Concentration has been slipping for a couple of weeks now. I'm finding it harder and harder to concentrate durning lectures. Even interesting topics can not hold my attention. Not to mention I find myself having to drag myself out of the house every day. I know it isn't healthy for me to stay in bed all day, but that is just how I feel. At first I thought it was laziness, but it is much more than that. It is a lack of motivation to do anything.
I also have found myself getting irritable and short fused when there is no need for it. This seemingly goes hand in hand with the overwhelming need to blow every little thing out of proportion. That my friends is my anxiety. It lies dormant then BOOM. Everything is a huge deal. One little criticism is seen as a shunning of your existence. Every critique is a huge question of your intellect or character. Even positive things get blown up. Someone telling you something good about you is instantly transformed. They are just saying that, they don't mean it, they are lying to make you feel better. This circle is exhausting. You just want out. Any way you can.
You then turn to thoughts of hurting yourself. I'm not back at that point yet, but I know it is around the corner. For me it begins with all of the above and you just get tired of feeling so terribly. The thoughts come in. Not even of suicide. You just see yourself dying. Over and over again. Various ways, various times. Before long you begin thinking of how you would do it. Then, a leap is made. Thoughts go from just thoughts to a thought of how you would do it, then become a plan, a viable way to kill yourself. Some plans are elaborate, some plans simple. All plans are dangerous. They all show a shift from thoughts to intent.
Back to where I am now. Not sleeping is troubling. I don't get very good deep sleep anyway, but if you take away even more sleep it is a very bad thing. Tiredness breeds even less concentration, even less motivation, and even more irritability. I am keeping my eye on it, and am letting my doctors know if it continues. I don't want to end up at the bottom again, but it is hard on someone whose depression causes them to be very hard on themselves to stay positive, to believe in myself, to think I can win.
Maybe I should look at my battle with mental illness as not just a battle, but as a war. If it is just a battle, then what is it when the depression or anxiety breaks through? Is it losing the battle? If it is a war and you win more battles than you lose and win the key battles, you can lose a few and still be ok. You can have a misstep, you can fall down, you can be a temporary failure, but losing just one battle at one time doesn't mean you are losing the war.
Depression, anxiety, and I have had some battles. I have won some recently, but lost many more early on. This is war. Not a skirmish, not a tussle, not a battle, I can lose, and still overcome. I can get knocked down, I just have to get up and dust myself off. I can not control the challenges life puts in front of me, I can only do my best to deal with them as they come and do it the best I can. Hopefully, in the end, I can plant my flag and fend off the enemy. The problem is, the enemy is inside me. It knows my shortcomings, it knows my fears, it knows every way to defeat me, because deep down it is me.
It becomes hard to discern between the real you and the depressed you. You lose your identity, your image. The person you see in the mirror isn't you. It represents what you have become, you grow to hate yourself more. You begin to hate yourself, mostly because your inner thoughts tell you to. They constantly remind you that you are worthless. Now, these are not voices, that is a whole different ball of wax. This is your inner voice. The thing you have trusted throughout the years. It has turned on you. You feel like two completely different people. The person you were, and the good-for-nothing, sorry excuse of a person you have become. They don't even seem to be related, let alone the same person. Your past and your memories become something like a movie you once saw. It didn't really happen to you, because you are no longer that person. Maybe one day I will look back and this chapter of my life will be the old movie, and my past will be my past not someone elses.
This disease is different than most. You can not see it. There are no visible signs that something is wrong other than people close to you can tell you are constantly in a bad mood. Not just a bad mood, but no longer have enjoyment. You can't run a simple blood test or an x-ray to see what is wrong. There is no vaccine to prevent it, or 100% way to cure it. There are medications that help, but most carry heavy burdens along with them. People have seen the commercials, they know the names. Zoloft, Paxil, Cymbalta, Wellbutrin, Prozac, Ativan, Xanax, Valium, Lithium, Depakote, Abilify, Seroquel the list is never ending. Most of these come with unwanted side effects. Side effects that do not necessarily help the situation at all. Weight gain, sexual dysfunction including libido loss, anxiety, headaches, tremors, dizziness, drowsiness or insomnia, delusions, hallucinations, and in rare cases syndromes that can be fatal. Sometimes you need more medication to combat the side effects of the medication.
For many years laughter and use of comedy have been my tools for battling the disease. It was not enough. The disease still struck, even after lying dorment for many years, it sunk it's fangs into me, coiled around me, and nearly squeezed all signs of life out of me. Through the trials you have already read about I got on medication, some helped, some made things worse. That can be the frustrating part. You take a medication and it is supposed to help. The first antidepressant I took caused me to have a pounding heart, so hard you can feel your pulse throughout your body, so hard you can see it with your eyes closed. Or can you? Then began the colors, bright flashy rainbow tunnel on an acid trip colors. Sweating and dizzy. My god, is this what it is going to be like on these meds? Fortunately for me, it was just that certain medication and I was switched to another. One that would help me sleep too. It has worked fairly well until now. It used to be after I took it, about 30 minutes later I would be very tired. Now, 30 minutes later I am wide awake. An hour later I am just getting drowsy. Two hours later I am tired. Last night, it took almost 5 hours to finally fall asleep. I moved from the bedroom to the couch at about midnight as I had been tossing and turning for almost two hours at that point. A few hours later the light came on and a short, high-pitched scream woke me up. Apparently, my wife was unaware of my sleeping difficulties and was not expecting a grown man on the couch.
I also have found myself getting irritable and short fused when there is no need for it. This seemingly goes hand in hand with the overwhelming need to blow every little thing out of proportion. That my friends is my anxiety. It lies dormant then BOOM. Everything is a huge deal. One little criticism is seen as a shunning of your existence. Every critique is a huge question of your intellect or character. Even positive things get blown up. Someone telling you something good about you is instantly transformed. They are just saying that, they don't mean it, they are lying to make you feel better. This circle is exhausting. You just want out. Any way you can.
You then turn to thoughts of hurting yourself. I'm not back at that point yet, but I know it is around the corner. For me it begins with all of the above and you just get tired of feeling so terribly. The thoughts come in. Not even of suicide. You just see yourself dying. Over and over again. Various ways, various times. Before long you begin thinking of how you would do it. Then, a leap is made. Thoughts go from just thoughts to a thought of how you would do it, then become a plan, a viable way to kill yourself. Some plans are elaborate, some plans simple. All plans are dangerous. They all show a shift from thoughts to intent.
Back to where I am now. Not sleeping is troubling. I don't get very good deep sleep anyway, but if you take away even more sleep it is a very bad thing. Tiredness breeds even less concentration, even less motivation, and even more irritability. I am keeping my eye on it, and am letting my doctors know if it continues. I don't want to end up at the bottom again, but it is hard on someone whose depression causes them to be very hard on themselves to stay positive, to believe in myself, to think I can win.
Maybe I should look at my battle with mental illness as not just a battle, but as a war. If it is just a battle, then what is it when the depression or anxiety breaks through? Is it losing the battle? If it is a war and you win more battles than you lose and win the key battles, you can lose a few and still be ok. You can have a misstep, you can fall down, you can be a temporary failure, but losing just one battle at one time doesn't mean you are losing the war.
Depression, anxiety, and I have had some battles. I have won some recently, but lost many more early on. This is war. Not a skirmish, not a tussle, not a battle, I can lose, and still overcome. I can get knocked down, I just have to get up and dust myself off. I can not control the challenges life puts in front of me, I can only do my best to deal with them as they come and do it the best I can. Hopefully, in the end, I can plant my flag and fend off the enemy. The problem is, the enemy is inside me. It knows my shortcomings, it knows my fears, it knows every way to defeat me, because deep down it is me.
It becomes hard to discern between the real you and the depressed you. You lose your identity, your image. The person you see in the mirror isn't you. It represents what you have become, you grow to hate yourself more. You begin to hate yourself, mostly because your inner thoughts tell you to. They constantly remind you that you are worthless. Now, these are not voices, that is a whole different ball of wax. This is your inner voice. The thing you have trusted throughout the years. It has turned on you. You feel like two completely different people. The person you were, and the good-for-nothing, sorry excuse of a person you have become. They don't even seem to be related, let alone the same person. Your past and your memories become something like a movie you once saw. It didn't really happen to you, because you are no longer that person. Maybe one day I will look back and this chapter of my life will be the old movie, and my past will be my past not someone elses.
This disease is different than most. You can not see it. There are no visible signs that something is wrong other than people close to you can tell you are constantly in a bad mood. Not just a bad mood, but no longer have enjoyment. You can't run a simple blood test or an x-ray to see what is wrong. There is no vaccine to prevent it, or 100% way to cure it. There are medications that help, but most carry heavy burdens along with them. People have seen the commercials, they know the names. Zoloft, Paxil, Cymbalta, Wellbutrin, Prozac, Ativan, Xanax, Valium, Lithium, Depakote, Abilify, Seroquel the list is never ending. Most of these come with unwanted side effects. Side effects that do not necessarily help the situation at all. Weight gain, sexual dysfunction including libido loss, anxiety, headaches, tremors, dizziness, drowsiness or insomnia, delusions, hallucinations, and in rare cases syndromes that can be fatal. Sometimes you need more medication to combat the side effects of the medication.
For many years laughter and use of comedy have been my tools for battling the disease. It was not enough. The disease still struck, even after lying dorment for many years, it sunk it's fangs into me, coiled around me, and nearly squeezed all signs of life out of me. Through the trials you have already read about I got on medication, some helped, some made things worse. That can be the frustrating part. You take a medication and it is supposed to help. The first antidepressant I took caused me to have a pounding heart, so hard you can feel your pulse throughout your body, so hard you can see it with your eyes closed. Or can you? Then began the colors, bright flashy rainbow tunnel on an acid trip colors. Sweating and dizzy. My god, is this what it is going to be like on these meds? Fortunately for me, it was just that certain medication and I was switched to another. One that would help me sleep too. It has worked fairly well until now. It used to be after I took it, about 30 minutes later I would be very tired. Now, 30 minutes later I am wide awake. An hour later I am just getting drowsy. Two hours later I am tired. Last night, it took almost 5 hours to finally fall asleep. I moved from the bedroom to the couch at about midnight as I had been tossing and turning for almost two hours at that point. A few hours later the light came on and a short, high-pitched scream woke me up. Apparently, my wife was unaware of my sleeping difficulties and was not expecting a grown man on the couch.
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