I think the biggest misunderstanding about depression is that a person has control over it.
That i should be grateful for what i have – just get over myself. Believe me i am grateful and i would give every penny i have to just get over it. Shane asked me the other day how i was feeling.
Since being in the hospital, which is such a humbling and embarrassing situation to be in, and changing medications my sadness has changed. It's not right there on the surface anymore. I no longer well up with tears at the thought of any mildly sad thought. It's deeper now. It's more all consuming. I just can't brush it off. I can ignore it, but happiness and laughter completely elude me now.
I am working harder than ever at keeping it all together. Keeping the house clean, doing laundry, taking the kids on adventures. Ensuring that everything around me is not falling apart.
My children are happy. They frolic about in the yard, enjoying the sun that has finally appeared, making up games. Being kids. Oblivious to the giant, often frightening world around them. They have everything they need, including plenty of love from me.
I'm not sure why i feel this need to defend myself, or more aptly my mothering skills. But, when i open myself up to this giant world of advice, criticism and friendship it's hard to hear the negative things.
Will somebody, just please, please come and save me. Take me away on your magic carpet.
Make time stand still while i am gone.
And then return me.
Unbroken.
I have begun my behavior modification therapy. Which, as far as i can tell, involves looking into my brain and finding all the ways it's broken.
We are looking at my "Core Beliefs" and "*Filters."
* "A filter is an extremely stable and enduring pattern of thinking that develops during childhood and is elaborated throughout an individual's life. We view the world through filters." (Young, 1999)
Not surprisingly i scored very high on many filters that are bad. BAD. Highest on the list were self-sacrifice, vulnerability to harm and illness, emotional deprivation, and defectiveness/social undesirability.
Of course i am pessimistic, at best, about all this hocus-pocus and nobody wants to know how screwed up they are. Do they? I know i'm supposed to be learning from this. Looking at these "filters" and understanding why i feel the way i do. All i see is that i am socially undesirable and vulnerable all wrapped up in an emotional straightjacket.
I have lots of homework. Mood logs to fill out. I just have so much trouble being honest. Seeing the benefit in all of this when it leaves me swirling in a muddy pit of despair.
In good news my feelings of heightened depression and lack of passion (in every aspect) are side effects of withdrawal from effexor and, most probably, not a side effect of the lexapro.
But, i still have softball. Three games a week of pure adrenaline, muscle burning fun.
One of the reasons that shane wanted a cat was because of our country size mouse problem. We were worried about poisoning them because of the dogs, yet the traps made our feeble city hearts shudder.
All of our pets have a job. Doodle puts the kids to bed, in that she sleeps upstairs with them, hopping from bed to bed, until they are all asleep. Then she comes down for some grown-up belly rubs and snuggles. Lucy eats every single crumb or spittle of drool that falls from our children's mouths. And marmalade? He must kill mice.
About a month ago we cheered and high fived as we walked out the door on the way to school/work and found a dead mouse at the door. But? Nothing since.
Then today i heard the shriek of a girly-man as shane opened a seldom used closet door and found the lifeless bodies of several mice that marmalade had obviously killed and lost in kitty style hardwood floor hockey to the recesses of the closet door.
I have been thinking about my time on the psych ward. How really, really terrible it was. It may seem like a time to relax and reflect. It really wasn't. It was a place where everybody is waiting, counting down, till the day they can get out. Just outside the windows, one floor down, there was a lovely garden terrace. I would watch the hospital staff go out and enjoy their lunch in the warm sunshine. Wondering if they knew how lucky they were to be out there. And now i feel lucky every morning when i go out and the sun is warming the gravel on our driveway. I take that first step off the porch and think of all the things i have to do to make sure i never end up back on that fourth floor.
While i was there i was desperately bored and terrified. There was nothing to do to take my mind off of it. So, i wrote a little musical number. A theatre impromptu. We turned up the radio loud. It was an old blues station. We danced up and down the halls. We pushed the grandma's in their wheelchairs. And we laughed for a few moments.
I have gone back to visit a few times. Once i brought bubbles and we laughed as we chased them around the television room. Then i brought a blow-up beach ball and we played a mini round of soccer. Grandma cheering us on.