy girl. You’re crazy but I love you.”

I’ve heard before that laughter is the best medicine. I think, though, that really, the most potent laughter is one shared with a close friend, and better than that is sharing it with a close friend who has seen me through every step of my insanity thus far in my life.

The Dixie Chicks once sang that Some days/ Ya gotta Dance. I love to take it one step further and state that some days, you gotta laugh. Laugh long and hard because really? What matters the most?

Is that you may be screwed up a little in the head, but if nothing else, you have a good friend to laugh with about your insanity.

Amanda