re mental illness, meds, & visibility

I'm struggling with my medication right now.

If I take the lower dose of welbutrin, the anxiety isn't so bad ...because I can't feel anything at all.
If I take the higher dose of welbutrin, the anxiety is uncontrollable and I have panic attacks even in the best circumstances.

If I take the prozac to augment the higher welbutrin dose, the anxiety is controllable but I basically can't get up off my ass. It's like there's a layer of not-yummy jello between me and the world.

If I take the prozac with the lower dose of welbutrin, I'm a zombie. And not the runner type, more the dazed-and-confused-moaner type.

If I don't take the prozac with the lower dose of welbutrin, I don't sleep. Ever. That makes me cranky. (Okay, not not ever but it sure feels like it.)

For now, in case you're wondering, I'm doing the lower dose of welbutrin with no prozac, and reducing my caffeine intake while putting several anti-insomnia tactics to work each night. So far, I've slept at least a little for 3 out of 4 nights.

~~~

That said, I've decided not to hide my mental illness from potential employers. I'll probably regret that.

Also, that sounds bad but it's not like anyone would go into an interview and be like, "yeah, I'm basically not functional 50% of the time, but I'm totally capable of pushing through that and getting the job done, it'll just hurt while I'm doing it. A lot. And I'll be irritable and apathetic, but I'll hide that really well because I have a TON of practice. No worries."

And what I really mean is that I'm not going to attempt to minimize my mental health conversations online (on fb, twitter, and my blogs) in order to present a "normal" image.

I hesitated to post about my medications - even though that's exactly the sort of thing I started this personal blog for - because I know that some of my potential future colleagues (i.e., other academics) might see this blog. Some of them are on my fb. Some of them are on my twitter feed.

So yeah, it has occurred to me that I shouldn't post *this thing about major depressive disorder* or *that thing about ptsd* but then I remind myself that if I want this stigma to ever end, someone has to take the risk of being honest about the realities of (my) mental illness. And I'm actually okay with being that person. It's just my socialization-derived instincts that fear being truthful about uncomfortable stuff.

I see you, fear. I'm just not gonna let you make my decisions. Cuz I got TONS of practice with pushing through bullshit emotions. 

thought control [The Happiness Trap]

When I was growing up, my heroes were the strong, silent cowboys in my dad's favorite movies. The John Waynes and Clint Eastwoods. I wanted to be them. Totally in control of myself. Calm and collected at all times... until righteously angry. That's when they got devastating. Their anger left people dead in the dusty western streets, but somehow they always seemed in control. Even enraged, they were men of few words.

Women in my life and in those movies were always reacting. Their decisions were reactions; their emotions were reactions; their reactions were dramatic and attention-grabbing; their reactions were either overblown or manipulative. They were never in control. People in control don't require manipulation - they can say what they want.

But the cowboys were self-sufficient. They didn't need anything or anyone, and they didn't want anything other than what they already had, other than the occasional vengeance. Their monolithic essence was the epitome of control.


I wanted to be in control of myself.

I spent a lot of my first two decades being told I wasn't in charge of myself.
Girls can't be mechanics. Or race car drivers. Or in control. Or allowed to say no. 

Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I'd felt more allegiance to my assigned gender. I don't really know what it feels like to be any gender, but I've always been taught that being a girl sucked. Somewhere in there I learned to associate masculinity with self-control, and self-control with maintaining a flat affect.


Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
Get over it. 
Snap out of it.
Don't be a crybaby.
Don't be such a girl.
Keep a stiff upper lip.
Don't be sad.
Smile.


No wonder I rejected all things "girly."
No wonder I rejected showing my emotions.

No wonder I felt so much shame when I developed a depressive disorder and couldn't hide the pain.


My therapist loaned me a book, and it's making me rethink my entire approach to emotion and expression.

I've valued manners for more of my life than I can remember. They're important, because they're a means of kindness, and kindness is what makes society best. Manners meant not subjecting other people to your negative emotions. Manners meant being nice, always, because situations never improve with cruelty and I'm too practical to do otherwise. Manners are an ideal to aspire to.

I still believe manners are important, and a means of spreading kindness. I still believe that rudeness or unkindness never improve a situation and that we should always be kind. I still believe that having good manners is something we should constantly work toward. ...But: I no longer equate being 'nice' with completely subjugating my emotional reality, but this is not an either-or situation. The people in my life - including me - have benefitted from my ability to sublimate my emotional turmoil when a calmer mind was needed. Unchecked anger and retaliation never improve a situation, and I have no desire for petty vengeance.

So, what's different now? I am increasingly willing to express discomfort, unhappiness, and even anger. I'm not always able - a lifetime of suppression coupled with some serious social anxiety make that a hard habit to break - but I'm willing. And in safe spaces, I'm able. I still try to temper my unhappiness and anger with compassion for the other person's feelings, even if they're being an ass. I'm usually successful, and that's not something I want to change. It goes along with that whole manners thing.


[That book is The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. What I get farther, I might do a review. So far it's inspired a lot of thought - in a good way - and I'm only in chapter 1.]

on Depression

I know why I like music so much: It makes me feel something.

Depression sucks all the color out of experiences. Depression is apathy, it is lethargic, it is inertia. In the grip of depression, I feel nothing. I feel no hate, no anger, no love, no pleasure. Nothing.

Music lends me emotions. I borrow them until I can feel my own. 

Depression has led me to allow a lot of abuse in my life. It kept me from leaving an emotionally abusive ex-husband. Eventually he left me. I filed for divorce two years after he said goodbye. Depression kept me from fighting that rapist; I was emotionally paralyzed, mentally separated from my body; nothing mattered. 

Depression has prohibited me from expressing emotion, because I had none to express.

Is emotion the primary source of human motivation? You'd think so if you could watch the reel of my life. I never accomplished much that I wanted to accomplish. My ambitions have been stymied by involuntary inertia.

Depression has kept me from laughing at my son's jokes. It has kept me from hugging my husband back when he comforts me. Later, these memories fuel the guilt-laden loneliness that precedes a new cycle of apathy. 

I understand the appeal of masochism: when your emotions are blank, physical pain is a blessing because it's reassuring to know you can still feel something. 

Depression is mental paralysis. 

building happiness

I have Major Depressive Disorder.
Some of you already knew that. It's not a secret.

When my medication works: It's as though that gray cloud that's hanging over me, is just hanging there. It does not shrink or lift, but it does not rain, either. The medication removes the immediacy, the weight, of Depression, but does nothing to fill that void with happiness, or with anything at all. The happiness I must work for.

That work involves building my home into a sanctuary, a place a feel a strong, healing connection with. I am an animist, and I feel strongly the flows of energy around me. All things have a spirit, an energy; this is the basis for my connection with my home, once it is built. This is also the way I heal best. Without my sanctuary - without a place I can go that is a safehaven, a shelter from all the hurt out there in the world - I am ungrounded. Being ungrounded unnerves me, and makes me unhappy. I learned this very recently.

When I moved into a new house at the end of August, I knew it would be tough. I did not know the move would send me into one of the most difficult depressive episodes I have experienced in recent memory. I figured out fairly soon (mid-move) that the episode was connected to the move. I thought it was just the change. The stress. The challenges. A normal reaction to a difficult time for anyone, but especially for someone with MDD (or other mental illnesses, I'm sure).

Perhaps a week ago, I had a particularly bad night. In the worst depths, I began writing down my thoughts. Understand that my thoughts when I'm in the grip of Depression are not reliable in the details, but they often reveal the underlying trigger(s) for that particular event. In this case, the thought that came out was clear: I miss my home, I wrote. I miss the safety, the sanctuary of my little house.

Just a few mornings ago, a conversation with Archer - my soulfriend - clarified my feelings for us both. I needed to feel the connection I'd had with my old house; I needed to build that connection with my new house. Without it, I feel like a stranger usurping the space within this building, intruding in the house's domain. So I will build a relationship with my new house.

This is the work of happiness.

It includes a list of things to do: hanging the rest of the pictures and art, organizing the bathroom drawers, sweep up the already-accumulating dog hair, et cetera.

It includes organizing my container garden in its new home.
A gift came from an unexpected new friend, just after our unexpected move. It was a wormwood plant, an herb sacred to Hel. It's thriving in the sunlit porch of this house. 

It also includes a ritual of bonding, in which I will introduce myself to the house-spirit, and entrust it with the protection of my self and my family. Together, the house-spirit and I will ward this space, while I weave my roots to its anchored beams. I will ground myself in this home, and create a sanctuary of it. Then, I will welcome my gods to join this bond: Sretya, who holds the luck of homes; Hel, who keeps truth and order in life and death; Bast, who brings joy to those who wait; and Odin, who guides the steps of wisdom-seekers. My altar will be built, and my guardians will be placed.

I will come home.

I'm making it: cleaning houses and finding balance

I finished my bachelor's degree last spring, majored in psychology and anthropology, minored in history, so now I can clean houses full time and work more hours at the cafe.

I can't, at this point, go back to working an office job. A "real job" as my mother called it. She apologized for saying that, acknowledging that cleaning houses was, in fact, a real job that results in real money. But she'd like to see me in a career. Something that pays the bills a lot more easily. It just can't happen yet.

Mostly I say this is because my son isn't ready to go back to public school, and working close to home and on a relatively flexible schedule allows me to continue homeschooling him. My goal is to have him ready for public school by the 2015 school year. He's seeing a therapist, who is working with me to help him with his social anxiety. All this is true. Even if I wanted a 'regular' job, he wouldn't be ready for me to be gone that much.

I don't want a regular job. Well, part of me does, but not the rational part. I'd love to have a steady, and larger, income with benefits and all that fun stuff. I'd love to know what work I was going to be doing that month, and the next. I'd be an awesome park ranger, or historian, or researcher.

The rational part of me knows that I have not won the battle with my depression, and in any job that is only a job, not a passion, I will crumble and give way. I will start the work with excitement, just happy to have a job. But depression will creep in eventually, and I'll do something - show up late, not finish assignments, whatever - and get fired, or laid off.

For now I'll keep working at the cafe and cleaning houses, which keep me physically moving and don't allow me to wallow. The happiness of my customers in both jobs is rewarding enough to make me come back, on time, every day. And soon I'll apply for graduate school. With a Master's degree, I can teach. That has always been my favorite work, and I could do that joyfully, in spite of my depression.

I'm having good days - when I end the day with smiles from the homeowners and cash in my pocket - and bad days - when the bank tells me I can't spend all that cash - but here's to hoping the balance will find more good days than bad. I have a few years left before I qualify for the 'real' job I can handle.