I've been running into...

...lots of people recently, who state they are having trouble with depression. It's one of those diseases that nobody wants to talk about, but lots of people have. Sort of like how nobody likes to talk about having a yeast infection for example. So I decided to post about depression. (I'll pass on the yeast infection post for now, but if if I get a BIG demand for it, I'll reconsider.)

I can speak from experience. I've *been there done that*. I've battled depression for decades. Some battles went well. Some... not so well. What causes depression is different for each person. The brain is one of the facets of the human body that is least understood by modern medicine. Hence the reason that illnesses of the brain are hard to treat or understand.

For me, I have a combination of things. First, I have heredity. I have a strong family history of alcoholism, which I believe was family members self-treating mental illness. (Depression is commonly behind drug and alcohol abuse.) Another part of my combination is seasonal. My depression is less in spring and summer, and worsens in fall and winter. I have it year-round, but the intensity fluctuates by the seasons.

My first experience with major depression was when I was 15. I was sad, withdrawn, and cried a lot. I had suicidal thoughts, but wasn't willing to act on them yet. My family pretty much ignored me, thinking I was being an emotional teenager. I self-medicated by abusing inhalants. My depression fluctuated during the following couple years. Some times were better, some were worse. By the time I was 17, I had thrown myself into a workaholic situation - I just didn't allow myself any time to stop, because then I wouldn't have time to think. The few times I did have time to think, I was plotting how I was going to kill myself. I don't know what kept me afloat at that time. I really don't. My mind has blocked out a good 18 months of my life from that frame of time. I can honestly say I don't remember most of my junior year of high school, nor do I remember the first half of my senior year.

Then a time came where I emerged from that depression. Things just seemed to be going *right* for me. I was happier and enjoying things again. I had a boyfriend, a nice group of friends, had graduated high school and was getting ready to start college. Things went well for a few years. Then the seasonal depression started sneaking in here and there. Then the suicidal thoughts crept back in here and there. It's strange, but it seems as though my brain has a record it plays and sometimes the needle hits a scratch in the record and gets stuck in one groove until it gets knocked out of that spot. Those of you that have ever listened to music on a record know what I mean. Those of you that haven't.... I don't know how else to describe it. Sorry.

Then I had my son. After he was born, I fell into my deepest depression ever. There were times I would just curl up in a closet and cry. I'd cry in the shower. I'd cry myself to sleep. I'd cry while sitting on the couch. I'd cry when my son was awake, I'd cry when he was asleep. I felt like the worst mother ever. I felt I couldn't do a single thing right. I felt abandoned by everyone. I felt like a failure. Fortunately for my son, he doesn't remember that time of his life. When he was a little over 6 months old and I found myself sitting in my bedroom with a gun in my hand, I decided there was absolutely no way I could allow him to grow up without a mom. That would be the ultimate failure. And he didn't ask for this! It took me a couple days to build up the courage to call in and get an appointment to see someone in psychiatry, but I did it. I don't know why it takes so much courage to call in for that! I wouldn't hesitate to call my doctor if I thought I had appendicitis. Why should this pain be any different?

I was set up with a counselor right away who had me fill out a multi-page questionaire. Based on that questionaire and an interview, he marched me into the MD's office and had him prescribe me an antidepressant right then. That was Zoloft. It worked well for me for a couple months, then it wasn't working. The dose was increased and the same thing happened - it worked for a little bit, then seemed to fizzle out. I had my back-up plan in my medicine cabinet. I had a bottle of thirty Tylenol #3s that I'd kept from after childbirth. The bottle sat there, with a funky yellow and black striped label from the pharmacy on the side. I'd open the medicine cabinet and look at that label and know that I had an out yet.

I wasn't terribly fond of the MD I was seeing and I felt the counselor wasn't helping too much, so I switched to another clinic. I spoke with an MD there who put me on Celexa instead. That was *fun*. Ha! Celexa made me feel like I couldn't sleep. I would jump up and down in place. I was vacuuming at midnight. I was doing laundry at 3am. I would talk a mile a minute. I felt like I was wound tighter than a spring. (I got a lot done though. LOL.)

I went back to the MD and described my symptoms. He had me stop that medication right away, and to try and do a "wash-out" from medications. I was to try and get to a point where I wasn't taking any medication for at least a week, then he would start with a clean slate and go from there. Weaning off medications is NOT fun. I had headaches. I had what I call cotton head. I was dizzy. I felt nauseous. And the depression was sneaking back in. I couldn't completely get off the medication - I got down to half a pill of the lowest dose made every other day, and I could keep my symptoms in check to keep me mostly functional. The doc decided that was washed-out enough. He started me on Effexor XR. That was almost 9 years ago, and I've been on it ever since. I've had to tweak the dose a couple times, but other than that, it's been my saving grace. I feel normal when I take this medication. I like feeling normal. After being on it for a year, I dumped out that bottle of Tylenol #3s with the black and yellow label. Twice, that medication has shown up in my home - once after hubby had dental surgery, and once after I had my reduction surgery. Each time, they got flushed. I won't keep them. I don't need them as a back-up anymore.

I won't lie and say the suicidal thoughts never sneak back in. Remember the broken record analogy? The scratch is still present in my record. It just doesn't fall into the rut as much and it's very easy to bump the needle out of the rut anymore. Maybe a day will come when the needle doesn't even find that scratch anymore.

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Links for further info:

http://psychcentral.com/depquiz.htm

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

http://www.wingofmadness.com/

http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.html
*if you feel you might suffer from depression, take the quiz. Print out the results and hand it to your doctor. You won't feel like you have to start the conversation that way.