I haven’t blogged for such a long time and have so much to catch up on that I feel we may need to bring in the dreaded bullet points. I know that bullet points are considered lazy writing but I’d like you to take the following into consideration before your put on your lynching cloak with the silver lamé lined hood:
- I’m diabetic
- I just mentioned ‘bullet’ points
- This immediately makes any living human immediately think of chocolate bullets.
- Thinking of chocolate bullets means you must have some.
- Chocolate bullets can put diabetics into a fit of sexy chocolate related orgasmic noises a coma.
So I’m clearly putting my life at risk to bring you up to speed. Ish.
So. Bullet points. In the past four months:
- I’ve settled into my new role at work. I’m no longer a corporate sales Wookiee. I’m now a domains and hosting Wookiee.
- The antidepressant I’m on (Pristiq) was doubled in dosage and after a couple of initially difficult weeks has begun working.
- I shaved my head and my beard stubble at the same time and found out that doing this makes me resemble a surprised gay albino potato.
- I’ve had so many days unaffected by depression I can’t even count them.
- I’ve lost 23 kilos. Partially related to financial difficulties but a welcome loss nonetheless.
- I wrote a complaint letter to the Bank Of Queensland about their service which to date has been read by 1,625 people.
- I went to the movies, in a real live cinema. I saw the Green Lantern. Ryan Reynolds is hot was quite good although could have spent more time in his underpants there were some pacing issues.
- I achieved one of my long term goals by cooking something that not only fell into the category of ‘edible’, it also qualified as ‘tasty’.
Although things have certainly been positive, I was a little surprised by the sudden realisation that I actually want to be here. No doubt that’s a strange statement to make, but I’ve spent years not wanting to live. If someone could physically will themselves out of existence I wouldn’t have made it through my thirties. Now I can see a future. I not only want to be here – I want to keep being here.
This means I have a lot of work ahead. I now have to find out how to best enhance the work the drugs are doing so that I have more support in place should my depression return. I was lucky enough to find one that made such a significant change and have also been fortunate to have an employer that was willing to help me when I was struggling with my work. I was at a point in my life where I was depressed, obese, suffering panic attacks, was unhappy in my job, in mountains of debt and had months where I literally thought of suicide every day. Now I’ve got some distance from the depression I finally have the ability to work on everything else. The best way I can put it is that I’m proud of how far I’m come but I’d be lying if I said I was happy about where my life is at. After enjoying the respite of this period I’m ready start moving again. And an important part of this will be the accountability of writing about it.
I’ve also learned something over the past few months that I wanted to share in the hope that it may help someone else.
When you think that nobody could love you, someone does.
When you think that nobody understands, someone will.
When you’re scared that nobody can help, someone can.
Someone does. Someone will. Someone can. Please remember that.
After the depths of yesterday, where even the confirmation of a change of roles at work to a less stressful position couldn’t pull me out of the darkness I awoke today disappointed to realise I felt much the same.
Again I pushed myself through the day, avoiding calls from that same customer who now wanted me to sort a billing issue and refused to speak to anyone else, calling again and again, each time to be told he needed to speak to the billing department but immediately ringing another rep, demanding to be put through to me. I lost count of how many times he did it. All it did was add to the heaviness and the fear. In the end I gave up taking calls and again just sat there for the last hour and a half of my shift, fighting tears. So angry that I didn’t have the resources to push through it all.
I feel like I’m not a man on days like this. I’m not an adult. I’m a thing. This giant, six foot five thing that can’t even put sheets on his fucking mattress and had to fight for half an hour to shower that morning let alone make it through a week without falling in a heap. How can I be regarded as anything when I can’t function at the level that most people perform at without thinking?
To say that I don’t feel like a man on those days is incorrect in fact, because I never feel like a man. I feel like nothingness trapped in a tall man’s body. A fake. A liar. It’s a cruel joke to be the size and build I am yet to be such a timid, sad, mess inside. One day I know I’ll be able to feel differently but for now I want to hide what I am away because I know I’m something less than I should be.
Then – a change…
When I finished work I drove out to visit two of my closest friends and their son, where I gratefully received hugs of welcome and found myself smiling genuinely for the first time in days. I laughed while I played Lego with the son before he had to go off to bed and found the heaviness lift further when we sat to eat dinner. After sharing wine, chatting and laughing for a few hours I left feeling myself again.
Sometimes friends are the fix, and now as I sit here typing I know I couldn’t be more blessed to have the people in my life that I do.
Something is different tonight. I’ve finally kept some of the feeling of love and support for not only the entire drive home but an hour afterwards. A positive emotional memory… I wish I knew how to save this. Not the memory itself, but the acceptance of love. The knowing that it’s there and the feeling of having it.
Others with depression will know what I mean. When you feel like this you wonder why you ever felt down, knowing how okay you can be. And you know that next time you feel down you just have to remind yourself of this. It’s just that when you go looking for the feeling, it won’t be there any more. And that’s the biggest tragedy of depression. You can’t trust what you thought you knew to be true. Your mind distorts lies and truth in your conscious thoughts so strongly that you end up only being able to think what you feel in the present moment. The grief. Darkness. Heavy. Alone. Helpless. Hopeless.
But for now, I’m holding this glow in my heart tightly and savouring the freedom it allows me. I feel safe and loved and that’s an amazing, amazing feeling.
Oh Hello! I’m on an increased dosage of anti-depressants! And everything is just…
..well it’s…exactly the same.
But it’s early days yet. I went back to work on Thursday with my tail between my legs. Coworkers were incredibly awesome as they always are and after the initial uncomfortable moments where nobody’s quite sure what to say or ask me it was business as usual.
My visit with my Doctor went really well, she’s going to see me every week for the next few weeks to make sure I don’t have a repeat performance of the manic episodes I experienced the last time we doubled the dosage of my medication (I’m a robot! I’m floating on the ceiling! I’m a floating ceiling robot! Yaaaay!) and that the depression that’s overwhelmed me in the past few weeks starts to shift.
I keep telling myself that this has to be absolute rock bottom. I know for a fact that I’m not going to harm myself because the thoughts I’ve had and darkness that’s been dragging me down…. have lead to me to planning it out, down to the last post I’d write here. Where I’d go. How I’d do it. But I don’t act. It’s just not in me, which I guess is a relief but at the same time a frustration. I have to remain here, and I have no reason, feeling or desire to be. I see no point to existing when it’s this difficult and it hurts this much to simply ‘be’.
I have support, I have loving friends and family and my workplace has proved again and again to be a place of understanding and love. But that isn’t with me when I’m alone. Thoughts and feelings overcome me and I’m spending more time asleep when I’m at home than awake because I just can’t cope. My chest is so heavy and my head hangs down as I walk around the house, needing to wash clothes or make food or wanting to shower but the process seems so difficult I can only get under my bedcovers and hope that when I wake up in a few hours the feeling of hopelessness would have passed.
I hate so much to be in the company of people when I feel like this, so I avoid everyone. Even forcing myself to try and leave the house to catch up with someone won’t help. Anxiety overtakes me and I shut down. It’s so frustrating.
Money has become a problem. In recent months I’ve fallen behind with payments on everything but rent and shared utilities. In one day last week I had seventeen calls from unlisted numbers, all financial institutions trying to get in touch with me. How do you negotiate with someone that needs a $300 payment and you have $25.00 to last the next 7 days? And that when your pay comes in, half of it is going to disappear because your account is already $700 overdrawn?
So that’s where I sit today as I write this. Struggling. Not wanting to be here any more. Not able to do anything about that feeling. Mentally unwell. Physically unwell. Broke. Not wanting company. Not wanting to be alone. Hating myself.
Hating that I hate myself.
Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow.
I had another ‘moment’ at work and had to leave today. Things have gotten that bad again, and I’m preparing to fight back against the evil depression-shaped-blackness-evil-osity-thing. Tiring as it is to constantly be putting my undies on the outside, as anyone with depression knows it’s the only way forward.
My workplace is so incredibly supportive and understanding. I am constantly surprised that I still have a job because my mental health issues seem to get in the way so frequently. Just when our team gets into a good rhythm of selling the internet to people I run around in the background with flailing muppet arms, bawling my eyes out before locking myself in the toilet.
Nothing happened to trigger today. I woke up feeling dark, but as I described in my last post it’s been like that for a while. When I arrived at work it just got worse. I took one phone call and then went catatonic. Staring at the screens in front of me, tears rolling down my face, thinking of nothing other than the hopeless life I’m ‘living’.
After a couple of hours I went to see HR to fill them in on what was happening and then went home. I slept for five hours or so but didn’t feel any better. The sudden worsening of depression can no doubt be attributed to Sunday, when anxiety keep me awake all night. I finally got to bed at 4.30 on Monday morning and slept for an hour before getting up to go to work. That day and yesterday were okay, I guess it just had to come back and bite me somehow. I’d be crazy to think it wouldn’t. Heh. Crazy.
As I mentioned in my last blog I had an appointment tonight to see my Doctor which couldn’t have been better timing. Her suggestion has been to increase the dose of my antidepressant (Pristiq) from 50mg to 100mg. I’m a big guy, so maybe it’ll be the larger dose that works. I’m crossing my fingers. And toes. And eyes. Although if increasing the dose is anything like getting onto Pristiq initially was, my eyes will cross without any help from me. And Officeworks had better stock the shelves.
As long as I wear my underpants on the outside I’ll be fine, right?
(In Australia, Friday March 18th was the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence)
I encourage anyone with children attending school to read this story. This is dedicated to Erinn. You were tougher than anyone gave you credit for and I’m so incredibly proud of you.
In Western Australia in 1977 a young boy named Erinn attended his first day of Primary school. An only child, Erinn was shy, a little withdrawn and these days would perhaps be described as androgynous. The name ‘Erinn’ was unique for a male at the time and this, combined with his quiet, gentle nature often lead to him being mistaken for female.
Within a week he was being verbally abused by the older students in the school. Initially assuming he was a girl, a teacher had scolded him for using the male toilets during lunch. A group of boys from another year saw this, and began teasing him, branding him a ‘poofter’ and a ‘pansy’.
The bullying escalated throughout the year as older students took his possessions, hit him, forced him to eat sand and frightened him so severely on two occasions he was found by teachers crying and hyperventilating in a corner of the playground, having not returned to class after recess.
His parents approached his teacher but were told that they were overreacting. His parents were only aware of a very small amount of the actual bullying that was occurring at this time. The teacher knew about the majority of it.
In his second and third years of school ( aged 7 & 8 ) Erinn was bullied regularly by students from the sixth and seventh year classes. Halfway through the school year he was grabbed as he was leaving the school grounds, held down by three older boys then kicked in the genitals repeatedly by a fourth before the same boy urinated on him. The boys threatened to kill him if he told anyone.
A complaint to the school lead to the Principal saying he couldn’t discipline the boys because the incident had not occurred on school property. It had occurred on a council footpath less than a metre away from the school oval.
The same children were later overheard by a teacher threatening to force Erinn to eat a cup of faeces. She reported it to the Principal. The ringleader’s parents were called in but it only escalated the taunting in later months.
Toward the end of the school year Erinn was called from his lessons into the seventh grade classroom. The students in that year had purchased Christmas presents for each other and were storing them under a tree. Presents labeled for three boys known to be bullying Erinn had been opened, along with several others, and some presents were missing. The boys told their teacher that they had seen him stealing the items from the classroom before school. The teacher made Erinn stand in front of the class and questioned him over and over while the bullies continued to falsely accuse him. He was marched back to his classroom by the teacher and his bag was searched in front of his classmates. That afternoon his bike was vandalized.
Again his parents complained to the school and again were told that nothing could be done due to the ‘he said, she said’ nature of the matter.
The bullying continued throughout Primary School having now extended to students from the local High School chasing him on bikes, hitting his legs with steel rulers and pelting him with food. Too scared to speak about this with his parents, it was the complaint of a local resident that had witnessed the physical assaults on the then ten year old that brought the issue to the attention of the school.
The High School Principal disciplined the students by singling them out as bullying a 10 year old boy during school assembly. The bullying stopped immediately.
Graduating to High School in 1985, most of the physical abuse had subsided but there was still the name-calling. Branded a ‘faggot’ by his peers, Erinn managed to form a strong friendship over the holidays with a couple of the more popular students who then protected him to a degree over the next two years.
In 1987, his family moved to another area and he began attending his 3rd year of high school.
A sports focused school, the students immediately noticed the differences in this new, slightly effete student and the insults hurled from one boy in the first week had escalated to hundreds of students within a few months. Walking through the corridors, other students from varying years – both male and female – would shout ‘faggot’ or ‘poofter’ at him. Any teachers that witnessed this would completely ignore it. When passing classrooms, students he had never met or spoken with would begin shouting out insults. After school he would be dragged off his bike and repeatedly punched by a group of boys who would also threaten his life. It was at this time, aged fourteen that he would unsuccessfully attempt to take his own life.
With the level of bullying now brought to the attention of the school, Erinn and two friends were given access to a classroom for all breaks and the Principal also mediated some meetings between Erinn and some of the other students that were verbally abusing him, giving them a chance to meet him for the first time. In most cases this was extremely effective and began to allow him his own means of changing the attitude among the student body at large. Unfortunately there was still a core group of male students in his class that would cause the problem to escalate.
Toward the end of that year, some incidents of violence in the change rooms lead to Erinn being given an exemption from sport lessons. After only a few weeks the Physical Education teacher argued to have this reversed and he was reinstated in class.
The first day back, after the class Erinn was pushed into the change room urinal, kicked repeatedly, stomped on then urinated upon.
Talking about his past with another student he trusted, he had mentioned the incident in primary school. This student told the story to some other students who decided it would be funny to do it again.
After the incident Erinn was home schooled for the rest of the year. One of the five boys that assaulted him was expelled. The others were suspended and made to attend counseling with the school Chaplain.
The following year Erinn attended a different school for three months before the taunts of ‘faggot’ began again. The next day he left the education system permanently.
As an adult he suffers from depression and in 1999 attempted suicide twice. He has severe issues with anger. He suffers from agoraphobia and hasn’t been able to sustain a romantic relationship in 16 years.
This is a horrible example of the school system failing a child. Of peers and a community failing a child. Throughout Erinn’s life there were hundreds of witnesses to the bullying he received. The bullying occurred five days a week for over ten years. In that time, only four strangers ever stepped in to help. One that saw a small child being kicked to the ground by other children close to twice his age, another stopped a teenager being dragged to a fight in a shopping centre car park by three other boys, a third reported seeing a child being struck on the head with steel rulers by high school students and a fourth stopped to help a kid lying on the road, knocked unconscious after being pushed off his bike and left there as a group of boys rode off.
I’d like to think now that the school system has changed enough since the late 70’s and 80’s that there would never be a child that went through what Erinn did. But back then it was trusted that it never would, and it did.
As a community we’re all responsible for the safety of one another. And we need to be vigilant when it comes to bullying, be it an open dialogue with our children, witnessing an incident as a passer by and stopping to help or wondering as a teacher if it goes deeper than the ‘few comments’ you witness in the classroom.
Does your child know that they’re able to speak up? Erinn was too ashamed to tell adults about the extent of the bullying. His friends just saw it as his life. Have you given your children the mental tools to defend themselves against a bully and taught them the importance of upholding their own moral code, regardless of the mentality of their friends? Could they stand up and say ‘Hey the way you treated that kid isn’t right’?
Do you hear them referring to other people as ‘Gay’? ‘Ugly’? ‘Stupid’? ‘Fat’? ‘Gross’? Do you say anything about that? Are you allowing it to be okay by thinking it’s ‘just what kids do’?
Only a dozen or so children caused physical harm to Erinn. Hundreds of others throughout his school life caused mental harm. I wonder how many parents heard their children refer to ‘this weird poof at school’ and thought nothing of it. I wonder how many of them would read Erinn’s story and still think it was such a ‘throwaway’ comment.
From the kid with the patch of hair without any pigment to the girl with the birthmark on her arm, to the effeminate boy, the tomboy, the short kid, the kid that reads all the time, the kid that can’t catch, the boy with the accent, the girl that likes spaghetti and peanut butter in her sandwiches, the kid obsessed with sharpening pencils, the boy that snorts when he laughs, the girl with the weird mum, the quiet one, the loud one, the gay one, the gangly one, the…. well, they’re all just kids, aren’t they? Amazing, funny, different, lovable, brilliant kids.
All kids deserve acceptance, tolerance, support and love. If the thought of your child being abused daily breaks your heart then it’s your responsibility to ensure nobody else’s child suffers the same.
The parents of Erinn’s tormentors no doubt loved, supported and were proud of their children. We’re not talking about at-risk teens here. We’re talking students that excelled at school, played sports and were respected by their peers. And no doubt as parents they were relieved that their children weren’t being bashed, bullied and abused by others. I wonder if they ever entertained the idea that their children were in fact doing all this to another child, and what they would think when they found out it drove someone to the point of suicide.
If you’re relieved that your children will never know the pain that Erinn’s childhood did, take a moment to be very, very sure that you know your children would never participate in bullying. Don’t take it as given. Help them to be strong, take the high road and be the amazing people you want them to be. It’s up to all of us to stop this. Don’t be relieved it’s not happening to your family. Don’t be complacent. Be a part of working towards making the lives those at risk of bullying better.
Please. Please. PLEASE.
———–
(In 1999 Erinn changed his name because it related so strongly to the memories of the bullying he’d experienced. He’s a very lovely man. He’s funny, kind and quirky. He’s working hard at freeing himself from depression and anxiety. He likes Disco and Noodle Box and has an inexplicable preference for Dannii Minogue’s musical output over Kylie’s. His name is now Seb, he wrote this post and he thanks you with all his heart for reading it.)
After the highs, lows and that one day of SOARINGWHOOOOOOHOOOOOOBOINGBOINGBOING the old brain department seems to be ready to attempt the move from drugs that don’t work to some that hopefully do. Or some that at least make me hallucinate bunnies. Bunnies are awesome.
I’ve been on such a ride recently that I’m almost tempted to stay with my dial stuck at ‘Beige Wonderland’ for a while longer but even the beige ups and downs are enough to warrant making some changes. I’ve been at this point a few times before (“I’m sure we’ve driven past that framed Dannii Minogue poster already…are we lost?”) but to succumb to feelings that don’t seem to legitimately belong to me wouldn’t make sense so I’m pulling on my ‘recovering nutter’ pants and trying again.
I’ll keep this just between us and the internet for now but I’m scared. Quite reasonable considering what’s been going on upstairs recently, but I’m hesitant to call my Doctor again. Right now I can think of a good 12 reasons that I probably shouldn’t call including finances, lack of time, she’ll be booked out, gherkins smell funny, the ending of ‘Lost’ was a bit shit and it’s a day of the week ending in ‘y’. This hesitance might be familiar to others with depression. If it’s not awful and it’s not awesome then sometimes it’s good to not do anything. Don’t upset the balance of things. Rest. Don’t try. No need. I didn’t really like being happy anyway, and look what happiness did to Lindsay Lohan.
I know for a fact that this doesn’t work. How? That’s the exact approach I took for a couple of months. Until, y’know, my brain decided to throw a sharp left and I ended up needing to check in with a psych nurse twice a day so she knew I hadn’t ended it all. Lesson learned.
Things are calmer now. I have two fantastic housemates, the support of my employer and co-workers, the most incredible friends a guy could wish for and as people often remind me I’ve managed to make it this far. No time like the present to make appointments, change medications and work even harder toward beating this. The psych that I saw for six sessions late last year told me he thinks that I’ll need a minimum of two years of counselling. He gave me a referral to a colleague he’s sure can help with depression and agoraphobia. He also gave me details for a clinic run out of one of the Universities. Yep, he wants me to go to both. Although the unwell part of me is telling me not to call, that it will be too intense, they won’t be able to help, it will be a waste of money and time, that chips are delicious and why don’t we go to KFC right now – I know I’m not capable of making that judgement for myself at the moment.
So at age 38, having got myself this far and knowing myself extremely well as a result I now have to ignore my strongest instincts because I can’t trust them right now. I feel like I’ve just played on a PS3 for the first time and the 8 year old gaming whiz beside me has just said ‘You’re a bit shit at this, aren’t you!’.
But tomorrow will be call day. 3 calls. One to my Doctor to make an appointment. One to Pizza Hut the Uni Clinic and one to the Psych.
Here goes…
I’ve been taking Lexapro for just over two years. Just swallow the tablets with food in the morning and off you go for the day. You’d think it’s a fairly simple exercise but there have been numerous times that I’ve forgotten to take them, on a few occasions for a couple of days at a time. I noticed that when I did this, on the second or third day I would experience a day where I was buzzing with energy. I’d not want to eat, I’d laugh at things that weren’t really that funny (not anything as dastardly as “Two and a Half Men” but close) and post update after update on Twitter. I’d spend the work day being louder, cheekier and cockier that I would normally be and I would feel myself getting overexcited as I spoke ‘Oh hey I just spoke to his customer and he was all I want to buy some stuff and I was all what kind of stuff andhewasallinternetstuffandIsaidwellyoucalledtherightplace ANDTHENWELAUGHEDANDITWASSOOOOFUNNY!!‘. I’d ball my hands into fists again and again and tap my leg with a pen, all the while trying to ‘pull in’ the massive surge of adrenalin.
I’ve since discovered this is quite common if your dose is suddenly lowered. That you can go from incredibly low to almost alright to feeling normal-ish to feeling incredible to so past uncomfortable that you really wanted to get off the ride and go hide in the corner. Experiencing mild symptoms of a bipolar swing without actually being bipolar.
So when I sat in the clinic meeting room and was told I needed to halve my dosage immediately I thought I had a handle on what might happen. After a few days I would stop feeling stuck in darkness and would suddenly be found polishing the windows while singing along at the top of my lungs to Toni Basil’s “Mickey” in a silver catsuit. Read it, seen it, bought the t-shirt.
In my last post I mentioned that I started to feel more in control of my thoughts on Saturday. By Sunday I was somewhere else entirely. I woke up feeling a bit better than the day before. Then I made my bed. Those that have followed this blog for a while will know that bed-making is one of my major ‘blocks’. I’ve spent months sleeping on a bare mattress, with clean, ready-to-put-on-the-bed-and-feel-amazing sheets thrown in the corner of the room because I become so overwhelmed when I try to perform this relatively unchallenging household task. But on this day I got up and did it.
“Why is this so easy now? What did I do differently?”
I ran though everything in my head.
“The visit from my friend the previous day? Did I sleep longer? I didn’t have dinner. Maybe that’s done something chemically. I have to be able to do this again.”
Then -
“I need to buy underpants and socks and storage containers”
Ooookay then.
I dressed, grabbed my credit card and got in the car. I turned the cd player up as loud as it would go and drove to Galleria. Massive bursts of adrenaline were surging through my stomach and chest. Like butterflies on speed, on fire, at a rave. It sounds like it would be an incredible feeling compared to the days before but it was too much. I couldn’t calm down. I started yelling. “Ha! Haaaa!” I hit the accelerator as hard as I could and clenched my teeth together, tightening my jaw. Tighten, relax, tighten, relax. Over and over. Go faster. Punch the car door. Hit the steering wheel. Yell. Hit. Clench.
The whole drive I fought the feeling and tried to calm myself down. I felt so violent but not angry… I just had to get this all this energy out. I arrived at Galleria and I walked right in, for once without any of my usual hesitation. There wasn’t any fear, but it was still overpowering.
“Calm. Down. Calm. Down. Calm. Down.”
I walked out of Galleria an hour later having spent $400.00 on boxer shorts and socks. Then I drove to Officeworks and bought a paper shredder. I went back home to drop off my loot then returned to Officeworks to buy storage containers. Then I drove home again. Then I felt the urgent need to drive back to Officeworks and buy extra storage containers. Each transaction I could feel my face trying to keep up with my rapid speech. And to my inner ‘cool person’s disappointment I caught myself doing those loathsome little nervous laughs at the end of every sentence which no doubt added an extra dimension of ‘Yo, where was that panic button at again?’ to the cashier’s day.
“Busy day? Hah! Thanks for that heh! Hope the afternoon goes quickly hah! Probably be back again in another five minutes HEE!”
Oh shut up and get back to punching your steering wheel, you’re scaring the locals, Seb.
When I finally settled at home I went through some cardboard boxes I’d left untouched in the garage since we moved house in 2009. I sorted through them and dumped a lot of stuff I didn’t need then repacked them in the stackable storage containers. A job like that would normally overwhelm me halfway through and I’d have to complete via several attempts. But I was able to see everything through. I still had too much energy but I had found something to put it into.
I reorganised the storage room, threw out about 600 CD’s, went through dozens of old folders with receipts from old mid 90′s tax returns, redid my bookcases, then alphabetised my remaining CD’s. I swept the garage, cleaned the entire house, washed every item of clothing I had and somehow ended up ironing my bedcovers and making my bed a second time. I was able to do everything that I plan to do every weekend but end up getting blocked by my own thoughts. The more I achieved with this ‘too much’ feeling in my chest the more I began to realise how far down I’d been and how very, very long it had been since I was able to do something as simple as clean the bathroom in one go, without all the little breaks when depression would overtake my ability to continue. That the ‘too much, too tired’ feeling I was so used to wasn’t real. It was then that I decided to sign up again for Twitter. In one second it changed from being something I just couldn’t cope with to being back in the ‘okay’ basket again. Go figure.
The rest of the day I Tweeted happily, downloaded music on iTunes and sporadically hung out or brought in some washing. I knew I needed to sleep so I could return to work the next day but the intensity hadn’t really wavered. I was tired but so thrilled to be tired. Positively delirious. As it approached 1am I played the diabetic card and ate chocolate washed down with full strength, sugary Coke. Before long I felt like passing out and managed to fall asleep.
The next day the mania had passed and I was feeling low again. It’s a cruel trick that so many people with bipolar must be all too familiar with. You get to see how you could be at your best, but it goes past being manageable or comfortable. It feels close to happiness but you’re not happy. You’re out of control. Then you’re back down again, and you’re all too aware of how far you’ve fallen.
I’m now at the end of the second week of ‘levelling out’ and I get to speak to my Doctor next week about changing medications. I don’t want to but I know I have to. Since the manic day I’ve had a lot of lows so Lexapro isn’t the drug for me anymore, at either the high or low dosage.
That’s where it stands today. I need help to recover so I can work towards getting better. I know how dark it can go for me and I know that I can ask for help and people will be there. So I start again. Kind of fitting for the beginning of 2011.
New Year. New medication. New possibilities. And yes…a Shitload of new underwear.
Sorry to leave so long between the last post and this. It’s a little exhausting once I finish a post like that and I needed to give myself to space to eat 49 pizzas regroup. Please know that I am okay now. The events of these posts happened a couple of weeks ago and I received the support and medical attention I needed. Sure, there was a distinct lack of hot male nurseness throughout the journey but as they say, ‘Nutters can’t be choosers‘.
When I woke up on Tuesday I felt the familiar sadness and heaviness weighing on me. Usually I can sleep off a depressive episode but it seemed to be even worse. What the Ke$ha (yep, she’s an expletive now) was going on? I had an urgent need to use the toilet but I lay there for close to two hours, using the pain and discomfort to punish myself. Take that. Fuck you. Fuck I HATE you. A fury within the sadness. In that time I had hundreds of thoughts of self harm run through my mind. Cutting, swallowing tablets, smashing my car into a tree, hanging myself, sitting in the garage and running the car until I was overcome by fumes, all of these images played over and over in my head while I lay there defeated. Why don’t you do THIS, Seb? You should do THIS. You have nothing. You are nothing. I felt broken. A body that can’t move and a brain that I seem to have lost control over.
When I’m feeling like this I worry that those suggestions in my mind will get traction. Sometimes they’re in the background and you feel like you can ignore them. Other times they’re the only thing you can see. The safest thing to do is sleep.
Eventually I managed to get up and go to the toilet. Then back to the bedroom to sit on the end of the bed and stare at the wall. No direction, no hope, no reason to be.
That afternoon I had an appointment at the Perth Mental Health Clinic. I couldn’t shower. I couldn’t do more than pull on the same t-shirt and shorts I’d been wearing since Friday night and get into the car to drive down there. I couldn’t keep my head upright the whole journey. I felt so pressed down with grief. Yep, there’s physical manifestations of intense emotion. When I got to the car park I sat there for a while trying to find the will to walk a block to the clinic. There was no anxiety. There was just that same, constant feeling of heaviness that seemed to have drained me out of myself.
When I got to the clinic the receptionist told me I wasn’t down for an appointment. I broke down. A few phone calls were made and the social worker and psych nurse I was meant to see were tracked down and they took me through to one of the meeting rooms. It looked like a tiny courtroom, with a slightly raised bench they both sat behind.
We spent an hour discussing what I was currently experiencing, my history with depression and my experiences growing up. They were both so kind and careful with me but never spoke in that ‘now, just back away from the ledge’ tone. They’d read the letter from my Doctor and agreed that the doubled dosage of Lexapro I was on seemed to be the cause of the thoughts of self harm and the deepening depression. A ‘medication induced switch’.
The suggestion was that I had to stay on the Lexapro, but halve the dosage. I was told that things could get worse. I would more than likely experience a manic episode or extreme mood swings. After a week of settling down, I should remain on the Lexapro for a further two weeks before trying another antidepressant, possibly with the addition of a mood stabiliser. And that I needed ongoing psychiatric support.
Although I know now they were entirely correct I felt like I’d come to them having nearly drowned and they were suggesting I stay in the water. We discussed a support plan for the ensuing days, including helpline numbers, what I would say to friends and family, how I would ‘check in’ with people as frequently as possible and to attend the emergency department if things got out of control.
As I walked back to the car I texted a couple of friends to let them know what had happened. Then I went home and went back to bed, sleeping until the following morning.
Wednesday was the same. Thursday. Friday. Darkday. Darkday.
On Friday afternoon one of my friends came to visit me even though I had earlier told him not to. He walked in and apologised. Then he looked at me said ‘I have to be able to help. You have to let me help you mate. ‘ and he teared up. It felt like someone had just punched me in the chest. He sat with me and grabbed my hand. He held it in his and he didn’t let go. It was such an amazing gesture. I have a lot of straight friends that aren’t afraid of a hug but a man that’s so comfortable with himself that he can hold a friend’s hand and listen and sit with them while they cry is someone incredibly special. He offered to stay that afternoon while I slept and to come back the next day and the day after that – as long as it took to make me feel safe. He told me that he couldn’t understand what was happening to me and he wanted to find out as much as he could so he could help. If your heart can break in a positive way, that’s what exactly what happened to mine in that moment. I talked as much as I could and then, typical of someone in my situation tried to make him leave. But his stubbornness won out and he ended up leaving after he was sure I was asleep much later that night.
When I woke up on Saturday the dark, unwanted thoughts had finally become fainter. The sadness was there but I wanted to get out of bed for the first time in seven days. I had my first shower in almost nine days. Later that afternoon when I felt the heaviness return I slept for a couple of hours, and when I awoke I felt like I’d managed to gain control again.
To my mind, I managed to get through the week because I had asked for help. I had been offered medical advice and although I didn’t trust it, I followed it. And most importantly I was offered love and support from many amazing friends that week and I, for the most part, accepted it. On the days I felt I needed to be alone those friends understood and watched from a distance. But they watched nonetheless.
For a messed up dude who on his worst days can’t communicate or leave the house I have some incredible people in my life. Some of you I’ve known for years, some I’ve met recently and some I only interact with online. I don’t always get why you’re still around but please, please know how much your friendship, support and words mean to me. I’m sorry that I don’t always know how to react. When I’m better I look forward to being the friend to you that you have all unfailingly been to me.
If you suffer from depression, or have thoughts like I’ve described in the last couple of posts please know that there’s hope. Please realise that you are loved even when every fibre of your being is telling you you’re not. Sometimes our fibres and our beings can be incredibly, incredibly wrong.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post it’s not been exactly awesomely disco-tastic in the Haus Of Seb. To be honest I think I’ve had the worst fortnight of depression I can recall. Two weekends ago had started out fine with a nice dinner on Friday night and a busy Saturday getting ready to DJ at a private party for the owners of The Court Hotel. The night went off without a hitch and I got to bed at a decent hour. Well…for a DJ, anyway.
Sunday morning I was to meet some friends for breakfast so I set my alarm to give myself enough time to reshape my face into something resembling a human being and get to the cafe early. When the alarm went off my brain very helpfully decided to go in another direction.
My very first thought upon waking was ‘You should kill yourself.’
I had been awake all of thirty seconds and my eyes teared up as I tried to choke back a sob. I rolled over, switched my phone off, and closed my eyes. That same thought ran over and over in my head until I fell asleep again. I stayed in bed until 4pm. Each time I woke up the same thought ran through my head and the heaviness associated with the darkest of depression filled my chest and stomach.
When I got out of bed I switched my phone back on and saw I had some messages. One was from my ex-housemate, who wanted me to ring him to help organise an internet connection at his new house. Two were from the friends I had been meeting for breakfast. Three were from one of my clients. Two were from my Mum, asking me to ring her. All of the messages needed replying to. They all had a sense of urgency. I sat down and noticed I was crying again. I felt trapped by the depression, my own thoughts and the expectation of the people needing a reply. I was furious at all of them. I have days when I can’t cope with phones or email. I just cannot communicate and they were all seeming to push and push, like they were hunting me. That’s the only way to describe it, as strange and selfish as it seems now that I’m away from it. I felt hunted and filled with so much darkness I was incapacitated. And all the while the constant chatter of ‘take all your medications, over inject yourself, cut your wrists, crash your car, kill yourself’ ran through my head. Not like it was a thought of my own, or even something I was intending to do, rather more of a polite suggestion from someone who didn’t quite understand why I would possibly want to continue living.
To me, the only thing to do was to remove ways to contact me. One of the things that has been so incredibly helpful to me throughout this project is Twitter. I’ve made some incredible friends, it’s brought people to this website and it’s brought me so many offers of help and support it makes me smile just thinking of it. But that day it was toxic. It made me feel ill, and heavy so I simply sat down at my computer and deleted it. It was done. Then I cancelled my Gmail account. Then I rang my mobile phone provider and tried to get my mobile disconnected that day. It just seemed so right to do. Luckily I have a business plan so nothing could be done until Monday so in the meantime I took out my SIM card and threw it in the bin.
I can’t remember much more about that day other than my housemate commenting that he was concerned at how down I seemed. And that I wanted to drive to get some food but I was too scared to drive my car lest I lose the seemingly small level of control I had over the dark thoughts in my head.
I didn’t sleep much that night and around 4am it was very clear that I should get some help. The thoughts of death were now so loud and I was so drained I couldn’t see how I could get through the day. At the back of my mind was a conversation I had during a session with the psychologist my employer had organised for me. He said that it was clear to him that even though my medications had been changed it was obvious that the higher dosage wasn’t working and I should see a psychiatrist for a more specialised opinion. At the time I had known he was right but my moods changed so frequently that as soon as things seemed to be bad enough that I would be motivated to follow up on his suggestion my depression would lift again. Anyone knowing how this cycle runs will understand – as soon as you feel good for a couple of days the last thing you want to do is examine your mental health. ‘Oh, I’m okay now! Rainbows! Unicorns! Skipping through meadows FTW!’ is a very powerful and distracting thought.
I realised that morning that I’d made a mistake in not contacting the psych and hoped I’d be able to get in to see my Doctor that day. I fished my SIM card out of the bin, called the surgery as soon as it opened and managed to get an appointment to see her later that morning. Getting dressed to drive there required more effort that I could ever have imagined – it took two hours. I would put on one sock slowly then sit staring into space for fifteen minutes overwhelmed with feeling so bleak and filled with grief. I made it to the surgery half an hour late and after I spoke to my Doctor for ten minutes she became so worried she suggested hospitalisation and called the mental health registrar for some advice. They spoke for a while – I remember being bemused at her referring to me as ‘usually very high functioning’ as I certainly felt anything but. At the registrar’s suggestion she managed to get me an emergency appointment for the next day with a social worker and a psych nurse and we discussed all the ways I could ensure I remained safe until then.
I stressed to her I was there because I was scared about these unwanted thoughts, not that I had any intention of acting on them (something I must stress to people reading this as well). I spoke briefly to the social worker I would be seeing the next day on the phone and then discussed with the Doctor the registrar’s opinion that the drug I was on (prescribed at double the previous dose) had caused something called a ‘medically induced switch’ which basically means that the drug causes the symptoms to worsen. We talked about letting my housemate, employer and friends know what was happening and that I could come back to the surgery or report to the emergency department if things felt out of control.
When I got back home I called work, informed HR, emailed my Manager and texted a couple of friends and my housemate to let them know what was happening.
When mental health issues cause you to need time off work it can sometimes leave you feeling that nobody at your workplace will understand or that if, like me, you’ve been had several incidents that effect your ability to perform your job you worry that they are thinking ‘here we go again’. I know that in my case I’m lucky enough to have support from my Co-workers, my Manager and the HR department but I still felt guilt over ‘letting them down’ again. Just three days before I’d had a meeting with the HR manager and we’d had a happy discussion about how much progress I had made. Sure, some of it had been me hoping more than actually feeling that much better, but I couldn’t understand why something of this severity would happen to me now.
In this case I decided to reveal the reasons behind my absence and scanned and sent a copy of the Doctor’s referral letter to the Mental Health clinic, detailing her worries about self harm and my current state of mind. It was a scary thing to do but also seemed the best way to let someone at work know what I was going through, in case I had further difficulties or required more time off. It also meant that I had no way of covering up or dismissing any issues I had any more,
The HR manager sent me an email with her mobile number and told me to call should I need to talk, which gave me my first happy tears in a very long time.
I went back to bed that afternoon around two and slept through to the following morning..