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Hungry Soul July 3, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Depression , 2 comments

Julie Pippert of  "Using my Words" has asked "what do you do to feed your soul? What renews you? How does that fit in with the cultural protocol?"

I would step into my trusty 1990 Ford Escort. Sticking with my need to have alliteration, I named her Emma. She and I went everywhere. Even though it was dark and almost 12:30am, I knew where I was going. With the radio blasting, I would turn out of the SUNY Stony Brook parking and ease onto Nichols Road. Sure, it had a route number, but I called it Nichols Road. Making my way to 25A, I would stumble through the rocky coastline of Eastern Long Island. Little towns with bungalows and illegal in-laws and student apartments dotted the way. Eventually, I would live in one of these summer cottages, surviving the spiders that loved the moist sea air.

I drove with the turns of the road. By Wading River, past the William Floyd Parkway (AKA the Pink Floyd parkway) 25A merged with 25,  Along the fences for Grumman, "no photos allowed". The landscape flattened out a bit, eventually leading towards  the city of Riverhead.  Then I turned towards the North Fork of Long Island.

The radio, or a tape would be blaring. I would sing along, pretending to be someone I was not. On the road there was no one to hear me sing. In the night, few people were out here to be bothered with. I continued on through small towns. Mattituck, Cutchogue, Southhold, Greenport. I was nearing my destination. A small land bridge told me  I was almost there. When I reached Orient Point, I would park the car and smell the sea air. On the other side of the land was Long Island Sound, but in front of me was Pecconic Bay. I loved to listen to Billy Joel on these trips. He was Long Island. A different part of Long Island than the hair and cars….

After enjoying the end of the world, I would drive back to my sheltered College life. But for a few hours, I could feed my hungry soul

 

A loss.. perhaps… June 4, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 3 comments

I talked to Crazy H on Sunday. The talk centered on her (surprise). I have been doing research on what she talked about and I think she has something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This is sad because she fits 6 of 9 criteria about it. I am not sure what to do. She is seeing a therapist, but I finally told her (via email) that I don’t think this person is right for her.

 I’ve not gotten a response back.

I may have lost a friend from forever.

This is hard.
 

Watching the rain May 13, 2008

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The other night, I was in bed, resting on Jay’s chest. I listened to his heart, his breathing and then I sighed.

He asked "what’s going on?".

And I said "I’m angry"

And I was. I was angry at depression. My depression is cyclic, often tied to my menstrual cycle, as it is with most women. As our chemicals bounce up and down, we see our depression coming towards us and disappear. When I see it coming towards me, I get ANGRY. Why do I have to get depressed? WHY?

I have a great family, a great life. WHY WHY WHY????

It is like watching a horror movie. You see the stupid thing that the person is about to do. You yell at them to stop! For the love of peanut butter and chocolate, STOP! But they do it anyway. That is what it feels like to me. I see the depression coming. I am furious that it exists, horrified that it is moving at me and I can’t move, yet I can’t stop it. I can’t turn away.

And then you find you can’t put the emotions into words. As hard as you try, you can’t do it.

 

Droopy May 10, 2008

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The Monday Blues April 28, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 1 comment so far

Man, I am tired. And cold. My house is holding at 63 and since it is the last week of April, I am refusing to turn on the heater. Stubborn, I am so Stubborn!

Just finished a quick assessment of the risk of high count rate proposals for our telescope. I shouldn’t really work on Mondays, but I feel like I need to just to keep up, and the girls are playing nicely downstairs.

We have plants to transplant. I think the girls and I will do that this afternoon. Tomato plants. Yum. Unfortunately, we need to wait until Mid/late May to put them on the deck. For now, they will enjoy inside. I feel like a plant experiment right now. Lots and lots of little plants in our house. Tomatoes, parsley and hibiscus.

After hitting 86 last week, it will hold in the low 50s with rain this week. Yuck.  Sometimes, spring depresses me.

I need to find some time this week. Anybody got some time to spare?

When did the rain begin to fall ?– part 5 April 2, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , comments closed

The alarm goes off at 6:51am. I snooze it. If Soleil is in bed with me, I ask her to snooze it because she is closer and I can barely move when she’s in bed with us. She goes to my side, Luna goes to Jay’s side. Their chosen parents. By 7:30am, I get out of bed, turn on Clifford (the Big Red Dog) and bring in the clothes that the girls picked out last night. They need to be dressed by the time I am out of the shower. I go into the master bath and start my daily routine.

There’s a bottle of little blue pills, to replace the T4 that my body has failed to make, hypothyroidism. Then the other bottle. The little blue and white capsules. I open the bottle and tap 3 into my hand. Some days, I just take them. Other days, I stare at them while I try to decide if I should take them or throw them out. I close my eyes and imagine the rages I fly into when I don’t take them. The scratches on my arms that I make when I realize how angry I get. I open my eyes and stare at the woman in the mirror. She looks so sad, so beaten. She doesn’t look as if she is old, but more as if she can’t deal with the weariness anymore. I hate that look. I take the pills.

If I miss them, at 2:30pm I get dizzy. By 4pm I can lose my temper with the smallest thing. I have vowed never to hit my children, but the days I forget to take those blue and white embodiments of euphoria, I get close. I have never hit them. I walk away grinding my teeth. My shoulders get tight. When the sun goes down on those nights, my mood shifts from anger to numb. I can’t believe how angry I got. The thoughts I had. I often have the words "I need to leave" go through my head. "Leave to where?" I don’t know.

I meet with my doctor this week. Tomorrow. I am starting to accept that this is me. I am clinically depressed. Post-partum depression was just one manifestation of this, but I have always been depressed. I need to accept that I need the medicine. That I need to exercise several times a week to keep my MIND healthy, not just my body. I need to find a way to like me on those days that I and me don’t get along. And this is how I will always be. This is not just a 1 year thing. Luna turns 4 in June. Soleil turns 6 in July. I’ve been actively fighting this for almost 6 years. Time to accept that this is me and I need to take it as part of me.
 

 

Can I go back to bed? April 1, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression, Dr. Jay, Fun with Crohn's Disease , 2 comments

Sorry for the hiatus in the depression series. Jay spiked a 101.6 fever on Sunday. Now, for most people, no biggie, but he is on meds right now that prevent his body from fighting infection and 101 was the trigger to call the doctor. He saw the doctor yesterday and was given an antibiotic and a large round of blood tests.

I’ve been handling to kids mostly, got them out to Horton (loved it, but Vlad (not the bunny) was scary to Luna). We played, got Soleil to her Girl Scout meeting (which I didn’t have to go to! Yeah!) and generally got things going.

Sorry this is short, but I have a bit of code at work that is driving me mad! Oh wait, I think I know, I need a copy constructor in my class! Yes! That must be it!

If my last sentence made no sense, just move along! 

When did the rain start to fall?–Part 4 March 29, 2008

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When I first went on anti-depressants, I figured "okay- about 6 months and I’ll be back to normal". Ha! I am still on them. 

I thought this was all temporary. The depression was just post partum depression. It would go away as my hormones returned to normal and life would be good again.

Or would it?

I would go to the campus store and pick up a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. I would take my thermal dynamics book and notebook and go to the 7th floor of this building. The corners had large plate glass windows. I would occasionally wonder if I could run the length of the hallway and throw myself through the window. Then I would return to the problem set at hand. Once I did a calculation of force. In all reality, I would not die from such a fall, just be really really hurt.  I continued to ponder and watch the lights of the island while I did my homework.

I’m not sure there ever was a Normal for me. Perhaps an insanity, but not a normal. If I was thinking this way during college, long before children, maybe this wasn’t PPD, but something else. I started to really look at this in gory detail. I reviewed many different symptoms and thoughts. The best fit seems to be clinical depression.

In my hometown, I was never the popular one. Oh, sure everyone KNEW of me, the geek, the astronomer. The girl most likely to find a planet. But I was not popular. I fell for a popular boy. When it was clear that he was not going to ever reciprocate, I withdrew my emotions from my being. It was easier to hide behind a smile than to deal with rejection. At the time, I thought is was normal grieving of a relationship. In retrospect, it was overreacting at the least and unhealthily obsessive. I had signs of depression then. This was in 6th grade.

There were other signs. Little ones that I can see in hindsight, but never in front of me. The hormones of pregnancy certainly increased my depression. That was clear from the 7th week of Luna’s pregnancy. When the depression kicked me hard and often. When I would look at Soleil and wonder how I was destroying her life. Oh, yes, every parent wonders that with their children, but this was worse. My thoughts were violent and graphic. I was trying to stay off the antidepressants during Luna’s pregnancy, but at 12 weeks, Jay found me sitting on the floor of the kitchen, absentmindedly running a butcher knife along my palm. He helped me get back to the medication. And back to help.

 

 

It’s always been here. That’s the truth. The rain has always been here. I am not sure why I never saw it before. It was raining when I was a child, It rained when I went through middle and high school. College was full of rain. But even in Seattle, people can be happy. Can I? 

 

Luna messed with me from before she was born. I went into pre-term labor at 33 weeks. Ended up on terbutalene. Nasty stuff. But she made Soleil happy and me….

RE: The depression series March 28, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs, Depression , 3 comments

I am working through some issues with the depression. I am finding that it is very cathartic to write down what was going on and how I was feeling. I also hope that if someone else sees themselves through my prism, they may get help. I’ve closed the comments because I am not looking for pity. I am trying to figure out where the depression started and how I got through this incredibly difficult time.

I hope you don’t mind reading along. You are more than welcome to just skip these. I’ll keep the title going so you can skip them if they are boring.

If you do want to discuss anything, you can always email me….thespacemom at gmail DOT com
 

When did the rain start to fall?–Part 3 March 28, 2008

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 I had found myself withdrawing deeper into myself as time went on. We started to get smiles from Soleil and that helped. I would take her for walks in the mornings on the Minuteman Bike way. It helped to get out in the Summer/Fall air. I tried to get her in the Baby Bjorn. It took about 10 tries to get her to stop crying. I would get her in it, walk about 5 minutes and then take her out because she was miserable. Eventually, she stopped hating it. It just was so hard to get her to calm. The walks helped me because there was a world outside of my private hell. But winter was coming and soon I would need to return to work.

We traveled to Baltimore for a work meeting. I wasn’t officially back at work yet. A blowout had happened with the new boss. I was about to lose my office space and my plan of working 3 days 10 hours a day was getting axed because of the boss change. When we got on the plane, I realized I was having a panic attack. A full blown panic attack. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. Soleil was wonderful on the flights. She sucked her pacifer and slept most of the time. I was the one losing it on the planes.

I started to review my mental state. We were house hunting. I was returning to work. we had a CHILD! And I was thinking darker and darker thoughts every day. I would review our wills and life insurance policies when Soleil was sleeping, to make sure that Jay would be able to handle life with her alone. I would think new and unexciting ways to leave the planet. The oppression in my head was unbearable.

One night, after feeding Soleil in the middle of the night, I just sat on the stairs and cried. Jay heard me and came out. I told him that I was going crazy. He said that I was just overwhelmed. I looked right at him and said, "No, I am really going insane. There is something wrong with me." He stayed with me that night until  I was ready to go to bed. In the morning, he arranged for me to see my endocrinologist. Maybe your thyroid is off…

I saw my endocrinologist within a week. I didn’t think of it at the time, but Jay must have insisted that he see me because it normally takes months to get an appointment. I explained my symptoms. I explained that I was "down". He asked how I was bonding. When I explained that it was not going well, he probed deeper. Was I getting enough sleep? Was she a good or poor sleeper? Had I ever gotten frustrated over her? Had I ever considered violence even if I wouldn’t act on it? He knew the right questions to ask. He arranged for someone in mental health to see me ASAP and had a nurse walk me over to the mental health office.  The road to wellville? Not really.

I started taking antidepressants. I started working again and managed to save both my office and my 3-10 work schedule. I started missing more days of work with small child illnesses. We purchased a house and sold another.  

I went through 4 different doctors before I found one who would deal with me as a person. One tried to associate past events with my depression. Another insisted on hypnosis, which I rejected. I found a doctor who specialized in post partum depression and I was turned away because of my insurance. I finally found someone in February. Soleil was now 7 months old.