Depression Talk

Greetings, Gentle Readers:

My name is Rena Sherwood and I’m taking over Depression Talk from Amanda.  I don’t know how Amanda is doing or if she will come back to this blog.  I do hope she is OK.  I also write for Dealing With Headaches, which is also on the 451 Press blog network. 

My Qualifications (Ha!)

Although I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV) I have suffered from endogenous recurring depression since the womb.  And some days, the depression has me.  All of my family have it and I have bumped into many people in two countries who have it.  I am just a regular person with a knack for writing that has the same questions about depression just like anyone else.  I offer advice and sympathy but I cannot dispense drugs or medical advice.

I-Escape is a method used with people in crisis. It is part of what I’m learning about in school. Essentially, it deals with the steps you use in debriefing people about a crisis they’ve just entered, how they felt about it, what they can do the next time, make a plan for the next time a similar situation pops up, and then re-enter the situation.

The thing that is killing me about this is that having gone into a mini-crisis of my own this past weekend, I can’t follow the steps myself. What kind of leader will I make to people who need me later on down the road?

I need to take the necessary steps to turn my behaviour around but at this point?

I really don’t know how.

Dear You,

Its been months since I opened up the folder in my inbox devoted entirely to you. Months since I read through your letters to me and I grinned like an ass over all the wonderful things you said to me.

You sent me an email a month or so ago, and I replied and attached a photo of me on my Thoroughbred. He is huge. And I’d like to train him so that if he ever saw you, he’d stomp you like a fly. And he loves me so damn much he would, too.

I feel so free of you these days, so much so that I wonder what happened to the girl who spent three years of her life begging you to come back. You never did, but you promised again and again that you would. I’m happy that we’re apart: I’m happy that I knew you, I’m happy that I made an ass of myself in your eyes again and again because now I know so much more.

But if I am so damn happy all the time, why can’t I bring myself to delete your folder? Why can’t I get the picture of your face out of my head, and why is it that when someone walks by who smells like you, I’m brought back to everything I thought you were?

And maybe its just that you were the only one there when I left and went to the city, you were the only one who called and came to visit and all those wonderful things.

I’m done, though, I really am. I’m through hoping we’ll have another of those movie-esque scenes in an airport or when you drive up to my house in your Benz. (And if you did, my trusty steed would most certainly dent it with a hind hoof. Or maybe even a front one.)

But regardless of how through I am with you, I can’t delete your folder, and it just pisses me off every time I see it.

Sincerely,
The Girl You Used to Call Your Girl

Dear Doctor,

Last fall, you tried to kill me. Perhaps it wasn’t on purpose, but nonetheless, I almost ended up dead.

Your error was grave, and the fact that you are a human being excludes you from perfection. I know that.

I went to you because nothing was right. I didn’t feel right. I couldn’t sleep or eat, I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t get my sorry self out of bed. Nothing was right and no matter what I did, said, prayed, or drank, it wouldn’t go away. So, you prescribed me some pills. And I took them and nothing got better.

I went back to you a number of times, and rather than suggesting that we try a new medication, or that we do some tests to figure out what was going on with me, you simply said that I should take more of the same medication.

And then it still didn’t work and you told me to try more. And then more. And then some more again.

And I know, I’m a grown-up girl. I should know when something isn’t right, and I did know. But I didn’t have the sense to stand up and say something about it.

Eventually I was taking so much of this drug that my hair all fell out, I lost my mind completely, and I had every possible bad side effect the drug offers … and it all got worse from there.

I ended up in the hospital and was ordered to quit that medication immediately. I had to be sedated for a month so that the shakes and convulsions from being taken off the drug so suddenly wouldn’t kill me altogether.

My father and my best friend wanted to sue.

I just wanted to get better.

I was angry, Doctor, for a long time. I felt betrayed by the medical community entirely. I thought about suing, I thought about writing big, mean, nasty letters.

I don’t think about that any more. I’ve moved on. I’m sorry that it came down to me being put out of commission for a month. I’m sorry that we couldn’t have figured it out earlier. I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to stand up and demand a new doctor, or demand that someone do something to make it better.

But I don’t have the energy to be bitter any more. So, Dear Doctor, I think you would best be suited to treating things like Athlete’s foot and broken legs on the football team. Clearly you don’t know what treating mental health issues entails.

But I don’t hate you.

Sincerely,
Amanda