I don’t have anything new. So read this, from four years ago, two years to the day before Jack was born. It’s exactly what I would say today, if anyone asked. Wouldn’t it be a gas if sometime we might read back in our journals and see progress, rather than this endless repetition?
You may be interested in these related posts:Willpower? What’s that?
Several weeks ago I was at the end of an already short rope that had been unraveling for months- years, really. My history is no secret, and I’ve documented it on this website and in countless journals over the years. Because I have been fighting this battle since I was 14, I am familiar with how one goes about “getting help”. Since we are poor, the only way for me to “get help” is to wait it out with the local mental health department, and then go in and answer the psychiatrist’s questions the right way in the right direction to get the medication that I know I need.
I did my research. I found a drug in a class that I hadn’t tried before, with low side effects and supposedly a fantastic success rate for the people who were able to tolerate it. I cajoled a friend who has insurance into getting her doctor to prescribe it to her. Unfortunately, he would only give her the beginner dose, so for 6 weeks I took it at half of the therapeutic dosage. I wasn’t worried when I didn’t feel consistently better, because I knew when I saw the shrink she’d increase my dose and then the world would be rosy again. Except it isn’t. Sometimes I am teased with a remission, a small taste of what it’s like for the rest of the world. No matter how much I love the taste of that- no matter how wonderful it is to be ambitious, happy, stable… I can’t hold onto it.
I am a woman in the absolute prime of my life, who spends most of it in bed. When Hannah looks back on her childhood, this is what she will remember about me. That I was often mean, and I spent most of my time in bed. Every day there is a list of manageable tasks that I could do, to make this better: play with the baby. Wash the dishes. Do some laundry. Pick up clothes off the floor. Eat. Leave the house. Every night I fall into bed after midnight, having done nothing on that basic list. I have design projects. I have a part time job. I have “taken charge” of the situation inasmuch as I have gone back on medication, I am no longer “just” a SAHM, I am bringing in money, I am being stimulated intellectually. In the past, doing these things would have been enough. There was a time when on my own, I would slowly emerge from the bedroom, stretch, go outside, eat something healthy, and resume my life. This is not that time. I am afraid that this time, even the medication isn’t going to bring me back.
I am tired. My family is tired of seeing me this way. My husband is tired of shouldering the entire workload of running a family. I have nothing to give him, and yet he continues to love me, hoping that one day the Other Summer will be back. I hope that too, but the back and forth is wearing me out.
Depression is too often grossly underestimated and misunderstood. There is a stigma attached to mental illness that causes those of us who suffer from it to hide our pain from our friends and family, to make up other reasons for our absence from the world. Migraines. Backaches. The flu. Some mental illness, if not treated, causes irreparable damage to brain tissue. I have Major Depression without Psychosis. It really doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? It’s not cancer. I’m not wasting away of AIDS. Depression, though, can be a terminal illness just like cancer or AIDS. What about those cases where death is not imminent? What about the people who face every day knowing that there is still no answer? That this day will be like yesterday, or maybe a little worse? Or maybe, just for a teaser, a little bit better? What of the spouses who work themselves ragged every day, who cling tightly to a memory of this person who was so loving, full of life, strong, and capable? Where are the support groups for Spouses of People with an Undetermined Terminal Illness?
