Sinking into depression for the first time in years

I’ve been feeling for awhile now that I’m probably going into a depression. It’s been pretty confusing because for the past 6 months I have been up and down so frequently and sometimes “mixed” so that the up and down can’t totally be distinguished. But after my most recent episode where I had intervention from my doctors to keep me from being hospitalized (I wasn’t feeling depressed at all) my meds have gotten switched up a lot and I do think my current meds are keeping the manic portion of my illness at bay. I  haven’t had any weird thoughts or actions in a few weeks. However, my doctors warned me that depressed often follows mania, and so they are on the guard and want me to be aware too. And I can safely say that they are right, and in my case, depression is definitely following this manic or mixed period.

It’s weird, because the term depression gets thrown around so much now that it has no real meaning anymore. Anyone who has a bad day says “I’m depressed.” Those who actually suffer from depression as a mental/medical illness know that it can be unbearable. I hate the way that I feel right now for a lot of reasons. I hate it because I thought it was gone. I haven’t felt this way in many years which in itself, confounds me. In the past few years I’ve gone through a lot of rough times, situations that 95% of people never have to deal with. And through all of that, I was able to somehow stay strong, despite the fact that I had no real support system and I have been living with this illness all my life. I guess it was just in remission at the time. I remember even thinking to myself then, how every day was kind of the same…one went into the next…no real super highs or super lows. And it basically stayed that way for the bulk of two years. It was great, looking back in retrospect. Not the horrible things I went through of course, but having the stability to be ABLE to make it through and be no worse for wear, essentially.

Now, I’m here in this situation and I don’t know what to do. And I keep telling myself, I need to change something. I need to be proactive, I need, SOMEHOW, to thwart this depression, to quell these feelings. Yet I can’t. And I realize now, that is the worst thing at all in life. To have these feelings…for no reason at all…at to be unable to stop them from happening. The sense of helplessness and hopelessness only contributes to the feelings of despair. I want to sleep all day because I cannot bear the thought of muddling through the 12 hours until it’s time to go to sleep again. There is no joy in my life now. And I don’t know why. That’s the worst thing. I don’t know why. There is no reason. It is a feeling…it exists…no matter what I do, what I change, it persists. And I feel so sad…I feel sad just because that is the way of this illness. But I feel even sadder because I cannot do anything about it. It is my lot in life. It’s endless; cyclical; repetitive. It makes me want to give up completely. Because who wants to life a life so completely out control? A life where you are blown to and fro, and the actions you take are dictated by a cruel puppeteer that rules your mind totally? There is no out; no escape. At times the life I live seems worse than death. I admit that over the course of my life I have contemplated suicide countless times. After my one and only actual attempt, 5 years ago, I thought I would never think or feel that way again. Yet here I am, and the thoughts recur. I want to blot them out. I want to stop everything from happening. I don’t want to die…I’m not suicidal. I just want to go back to the time when I was happy…when I had stability. I want to go back to the time when I was satisfied…when I had control over my mind, my life, the things around me. I want to know a life that is different from this…this constant torturous merry-go-round that I ride.

House hunting and other stressors

Right now my husband and I are in the process of house hunting. We are currently staying with my dad and have been for awhile to help save up more for our down payment. Housing costs here are pretty steep so we are needing more than most of our family/friends who live in other parts of the country.

Anyhow, we found a beautiful house that we are in the process of negotiating for. We are hoping that things will work out with this house, because we have been looking for a long time and are ready to be in something of our own. I've personally been dreaming of my own house since I was a teenager so this is a big big deal to me. I can't wait to see what happens.

So, that is the beginning of my stress,it's been fun looking but also brings up tension as well an being the biggest purchase a person will ever make tends to make emotions run high. So I'm a little nervous about this situation because I'm not exactly stable at the moment and this type of intense stress could certainly trigger episodes for me.

On top of that, my dad was injured this week and will not be able to get around much for probably a couple of months, and he is currently in the hospital. So, I am going to have to help care for him which again, is a big stress, of course not something I mind doing because God knows he has done far more for me than I have ever done in return so this is but a small thing in the scheme of the world, but just compounding with the house stress, and the fact that my husband is gone several days in a row each week leaves me with a lot on my plate. I'm a bit worried as to how I will hold up under all of this (plus there are a bunch of other small stressors plaguing me at the moment as well). It's just a lot, both good and bad, but the pressure hopefully will not cause me to start cracking. I'm going to have to be super vigilant the upcoming months.

In medication limbo (thankful for insurance)

I guess I'll post a little update here before I hit the hay. I'm pretty much caught up now on all the poetry I wanted to list, so there it is. I'm up to my current time frame. I tend to only write when something emotional (usually negative) is going on that I have to purge. I've been writing more lately because of that but I don't want to post all my stuff here, just some. Plus if I posted everything this page would be a mile long.

Nothing much new to report, still in limbo with the meds. I went on lithium and went off it just as quickly. It made me feel like I had the worst hangover ever, except it was 24/7. It was HORRIBLE. I couldn't eat or drink because I'd puke, my head was throbbing, I was confused and dizzy and shaky. UGH!!!  Then reading up on lithium really freaked me out because it is basically a naturally ocurring element that can be toxic to people. GREAAAAAAT!!! If your dosing isn't exactly right, and you take too much it can essentially be poisoning you. So I talked to my doc and we dropped the lithium off the list. I go in next week and I'm sure the meds will change up again. Ahhhhhh, fun times. Ok, not really.

In fact I am so frustrated I am ready to just chuck everything and go back to the way I was. I feel like I live solely to go to my doctor appts. I see both my counselor and psychiatrist weekly, lately, since I've been all over the place. Thank God I have good insurance. I've only had to pay $125 total out of all my 30 or 40 visits over the last few months, plus a very very pricey inpatient stay. People talk crap about the military but the insurance has saved me. For anyone who doesn't know how military healthcare works, you see your military provider for everything, but if you need specialized care that is not available on your base (and most stuff isn't available here, because it's a very small base) then you get referred to see civilian docs. That's my situation now. I was an inpatient at a civilian hospital, both my docs now are civilians. I don't go to the base for anything. I think my counselor charges about $125 per session and my psych. is about $225 or $250 a visit. But since I was referred, I pay nothing, it is treated the same as if I were being seen by a military doc. It really works out very well, and again, I am very thankful. I went through a similiar situation when my kids were born because they were twins (high risk pregnancy) and although I lived in a semi-big city, the base could not provide for my needs. All my extensive care was provided at a civilian hospital, and my kids were in the NICU for months. When we totalled up the cost of everything related to the pregnancy and their health issues it wound up being about $1 mil. We didn't have to pay any of it. I will forever be grateful for the way the Air Force has taken care of me as far as my health and the health of my family is concerned.

That's all for now. Not much going on. Just chugging along, not too up, not too down, not too normal either...just sorta there I suppose.

Crazy manic episodes - no way I'm going back to the hospital!

I’m going to try to post a few videos to update what’s been going on with me. I’m starting to like video blogging more than regular blogging, just for the sole fact that it’s more “real.” Anyways, for those who don’t want to watch the vids, I’ve been all over the place. My psychiatrist thinks I’m rapid cycling which is kinda what I have thought all along. She thinks I’m having a manic episode that has been coming on for awhile and is basically coming to a head now to the point of near hospitalization (greaaaaat). She told me today she wanted to switch my meds, preferably in the hospital setting. She said “You probably wouldn’t have to stay more than a few days.” Haha! Oh man. Last time it was 5 days. It would probably be the same this time. I told her there was no way I was going to the hospital unless someone tied me up and physically forced me to go. So she agreed to let me try to keep managing as an outpatient, with close monitoring. Both my counselor and my psychiatrist are checking with me daily to make sure I don’t completely float off  into space. My meds are getting switched up quite a bit so hopefully that doesn’t throw me off completely, god knows I’m already unbalanced. Ha.