Guest Post: A Journey With Depression

This guest post is written by Anita and how she made her own way through depression and medication.

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I was diagnosed with a clinical depression when I was 18 years old. Before it came to this, I had struggled with several physical complaints, like an ulcer, migraines, nausea, insomnia, basically any signs that my body, or even better, my brain was trying to tell me something. Because I wasn’t educated enough, I was put on medication in combination with psycho therapy, thinking this could fix me. Twice a week I went in to talk about whether the medication was working, whether I felt better. After a few sessions, the psychiatrist felt like I wasn’t making any progress, so he increased the dose of the medication.

This went on for another couple of weeks and according to him (I can’t remember whether I felt different or better, or worse) I still wasn’t making any progress nor had any improvement, so he put me on a different anti depressant. As I later on learnt, with the development of the internet and forums, the first one was an MOA inhibitor, the second one an SSRI. The same cycle repeated itself, no improvement after a few weeks, dosage was increased, still no affect, increase dose and see therapist.

By then my doctor got really crafty, he prescribed me a TeCA, a tetracyclic anti depressant. Yes, even I had to look this one up, since I can only remember the brand names or generic names of the pills. This procedure went on for I think more than a year. By that time I had stopped seeing the therapist, because my health insurance only allowed me for 20 sessions. Instead I went to see my GP once a month for repeat prescriptions. By that time I don’t think I had made any progress. Okay, I didn’t feel suicidal any more; I didn’t sleep for days any more. I had kept the same job and house, in other words I was functional in society.

During this phase, I was also diagnosed with ADHD, which meant more medication. The (in)famous Ritalin. But the internet and my access to information grew. I started asking questions online and talking to people who were in the same boat, so to speak, as me. And like Edward Norton in the Fight Club, I went to support groups for people with depression and people with ADHD and people with a combination of these two. I kept my mouth shut and just listened, and asked questions; lots of them. And I learnt a lot. I learnt that the pharmacy that I carried around with me wasn’t helping me at all, especially the anti depressants. After coming home from a 5 week holiday, I decided to quit the 120 mgs of Citalopram (Celesta, Cipramil) a day. Cold turkey. In hindsight I hadn’t researched that part very well, because you are supposed to taper these things. Anyway, after maybe three or four months of mood swings, terrible mood swings, anger fits (I killed 2 vacuum cleaners, drove the car into a tree, not on purpose, I see how this coming from a depressed person may sound like a suicide attempt, but it wasn’t and smashed a bathroom window with my bare hands) and more horrendous things I started to feel “normal” again. With normal, I mean, I could feel the rain on my skin again when walking outside. And normal like being a tad bit more excited about something that just the flat, careless uttering of the word “meh”. All in all it took me at least a year to balance things out. Next step was quitting Ritalin. The only reason I used this was to increase my attention span from 3 seconds to 35 minutes because I had a demanded (mentally) job and I needed to money to pay for my immigration to New Zealand.

Once in New Zealand, I quit Ritalin as well. Any immigrant can agree, my first job in New Zealand could be done by a retarded hamster, so no major mental effort needed, which meant no Ritalin needed. I was up to 90 mgs a day and quitting that was easier.

Years after my first diagnose with depression I figured out medication is not for me. I’m not saying they don’t work, I’m saying they don’t work for me. I have a friend who’s been on Prozac for 5 years now and every time he tries to lower the dose, he feels like harming himself. He and I both know that these pills do work for him.

I am a balanced and happy person now. I took a long and sometimes very painful journey to get there, but I am here now.

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I (Fae) asked Anita to explain further how she now manages her depression.

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It sounds very simple, but I basically turned my life around. I changed everything, especially my way of thinking. I used to be locked into that negative spiral of thinking, you know, Oh they won’t return my call = they hate me. Now I think “They probably are busy” and they often are

Podcasts are essential. I have a few I swear by. Honest people that tell me things my parents should have told me. I’m catching up and learning every day.

2010 and 2011 were really bad years for me and the events that happened forced me to change my outlook and priorities on life.

I got divorced, lost my house, lost my job, lost my sister. But I gained so much more. Every time I was about to give up, something little happened, a friend rang, someone visited my house, anything small which made me carry on and appreciate the things I had.

I met my current beautiful partner. I found a new job. I found a new house. I learned to live in a destroyed house without water and electricity.

I learned how to survive.

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If you’re reading this anywhere but That Girl, Fae or a feed reader without attribution, it has been STOLEN! Who knew that my stuff was that good? ~ Fae

That Girl, Fae by R Simpson-Large aka Fae Teardrop is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License.

The Trials of Being the Owner of a Vagina

This post is going to be about vaginas and labias.  Generally mine, so just the one vagina.  If you have no desire to read my complaints about said vagina or her health, or public waiting lists for gynecologists, then consider this your fair warning.  I’m going to be a little detailed, but purely in a clinical manner.  Feel free to go here instead.  Immediately following there is a cute animal buffer, below that, you were warned.

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For a while now my vagina and I seem to having problems with getting along.  I’d had enough of it, so decided to see a nurse.

I explained to the nurse that I was sore, all the time, occasionally itchy, occasionally crampy along the vaginal wall spontaneously (these cramps are nothing like period cramps, which I haven’t had since October 2010 when I started taking Noriday), my labia minora had shrunk to half its previous size (I used to be a outty, now I’m an inny), and the smell had… changed, it wasn’t bad, it was just different.  And there was also that I haven’t been able to have sex comfortably in about a year.  Lubrication is generally fine, but most of the time it hurts like a mofo.  She had a look, took samples to be tested, and said everything looked normal, but suggested I also see the doctor.

One of the problems with labias and vaginas is that because there’s such a variety from person to person, there’s a huge range for what is considered normal.  Unless you happen to see the same person more regularly than once every three years for a pap smear, but not so often that they can’t notice slow changes over a period of time, then things are generally going to look normal. (Does that make sense? I think it makes sense.)

I get to the doctor, explain all of the above again.  She takes a look as well, thinks I may have some thrush, but it generally looks fine.  Tells me to get some blood tests to check my hormone levels, and to wait for all the results to come back.

While the nurse actually treated my concern about my labia minora seriously, I did feel that the doctor just kind of brushed it aside, like it wasn’t something to be worried about, that I must have been mistaken in my recollection what my own vagina/labia minora used to be like.

So I wait for the test results to come back.  A couple of days later I get a message saying results all came back negative, there’s no infection of any kind, and my hormone levels are all normal.

I asked the doctor to please, send a referral to the hospital so I can see a gynecologist.  I told her that I know something isn’t right, even if the test results don’t agree.  She said that she would, though it felt like she was doing it begrudgingly.

And now I wait.  I’ve been placed on the routine waiting list, and should receive an appointment within the next six months.  And while I wait, I continue to feel that I’m somewhat failing at being a wife because I can’t have sex.  Even if J tells me otherwise, it sucks.  I don’t know what else I can do about it, if there is anything I can do, and it makes me kind of sad.

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If you’re reading this anywhere but That Girl, Fae or a feed reader without attribution, it has been STOLEN! Who knew that my stuff was that good? ~ Fae

That Girl, Fae by R Simpson-Large aka Fae Teardrop is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License.

Gotta Fix It

So, on Friday I went to the doctor about this mania I talked about the other day.

She’s just a regular GP, so doesn’t have any expertise when it comes to bipolar and introducing new meds. GPs just tend to continue prescribing what your psychiatrist prescribe once you’re no longer seeing them. Unfortunately, this means that when you need something to be changed, they really have no idea.

My GP was fully upfront about this, and wasn’t comfortable with prescribing anything for the bipolar directly. However, she was willing to do something about the insomnia. Now I’m on 25mg/day of Seroquel for 30 days. Seroquel is actually a second generation antipsychotic, which is prescribed at higher doses for bipolar. It’s used off-label for insomnia.

So far it’s dealt with the insomnia, almost a little too well, and I’m now getting about 12 hours of sleep per night, as opposed to the five-ish I was getting before. It takes a week or so for it to start working on the mania.

My GP also sent a referral to the Mental Health Unit, and said I should contact them myself too. Having just spoken to someone there, I should get a call tomorrow about an appointment in the next few days.

I always feel silly when I describe what’s happening to me. Like it’s not actually that bad, and that I should just be able to deal with it. Maybe that’s because I’m comparing myself to the way bipolar etc is portrayed in the media, which I know is always the extreme. But then I start thinking, is it though? Is there actually something wrong with me? Maybe I’m just not a nice person, and the “quiet nature” I have (to quote my GP) is all just a facade, which cracks over time, showing people what I’m really like until I’m able to patch it up again.

It’s not like I’m violent, or I’m going to hurt myself, or anyone else.

Maybe all of this is a cry for attention. The irrational behaviour I’ve been having is all just quietly calculated.

But that doesn’t really make sense. And isn’t exactly the actions of a normal, mentally healthy person. And it honestly isn’t until later that I realise how irrational some of my behaviour has been. At the time, I think my actions/reactions are perfectly justified.

And I still can’t write anything for NaNoWriMo. It would seem I peaked on my first day, which is really disappointing. I know I can write. I think it’s another case of me thinking everyone else who succeeds in that area is so much better than me, better than I’ll ever be, so why even bother. I’ll never achieve that greatness.

I have all the ideas in there. I know the bare-bones of it all. But I’m too impatient to put all the connections in, to bulk it out into something that others would actually find interesting, that would pull them in and make them want to read more, to find out how Matti Howarth gets to be running through that forest. And I just don’t think I’m good enough to do it. Everything I write just seems to amateurish. I don’t know how to write in a descriptive manner that brings it all to life in the reader’s mind.

I know it takes time, and practice. But I want it all to be amazing right now. I’m far too impatient to piss around with substandard beginnings. I want things to be brilliant, and I want them to be brilliant right now!

I think that’s my problem with everything I try. If things aren’t fantastic and amazing from the get-go, then I give up. I can’t see what the point is. Which is stupid. I know it is. But I can’t get around the problem. I don’t know how. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. I don’t think I’m good enough, that I can do it, so I can’t. And I don’t know how to change that faulty wiring.

Maybe I should just try some stream-of-consciousness-type writing. That’s what I initially thought I would do for this first NaNoWriMo. But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get away from the need for structure. It’s so frustrating! I can do it for non-fiction writing (just look at this post for example, it’s all over the place), but when it comes to fiction, for some reason everything needs to be precise and perfect. I know I could do it, if I could just get out of these restraints I’ve made for myself, or at least I’m pretty sure I could. Maybe. And there’s that self-doubt again, constantly following me round like some demented faithful dog. In this instance, I would definitely prefer an aloof, uncaring cat.

I know that getting another pill isn’t going to magically fix things, though I wish it would. At least this one makes me feel pleasantly stoned in the period after I take it before I go to bed.

Mania. Ugh.

Sometimes being bipolar is a real drag.

I’m closing in on my second week of this hypomanic cycle and it’s becoming a drag.

I’m sitting here, on the couch, tapping this out on my iPhone because I can’t sleep. Feeling pretty tired, but my mind feels otherwise.

This is my first decent manic cycle for a while. Got all worked up over how the painters were doing the windows, then the lacking water pressure in the renovated bathroom got me really angry, even though we’ve always had low hot water pressure. Now I’ve got the laughing because “everything is hilarious.” It really isn’t though, and on the inside, I’m pretty horrified at how long it can go on for. Giggling mess, but not in a good way. And of course there’s the being AWAKE.

I’ve been trying to write for NaNoWriMo, and while I can feel the story I want to write inside me, it’s getting stifled while it’s trying to come out.

I think that’s the worse part of all of this. It would be better if the mania was at least creative, that it could be channelled in some way. Then maybe the other issues would be lessened.

The way I am now, I’m either dysphoric and irrational, or sad (though that’s pretty settled now that I’m off Effexor). It’s getting incredibly frustrating.