Depression Talk

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