I'm not too good at keeping this blog updated, and to be honest, I've never been good at consistency in general. I started with the intention of writing regularly, but I guess other stuff just happens and I don't. But today I decided that I want to write and reflect on some things that have been going on in the past six months or so.
I have depression. I don't know what specific kind because I've never been evaluated or diagnosed. I don't know when it started, or what caused it exactly. I think I've always had this, and I think it runs in my family. However, the past couple years I've struggled with it more than I ever did before.
I don't know how to describe it. It's not just feeling down in the dumps like my blog title suggests. It's more than that. It impacts everything, and it doesn't just come and go like normal people's moods. It comes and it sets in and it stays. The things I like to do don't interest me anymore, not in the least, and although I can remember being interested I can't make myself feel it. Everything slows down... the way I think and even my physical movements. It feels as though I'm walking through water. You can probably imagine how much effort it takes to do normal, everyday things when I'm feeling this way.
The worst part of it is, I know what it is, that it's there, but simply knowing isn't enough to make it go away. There is no "cheering up." I've heard people say before, "what's there to be so sad about?" Well, my answer is, nothing. There is nothing to be sad about except for the way that I feel, and my inability to function like I know that I should be able to do.
A teacher of mine once told me about the importance of seeing depression like any other physical illness, and not like a personal flaw. Look at it like cancer or diabetes, he'd say, because it's an organic problem just like those diseases are. And I think most of the time I do see it that way, but I'm not sure other people do. I'll give you an example.
About 3 or 4 days into a big slump, when nothing lifts you up and all you feel is irritable and frustrated, people stop wanting to be around you. Or maybe you just perceive it that way? Either way, you try to pretend that you aren't miserable but you can only do so much of that. So you isolate yourself because you know how miserable you are to be around (you can't get away from yourself, after all) and you deal with it on your own, in silence. You try to think of things you can do to cheer up, but you don't want to do any of those things, and if you force yourself it winds up being a half-assed attempt, at best. So you just go back to bed and hope to sleep so you don't have to be conscious, or you try to find something to occupy your mind and take you away for a while. (That is, if you can concentrate.) It's really hard to treat something like this the same way that you would cancer, especially for the people that live around said depressed person.
The days mostly consist of getting through the day.
My last semesters in college have been pretty dreadful. My first few years I got straight A's and some B's. I had a 3.9 GPA and worked really hard for it. The last two semesters had a couple A's but also C's and I even failed a class. I didn't try too hard because I couldn't muster up the energy to care. The entire semester I knew it would happen, I knew what I "should" have been doing, but had no ambition to do any of it. It's like it sucked me in and there was nothing I could do to change it.
Like with any medical condition, I sought the help of a physician. I've known her for 13+ years, and when I sought her help I was given a six question quiz to screen for depression symptoms and was then told to choose between antidepressant A, B, C, D, or E. Well, how should I know? I end up choosing an SSRI because it helps with anxiety and depression, both of which I was experiencing. I knew a little bit about how they worked... the drug blocks the reuptake sites on the neuron where the serotonin is taken back in by the cell, which leaves more free serotonin to be available in the synapse. I figured I could use all the serotonin I can get. She gave me some pamphlets about depression and sent me on my way.
At the next checkup I say drug A isn't working 100%, she say's let's try B. Then C. I tried different things, I think the SSRI helped some but didn't work to relieve all the symptoms. She says to seek counseling, and I try, but counseling is expensive. I don't want to call up and ask for favors because I hate doing that, and that is the only way you find inexpensive/free counseling. (Unless you go to the counselors that give you printouts about depression.) I was referred to my CMH agency, and was denied because we had health insurance and made too much money (even though the insurance didn't cover mental health.) Also, because I was still able to function in school/work, my symptoms weren't "severe" enough to qualify.
Now, I am without health insurance, and I was off my meds for a while because my physician refused to refill my prescription without an office visit. I called her up again and she grudgingly refilled them, said rather tetchily that she wouldn't do it again without an appointment, that I needed counseling, and that she was "out of ideas for what to do for me."
I currently need to line up a new physician that isn't fed up with my problems, someone that can evaluate me and pinpoint exactly what my illness is and prescribe meds that can help with that, and find some sort of affordable counseling service that can help me with the cognitive side of depression. All without insurance. Yet, how do I do this when I can barely bring myself to get out of bed?
Increasingly, as I pull myself through day after day, I seem to lose hope that things will change. When, with each new day I wake up feeling miserable and irritable and sad, and I see the effect it has on the people around me, I feel like they are better off without me around. It's like people can only take so much of your despair before they start to wish you'd just knock it off already. Is that how it is with cancer and diabetes? Just knock off that cancer and get your shit together. (FYI- I'm not accusing anyone of treating me this way, it's just how I feel/perceive it, which admittedly may be skewed by the depression.)
Anyway, my intent in writing this today is not to upset anyone. Please don't worry. I will manage, as I always have done, and am not suicidal or anything. I'm just glum, and I don't know how to change that for myself. I feel stuck, and I don't know if that feeling is ever going to go away. I needed to say this because I hold it in all the time. I am tired of feeling this way.
