I need some advice.

It’s been a really, really long time. Sorry.

To keep it short, I’ve been ultra-rapid cycling. I’m not sleeping at night, I’m miserable in so many different ways, and I’m not really capable of handling…well, life. I dropped out of school. I started a new med called Topamax, which is supposed to help with rapid cycling, among other things. Fingers crossed.

On to the advice I need:  I’m looking for a new therapist, which is quite the feat in the area in which I live. Before I call anyone, I’d like the opinion of others that have had more experience with therapy than I have. What is your experience with psychotherapy and/or CBT? If you’ve experienced both, which do your prefer and why?

I would really appreciate some insight so I can avoid shopping around for a therapist (as much as possible). Thanks in advance!

 

The word “depression” is more overplayed than Gotye.

I think you get it. So I’m just going to jump right into this one. These are merely my opinions with some research of the opinions of professionals. If these opinions piss you off…well, I warned you in my very first blog post.

Depression =/= Having a bad day.
Everyone wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. Who hasn’t woken up grumpy and annoyed and easily irritated by everything? I have days like that, just ask my husband. It’s fine, he has days like that, too. Compared to depression, it’s apples vs oranges. However, during times like these, a lot of people say, “I’m just feeling depressed today.” Um, no. No you aren’t. It’s so frustrating to hear someone who has no clue how dark, painful, and all-consuming depression is say that they are “depressed”. Actually, you are human. Welcome to life.

Depression =/= Unhappiness.
Depression is not an emotion. Being unhappy is. They are not synonymous. They are not interchangeable. Check your vocabulary and switch some shit around in your mind, because it’s really not cool to belittle a disease into an emotion.

Depression =/= Disappointment.
Oh, you’re depressed because Halloween is over and you looooooove Halloween and you have to wait a whole year to celebrate again? No. Oh, It’s just so depressing that your favorite football team lost in the playoffs? No. Things that suck are NOT depressing. Don’t throw around a term that represents deep pain, debilitating helplessness and hopelessness, ruined lives, and lost lives like it’s nothing. Finishing a book series you loved is not depressing. You might not mean it offensively, but it’s really insensitive. So stop it.

Depression =/= Going through something really rough (sort of).
This is going to be very extensive as it is much more complicated than any other topic. I’m going to try to tread lightly with this one, because situational depression (also called “reactive depression” or “adjustment disorder”) is very real and can be a dark place. I don’t intend to invalidate that in any way. Treading lightly is not an innate skill I was blessed with, to say the least, so this is me genuinely trying to state my opinion gently because I don’t want to sound unempathetic (which apparently is not a word but I’m going to stick it to the red squiggly line and use it anyway). So, with that said…situational depression, while very similar to clinical depression, is not the same. I’m sorry if that right there offends anyone, truly I am. But that’s…well, I won’t say it’s a fact because I can’t say that. But it is my opinion and the opinion of many psychiatrists and specialists. Yes, I have read articles on this topic, rather than just basing it off of my personal opinion alone. Situational depression can be debilitating, I do understand this. But they aren’t exactly alike. It’s not apples to oranges, but it’s not apples to apples either (holy shit I understand the name of the game now, did everyone else already know this?). Perhaps it’s grapes to raisins. You can decide which is which. There are some glaring differences between the two, and I will tackle each of them. As I said, this is a topic I’ve read a lot about, so this is not just 100% my opinion.

Suicidal thoughts:
Of course, someone suffering from situational depression can have suicidal thoughts. But they are typically felt or expressed when focusing on or somehow facing the situation. These thoughts can still be scary and should always be taken seriously; no matter what reason you have, if you think you might act on any suicidal thoughts, call 911 or go to the ER immediately. With that said, in the case of situational depression, the severity of suicidal thoughts is much lower than with clinical depression. Another significant difference between suicidal ideation in situational depression and clinical depression is typically the thoughts going into them. With situational depression, you might feel hopeless about a situation you can’t change, that a loss is too big to live with, or that you can’t live with the new change in your life. Clinical depression is very different in this sense. It’s a nasty monster in your head. It takes your biggest insecurity and attacks it. It tells you you are worthless, that the people around you wish you weren’t in their life, that your loved ones would genuinely be better off without you. It eats at you constantly. This is why suicidal thoughts are commonly passing (and scary) thoughts for someone suffering from situational depression, while for someone with clinical depression, it’s a much different story. I don’t know many depression statistics, but I do know that up to 50% of people with bipolar disorder attempt suicide.

Cause and the emotions that creates:
This one is much easier. Obviously, situational depression stems from a tragic, traumatic, or just straight up shitty event. Clinical depression stems from nothing, except your brain being an asshole. Situational depression is easier to look at, to face, and to handle in this sense. You know why you are depressed. If someone asked you what was up, you might say, “I’m just depressed,” but I’m sure that within five minutes of honest conversation you would spill out exactly what’s causing it. In the case of clinical depression, you’re just going through life, bebopping along, when BAM, depression pops up out of nowhere and punches you in the face. You’re knocked down and it doesn’t matter how badly you want to get up. Depression stands there with its foot on your head, looking down and taunting you, calling you terrible names and telling you awful things about yourself. With situational depression, you don’t want to do anything because you’re just too bloody depressed. With clinical depression, you want nothing more than to be able to do anything at all. Situational depression makes it extremely difficult to do the things you need to do; clinical depression can make it impossible. Which of course makes you feel even more like shit. It kills my pride as a mommy to have to have my mom come stay with me and take care of my kids and house. It absolutely kills me. But it wouldn’t be fair to my children if I didn’t accept the help that I so desperately need at times like that. The help that not all are blessed to have. Regardless, it straight up sucks.

Treatment:
No matter the reason, someone suffering from depression should speak to their doctor about it. The general rule is if it doesn’t let up in about two weeks, talk to your doctor. The typical treatments for situational depression are things like exercise, proper nutrition, sleep cycle regulation, and most commonly talk therapy. These things are also beneficial to someone suffering from clinical depression; however in most cases, medication is needed. For someone with bipolar disorder, it’s a million billion (roughly) times more complicated because our brains extra suck ass and antidepressants alone swing us way too far the other way. I’ve never met someone who was medicated for bipolar disorder and was only on one medication. I’m sure there are people on lithium alone, but I don’t know them. Even the people I know who are on lithium also take an antidepressant and/or an anti-anxiety medication. Point being, well, I don’t know. I guess I went a medication tangent. Sorry.

Length of feeling like shit time:
This is an easy one. Situational depression:  Hang in there! Experts say that by six months at most, people suffering from situational depression should adjust to the new life circumstances and see that cloud finally lifting. Just be prepared that if you’ve suffered an episode of depression, there is a chance that depression will be an asshat and come back to visit the next time your life gets flipped upside down by an event, loss, or change. Clinical depression:  Well, you hang in there, too! But who knows how the hell long you’ll be depressed, and when things start looking up, enjoy it because depression will come back at some point to bite you in the ass out of nowhere.

Well, I think that’s more than enough on that topic. Point is, situational depression and clinical depression both suck, but clinical depression is simply more severe.

Depression = Having the life sucked out of you.
This is a quote I saw on Facebook that is so incredibly accurate:

“Depression is such a cruel punishment. There are no fevers, no rashes, no blood tests to send people scurrying in concern. Just the slow erosion of self, as insidious as any cancer. And like cancer, it is essentially a solitary experience. A room in hell with only your name on the door.”
– Martha Manning, Undercurrents

I’ll leave you guys with that. Sorry I haven’t been posting very much. I am still struggling with depression but things are starting to look up a bit. But unfortunately life isn’t put on hold when I’m not capable of doing anything, so I am behind in many aspects of life right now. I’ll try to post more frequently, though. I always feel better after writing a post.

Also, I am attempting to pull together stories from friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers alike for a blog post. I want to have a post full of the stories of other people, and how mental illness has affected their life. So far I only have three stories. It can be about your own mental illness, or someone you love; parent, child, spouse, sibling, neighbor, it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re willing to be open and share your story. I can post it anonymously or with your first name (and preferably age) whichever you prefer. I can also link to your blog/website if you’d like. Email me your story at hopeisreal124@gmail.com  

Your Story, Part One – Who the hell did I marry?

My main goal for this blog right now is to share the stories of people that are suffering from mental illness in many different ways, and from many different angles. The following was written by my husband:

“When I was 18, my idea of marriage was living with my wife, struggling through school, freedom from those tyrannical parents, eventually having kids, and then someday retiring together and dying of old age. I knew my fiancé was recently diagnosed with bipolar II and I had a pretty good understanding of the science part of the disorder. What I didn’t understand or anticipate was the effect that it would have on our lives and the support that would be required from me to try and keep her stable.

My wife and I met when we were 18, quickly fell in love, moved in together, and tied the knot all within our first year of knowing each other. We met shortly after I turned 18 in January and by June my then girlfriend was overdosing on DXM because her psychiatrist prescribed her antidepressants to diagnose her with either major depressive disorder or bipolar. That was my first introduction to someone with a mental illness. That was my first experience with someone who I was intimately involved with having a mental illness. By September we were out living on our own in a sketchy part of the county, living out our days working, going to school and getting fucked up like most responsible 18 year olds. What I didn’t realize at the time that a lot of our drinking and using recreational substances was to help her smother her emotions, fears, and insecurities.

I would spend all this time talking to her and trying to understand the illness and her past, comforting her when she was depressed and keeping her satisfied when she was manic. I was an enabler for some time when it came to her self harm because I didn’t know how to prevent her from hurting herself, so I would let her do it when she felt the need to. I realize now and feel guilty that all I would have had to do was take her out and do something fun, or talk it out with her until she felt like she would make it through the urge.

We spent a lot of time during the next few months living our lives this way and by December we were married. Most people my age couldn’t understand why anyone our age would get married, and to be honest I wasn’t sure I knew why, other than that I loved her and she made me happy. I also didn’t know how much more responsible I became for her well being. I thought that I all I had to do was talk to her and help cheer her up and satisfy her urges. I quickly learned that trying to cheer her up made her feel worse. It made her feel guilty and like shit that I wasn’t able to help her. My wife would convince me to call out of work to spend time with her, or keep her company. We moved many, many times just because she wanted to live someplace new and I always gave in. What I learned was that I wasn’t helping her. I was allowing her to succumb to her urges and her manic tendencies, costing us so much money and unsettling our lives repeatedly.

By April of 2011 we found out that we were pregnant with our daughter, and I didn’t know what to think. I love kids, and I wanted kids, but at the same time I was scared. Marriage wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be at the time, and I felt that having a child cemented me into a marriage. It forced me to make it work no matter what. I’m not saying that I didn’t love my wife, I just felt so exhausted from worrying about her self harm, dealing with her depression, and trying to satisfy her random manic urges, along with a few very nasty fights we had had. Ultimately I can say that our daughter helped keep us together. There were many times that I thought about leaving, told myself I could, but always came back to the thought of my daughter, which then made me feel that no, I vowed to this woman, I love her, and I will make it work no matter what. At this point I learned how to start saying no to her more frequently when she was manic, and that when she was depressed, I just needed to be there for her in case she wanted to talk, and to let her know that I loved her and was here for her. All the while I worked 40 hours a week and took care of bills, while being a student.

I don’t mean to make my marriage sound like it was entirely my wife’s fault that we had issues. I had some very serious screw ups, and hurt her very badly multiple times and have caused some long term trust issues between us. One thing that we have always struggled with was our personalities in a fight. She can be very combative and mean in a fight, while I tend to stonewall or make snarky comments that are rude and intended to strike low. She has called me some very terrible things, especially when she was pregnant with our son and her she was not being medicated (but that’s a whole other story that she will talk about later). Some of her temper is from her bipolar and she used to blame me for everything bad in our relationship because she genuinely felt that I was trying to hurt her and make her feel like shit.

At first I believed that all of these things were my fault, it took until my wife told me that she didn’t mean everything she said that I believed everything wasn’t my fault. These days were some of the worst days in our marriage, and after our son was born in February of 2013 my wife’s bipolar went from being depressed most of the time with very little mania to rapid cycling, mixed states insanity. I could tell the night after my son was born that my wife didn’t have the same connection to him that she did to our daughter, and by the time that we were leaving the hospital and she was having a panic attack about me leaving to go get the car to pick her up at the front, I knew something was wrong.

Progressively things got worse, my wife stopped being my wife, she wasn’t the woman I married, or so I thought. My understanding of her disorder grew during this time. I took my wife to the psych ward at our local hospital; I put her on a plane to Timberline Knolls, a residential female treatment center close to 2000 miles away from our kids and myself. I would call home as I was driving home from work and when she didn’t answer either her cell or house phone, I would panic, thinking I would come home to find her dead in our bed, or unconscious from blood loss. I was in crisis mode, just trying to make it through day in and day out, trying to keep our family together. I began to understand that the woman I came home too, was only half my wife; she was buried under this crippling pain, crying out for help.

My wife began a stable medication cocktail, and seeing her counselors frequently, and we began to notice improvements. Our children were not living with us for 6 months and they finally came home, my wife started college again, and while she has been stressed and overwhelmed she is back to herself. She is my wife again.

I don’t have this entire thing figured out, but I have learned quite a bit. Mental illness is just as much a disease as cancer; it is just as debilitating as a broken leg. Patience is key, with patience comes understanding of your partner’s disorder. Everyone will mess up from time to time and get frustrated or angry but the important thing is to apologize and remember that it isn’t your partner’s fault, it’s their illness. Sometimes your partner doesn’t need to be encouraged, they feel like shit and when you try to do nice things, they feel guilty for not just feeling better, so instead just lay with them, rub their back or their feet and just be there when they need you. Mental illness hurts everyone but remember that whatever you are feeling, your partner feels it ten times worse.”
Josh, 21

If you have any questions or comments for my husband, just leave them below and I will definitely pass them on. If you are interested in sharing your story or experience (it can be as long or as short as you would like), please email me at hopeisreal124@gmail.com

You probably won’t like me.

I feel like I need to preface this entire blog with a disclaimer: I am probably going to piss you off at some point. Why? Because I’m a bit of a clash of lifestyles. I swear like a sailor, I smoke too many cigarettes, a “date night” with my husband always includes a bar, and I love Jesus.

I have never liked the idea of living a double life; drink on Saturday, go to church on Sunday. Not my thing. So I am just me, the real me, 100% of the time. Perhaps God will convict me on my coarse language and whatnot, but right now (and in my entire measly four month relationship with God) He has bigger things He is working on in me. So if you’re offended by swearing, or if you’re offended by Jesus, I put up this disclaimer for you. I hope that you’ll stick around, because what I have to say is important.

I want to talk about pain, and I want to talk about hope. About depression, suicide, psychosis, anxiety, scary hospitals, medication hell, and so-bad-it’s-funny psychiatrists. And the feeling of standing on your own two feet again after believing it was never possible. I want to share the passion, compassion, humor, and desperation I have. I want to slash through stigmas, annihilate false ideas, and kick the shit out of ignorance. I want to share my story, and I want to hear yours.

So I hope and pray that you can overlook whatever it is about me that may be unpleasant to you.  The fact of the matter is, I’m going to swear, I’m going to talk about some terrible things, and I’m going to talk about Jesus. That’s probably going to offend or annoy many types of people. But I don’t care if you like me. I care if you listen.