What’s wrong?
Now that my depression has lifted for however long, I have lots of plans. I have more energy to do the plans. I have resolutions, like not drinking so much cola, and losing weight (because it’s healthy, not to look like I’m 20 – as Mamie said to Scarlett O’hara – “You done had a baby. You ain’t never wearing that again.” Or something to that effect; I’m not looking it up.) I also want to write more about esketamine nasal treatments, the history, and a personal account of what it’s like. Well, kind of – it’s a little hard to describe. But I couldn’t find much when I looked, so it’s better than nothing. I also wanted to clean, clean, clean cause I have a lot of that to do. So much. And Marie Kondo won’t return my calls so it’s up to me.
Quit meditating and get to my house.
But then this morning I couldn’t get myself to move. It was like, I’m awake, I got motivation, but my body isn’t moving. That’s odd. Then I had this genius idea of getting those tiny coke cans that are actually 8 oz (I can’t believe that’s 8 oz cause I have gotten used to 32 oz and 8 oz is like a drink from the water fountain) and there was this sale, but you had to buy four six packs. I was okay with this because I had plans to label them so that my husband would not whine that he didn’t get some, and that I could know which ones were mine and could like wean myself off of them. I think that was the idea. So the Things and I went to the grocery store and we got this but then we also got a few other things like pizza for tonight (it’s low calorie pizza no not really shut up) and then we checked out but I didn’t get the special exactly cause it was 3 for one and not 4 for one. I think. Whatever.
This is from an old post. It has cokes in it.
So then we went to McDonald’s for fountain drinks because I don’t have much ice at home (MY first world problem) and the others weren’t cold and I haven’t started my resolution yet why are you looking at me??? Then I paid and I started to drive away without picking up my drinks until the Things pointed it out, so I went back through the drive-through but they were nice and stuff and didn’t point out my stupid. Thanks, McD’s. Anyway at some point during this I was like, huh, my chest really hurts. I mean sure I had been coughing up great gobs of green goo, but that’s not unusual (sorry for the description there), so it hadn’t occurred to me that I could be sick. Just garden variety sick – or at least my garden variety. Wow.
Yay, they’re back!
I’m not sure how to explain how odd it is to be relieved that you are sick. But it meant I wasn’t sad again, and that I could later lay down and that was fine. But I wanted peeps to know I wasn’t disappearing because I was sad again. I’m okay. It’s just mucus. Be back soon.
~Alice
Oh, Pee Pee Tree and The Greatest Gift of All: A Christmas Story
So it’s finally Christmas Day, and there is much to be thankful for – like that this day will soon be over and eventually your extended family will be gone. Here’s hoping you get into one of those fantastic political conversations that always go so well! Just think positive: Unless you are in a couple of states, it really doesn’t matter what you think or how you vote anyway!
Why am I so relaxed about this? Well, part of it is called Esketamine. It’s a nasal spray. Yes, that’s right, something I snorted into my sinuses has made not only made me happier but more relaxed than I have been in – EVER pretty much. I have always worried, since I was a little girl, and my body has been in permanent fight or flight mode for so long I thought that was how it was. Because while I hadn’t been as sad and stressed as I was when I was working full time, I wasn’t – well anything much. I was still a Mom, yes, but that was about all I could do. I slowly got worse and worse until I didn’t go out. I didn’t take basic care of myself. My house looks like a bomb went off filled with someone else’s crap, cause surely I didn’t buy this? So – I was thinking maybe there might be something more to life than this.
And so I tried the new treatment. And it was like getting glasses for the first time, and realizing I was supposed to see leaves on the trees.
Maybe I should snort something up MY nose.
Did you know the leaves are incredibly beautiful? I mean not when they’re swept into the gutter and filled with gunk, but before that. Listening to Christmas hymns about the birth of new life and hope now fills my formerly anxiety ridden chest with air that expands into ever rising joy. Stuff that used to worry me – like my in-laws on the holidays and how they don’t show up on time and you don’t know who is coming and they talk about how big their guns are (it takes two hands to hold that sucker up! Big Gun! Gun Big!), just floated off of my back this time. I learned the secret, gals. Be like men. Doze off in a chair. It’s amazing how effective that is. I even got offered a bed by my step-mother-in-law later.
Family dinners are always better with drugs!
That’s not all either. You see, last year we lost several Christmas ornaments when our shed got blown over and all those carefully collected ornaments from years past got rain damage. So I put the ornaments in labeled boxes in our craft closet to keep them safe. But then about a week before Christmas it occurred to us that maybe we should put up some decorations or something and we couldn’t find the tree, which is kinda the most important part. After a search of the house, it was still in the shed, only this time it didn’t get rained on – unless you count golden showers. As in the kind that come from tom cats marking their territory.
When ya gotta go, ya gotta go, ‘kay?
Those cats claimed that tree like no one’s business. My husband still brought it in because he’s a guy, and well, he got us a tree didn’t he? Problem solved! Except it still smelled of cat pee. Thing One tried the Lysol trick, but Lysol is no much for tom cat on fake pine. I was not going to put ornaments on that thing, so I mentioned to my parents that hey, our tree got peed on by cats. Can we borrow one of yours? Now my husband is normally dangerously laid back, but for some reason he decided this was the time to put his foot down and say that we were fine, and did not need another tree. Why we loved our pee pee tree; it was OURs.
Again, normally this whole thing would have me much more upset but since I am better (this is Alice on “better”) the first thing I thought of was how I could take that old classic “Oh Christmas Tree” and turn it into “Oh Pee Pee Tree, how smelly are your branches!” And then I could write a post about it. Because who doesn’t think of cat urine when celebrating the holidays?
What this tree needs is a little cat pee!
I was getting tired of the smell though, cause did I mention we also got two more turtles, making the total up to three turtles? No? Well, yeah there are three turtles. And a leopard gecko. I thought that was enough animal for our house without adding another special smell, so finally husband dear agreed to let my parents give us a small 3 foot tree which was just fine with me cause it’d take up much less space. My brave Thing Two took out the smelly tree to the garbage where maybe it will make a home for more alley cats. Reuse, recycle I always say.
Then today a six-foot-tall package showed up from Fed Ex. There was no return address. We were starting to think maybe this strange gift was from Santa, before I realized that the six foot tall box must be the gift my friend of over 30 years, Ravin, mentioned sending to the kids. Turns out I told a lot of people about the pee pee tree, and so in the spirit of the holidays, my old pal sent us a full sized tree. What a way to end a story.
Except not entirely. I still have several treatments to go of the Esketamine, and am staying cautiously optimistic about the effects (as well as the bill), but so far it has worked a real Christmas miracle on me. Since many people may want to know more, I plan on other posts telling about my adventures with unusual uses of anesthesia. I also, for the first time in a while, have plans and resolutions for the next year I hope to write about, saying we don’t get bombed by North Korea or whatever. But this was a Christmas story, so I think I’ll end it here.
Happy Holidays and a Pee Pee Free New Year!
Alice
The Terminated
I Won’t Be Back.
When I started my ECT treatments, I was prepared to document my journey. I wanted others to see that it wasn’t barbaric, so that they too could have a chance at putting a lid on their depression, at least for a little while. I thought I would get a dozen treatments or so, and I’d be done. All better. That didn’t quite happen. Oh, I am better, much better than I was, but my new normal is nothing like what I expected it to be. ECT wasn’t bad or good but a little of both, and the aftereffects are even more mixed.
First of all, those 12 treatments turned into 3 months of constant travel to a city six hours away, at times all the way there and back in two days, other times with a week in a hotel room. They gave us a hospital rate, but that hotel wasn’t free. We never unpacked our suitcases. We hardly bought groceries. Our kids got really sick of staying with grandparents. My husband and I both missed work, since I had to have someone with me for the treatments. I was long past any sick or vacation leave, so I got no pay. He got pay, but I worried they would fire him.
They didn’t. Thank goodness. No, they fired me. Or as the university likes to call it, they “terminated” me.
They aren’t specific with that terminology. Anyone who leaves the university is “terminated.” After student workers quit, my coworker would say “Madison has been terrrrrrminated.” in a threatening voice. And these were people who chose to leave. In fact, I do not recall in my seven years at that workplace anyone ever being fired no matter the gross misconduct. Just me.
Technically I was terrrrminated for, as the letter called it, “excessive absenteeism.” Oh, yeah, it was a letter. No in person meeting. No phone call. No warning. After getting two degrees from that place. After working two different jobs at that place. After struggling just to get up in the morning for so many years, after keeping a job when anyone sane would have quit to rest, after using all my energy for said job with hardly any left to spare, after spending so much time worrying about that job that I couldn’t let myself heal, I opened my mailbox to find a letter.
I’ll simplify what it said. “Hello Alice. I realize that after seven years of a family work atmosphere with people you called “friends”, you thought maybe you might survive your latest bout of illness. But this time you went over your FMLA, that stuff that the government amazingly still offers that lets you have twelve weeks of unpaid time off for pesky things like illness. It’s almost like we were just waiting for you to go over that block of time, and throwing down the hatchet right when you did it. Sure we could have warned you, or heck, called you even ONCE while you were out on leave to check on you, but that would acknowledge you had a real illness, not to mention take time from our schedules. Nevermind that your brain has been shocked into seizure over twenty times, you really shouldn’t have abandoned your job. But you did, so give us your keys and your ID card, and clean out your desk.”
I have been through many emotions after losing my job on August 24, well technically the 22nd, as it took two days for the letter to arrive. (For two days I was fired, and didn’t even know it!) Yet the first thing I felt when I read that I no longer worked at that place was relief. For the first time in a very long time I could breathe. When you have a chronic illness, it becomes another job. Add in parent, spouse, maid, cook, etc – each one a job in itself. No one can do that much, so you start dropping jobs. I stopped cooking. I stopped cleaning. Self-care also fell by the wayside. Depression isn’t big on letting you shower anyway, and add in a severe time crunch, and you can forget it. And this was all before I decided to try ECT as a last ditch effort to help me cope with a disease that has plagued me sense I was a teenager.
Yet the relief was short-lived as I now face a very uncertain financial future. I had wanted to quit, but I felt like I could not. We needed the money, especially after months of no pay AND high medical bills that had gathered up on my kitchen counter. We needed the very good insurance to pay for all my medical woes. I spend thousands each year just for daily medications I get from the pharmacy. My mother pointed out that this might be a reason for them wanting me out of there. Insurance companies aren’t happy when they actually have to pay back some of those premiums.
I feel guilt because of the financial losses my family has taken due to my illness. It isn’t my fault, but that really doesn’t make me feel better. I am far from the only one. It’s all over this supposedly great country: families who work hard but live on the brink, one medical disaster away from total bankruptcy. I know so many this has affected. A hairdresser and family friend who was denied insurance because getting Colon Cancer was a “pre-existing condition”. She’d already had Breast Cancer, no fairsies getting it again. I have a friend deep in debt for trying to keep her chronically ill kids alive. I have a friend with Fibromyalgia and Depression. She had to quit her job because constant debilitating pain forced her to do so, pain many doctors don’t even believe is real. A blogger friend just sold her house to help with her massive medical debt. As she said, all because she got sick.
My brother has struggled with Type 1 Diabetes and Bi-Polar disorder since he was a child. My parents have struggled with being his caretakers. Bipolar disorder and Diabetes are a double whammy. Not wanting to take care of yourself is one thing when you don’t need insulin and a healthy diet to survive. He has already lost part of a toe. Yet my parents spend money they worked hard for all their lives to help him survive, because he cannot stay in a job.
I was supposed to be the Golden Child. In spite of 3 degrees, I have failed. Over and over. I was forced to resign from one job, and forced to quit another due to intolerable working conditions. And these were just my “professional” jobs. Those jobs, and the latest one, were all at libraries. Maybe I shouldn’t like to read so much.
I am lucky, because I have had the help and support of so many people. There is no safety net here for most people. They stop or ignore needed medical treatment every day because they can’t afford it. They can’t afford tests that could not only make their treatment less expensive in the long run, but save their lives. It’s all about money here. God forbid anyone raise taxes.
Let them eat cake.
We need a change. Maybe we don’t have the power to stop these diseases ourselves, but we have power to lessen willful ignorance. We have the power to decrease selfishness and cruelty. Do not doubt your ability to help someone feel better with a simple word, a kindness, an embrace, or a novel length blog post.
And don’t forget to vote. Vote for those who would choose kindness and mercy over greed. Who would help people who are too sick to help themselves. Who would pass laws enforcing humanity in workplaces, in insurance companies, in hospitals. Who would let sick people think only of getting well. If we don’t find those candidates, we can create them. Surely the “greatest nation” could do something as simple as take care of its own.
~ Alice
Maintenance
I think they’re trying to tell us something.
In case anyone was wondering why I haven’t been here in a month (I know I have), here’s an update. Still having ECT. Right now they say I am in maintenance treatments which is much like actual maintenance on highways and such- uncomfortable and lasts forever. I have been at this since June 5th or in my estimate, the beginning of time.
Earlier I promised to give a review of this controversial mental health treatment. Turns out it’s not really as cut and dry as medications. With those you can say “Well I took the Zufrika but it made me gain 15 pounds in my elbows and start watching Fox News so I stopped.” or “Scaramouchi gave me diarrhea but really got rid of my depression and I hope they get it back in stock soon.” It’s not either definitely successful or definitely a waste. I might be able to make a better determination after it finally ends, but it’s almost mid-August, and they haven’t given me a hint about when this stops for good.
When you start treatments, you generally do three a week, then you start spacing out once you feel better. I did feel better, enough that going back to work sounded good, but then as I mentioned I went back down again so I tried part-time, and then I tried no time. I have been on no time for a while, and though this has been good for my relaxation it hasn’t been so hot on my pocketbook. And it’s hard to tell just how much better you’ve gotten when you are still frequently driving six hours to a big city to spend the night, get shocked, and travel another six hours home again. The people at the hospital are nice, but that is wearing thin.
I should also note it’s not just depression but anxiety chumming around with me. And since the treatment meant stopping a medicine for that, I am Squirrel as often as Sad Pony. Vroooooom. Beep beep. Oh, if only I could feel better as easily as little boys, or our President, with a big red truck.
Twice I have felt much, much better. But each time I’ve gone back to – not so great. While yes I am better than I was before any treatments, I can’t really tell you exactly how I’m feeling now, because therapy requires way too much naval gazing. How are you now? How about now? Or now? Or now – compared to yesterday? Or last week? Or before you started? Here, fill out this sheet of questions about whether you are definitely sad, or kind of sad, or slightly less sad than that, or happy! What do you mean you’re confused?
I’m starting to wonder if I have to start lying on the “happy sheet” in order to make them stop. Tapering down on treatments is the best way to go – but this taper is not just slow it’s a crawl. I went from three times a week, to two times a week, to once a week. We might go back two weeks after my treatment tomorrow. And then – I don’t know. Three weeks apart? A month? How about a never? My brain may not be scrambled (completely – you have to remember the condition before) but I’m tired. Each treatment, besides being away from my Things and requiring a trip to Dallas, requires fasting the night before, having anesthesia, getting disgusting goop stuck in my hair, and then the fun waking up where I stumble around and hope someone catches me. It gets old.
I have many ideas for posts that I would like to write. I’ve not been good about sitting down to do it. Or at doing much else useful. It has been nice to just breathe. But I don’t quite know what’s next. I do want to get back to it, though, because a lot is happening right now! Maybe I will finish my treatment before North Korea blows up Guam! Or us! I definitely want to be there should justice actually happen and our dear presidente get taken to his next vacation home behind bars.
If I figure anything out, I’ll let you know! Probably. If you read this, feel free to leave me links to anything you wrote so I can have something to read. It’s good to get out of my head.
~Alice
Risk, Stigma, and ECT
Last time I talked to you about why I chose to try ECT, or more specifically, my history of depression. Many people called me brave, and I thank you for your kind words. This made me consider, though, exactly what bravery is. Most people think of brave people as those who take great risks. There are many kinds of risk, but even in cases where a split second decision is required, you will rely on what you know. You will make an assessment. Is the risk I’m taking worth the possible costs?
For instance, you might decide you want to go bungee jumping. What are the risks and what are the benefits? Everyone’s different, but I’d probably look at it like this.
Risk: You could fall to your death and die.
Benefit: Wee, it’s fun!
I belieeeeeve I can fly!
In this case, I’d decide that no, jumping off a cliff, even with a rope tied around my ankle, is not worth risking my early demise for benefit of an adrenaline rush (I don’t even have to pay for those!). On the other hand, when I made a decision about getting ECT, I looked at the decision this way.
Risk: Very Expensive. Memory loss. Cognitive problems. Pudding brains.
Benefit: I might feel like living, and my life become more worthwhile, for myself and those who love me.
In order to make this decision, I did my research. I can research the crap out of anything, taking hours to find out which shampoo brand is the best, which makes me a great librarian though sometimes an annoying person. So after my psychiatrist asked his students in front of me what was available to those who didn’t respond to drugs, they said, as one example, ECT. When he asked them what it stood for, they hesitated, and I said “Electroconvulsive Therapy.” Give me an A.
You might think my psychiatrist is mean asking his students these questions in front of me, but honestly I think he just loves to mess with them. The best way to learn is to do so in a real setting. I could have refused the students had I wanted to, but it turns out I find their suffering entertaining as well. Anyway, at first I said, “Yeah, nope”. I’d heard plenty about ECT, and Sparky had always told me to watch myself around electricity, so this seemed a no-brainer.
My psychiatrist told me what ECT was like now, and how much it had changed from the days of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. He bemoaned the fact that there is so much stigma, and that this and politics often dictated whether a variety of treatments are available to patients. For instance, ECT was once available near my home town, but it was taken away. The closest hospital that offers ECT now is over a five hour drive from where I live. “In the end,” he said. “They take it away, and the patients suffer.” He said he has seen it work because he’d administered it himself. “I am convinced you could feel better in as little as two weeks.”
What exactly takes place during ECT? I won’t know until I’m there, and even then I’ll be asleep most of the time, but I did find this video that shows the procedure.
A little disconcerting? Slightly. On the other hand, it’s also a far cry from what they did to Jack Nicholson. As you can see, the actual shock lasts seconds, and only one part of the body shakes to show there is a seizure. Oxygen is given, anesthesia, and something to stop the convulsions. But just look at those people helping with the ECT, holding his hand, smiling gently. Vultures!
By this point, as I said before, I’d been through years worth of drugs that eventually failed. Some of them had dangerous side effects, just as dangerous as ECT’s side effects, or worse. If you get right down to it, everything carries a risk of side effects. Childbirth is risky, even if you’re young and healthy. I know, because at 27, I had to wait two weeks for tests to find out if my baby was mentally handicapped. She turned out healthy, but it did shock me into reality. None of us is immune to tragedy.
So I researched, and so did my friends. As I mentioned briefly earlier, I found a little straight forward information, and many, many websites full of warnings and sometimes near hysterical accounts from patients. I realize that this treatment doesn’t work for everyone, but the success rate is listed at near 80 percent. Even if that data is wrong, and it’s only 50 percent, or heck, 5 percent, is this something we should deny desperate people? Chemotherapy kills your body’s cells, both healthy and cancerous, yet it is a common procedure for people with Cancer. Rarely do I hear of someone cautioning a person “You know Chemo is barbaric. Don’t do it!!!” The reason you don’t hear this is because, unfortunately, for now it is one of the few treatments that have been shown to succeed. It takes a terrible toll on the body, and it doesn’t always work. But what else should a person do? Take vitamins? Smoke kale? Tell me, what else should they do?
What else should terribly depressed people do?
That is why I don’t presume to tell others what to do with their own bodies. Screaming that a treatment – whether pills, a medical procedure, or even eating kale (you might choke)- is barbaric, outdated, and cruel could scare people away from the one thing that might help them. I did find one blog written by Natasha Tracy, advocate for mental health. She had a terrible time with ECT. But she fights for it to be available, because she knows that her experience is not what everyone will experience. What helps you could hurt someone else, or vice versa. I encourage you to visit her website; it is full of good information. It is also full of really angry people in the comment section. But she keeps writing.
I am aware that writing about this could open myself up to a lot of these same angry people. But so many have helped me over the years, and I want to help someone else. I want there to be more information about what ECT really is, and how it works. I want people to find an account that is from a real person, but still factual. Even if it’s a bad experience for me, I want to demystify this treatment for Depression. That’s why I decided to write. I weighed the risk (testing out the waters with a friend), and I made a decision. Eventually you have to stop researching, and make a choice, just as I did to try ECT.
I have much more to talk about, but I’m running out of space. I will tell of what the actual process of preparing for ECT entails (hint: you don’t walk right in and get shocked), and how I went about figuring out how I was going to get there in the first place. The decision was one thing. The execution of that decision, quite another.
Remember: Everyone is brave in their own way, just by getting up in the morning.
Stay tuned.
~Alice
Why I Am Trying ECT
“What if you get all the way up there and there’s nothing?”
“What if there’s everything?”
– from the movie Tomorrowland
Earlier Merry at Knocked Over By a Feather wrote about a friend who is preparing for ECT treatments. That friend is me. You may have noticed, if you read my blog much, that I haven’t exactly been posting a lot lately. I’m sure the lack of informational posts about Trump, boogers, imaginary ponies, etc., have left you in a lurch. I hope to get back to that at some point, but right now things aren’t going so well. This is nice speak for “There is no need for Hell; I’m here guys!”
The reason I asked Merry to write about it first was because I was afraid of the responses. I’ve researched ECT, (electroconvulsive therapy or “shock therapy”), for nearly two months now, and most of what I find are horrifying stories. Yet ECT is often successful at treating depression, or at least raising you to a point where you can treat your depression. The minority write the scary stuff, and shout down the ones who have positive experiences. I’m not saying people do not have bad experiences, but what one finds positive and another finds positive can be very different. If you are so depressed you can’t function, side effects, even serious ones, can take a back seat to even the possibility of getting well.
I don’t like to talk that much about my illnesses. Alice is supposed to be funny – to a select group of people anyway. (Hi, friends!) Some might say it’s because I use humor as a defense mechanism. Humor at least makes the awful go down a little easier. These illnesses are not something to joke about, though, especially not to the new psychiatrist who is in charge of the ECT program. He seemed to think my joke about the butcher knife was not funny. Killjoy.
That’s not funny, Alice.
I feel like I should offer you my history, because I did not wake up one day feeling sad and decide to go get my brain shocked. It doesn’t work that way. ECT is, in general, a last ditch effort when other treatments have failed. We have come a long way in mental health treatment just within the last few decades. Now, thankfully, we have antidepressants that do work for many people. They might even work for Scientologists, though I fear their problems mostly stem from being jerks.
And that’s another issue. It’s hard enough to juggle a chronic illness like Depression without dealing with other stress. Most people have to work. You’d be amazed at the number of people who have worked for years with the black dog dragging them down. Don’t tell the cute college students, but work kind of sucks at least part of the time, even if you like your job and your coworkers. I have been in my job as a library assistant at a university library for over seven years now. If it were not for the people I work with, especially my direct boss, I would not still be working. Like far too many people, I would be forced onto disability. Depression is the second greatest reason for people taking disability now. Only heart disease has more people.
Depression: We got second place!
Yet even with my decent working conditions, I am struggling to keep afloat. I already take antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. These help me if all conditions are going well, but stress is always present, and it doesn’t take much for my cup to runneth over. When you are depressed, everything becomes difficult. Bit by bit I’ve watched as I’m able to do less and less. Reading back on old blog entries, I can see my downward trajectory. For a well person, a stress would be your car breaking down. For a depressed person any of the following will do:
- Getting out of bed
- Putting on clothes
- Doing laundry so you have clothes to put on
- After that shower you haven’t taken
- Brushing and flossing your teeth
- Putting on makeup – sorry I made myself laugh there
- Getting your hair cut – I am now Rapunzel
- Taking your children to school in traffic
- Walking into work. And the day has just started.
I should probably look into that haircut.
People who are well have a hard time understanding this. Depressed people don’t understand it either, because often there is a disconnect between what part of your brain knows you should be able to do, and what the other part is willing to let you do. This disease does not exist in a vacuum – it exists in an ever winding circle involving illnesses both mental and physical. IBS, Asthma, auto-immune diseases, chronic pain, and even the heart disease that is winning the disability race all wind round and round. Did the depression cause the illness, or did the illness cause the depression, or both? Where does it start and where does it end?
I’ve always dealt with respiratory illnesses due to being allergic to all of creation. But in 2012, I came down with a serious case of pneumonia. This wasn’t your walking, take a pill, back in a few days kind of pneumonia. By the time doctors put their tiny heads together and figured it out a week after symptoms started – a chest x-ray! What a wild idea! – the pneumonia had spread over my entire right lung. It was a miserable experience. If you want to hear about it with cartoons and jokes, just look up “pneumonia” in the search box. Anyway, I missed over a month of work, and even after I returned it took a couple more months to fully recover. I never recovered my sick or vacation leave at work. From that point on, I was always running behind, making up time for being sick or going to appointments because I could never keep any leave. I almost never have a week with no absence. For the last five years I have wondered when they would fire me. At times, I hoped they would, because I was just so tired.
Pneumonia. Surprisingly not fun.
The depression came next. I’d been fairly well for the last several years on the meds I was on. Yet each major stress would cause a pill combination to fail. It didn’t help that my shrink was a psychotic idiot. I thought I had no other choice because I lived in a small city. He gave me meds, then if they didn’t work, he yanked them and threw others at me. Often there was no way to know what, if any, of my new meds were working and which were not. All these medications have side effects. One, Abilify, made me feel great for about a month before I was taken off of it for a 10 pound weight gain. I would be put on it another time at a lower dose, only to be taken off it once more after a few months because I was climbing the walls. I also developed a tendency to shop online which, along with gambling and other risk taking, is another possible fun side effect.
By the time I finally found another psychiatrist, I had been hospitalized three times. I fully believe that people should go to the hospital if they are suicidal or even just so desperate they can no longer cope. But after the first visit at my hospital, the other two were lousy experiences. I have a couple of these stories on the blog as well. However, the one good thing about the hospital was that you did not have to cope with the outside. They gave you meals. They gave you pills. You went to group. The other people could be kind of scary, yet you still felt a belonging with them. And while you wanted to leave, it was hard to return to the outside.
Psychiatric Hosptial Revolving Door
My new shrink is not perfect, but at least he looks me in the eye and seems to care. I encourage everyone, if possible, to shop for a good shrink. This guy is messing with your brain and body. It’s good to trust him if at all possible. No, most shrinks are not going to have long talks with you. They prescribe medicine because they have big brains filled with knowledge that does not always include common sense. Common sense is for counselors. Don’t be afraid to try talk therapy if you can, because it can be very helpful. Some people are able to get by with it alone. Some use it and medication. But for some, both of these stop helping after a while. I found myself on a cycle of new pills, everything okay, new stress, pills fail, rinse repeat. Finally my doctor suggested ECT.
I know I haven’t discussed much about the actual ECT, but I plan to in the next posts. My history is important though, because all of this weighed into my decision to try this treatment. It is my hope to detail the process of getting ECT (it is NOT easy) and then the actual ECT itself. Since I am told I will lose memory, I figure I should write down what I can when I can. My hope is to help other people who are faced with such a decision with information and not just fear mongering. ECT could fail. I could be worse off than before, but then again, I could be better. My family deserves for me to try this. I deserve to try this. I don’t want to spend a life in misery, and I’m willing to try whatever it takes.
I will officially start ECT on June 5th.
So here goes. Geronimo.
~Alice
So what happened today?
No, really, I mean – what? I have been sick a few days with what we Americans, or maybe just Southerners?, call the CRUD. I have a doctor who said that all upper respiratory infections, tonsillitis, bronchitis, laryngitis, oompalitis, etc are basically the same. So I have one of those. I don’t know. But I have been miserable. You know how miserable? Think of those ASPCA puppies and kittens they show you all the time. The ones that look like Hitler just electrocuted their mother right in front of them. They’re shivering, they’re hungry, they’re wondering why people are just filming them and not doing anything. Which I know I AM wondering. Like sheesh, get the puppy a blanket, and some dog chow you fiends. Sheesh.
Buy me before they kill meeeeeeee!
It occurs to me the puppies might be actors. If so, well done, puppies.
Anyway, I have been just as miserable as those animals, only not nearly as cute. I was chatting with my friend Merbear on my phone and since I now have a Smart Phone . . . yeah. They got me. But not with the latest, greatest literally exploding phones. No, I have an old Samsung, but it still works. Like it lets me take videos of myself lying down and coughing into the phone so I can show my friend just how bad off I am. And she was like, “Have you tried steam?”
And I’m like . . . steam? I mean I have been having respiratory ailments since my teens and I am like now not a teen and I don’t know how many times I’ve used steam both for myself and my Things (kids for any of you newcomers. More on newcomers later) and I hadn’t thought of it yet. So thanks, Mer, I used steam and it helped a little. I still feel like crapsters, though, and I missed more work than I have time allotted for that, which hadn’t happened in a while and was quite annoying. It’s like my illnesses all hang out and try to figure out who gets to like jump me first. No, no, depression it was your turn LAST week, now let’s give stomach a try. No he had it before. What about me, the bladder – you know the one that – er – leaks. Okay, we’ll let you in, because the cough and that leak thing go together. Yay!
Where was I? Oh, right, sick. You know just when you think you have it all under control, one of those guys pops up. Or better, a new one comes in. Remember how in that emo post I wrote last time I mentioned Lice and other Holiday Tales? Well, yeah, lice came to visit. I hate bugs in general, but bugs that are like, ON YOU? Yeah, that’s beyond awful. So we treated Thing Two and then treated her again and then oh whew and then Thing One got it so we treated her and again and then later . . . they were back. Cause Thing One has very thick, curly hair and my husband and I have very little patience for combing with those awful combs that couldn’t go through a doll’s hair. But I had something up my sleeve. Research. That’s what I do, unless, you know, it’s for a post. So I found this comb, and wow it is like the Allah of Combs judging from what must be real reviews because these reviews were super intense. These people have war stories. So I ordered it.
Guess what Amazon Prime is late on getting to my house? Yup. I WANT MY COMB AMAZON.
So things have not been going that well for me. I was afraid I would never be funny again. This was my greatest fear here, not like dying of CRUD which I kinda thought I might a couple times cause holy crap it’s awful. But yeah, it’s humor, you got to have it. And when I wasn’t able to write, well that was lousy – uh – wrong word. But here I am, writing, and I don’t have a plan to it (did you pick up on that yet?) and it only has one pic in it which I had stored but hey I did it. Cause people have been looking at older posts of mine. So then I check them out. And I laugh because I like my own stuff. But also because it is memories of my life, like with my kids, my work, with me. And the sicks aren’t going to get me. Okay they will, but not like forever there will be days when I’m not sick of some sort! Or have bugs! Possibly! But also if I don’t write then I will not get to expose the really stupid people who have lately been commenting on my old posts. Do you remember booger guy? The one who corrected my grammar on a post about boogers? Well, there’s more of that kind of snot, get ready.
Eventually. Because there are people extremely concerned about my virtual family, a heretical Christmas song post, my knowledge of Sophia the First. Etc. But at any rate, I am trying. So the best thing you could do is not say you are sorry for me because life is life. We all have crap. Heck, our whole country got one big piece of it today, but I didn’t see any of it, or care, cause I was sick. So there are some good things about sick, I guess.
Please like and follow and comment because just one like or follow or comment could save this sad puppy from the horrors of this post.
Alice
Sad Pony and Squirrel Ride Again
I haven’t been posting as much lately. I’m not sure if very many people have noticed, but I have, and there is a reason for it. Put out an APB for one sad pony and one squirrel possibly high on meth tainted nuts.
What?
I can’t help it Alice has so many nuts in her attic and I just go wild man willllllllllllld!
In case you don’t know much about these two (any first time people who somehow stumbled over here can find out more on my About page) these guys represent my depression and anxiety. Guess which one is which? I’ve been having issue with both of these little hairballs, and since I’m allergic to fur, I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to both of them as well. Some say they are just pictures, but believe me, they are a little too real.
It’s okay, I’m one of those non-shedding anxiety squirrels!
These guys didn’t always represent my issues. Originally Sad Pony was just a funny meme I found somewhere that I tossed onto my page. I loved him so much I did this quite often. There is something about a pony that just looks this sad. I realize he probably isn’t really sad, he’s just tired, you know, typical pony burnout. But he sure looks pathetic in that picture. Added to the humor (my sense of humor is a little different, like me!) are the words “Sad Pony is Sad.” I find this dopey redundant sentence totally hilarious. But also fitting. Because even depressed, I can see humor everywhere. Sometimes, with enough distance, I can see how humorous some of my depressive thoughts can seem. Like Eeyore on steroids.
Noooobody worry about me. I’ll just sit here. With pins in my eyes. No, no, I’m fine, just that my life is a hollow lie and my soul a darkened pit of despair and agony. Oh, and I’m sitting on a squirrel. This makes me uncomfortable.
At some point, Sad Pony just became another character on my blog, just as he is a character in my life. I am not depression, and depression isn’t me. In this case, it’s a fat pony that just flops down on top of me and says “Take a break. Take 50.” It’s rather hard to get things done with this thing sitting on you. Forget the black dog. I have a Sad Pony, and ponies are heavy, especially when lethargic. Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never met a real pony – er beside this one who is REAL. Somewhere. I mean I have no idea who shot this picture. But I thank them.
Thanks so bloody much, Internet.
But I’m not always just sad. I also have anxiety. And the best way I’ve figured out to describe anxiety is with a squirrel. Have you ever watched these guys before? Holy crap, it’s like some wire in their brain is being repeatedly shocked so that they have to dart from here to there and back again for no particular reason that I can tell. Maybe it’s because they are toward the bottom of the food chain, and don’t want to get eaten. The only time I’ve seen them remotely calm is on the college campus where I currently work, and that’s because college students are always – purposely or not – feeding the little suckers. They’d grown so unafraid that they will actually sit on your foot. The squirrels, not the students. These squirrels can never leave campus or they will be killed almost immediately.
I’m a college squirrel. My major is Abnormal Psychology.
Squirrel also started out as a picture I threw into posts partly because of the Disney movie “Up” where a dog is given the ability to speak and, not surprisingly, he has little to say and is often distracted. He can be in the middle of a sentence, spot a squirrel, and yell randomly “SQUIRREL!” That’s my anxiety in a nutshell (pun intended bwaha). I can be totally fine and then suddenly feel extreme panic. I am fearful of what most people are not, like say going to work. Sure they might not want to go to work, but their adrenaline doesn’t shoot up because they are going there. This anxiety would be considered normal if I worked in, say, an ER. But I work in a library. Rarely is my life in danger at a library, though we have had snakes, bats, spiders, wasps, and yes, once a squirrel invade. Also when people shoot up campuses, they often go for the library. I learned this is our Active Shooter Training at work. It really helped with my anxiety.
OMG it’s a gun! Ruuuuuun oh wait it’s just someone’s laptop my mistake!
Laptops look nothing like guns, you moron.
As you can see, these two fellows often interact. Depression makes me see anxiety as even more ridiculous, causing me to feel sad, then spiraling me into anxiety because oh no I’m sad again and how long will this last and then back to depression because come on, you have nothing to be afraid of, Alice. Well, except maybe the possibility of a Trump presidency. Then again, if we do get him, we probably won’t last long as a country because we will be bombed off the earth. Either by other countries or ourselves.
Trump? Trump Trump Trump Trump OMG it’s a weapon of mass destruction!
That’s his hair, you twit. Still . . . point made.
Comforting thoughts, there. Not really, but what is comforting is that I have this blog. And over the years, I’ve had others identify with these two, and even encourage the figments of my imagination. It’s great when other people willingly share in your delusions. And no matter how much that squirrel runs, no matter how much he distracts me, no matter how much he encourages me to scroll through the Internet all day long or do impulsive things, I have a support system. Same with Sad Pony. There is usually someone – like friends Lindy, Jody, my best blog friend Merbear and naturally my Things (among others) – to eventually help distract me from the distraction of that squirrel. There is usually someone who, while maybe unable to lift that pony, will lie down with me until he leaves.
Goldfish even made Sad Pony and Squirrel stickers in her Redbubble Shop! You can also get them on a photo (I have them hanging up), or a pillow, or a baby onesie. Provided she still has it up? I don’t know. But it’s awesome!
So I’m having a lot of ups and downs. Meds really help with this, especially this last one that injected several of Squirrel’s best friends directly into my bloodstream, leaving me wanting to literally climb the walls and run out of my own skin. You are ready for anything to help you at that point, even a fat pony to sit on those squirrels. But I stopped that med, and I continue to hope for the future. For even the most sarcastic people have hope. I thank this blog, and my blog readers, for helping keep up that hope. I thank them for letting me be Alice.
When life throws you flamingos, play polo.
P.S. As a little aside, I have started another blog about my dolls, titled appropriately Wonderland of Plastic. I only have an introduction and one review up so far (Wonderrrr Womaaaaaaaaaan!), but promise more to come. I discuss the dolls and history and since it’s me, Alice, of course I have snark. I’m not sure I can totally write without it. This is also where I’ll be moving my doll stories with the Things. We have more torture planned for our Disney princess housewives. Because there is life after the fairy tale.
Always.
~Alice
Maximum Squirrel Overload
It’s Monday, ya’ll, which means another full week OF DREAD. I like to be prepared, so I started my dreading early – Sunday night – when my anxiety reached top notch and I had to decide how to calm it down. Oh, sure, there are lots of ways, but you have to be able to GET to those ways in order for it to work. For instance:
Round round get around I get around ooooh get around oooooh I get around I get arouuuuunnd all over town I’m a real cool squirrel blah blah blah blah blahhhhh!
Music!
Music can be calming. But once you reach Maximum Squirrel Overload, you are kind of past that. No kind of music, saying you were calm enough to find a music player, is going to make you feel better. There are a few types of music. Sad music: bad idea cause you are already anxious and probably depressed about being anxious and sad songs won’t help. Happy music: bad idea too because what business do people have being happy when you are freaked out? Then there’s rap music most of which I think is best classified as Angry music because there is much talk of popping caps in posteriors. Popping a cap might help with anxiety, but the jail time afterward would not, so don’t try it. Also, what are your chances of being able to find the gun?
No, the dog won’t work as a substitute.
Exercise!
I love when people say to work out your anxiety or depression with exercise. Look, people, I have no idea where any of my sweatpants are, and if I did, they would be dirty. Then I would have to wash them. And dry them. And put them on. That’s way too much work when your mind is going 1,000 miles an hour. You are already getting a mental workout, and trying to add physical to it can be too much. I guess the best way to describe it would be to expect someone to solve 500 quadratic equations, cure Cancer, and write a symphony, then tell them they had to do this all on the treadmill or elliptical. Now yes, if you manage to get to a gym before you reach Squirrel Overload, you have a chance of physically beating that anxiety back, but if it comes on suddenly, it’s just way too late.
I can turn this exercise bike into a real one with the power of anxiety! Vroom!
Hot, soothing beverage!
This is usually my best bet, except this time I could not make the cocoa because even though I had cocoa packets, I did not have milk. Well, I had milk, two half gallons, but they had both expired. Saying I was able to force myself to pour the milk (which might come up in chunks which milk should never do) down the drain without barfing, I couldn’t because there were already dishes in the sink. So first I would have to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Except the dishwasher is full so then you have to put the dishes up except that they didn’t all come clean, so they have to go back in the sink. No one wants milk curds on top of that. So forget it. Finally I drove to McDonald’s for some, but they “broke” the machine. I would break it too if I worked there, but still. I had to drive yet another place before I finally got my cocoa. Then I remembered I hadn’t taken some of my pills, so I swallowed them with cocoa only to swallow them wrong and get heartburn. Once I had finished taking care of the heartburn, I managed to go to bed. That, my friends, is way too darn much work.
Look I just want some calming cocoa in my gun mug!
Humor!
The last thing I feel when under Squirrel Overload is funny although I probably act rather amusing and or terrifying (it’s such a fine line) when under the influence. This morning I was not as sparkified, just dreadish, and telling myself that I just had to go to work for a little while even though I wanted to stay home. So I drove my Things to school and somehow the conversation diverted to dead dogs because – are you really surprised with us? Anyway, we discussed Where the Red Fern Grows which is a classic children’s book because it involves two dead dogs AND a dead child (for more on the dead dog topic see my post on dead dogs in literature. It’s a real romp.) And the Things, who were both forced to read this book, reminded me that the bully in the book was killed and I was like oh when he was mauled to death and they said no, an ax fell on him. Which is such a great image there. And I was like, dang, that author had some sort of personal vendetta against dogs and boys named Billy. And Thing Two said, “Mom, it was just an AXident.” Get it? Well, we did, and we laughed, because we have problems. But not as many as the author of Where the Red Fern Grows.
Okay, guys, time to die!
So the dread is still there, but at least I made it to work. And when I think of that horrible pun about an ax falling on a kid, I smile. I guess when you are on Squirrel Overload, it helps to have a couple of Things handy. I’m willing to rent them out.
Alice
A Tent in the Desert
For a long time now, I’ve felt like I was struggling to get through a desert. Choking on dust, slogging through sand, extreme heat and cold, walking into cacti (I’d probably do this in a real desert), falling into craters, running scared from those creepy sand worm things you see in the movies. It’s not real. I know it’s not real, it’s not even logical, but it’s there. I’ve made this trip every day for over a year. Three hospital visits, dozens of drugs, tons of time missed from work – I’ve had respites, mirages that seemed so real. But I always return to this damn desert.
Texas desert. Only 1,000 miles to the next town.
I’ve run a long time. Sometimes it’s from the anxiety causing (I’ll say) sand worms. Other times it’s running toward something – the cure. Surely there is some pill, some treatment, something, that is going to cure me and make me all better and normal and functional. I run and run and run. Until I can’t run any longer. I look back, but it’s too far to go back from where I’ve come. If all stays as it is, if I continue to run, continue to fear, continue to tell myself “Once x happens, then y= HAPPY”, I’m not going to get anywhere. Already I’ve collapsed several times from exhaustion, ready to just lay down and give up on the desert sand.
Obviously all this mental desert time has caused problems in my “real” life with my husband, my kids, my work, my health (nutrition is pop-tarts right?), my cluttered, sometimes disgusting house (Let’s play what’s that smell today), my finances, and on and on. And I’ve tried to solve these. Or hoped that a new med or therapy would give me the ability to solve them. ALL OF THEM. As Allie Brosh, author of the blog Hyperbole and a Half and a fellow sufferer, would say “CLEAN ALL THE THINGS”.
It doesn’t work. It’s too much pressure. You will drown. Even in the desert.
So I told my therapist about the desert. And she said something simple. “Build a tent.”
My tent. What?
Don’t focus on “cures”. Don’t focus on what’s behind you. Don’t focus on what’s ahead. Just keep hanging in there – exactly where you are right now. Use whatever “coping” mechanisms you can, and I don’t just mean “deep belly breathing” or making gratitude lists (Thank you so bloody much for depression.) No, use YOUR coping mechanisms, anything that makes you able to make it through another hour. Some of mine are getting away somewhere that I can cry alone (especially while trying to tolerate work) hot cocoa (it soothes my nerves), soft socks and this sweater / throw rug my friend gave me. And my Things of course, they are my two favorite things.
So I’ve stopped. I have my tent, and my goodies, and I sit and I peek out occasionally. I am counting down the days (three weeks now) until I can visit a shrink who is not a total jackass. I’ve gotten a small increase on one of my meds from his nurse who is not a jackass. I’ve missed work, gotten time without pay, and gone home and napped. I missed half a day today, and woke up depressed. Sleeping that much is not a good coping skill. Naps are good. Hours and hours, which leads to hours and hours up at night watching Lifetime and infomercials (I can lose 80 pounds without exercise if only I do extreme damage to that heart thingy!), is not good. I need good sleep. Without it, even the tent shakes.
So I just have to focus on day by day. I hope I can stay at work, because being at home is not much better. If anyone has tips for handling depression at work that do not have to do with breathing (trust me, I’ve heard it), please feel free to offer them. I thought a lot about just quitting, but realizing today how bored and sad I get at home (especially whilst playing the “what’s that smell” game), I know I need my job, and for more than just the income. I also need to know what I want. If I sit in the tent instead of constantly racing and racing, my counselor says it will come to me.
What do I want – in work, with my husband, with my kids, with family, with my house, with my life. What do I really want? I don’t know right now because I am too blinded by everything else, all the hurry and worry and sad and sick. If I can just sit in my tent, can I just sit and thinks? What do I want (besides getting well). I hope I can find it. But I can’t rush it. The knowledge of what Alice really wants will only come when I stop looking.
So I have to stop. Take comfort in the tent. Survive. And listen to that voice in my head. Not the mean, depressive one.
The one that belongs to Alice.
aliceatwonderland 