Category — depression

While the Zoloft is at least doping me up enough to not want to drive off a cliff, I’m having tons of side effects. I’m groggy, tired, run down, hazy, unmotivated. I sleep about four hours before tossing and turning for most of the rest of the night. Plus, it’s making me have to pee a lot at night, so I’m constantly running to the toilet. I was sick to my stomach for several days and could hardly eat anything except Cap’n Crunch.

Is this progress?

My experience is always that the side effects taper off with time, so I assume the same will happen here again. But man . . . I really just want to feel better. I’ve already backed out of a freelance job because I just can’t pull myself together to earn the money. I have another editing job hovering over me that I keep putting off. I skipped a much-needed social opportunity last night because I was just so overwhelmed with sadness and exhaustion that I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house.

I have to get better. I’m so frustrated by my own inability to just fix it already. I want desperately to get out of the house and I just can’t. The thought of having the get everyone and everything ready by myself makes me give up before I even try. I feel horrible that the girls are stuck inside all day because of this awful disorder-thingy.

And ultimately, that empty loneliness inside still nags. The leaden weight of sadness fills my head and trickles down to my limbs, making it impossible to move. This has to go away.

I saw the therapist on Wednesday. I chose her because 1) she was on my insurance list; 2) she was a woman; 3) she was about three minutes from the house. All completely awesome reasons to select a therapist.

Her office was full of kid toys and kid books and teen magazines. Paintings of happy children playing with teddy bears. Bean bags. Her business cards were cartoon drawings of children playing with giant blocks.

The charlatan was a damned specialist in child psychology and didn’t have the courtesy to mention this to me on the phone. She must have been trying to diversify her clientele.

I described my feelings,  my history of depression, my life experiences. I told her that I have that empty feeling in the middle of my chest, like someone’s ripped my heart out of my rib cage (which, for me, is the first sign of an impending depressive state). I told her that I spend time curled up on the couch, staring at the wall. I cry a lot. I’m all alone. That the smallest tasks are monumental for me.

With her sparkly purple toenails tucked up under her like an impish teen, she smiled, “Maybe you could pack up the kids in a stroller and just walk down the street?”

Lady. I am almost freaking incapacitated. Don’t you think that’s occurred to me? I’m telling you that it is too much for me.

Anyhow. Nice enough lady, but not for me. I need someone hardcore. Someone with a bowtie or toupee or support hose. Someone who won’t give me advice from the March 1993 issue of Cosmo.

I got a script for Zoloft through my OB and I have an appointment to see a real shrink (psychiatrist) in two weeks. The Zoloft is a mild dose and I’m starting with half a pill, twice a day, which I have timed so that the medication is supposedly peaking when the girls aren’t nursing.

The meds make my face and teeth feel like there’s a tiny vibrator running out of batteries somewhere in the middle of my brain. At least I get to feel dizzy while I wait for it to kick in.

I wanted to thank everyone who’s come out of the woodwork (mostly via Twitter and Mommy Melee’s post pimping) to offer their stories and support. Why do all the cool people live on the Internet instead of next door?

Warning: This post is going to be a mess. A big, embarrassing mess.

I’ve been sitting on a blog post for weeks now, editing and revising and tweaking, but ultimately I’ve been too chicken to hit “publish.” But I have to say something. So I figure I’ll just do what I do best, which is:

• Open mouth
• Eject verbal diarrhea
• Regret everything I’ve said
• Insert foot in open mouth
• Remove foot
• Eat humble pie

We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day.

I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.

John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.  I am glad my case is not serious!

But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,–to dress and entertain, and order things.

***

I’m not doing very well.

Repeat: I’m not doing very well. At all.

This is not “man, I’m kinda down,” or “ugh, I need more sleep,” or “I should get out of the house more often.” This is “I’m really really really in desperate need of HELP.” Like, bad. Like, I need an intravenous injection of happiness to make this stop.

I’ve struggled (blah, I hate that word) the better (or worse) part of my life with depression. It’s my “thing.” Some people have allergies. Some people have arthritis. Me? I’m depressed. I have depression. It waxes and wanes, but it’s always always always there.

Depression is a difficult thing (disease? disorder? illness?) to live with, not only because it makes my life harder, but it also complicates the lives of those around me. They don’t get it. Don’t I know I’m a drag when I’m depressed? Why can’t I just snap out of it? Why can’t I just think happy thoughts? Exercise? Eat vegetables? Take vitamins? Get out in the sunshine more often?

It doesn’t work that way. This is something broken. Inside. In my brains. Something short circuiting, something misfiring. It’s something far far far beyond a sad mood. It’s an emptiness in the middle of my chest. A shriveling gut. A longing. A desperation.

Although I’m used to dealing with these feelings, there’s something about this trip around that’s far more intense than I’ve experienced in probably a decade. Hormones are probably contributing. Major life changes. Intense loneliness. Etc.

But man. It’s kicking my ass.

On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind.

The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.

You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.

***

I’ve held back saying anything here for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that mothers aren’t supposed to be depressed.

Oh sure, some moms are alcoholics and abusers and users and cheaters. Some moms are lonely and sad and unfulfilled. Some moms regret becoming moms. Some end up in the psycho tank.

But that’s always someone else, right?

As much theoretical awareness as there is of the psychological complexities of motherhood and womanhood and femaleness, when you deviate from the idealized role of Mother (Mother, Mother), you become marginalized. Castigated. Branded. Feared. Nobody wants to let their kids around you. You’re unstable and bound to snap at any moment. Next thing you know, you’re the main character in a Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story.

You’ve exposed a weakness in the socially constructed role of Mother.

But I know I’m not the only one.

The front pattern does move–and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!

Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.

Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.

And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern–it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

***

Big, huge signpost here: I am not a threat to my kids or my family or myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone. My kids have zero to do with this. I feel no hatred or resentment or negativity toward them at all. So you can put the phone down, thanks.

***

I’m going to see someone tonight. As with all other shrinks I’ve seen throughout the years, I’m going to introduce myself with five minutes of bullet points about my past, my depression, my current feelings. I will smile. I’ll make self-deprecating jokes. I’ll laugh. I won’t shed a tear because SEE I’VE GOT IT TOGETHER DAMMIT. I’ve done this before. A million times.

The thing is, this time, I’m nursing. I would like to avoid prescription meds if at all possible.

The thing is, my brains are probably beyond herbs.

The thing is, I’ve waited too long to get help this time and it’s very desperate.

This thing.

But there is something else about that paper– the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.

It creeps all over the house.

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

It gets into my hair.

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it–there is that smell!