Hello, been a while...and I have some things to say so if you have a few minutes and are interested in depression, how it feels, how I feel about it and what you can do, well then read on dear friends and thank you...
I felt that I was and have been so open with my cancer but not as much with issues around my own mental health and I've been thinking about why. It's very unlike me, I will talk about most things. Then I will talk about them more, and in a different way, and again and again and from every angle and with any kindred soul that will listen and engage until I feel I understand and have processed and can move on. I don't shy away from exploring or discussing my downfalls or things that hold me back, etc. Self-deprecation is an art form, and I love it. In that sense, I have touched on my own struggles with depression in this blog, as it relates to cancer...but not in other ways. It is safer for me when it was linked to a terminal illness, and as I approach my magical and once thought to be unattainable 5 year NED mark, I want to explore what this depressive disorder really is for me, unravel it from the cancer, and be open about it.
Let me start by shedding some light onto first the super bright part, and then the dark part of what this is for me. I have ups and downs, as does everyone...but when I'm up I'm really up...and it lasts for weeks or months. I'm insanely productive. I take on everything, I will say yes to everything. I don't sleep much, in part because my anxiety wakes me up, but also because life is too exciting. I feel good most all of the time, I have things to do and I think I can do them all. I will take more risks and even if they all do not pay off, my reward centers are activated because enough of them do. Sure I hit some road blocks, but I barely notice them. I might fall down but I get back up so fast I don't stop to check for injuries. No time. I can move on quickly, to the next thing. I get energy from people and I'm almost never alone. I forget to eat. I talk constantly and very quickly, my brain is going so fast all the time. I need something new every day, I don't think much about money or financial consequences. I keep it together though, and to be completely honest...this is where I spend a lot of my time. In this state. It allows me to be very good at my job, at multi-tasking, at being in a lot of different places, at experiencing the world in full color bright beautiful color. Everything is absolutely fucking beautiful all of the time. The longer it lasts, the longer I let it, I don't make myself slow down or eat the foods I'm supposed to eat...and that's where it gets bad. The longer this goes on, the more I forget about what the crash is like. There is a storm brewing, literally.
It starts to unravel. I haven't been taking care of myself. I've spent little time alone and now I begin to avoid it. I'm tired finally, but my anxiety is really taking over and making it hard to sleep so I get irritable. I don't want to slow down. I'm not ready to stop. I will self-medicate as a distraction whenever possible. When I fight it as I did these last couple of weeks the crash is heartbreakingly difficult. I go down fast and hard and sometimes I try to take people with me because I know what's next and I'm just not ready to let go. I'll grab on to someone I feel bonded to or have needed and I will feel so desperate to stay connected because I know it will feel impossible for me soon. I know I'm going to cross into this dark unreachable place where there is me, and then there is everyone else. It's been destructive and painful for me and people I love in my past and the guilt I carry from that is intense, and I'm so sorry.
And then it happens. Sure it's been building, but the pendulum swing is still very swift and brutal. I'm zapped of everything. All of the color is gone. I sat in my living room yesterday looking at the beautiful autumn light streaming in my window, you know the kind that has just this slight coolness to it, as if the sun is gently easing us from her full summer rays. The shadows of the leaves from outside dance around my floor. It's my favorite light of the year and yet all I could do was feel sad and alone. The things I have planned to look forward to, they don't matter. I'm not excited anymore. I'm under water and it's cold and dark and I don't want to be there but I can't remember the feeling of not being in that place. Emotions overwhelm logical thought. I don't want to do anything. Nothing. I cry a lot, almost constantly. It's difficult to get through a day. I give up on a lot. I feel horribly guilty on top of it all. And desperately lonely, but don't seek out time with people. It's paralyzing.
Why is this so difficult to talk about? I think what's different is that there is still so much guilt and isolation with depression and depressive disorders. There's a pressure and judgment (real and perceived) that it's something that we are doing or not doing that's making us unhappy. There is also an intense fear for me. I'm terrified when this hits...because I have a deep dark family history of mental illness and it destroyed my family and continues to do the same. Being afraid of cancer is a real and intense fear...being afraid of what could happen to my own brain is a different kind of fear for me and one I've found very hard to talk about.
Cancer was different, because when I was diagnosed I had a community, there were ribbons and t-shirts and 5k's and a team and a plan. We as a society don't really make jokes about cancer (except some of us who have had it or have it, we like to make jokes!) But we make jokes about mental illness a lot...even though it destroys lives and rips families to shreds, generation after generation. Children from bipolar parents are 50-70% more likely to develop the disorder, and 50% of them will have a brush with suicide. How often have you heard some one jokingly refer to someone with erratic behavior as acting "skitzo"? Or a hyper friend as "manic" or some acquaintance or coworker as bipolar if they seem to be different from day to day or interaction to interaction. I have been there, I've seen and observed in my adult life the way that the "unstable" people are judged...In passing, in gossip, as a joke, in a small group....the thing is...most people suffering from disorders keep very quiet. They might be standing right next to you, they might be the person you made the joke to, they might be undiagnosed and afraid and they will go further into their shell of feeling alone. So I'm not asking that we tip toe around and don't say funny and inappropriate stuff, but I think we need a kinder gentler world right now. I know I do, and I'm going to try my hardest to contribute to it.
