This post will be a nice break from all the mopey, depressing posts. I promise to ease up on those for awhile. Especially since I'm feeling so much better about life and such. So here is a post dedicated to the vacation we took back in June. A little late, I know, but I've been emo-blogging, being a mom and what not. Give me a break.
But don't worry. This is going to be the best kind of post - the kind with pictures. Everyone loves a blog with pictures because it doesn't require reading. I'll even help you along. All you need to know about our vacation is this:
San Diego, beach, sand, eating, naps, love, Penny, family, Nora, SD Zoo, Sea World, more eating, ELMO, more love.
I realize it's been quite a while since I've written and I only have pharmacology to blame. In the two months since I've been out of the hospital I've been to two different doctors about eight times. One is the psychiatrist who tinkers with my medication doses so I don't feel like either a zombie or a homicidal maniac. The other is my psychologist who meets with Jason and I to talk about how my feeling like a zombie and a homicidal maniac is affecting us.
It hasn't been easy. I thought that as soon as I got out of the hospital, back home and on the right medicines, everything would be spiffy. I'd be able to handle everything life could throw at me and then some. Instead I'm figuring out how to deal with the learning curve that goes with taking these medications. I'm learning how to live with not feeling depressed all the time. I know that sounds ridiculous but sometimes I honestly can't remember the last time I didn't feel depressed. Before marriage? College? High School? Maybe longer? When you've just been scraping by for as long as I have, allowing yourself to feel better is somewhat of a challenge. The other side of that coin is allowing yourself to feel upset at all; not just sadness but anger or hurt. Sometimes I get mad at myself for being angry about something. Shouldn't I be fine now? Shouldn't these things not bother me as much?
I don't know. What I do know is that I'm still working on it. Every day is still a struggle to make things feel right. But it's a struggle I've been able to handle. I've started sleeping enough and eating better. I've even started exercising again. I still drink way too much caffeine and complain about getting up early to go for my walk. But I know that each day I do it, the next won't be so difficult. And that's what I have to remember - tomorrow won't be so difficult.
A few months ago there was an episode of Glee that really hit home for me. One of the characters finally realized she had a problem with her OCD and went to a doctor. This is what the doctor told her:
"There's a stigma in this country about mental illness; depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar. They're hard to diagnose so people don't always appreciate that they're serious problems, but they are. Your illness is not who you're supposed to be. It's keeping you from who you're supposed to be. You're not alone. You're going to feel better. I promise."
And I believe her.
The first night in the hospital I was comforted by a foul-mouthed 18 year old and told it gets easier. It wasn't especially comforting since I was more scared and freaked out than I'd ever been in my life. Sleep didn't come easily with an unknown snoring roommate and roadside motel quality sheets. I prayed for what seemed like hours, more fervently than I ever had before. Eventually the sleep medication kicked in and the blackness came. I'd like to say I slept like the dead but that's only if it were a zombie movie. The nurses would open our door, shine a flashlight on our faces and check us out every 15 minutes. Every. Fifteen. Minutes. That night was worse than any of the nights I have spent in the hospital and that includes after giving birth.
The next morning was way too bright for the way I was feeling. The sunshine through my window was not enough for me to forget where I had spent the night. I knew I had signed up for this but that didn't erase the fear and anxiety warring in my stomach. It didn't help that everyone seemed to know where to go and what to do except me. I followed blindly along as we went to breakfast and to the group classes we had afterwards.
In a strange way it kind of reminded me of summer camp. If summer camp was like jail.
We were escorted everywhere when we weren't in the women's unit. No one was allowed off by themselves. Classes for group therapy were scheduled all day long and you were expected to be present at all of them unless you had an individual session with your doctor. Besides classes, sleeping seemed to be the most popular way to pass the time. Aside from coloring.
Yep, coloring. I have never seen so many grown women enjoy coloring like I did at the hospital. After half a day it occurred to me that it really was a great way to pass the time. It kept your hands busy allowing your mind to float on the surface. Very soothing and relaxing. That's my excuse for coloring as many pictures as I did.
So aside from the coloring and the group classes, I was finally able to see a psychiatrist. The whole reason for my in-patient status. The doctor and I went over my current medications and I had to give a detailed history of my mental health and the mental state of all close relatives. I was asked to dig deep into my memory for instances where my mental health wasn't on such an even keel. I didn't have to dig too hard. It turns out I had lots of reference points from growing up that pointed to a less stable mental condition. What I had thought of simply as a bad case of depression and occasional anxiety turned into medical terminology giving me an official diagnosis.
Bipolar Type II and OCD tendencies with General Anxiety Disorder.
The doctor said she was discontinuing both of my anti-depressants and the anti-anxiety medication. Instead I would be given an anti-psychotic as a mood stabilizer that I would take at night since its main side effect is sleep.
That night I did sleep like the dead. I woke up the next morning with my right leg asleep from hip to ankle because I hadn't turned over, only sleeping on that side. For the first time in memory, I woke up early without benefit of an alarm or crying baby. I was calm and ready to start the day. I knew when breakfast was and knew I wanted to shower before that. That's right - I had a goal. And I was able to accomplish it. For the five days I was there I got up every morning, showered, did my hair and got dressed. I hadn't had the peace of mind to shower every day since before Penny was born. Gross, I know, but the honest truth. Somewhere over the last year and a half I had given up on myself a little. OK maybe a lot. But suddenly it seemed like an objective I could achieve.
I was excited about facing the new day and every day that was to come.
It happened much more suddenly than I was prepared for. Actually, I hadn't really prepared at all. I went in for the assessment and the next thing I know I was signing the self-commitment papers at a mental health facility.
Over the last few weeks, Jason and I had become extremely aware that what we had been doing to help my severe depression was no longer working. For months Jason had been picking up the slack that I had been unable to carry. And as wonderful and reliable as he is, he couldn't carry the load by himself anymore. His emotional and physical health were deteriorating as fast as mine was. We decided that we needed to see a psychologist quickly if we were going to save my sanity and our marriage. The good thing was that this new doctor is a great fit for helping us deal with how my depression affects our lives and with working on communication skills. On the flip side, he quickly realized my other problems were more medicine related and, that being said, something he couldn't help with. He strongly recommended a psychiatrist or in-patient treatment to help get me back on track.
Fast forward almost 24 hours later to when I finally realized what I was signing was paperwork for my immediate placement in-patient. To say I was unprepared would be a drastic understatement. They were taking me to the women's unit with only the clothes on my back. I couldn't even keep my bra because it was an underwire and such dangerous things weren't allowed. I hugged and kissed Jason, sobbing into his chest as I sent him 40 miles back home for clothes and basic toiletries. I cried because I didn't even get to say a proper goodbye to Penny since she was staying with friends.
As I rode the elevator with the nurse to the 3rd floor, the overwhelming hospital smells only increased my anxiety; the combination of bleach and medical cleaner permeating the air. By now it was almost 10pm, I hadn't eaten since noon and I was having to forcefully remind myself that this was voluntary. In the common room of the women's unit I was greeted with a strangely welcoming shout of "Hey, new girl, come join us in some fuckin' Blackjack, Nigga." They didn't know me and I didn't know them but we all knew we were here for the same overall reason - either voluntarily or not. We were here for the kind of help we couldn't get anywhere else.
It's a turn of phrase that's been running through my mind lately. Keel-hauled. Sounds ominous and pirate-y. And it perfectly describes how I've been feeling.
Do you know what keel-hauling involved? You were tied to a rope that looped beneath the ship, thrown overboard, then dragged under the keel from bow to stern. If you were pulled quickly, the barnacles would tear you up, sometimes limb from limb. If they dragged you slowly, you would sink enough to miss the barnacles and instead you drowned.
Back in January I was taken off the thyroid medicine I'd been on for a year. The doctor and I discussed it and because all of my blood tests had been normal and I was still suffering from the same symptoms, we concluded it wasn't working. By the beginning of March I could tell something was definitely not right. Apparently the thyroid medication had been making a difference, small though it was. Enough of a difference that when I didn't have it anymore the fallout was massive. My depression, which is always in a state of flux, took a nose dive. I crashed and burned. It got so bad that at one point I couldn't bring myself to care about what Penny was doing. I'd put on a movie for her and then wait it out until we could both go down for a nap. Sleep had become my escape. The place where I didn't have to think or do or be; I could just be numb.
Fundamentally I knew this wasn't right so I went back to the doctor and had an ultrasound done on my thyroid. Then they scheduled an uptake exam at the hospital which is just a fancy type of CT scan. Then I was scheduled to see a specialist. Turns out my right thyroid is twice the size of my left, which is already larger than it should be. The blood work is still showing no problems at all. The doctors put me back on medication and I have a biopsy scheduled in June.
And yet knowing that something else was wrong didn't fix anything. Do you know what the first major symptom is of hypothyroidism? Depression. And mine was getting significantly worse. Jason took a week off of work and my parents even flew in to help. And it did help. For a time. Then they had to go back home and Jason had to go back to work. We're taking steps to improve this all-consuming depression, looking into therapists and new medications.
And all the while, I'm still here. Either crashing against the keel or drowning.
