Depression Talk

The thing about a social network is that you need it, and you need it to be strong. I wrote a while about having a network in times of need, and this week, Karen was nice enough to discuss some of the things I think are important in supporting someone. If you read through her list, you can really apply her suggestions not only to someone who has cancer, but someone who needs that shoulder to lean on, no matter what is going on in his or her life.

The friends we have, who support us in times of need come through for us in all varieties. Joomy has to be one of my favorite friends, that wonderful woman who has all the answers to all of life’s issues.

Joomy and I rarely see each other in person; when we do see each other, we are typically at a social gathering that prevents us from getting around to discussing the really juicy material in our lives.

But the relationship we do have is a very strong one online. Jooms is typically online at the same time of night I am, blogging away in hopes of someday finding internet fame. I frequently sign on to my computer, and type JOOMS!!! I NEED YOU!! Followed by JOOMS!ARE YOU THERE?!?!

ANd you know, sometimes I can actually feel her hesitating through the computer screen. Like, My God, this girl has another random crisis going on that has nothing to do with me, and I have to deal with it AGAIN and I will never get a solid night’s rest ever again in my life because she just won’t go away.

Hey, I never said I was a bowl full of sunshine and cherries to deal with, and further more, I figured if she really couldn’t talk me through the crises that pop up in my life on a weekly basis, she would simply choose the block and delete function on her MSN.

Jooms has sat patiently in front of her computer for nearing two or three years now, quietly reading and wondering what will pop up on her screen next. She’s talked me through every boy issue you could ever imagine, and dealt with me when I’ve been at the lowest possible low I could have ever been at.

I think one of the trickiest things about having someone like Jooms in your network is wondering how to ever thank them. How do you ever impart on someone that they are so important in your life that if they ceased to exist, you might do the same? How do you ever impart on someone that you KNOW you may be a really crappy friend, and you may not be the best to come to yourself, but that you appreciate, love, and NEED them to continue to be in your life?

I guess you just feature them in your blog, and hope that they get the picture.

My theme for this week is going to be on my network: Those wonderful people who make my life easier to live just by existing in it.

I have to start this week by saying that I am a pretty difficult person to get along with. I am rife with anxiety and stress. I shriek frequently, and when it comes to volume? Let me tell you, I’m not here to fuck around. I’m hyper sensitive to any remark that might remotely have anything to do with me, and I cry at the drop of a hat. Any hat. Hell, I even cry at the drop of protective headgear.

The people in my network have a hard and tiring job in being in that network. They need to console me when I’m sobbing; they have to pick up the pieces when I fall apart. They have to deal with me constantly bemoaning my hideous relationship mistakes. What’s worse, they have to deal with the fact that I can never let anything go.

My social network is fairly small: I have a very few people who I hold near and dear to me. That is not to say that I am a trusting person. I often trust people with my heart and soul; however, at the same time, I always expect to be disappointed. That is, if I tell someone something I’d rather other people not know, and I find out that they have told a number of people? I am rarely surprised. I think it is sad that I have such little faith in humanity as a whole. Unfortunately, life has shown me time and time again that the only person you can really trust is you.

However: My network, those people who I love and run to when I need them? These are the people who have shown themselves time and time again that they are trustworthy. These are people who have not let me down, who have stood by me through thick and thin, who have literally carried me to where I need to be when I can no longer make it there myself.

I firmly believe that a strong social network is one of the things that improves mental health issues the most. I firmly believe that everyone needs to find someone or something that can help them get through the tougher times.

This week will be devoted to those people in my life who make my getting out of bed in the morning possible.

On Sunday I had another one of those days at work, a day that I simply didn’t know how to process or deal with, and so I did the only thing I could think of.

I started drinking beer and chain smoking.

It was a grand evening, in all, except for the unfortunate incident which involved me deciding to sober up and have a pop and some fudge. The fudge was stuck in the pan, and so in my infinate (slightly buzzed up) state, I decided to retrieve it from the pan with a steak knife. Of course, the steak knife ended up embedded in the palm of my hand, blood poured about the kitchen (Not on the fudge, fortunately) and things kind of dissolved into a messy situation with band-aids and tears abounding.

I ended up having a panic attack that night, sitting in the kitchen holding my head, trying to regain a part of me that would make things stop spinning and blurring in and out of focus.

Panic attacks are very scary things, things that I don’t know how to control.

That panic attack made up the third one of this week, a third episode IN ONE WEEK. I don’t know how I end up having panic attacks, or what causes them, or what makes them go away. My panic attacks have no particular rhyme or reason, they follow no orderly rhythm, and have no cycle. They don’t happen in conjunction with particularly stressful things in my life; unless of course you count the other night when I found a utensil firmly planted int he flesh of my hand.

I discussed it with my mother afterwards, the ever supportive woman who has helped me get through all of my insanity issues thus far in my life. She said that, of course, after the day I’d had and the drinks that I’d consumed, of course! Of course it makes sense to have a panic attack!

And she’s right. So that’s one that I’m not going to worry about, I’m not going to think about. It will not weigh on my mind or stay with me for any period of time.

Later in the night, while I was on my way to bed, my mother took my had and looked at me. And she said “Just, you know. If you think you’re totally losing it again, could I get a head’s up? Just some notice so that I can plan for it appropriately?”

And I said yes. Of course. If I’m going to go completely stark raving mad at any point in the near future?

She didn’t even need to ASK me to let her know. Trust me. She’d know.

YOU WILL ALL KNOW.

I posted a while back about breaking up with beer, and our breakup has gone well so far. The first three weeks were the hardest, and I wondered if I needed to seek out some outside help to talk it through. I mean, I have a number of people I can talk to at any time with regards to drinking, but I strongly doubt that any of them realize how I feel when I want a drink. (How bad does that make me sound? Bad, bad, bad.)

It has gotten easier as time has gone on, and I’ve found myself thinking of a beer at the end of a few rough days this past week.

I think the most surprising element here is that even though I do want one, I’m not feeling as though I am in need of one.

Stranger still, I am actually feeling turned off by the thought of beer lately. I’ve been feeling much better about my physique since I gave it up: I don’t wake up in the morning with an air-filled beer belly any more, and I never have that belchy feeling that you have to try and hide because you’re just such a damn lady.

The wedding is this Saturday and initially, I was terrified of being in a crowd without a bottle in hand to keep me company. (Hey, if you’ve no date to hold hands with…)

I’m feeling more and more confident as time goes by, more and more happy with my decision to stop with this unhealthy habit before it gets the better of me.

I still can’t decide if I will celebrate with a drink when my 65 days are up. I don’t know when they will be up, for that matter.

Did you read that? It is on my mind so infrequently that I have stopped counting the days and I am not rushing to my calendar this moment to find out.

I’m so proud of myself this week. So very, very proud of me.

I spent today with my two favorite women, driving around the countryside on errands and discussing the world’s problems. Of course, in discussing the world’s problems, we started with our own, because really, the world actually DOES start with us. Its just that most of the people in it don’t realize that yet.

I’m forever confused because of my history with mental health specialists. (Not just the part of the psych consult where they ask you if you’ve ever seen or heard things that other people may not see or hear.)

Granted, some of the time that I’ve been involved with mental health people hasn’t been that successful. (I’m sure some of you recall that time where I was almost killed by a doctor who just didn’t get why my medicine wasn’t working… so she prescribed enough to send most creatures with ‘equine’ in their Latin names through the moon.)

But by and large, I’ve had success. Its a matter of the proper people in place to take care of you; the right professionals at your disposal.

I just find it incredibly upsetting that everyone doesn’t have those things in place, that I can get the proper care for me, yet other people can’t get the proper care for them.

A dear friend and I have recently been discussing our single status. We were trying to think up a plan of action last night so that we could avoid having the same conversation over again five years from now. (Or even on a weekly basis from now until five years from now.)

My friend is always quick to point out that I don’t actually want to date, or so I claim, so I don’t really get to complain. I have to say, for all my talk of man-hating, she sort of has a point.

The problem with me lamenting my single status is that I absolutely adore this glorious single-dom. I’m not sure if its the overwhelming number of duds I’ve gone out with or what, but I hate all the to-do that comes with dating someone.

This is not to say that the opportunity to date has not come my way from time to time. I’ve been told what an asshat I am for dumping a number of very suitable suitors for ridiculous reasons. In fact, I get told that regularly.

I suppose the problem is that in being alone, you know what you are going to get. I know that after work, I’m probably going to ride my horse, hang out with my family, maybe play some tunes on the guitar and make some plans around the Ranch. I know that at no point will I sit staring expectantly at the phone, willing the person I love to make it ring. I’ll never have to stand around, all dolled up and with freshly waxed legs, knowing that I’m being stood up. I can pass out in front of all the lame movies that I want, and I never have to wake up in a puddle of anyone’s drool but my own.

Like I said, glorious. This single life is simply glorious.

But then why do I go through a phase every now and then thinking, Man, it sure as hell would be nice to have someone to call on the phone, to cuddle up next to while I watch Degrassi re-runs?

Life at the Ranch House has seemed stressful lately. Perhaps that’s because since the twenty-third of May we’ve had something going on literally EVERY SINGLE DAY. No joke. Eight weeks of radiation therapy overlapped my moving home, graduating university, buying a horse, and going to berry season. Since we returned home from BerryLand, we’ve had visitors or something on each day.

Now, some of it has been brought on myself, no doubt. The horse, garden, yard work and so forth I’ve been doing? All my choosing. And of course, we could have opted out of berry season this year, but really… its kind of a must for the female members of this household to attend berry season.

So, I’ve booked myself a vacation. Sort of last minute, I suppose, but last night I talked to my dear friend Mal, and it was decided that I should come stay with her for six days. Hurrah!

Bring on the beer drinking, sleeping in, ready access to high speed internet, chain smoking, late nights, napping all day, reading mindless novels, AND NOT SWEATING FOR ONE SINGLE SECOND.

Damn, this is gonna be good.

I’m always scared to get involved with a new endeavour for a variety of reasons. The number one reason is heartbreak.

I become heartbroken very easily. I am hyper sensitive and can find myself curled up in the fetal position, weeping, because someone ate the last of the potato chips. I’m not sure if this relates to being a crazy person, or if I’m just really, really special; either way, heartbreak scares me. Mostly because all the booze it takes me to recover is so expensive.

I’m going to look at a horse this morning. My last horse broke my heart in many ways: Partly because I should have been more diligent with his training, and if I had been, perhaps I wouldn’t even need to look at a horse tomorrow. He also broke my heart because the day I met him, Christmas day, I fell completely head over heels in love with him. He was sweet and gentle, and nibbled on the palm of my hand. I groomed and tacked him and hopped on him and everything went perfectly on that first day.

We had a few more relatively successful rides together, and then, slowly but surely, all hell seemed to break loose. Perhaps he just wasn’t happy in his environment after having spent so much time in a professional stable on a race track. Perhaps he had a mood disorder, perhaps any number of things, but regardless: He got mean. He got scary. And he got dangerous. He had to go.

I had enough time to accept that he would be leaving, because his shift in personality was gradual. So I wasn’t that heartbroken the day he left.

My father has laid down the LAW with regards to the horse we’re looking at tomorrow. I AM NOT allowed to fall in love with this horse until after he has inspected it. He has to have good teeth, sound legs, be in good physical shape, not have heaves or foot cracks or any of a million other problems that horses can have. And then I have to make up my mind about him.

So here’s to trying not to put myself out there until we’ve seen and ridden the horse, because Lord knows if I see him in the stall, if he looks at me with big, Thoroughbred Chestnut Gelding eyes and sniffs my shoulders, I will fall in love with him immediately.

AND WE CAN’T HAVE ME FALLING IN LOVE WITH THOROUGHBRED CHESTNUT GELDINGS WHO HAVE CRACKED HOOVES.

Perhaps I should have my father take over my dating life as well?

Falling in Love, Thoroughbred Chestnut Gelding, Horse Shopping, Buying a Horse, Equestrian

My mother and I have become addicted to ER on DVD, so addicted that we are going to cancel all the fancy channels on our satellite dish because really, why bother watching TLC when we could drool over Dr. Kovac and Dr. Benton? I mean, really. I’m sure there are hotties on What Not To Wear, but in the long run, our time is much better spent oggling people who aren’t gay.

There have been several scenes from this season that have struck nothing but pure, unadulterated terror into my heart. I’ve watched Abby’s mother be restrained, sedated, carried hither and yon. She suffers from Bipolar disorder and Abby has lived her life wondering what will happen to her mother next. In the episode we watched last night, she had holed up in a motel in Oklahoma, refusing to leave.

This is part of the problem with being Insane, even though at this point, I am completely sane. What if I lose it again?

No matter where I go, or what I do, I will always be a person who is Insane. I have to wonder sometimes, what if I turn out like that? What if, as time goes on, I’m the type of person who ends up screaming and flailing her arms in a hospital emergency room, with doctors surrounding her and demanding Haldol from the nurses?

I’ve never been at that point. At one point hospitalization was discussed, but it was my choice. I chose to go home and have my family care for me until I was better. But what if I had no family? What if I had no mother, no father, no Dixie-Dawg to comfort me and make me better? What then?

My biggest fear is losing my mind past the point where I will be aware that my mind is lost. And this is the problem with being me: No matter where I go or what I do, no matter what is happening in my life at the time, there will always be that fear. That pit of your stomach fear that the Insanity will come up out of nowhere and wrestle me into Its grips. That I will have to fight a battle that I can not win.

This fear does not overwhelm me on a daily basis. This fear does not control me, or interfere with my ability to live my life.

But it is always there, in the back of my mind, and sometiems I really wonder what I would do if it came out and jumped up from behind the curtains at me one more time.

My best friend spent the day with me today, sitting on the couch in my new room, chain smoking and giving me Hell for becoming someone who I’m not.

I led another life a long time ago, and I don’t wish to divulge any information about that other life other than at this point, I had everything I ever wanted, every dream come true. Shortly thereafter it all blew up in my face, leaving me a steaming mess of debris that needed to be picked up and carted away.

I’m not sure how you go about getting over the past. Sometimes I’m not sure how to go about getting over the present.

My best friend is a wonderful friend in that when everything goes to Hell, she tells it exactly like it is, with whatever amount of harshness is required. She said today that I need to move on, I need to get over this person I’ve become and go back to being the old me. Its been a number of years now, and its time to move forward.

Surprisingly, the truth didn’t hurt too much today. I find that usually the truth stings as though you’ve just ground salt into an open wound, but today it all sank in and made perfect sense.

I suppose I’m just writing today to sing the praises of being surrounded by wonderful people. I really needed to hear what my best friend had to say, and I think I’m probably a better person for it.

Sometimes being beaten about the ears with a big old stick of truth turns out to be the best thing to happen to you since prescription sedatives and beer.

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.

Today was moving day for me, a day that I have been looking forward to since about six months after I moved to the Big City. I chose University on a whim: I ran into an old high school teacher in the grocery store, and when he asked what I was doing with myself, I told him a combination of this and that. He smiled warmly and mentioned that he had always assumed I would go on to University.

And thus, I packed up my mother’s Saturn Vue, my little Cavalier, and drove away to study Sociology. I had with me an assortment of unfashionable clothing, a picture of Elvis Presley, my late Grandmother’s Venetian glass geese, and pictures of family members and pets from home.

I know that material possessions are not supposed to matter to us as humans; that our family, friends, and spirituality should feed us all we need in order for our souls to be full.

That is a very nice, romantic notion and all but personally, I think the person who came up with that line of thinking was on crack. And perhaps large doses of Valium.

I’m not sure if there is something extra special about my experience away at school or if I just over-react to everything that could go on in my life. I suspect that it is a combination of both. I could re-hash everything that’s gone on in the last three years, but instead I’ll sum it up with this: Brother overseas twice; living conditions that dyed my hair orange; dealing with an institution I would grow to hate; dates with individuals who not only fog your house with foul odors but who bring knitting apparel with them in case they get bored; some major health issues within the family; and of course, my personal favorite: I’m a freakin’ lunatic.

Being a lunatic is hard work, but I comfort myself with the thought that somebody needs to do it. The cosmic forces, the powers that be, God, Mother Nature, faulty brain chemicals: Blame who you will, but I have been one of the chosen many who gets to be insane. I can deal with that.

Dealing with that, however, gets tricky when it feels like all the duct tape in the world will not keep your brain properly located within your skull and like there is a snake-like creature wrapping it’s way around your intestines trying to suck the oxygen right out of your body by contracting itself around your ribcage.

The things that I moved with me in my little car, with the help of my parents that day three years ago are what brought me back to my sanity on many occasions. I make it a point to keep my home as my haven, where no bad can happen to me and where nothing icky gets in. I keep beautiful candles on the shelves, I surround myself with pictures of the people I love, I generally try to ensure that it smells nice, and I keep everything arranged in such a fashion that if a strong wind blows and something shifts out of place, I have a sixth sense that can feel it the minute I walk in.

I was discussing with a friend the fact that your whole life can be packed up into boxes and shipped from one location to another. It is odd how family members can show up at your door at nine a.m. on a Sunday bearing coffee and muscle power, and suddenly you are transformed from a city-living university student to an aspiring fruit farmer living with her parents.

My mother and I spent the whole day today creating me a new haven in a new bedroom in our family home. I lovingly unpacked and hung up my – still completely unfashionable – wardrobe. I unwrapped pictures and candles, made up my bed with my comforter and freshly washed flannel sheets. I may be one of the chosen many who has to be insane, but I am also one of the chosen few who gets to live with the luxuries I do: I now have a completely re-designed bedroom housing my clothes, my knick-knacks, my candles and pictures. I can arrange them how I want whenever I want to arrange them; the room smells fresh and warm when you walk in and the divine thickness of the blankets on the bed feel like they are calling your name and reaching longingly for you when you walk by.

I have to say that I should not really re-enforce this kind of obsessive behavior because obsessing over things is a dangerous and slippery slope. At the same time, however, I feel a strong desire to urge every person I know to make themselves their own haven where they can be safe from the world and where no evil can happen; where they are secure and surrounded by things that remind them of happiness, warmth, and shelter.

I managed to make it out of grade school without an official diagnosis of anything, and sometimes I wonder if my life would have turned out differently had I not been so stuck on denying completely that I had anything wrong with me.

Before the end of the eighth grade, I had been interviewed by a counsellor at school who I smiled brightly to and told her that I never had any thoughts that might be out of the ordinary. No, Ma’am! Not me! I’m not crazy! I was scared for a variety of reasons from a young age. Mostly I was scared of being teased by my peers further than I was already. Mostly I was scared of facing something I couldn’t understand.

I made it out of public school and on into high school relatively unscathed. I started dating, I started skipping class, talking on the phone, occasionally flipping through a text book, and going to school dances when I could. It was ok, I suppose, although looking bac I have to say that high school was terrible, and who doesn’t hate high school?

Sane people, I think.

The first time I actually really and truly feared for my mind was when I was seventeen. The exact circumstances, in retrospect are entirely unimportant. What is important is that I HAD LOST MY MIND.

It was at this point that I gave up sleeping and all my life I had been a fantastic sleeper. I also gave up on most of my social activities in order to stay at home and laze about in my pajamas. I love pajamas to this day. I rarely actually wear real pajamas and instead I choose to steal oversized T-shirts from people I love and pair them up with jogging pants. I always wear something that belongs to someone else when I feel down because it’s like having a piece of them right there with you. Or it’s not at all like having someone right there with you, and there is just something comforting in swimming about on the couch in a shirt that is large enough to hold you and three of your closest friends.

I think the thing that scared me the most was that people would think I was crazy. I didn’t want to be like someone out of a movie. I thought for sure that the minute I was diagnosed with something, anything, that I would turn into a raving, screaming lunatic being carried about by large men in white jackets and into an institution.

I don’t know why I had this fear. I had never witnessed an even like that in my life, but it was a paralyzing fear that led me to stay away from discussing the thoughts that went through my head all the time with anyone.

As a result of my inability to sleep, I also encountered an inability to eat and I lost copious amounts of weight during the first months.

I suppose that it is time, once again, to give praise to good medical attention because a person really can’t do without it. I was so sure that my doctor would initially hear my complaints, leave the room, and come back followed by the people who were to carry me out. Instead, my doctor nodded. He listened to me. He wrote down what I was saying in my chart. He asked me questions. I was sitting curled up in a ball on the seat in his office, my fists wound up into the sleeves of my oversized sweatshirt, staring down at the ground with tears streaming down my cheeks. And rather than getting up and injecting me with some kind of sedative before tying me to a stretcher?

He listened. He listened and later that night as I sat in my giant clothing on the couch beside my mother, this overwhelming feeling of Dear God, I’m in my own house and not locked up somewhere and not being sedated by strangers who think I’m not fit to be in with the rest of society.

I have to say that my initial appointment with the doctor was one of the most relieving things I’ve ever done in my life.

Amanda

The problem with mental health issues is that a lot of the time, you can’t just turn it off. You can’t choose when to be crazy.

I would be entirely comfortable in my Insanity if I could choose when to be so. Like signing up for shifts at work. I’d have no trouble signing up for split shifts of Insanity every Tuesday, Friday, and Wednesday from seven a.m. to ten a.m., and then again from eleven p.m. until one a.m. I’d be perfectly willing to give in to the Insanity during those hours, because I’d still be free to watch ER on Thursdays and Degrassi on Mondays.

One of the things that acompanies my Insanity is an almost complete inability to sleep.

The longest I went without sleep, without even an hour of shut-eye, was four days. Previous to that, I had been unable to sleep but could still find some comfort in the odd afternoon nap or treat myself to a little pre-sunrise dozing.

It was the hours between one and five in the morning that really did me in because all I wanted to do was to take something and shut off the things that were running through my mind. I would spend hours lying in my bed, staring at complete darkness, with anxiety coming over me in such a fashion that it felt like a serpent. It would begin at my legs, completely coiled around them. And then it would work its way up to my abdomen, where it would begin in a pulsating motion that made me feel nauseous. Eventually it would work its way around my ribcage and my shoulders, making it difficult to breath and impossible to relax. I could not take a deep cleansing breath, I could not recite relaxation poems, I could not take a walk.

I would simply lay in the darkness night after night with This Thing That Makes My Brain Hurt and wish that there was some sort of off switch.

I was running the tap tonight to wash my hands — yes, I really am that hygenic. I wash my hands and sometimes I perform this action so frequently that I could bathe the entire army of homeless men who live on my street if I gave it up for a week — and I turned off the tap. And that’s when it hit me that there really is a way to turn off this thing called Insanity.

I can’t really say what the best thing for everyone who suffers from mental health issues should do. Some people firmly believe that a total lifestyle makeover will do it, and other believe that the perfect combination of herbal teas can make it better. Some people believe in holistic medicine, or faith, or traditional remedies, or modern medicine.

But I eventually was able to turn off the Insanity. It took some time and it took some doing, but I did it.

And now I’m a free person, and I’m not even working split shifts with Insanity three days per week. I’m just me, and it feels really good right now to be me.

I look at each episode of mental health issues as a stepping stone: After each one, I realize something really good, like the fact that I’ve now proven to myself several times that I can control it (with the right help). Hopefully the next time my mind decides to take leave of its position in the deep recesses of my brain, I can manage to remember this wonderful little tidbit.

Amanda

I took this picture last fall, after an incompetent doctor tried to kill me with ultra high doses of anti-depressants. It’s unfortunate that it has to happen, but some medical professionals are just not that adept when it comes to dealing with medical issues that aren’t black and white. As I’ve learned, very little in this world is black and white. Very little actually makes sense, and when you’re little and your parents tell you that life isn’t fair?

They weren’t lying.

I’m not sure why I did take this photo. I think it says a lot about my mood at the time: All I wanted to do was to make the anxiety that was coursing up and down the length of my body go away. Sometimes when I’ve had a bad day, deep inhalation on a cigarette can make it stop. Other times a beer or two can make it stop.

But when your anxiety gets out of control, beyond the point where deep breathing is going to do any good, relying on your favorite vices isn’t going to help, either. It’s a cold hard fact, and one that’s hard to accept a lot of the time.

Most of all, though, this picture makes me think that there is so much more that you don’t see. You don’t see that these objects, these things that I rely on to link me back to sanity, are sitting on my mother’s kitchen table. You don’t see that the room is sunny and bright, and that my mother and I are laughing about how ridiculous it is to photograph one’s drugs before washing them down with beer. (Which is not something you should do. Just, you know, as an FYI).

Does it make you think anything in particular?