Old News, New Opinions

Word in the news (admittedly for several years) is that there is a link between depression and inflammation, that depression may even be an allergic reaction to inflammation. 

The link exists in “sickness behavior”- something that occurs both for people with, say, the flu, and for people with depression.  Sickness behavior is that general low-energy, low-motivation, pain-sensitive, hygiene-resisting malaise that renders you immobile when you’re sick.  It's not sickness itself, but the way the body directs its powers away from everyday tasks and focuses everything on fighting off the disease.

What I love about this theory- whether or not it is true- is that it makes depression relatable.  Anyone who has ever been moderately ill has a measure of insight as to what depression feels like.  It legitimizes that this is an illness and is not something that can be brushed off or sucked up or pulled up by one’s bootstraps.  In fact, believing one is in a funk or just being lazy is a part of the mental distortion of depression.

Just for kicks, I’ve made a list of my sickness behavior

When… 

-You don’t have the strength to lift your toothbrush.

-You resign yourself to the fact that it’s going to be a messy bun week.

-The floor is lava.

-Your apartment looks like an episode of Hoarders.

-Potato chips are an acceptable form of sustenance unless you can manage to make yourself a poptart.

-You’ve been wearing the same clothes for the past 36 hours, and plan to continue to wear them for at least the next 12.

-Getting out of bed is a substantial process requiring a forklift, an elaborate pulley system, and blind faith.

-You thank god that your pet can’t speak, lest it tell tales of your epic journey from the bed to the couch and back to the bed.

It’s best to understand that this is only part of what it feels like to suffer from depression.  For one, it’s a pretty light-hearted account but also it doesn’t include the desperately low mood, brutal anxiety, and negative mental onslaught of depression.

This is how I feel now, but I think it's just a side effect of the Chocohol.  That’s good news and bad news.  It’s good that I’m not sick or depressed, but now I’m stuck with this feeling and have no way of knowing when it will go away.

As I’ve said before, I’m just hoping that it’s a matter of getting used to the meds.

Chocohol

So because I’m lazy and stubborn and don’t like to admit that I need medication to be a functioning human person, I let my medications run out.  I’m not talking about the anxiety medications that I’m not sure are exactly doing shit.  I’m talking about the heavy medication that stops me from, for example, thinking there’s a three-piece string quartet living in my walls playing the same four bars of Amazing Grace over and over again in order to torment me. 

Luckily there weren’t any consequences for my perilous game except that my mood slipped a bit.  Well I guess the main consequence was that when I got them filled and had my first dose I slept until 7pm. 

Last time I was on the heaviest of my current medications, I remember it being especially hard to get out of bed, but I don’t remember pulling 19 hours. 

I also remember gaining weight but I don’t remember having the mother of all sweet teeth (tooths?).  

Oh, but it’s not just a sweet tooth.  

I need chocolate.  I need chocolate now.

I realize that this blog is pretty much an open book into my private goings-on but even I have enough pride not to divulge the number of times I made the walk of shame over to my building’s vending machine and walked away $1.25 poorer.  Alright alright, sometimes $2.50 poorer. 

The shame.

I’m hoping I’m just adapting to it and that this problem with subside with time.  Otherwise, I may gain back all the weight I lost.

It’s not looking good.  No energy and a sweet tooth do not a healthy BMI make.

On the plus side, Dr. G spoke with the powers-at-be over at Chocohol (which is henceforth the name of the heavy medication) headquarters, and I don’t have to have weekly blood tests usually required when starting up this medication.  I was only awarded this courtesy because I’ve been on it before and because Dr. G is a hellcat from Brooklyn.

Pdoc love.

Refresh

Yes, I’m trying this again.  I’ve been writing journal entries to myself lately and decided to bring my writing to the web.  At the moment this blog is private, but if I manage to keep up with updates, I’ll open it up to the public.

In terms of what’s new, I’ve deleted a good portion of my writing on this blog and changed the look and name.  What’s especially refreshing, however, is that I’m now on the other side of a nasty depression. 

Let’s back up.  

My last entry was written one month into a hypomanic episode.  (Anyone who has ever been any degree of manic should chuckle knowingly at this- mania tends to inspire a person into taking up old- or new- hobbies and committing to them greatly for a brief period of time.)  A combination of dropping a strong medication and graduating from college sent my mental system haywire.  I liken the second aspect to Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: one moment of pure joy makes me cuckoo bananas. 

I was between psychiatrists at the time.  Dr. Win, my trusty psychiatrist through my college years, had to close her practice for a more lucrative and stable position due to family issues.  At the time she decided to do this, things couldn’t seem any better for me.  I had been doing so well, in fact, that Dr. Marc and I were throwing out words like “remission” and wondering if we might be able to close up shop.

God, that seems like a lifetime away.

It was hardly a week after graduation that I stopped sleeping.  (Sleep is your most sensitive barometer of mental wellness, especially for but not exclusively to those who are mentally ill.)  I’ve had problems with insomnia since the fourth grade, but I always found that I severely missed the sleep I wasn’t having- I wasn’t missing sleep now.  I was feeling no pain. 

Seeing as I’m relentlessly neurotic, it was hardly a heartbeat before I hopped on over to my bestie, WebMD.  A couple days into my sleeplessness I emailed Dr. Win- “I’m having all the symptoms of mania except that I’m not being reckless.”

“Sounds like you’re hypomanic.”

She prescribed me a new medication and told me to hang tight until I saw my new psychiatrist, Dr. G, who she recommended as her replacement and is my current psychiatrist.

My first appointment with Dr. G was colorful.  I was able to give an amusingly thorough and comprehensive account of my mental health history.  I walked away from that appointment with three diagnoses: bipolar II (which would later be changed to bipolar I), obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. 

I’d had diagnoses thrown around for most of my life, but never had I had anything securely in place.  I never had anything I could identify with or come to understand as the reasons behind my quirkiness. 

I soon became acquainted with words like “rapid-cycling” and “ultra rapid-cycling” and “ultra-ultra rapid-cycling” (better known as “ultradian rapid-cycling”) and the terror that is “mixed moods”.  If you were ever under the impression that mania merely consists of being super stoked all the time, you should come to learn these definitions, as well as the kind of damage a person in an excessively good mood can do.  You should be aware of unbearable anxiety and uncalled-for irritability.  You should know that a person will do and say things they can't take back.  You should be aware of the fact that what goes up must come down. 

Like. A. Bitch.

Dr. G wouldn’t even say the word.  She called it “the big D”.  We did everything to prevent it, but to no avail.

I spent two seasons under the thumb of the big D.  We tried countless medications to manage it, only to end up back on the medication I initially dropped before graduation, the one that was supposedly unnecessarily strong.

Such is life.

10 months later, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself.  Initially I had to put off getting a job because of the mania, then it was the depression, now it’s the side effects.  Yes, I realize that I'm running out of excuses- I don’t know what I would do even if I was 100%.  I feel like I’m not good for anything except my story, which may be what inspired this writing.  

I believe I have a story to tell.

So, let’s see if I can stop being a lazy-ass and write.

TWO Years

Jesus Christ.  It's been two years (almost to the day) since I've updated this blog.  I assume the dates are so close because two years ago in June I started summer break after the first semester of my junior year and I had spare time on my hands to do things like updating an old, neglected blog.  I probably didn't do it last summer because I was already worrying about my thesis and couldn't justify wasting my time on such a fruitless endeavor.

So, obviously I have time on my hands again. (Great segue, Laura.)  And why might that be???  Because I've graduated from MICA!!!  It took me nine years but I graduated from college with a Bachelor's of Fine Art and now I don't feel quite as unsatisfied with my life. 

Here's the thing.  I started at McDonogh (a private school in Maryland) in the 5th grade.  Because I had a hard time fitting in at my new school (many of the kids there already knew each other for four years and, let's face it, I'm a bit of an odd duck) I stayed close with the friends I made pre-McDonogh.  Eventually, although probably not until later in High School, I built relationships with my peers at McDonogh but while still maintaining my friendships outside of school.  Meaning, half of my friends were middle to upper-class and half of my friends were middle to lower-class .  Which basically resulted on Facebook with this phenomenon: half of my friends are getting married and having children and half my friends are graduating from ivy league schools.  Some have even managed to do both.

Ergo, I think my feelings of dissatisfaction are merited.

Now is the part where I say that I still don't know what this blog is for but that I hope that I can start updating it more frequently.

So I'll see you in another two years, then?

Dr. W

me: But, I mean, it’s not even just old age. A person can die at any time!

him: Yeah I heard that somewhere.

Smartass.

This seemed important at the time

I texted myself:
Mar 21, 2:27 am
hand massages

I think I had just remembered they existed and wanted to make a note not to forget.

Digging

I was digging through photos and found this gem:


I think it just about sums everything up.