A battle that never ends

**Edit: I wrote this while on Ambien. I'm making changes now so that it actually makes sense....those of you who know me and have read this, I would hope that you know I have better grammar than how this was initially written. My apologies!**

I apologize to those of you who actually read this for my absence. On November 2, 2012 at 11:55 PM, my grandmother whom I loved and cherished more than life itself passed away. Alzheimer's Disease finally won, and I am broken. I sat with her in her final moment prior to dying, crying and crying--telling her that it was okay to go see God and that we loved her and we so proud of her for everything she was fighting, but that she could stop fighting. 

It has been almost 15 full days since I got the notice that my grandmother passed away, and I'm left going through the motions. I met hundred of people at her visitation, telling me how special she was and what an impact she had on their lives--and that was truly touching. Many of them hugged me, including her best friend, and they shared my pain. I carried grandma's ashes up to the alter for the funeral mass and by some miracle was able to sing "In This Very Room"--which I had sung for her for two different Christmas masses previously, and it was one of her favorite songs...but I still feel stuck.

I'm battling scarlet fever right now, so I'm exhausted. At the beginning of me feeling terrible from the fever, I heard Grandma saying "honey, I'm always praying for you. Your grandpa and I are constantly thinking about you. We're always here. We're always so proud of you and love you so much." But not even that can bring an excess of comfort...I want her back..her hugs...her kisses..her calming and giving presence. 

So, I think it's only fair that this topic breach depression. Now there's clearly a line between grief and depression--but the social stigma that is associated with depression is what really bothers me. 

“Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.” 

As grandma was getting sicker, with the transition of starting my new job, etc, my anxiety started to increase and I felt that my depression was getting worse. I've battled depression since I was 15, but I didn't admit that I needed help until I was cutting myself and I was 16. Why, you may be asking, did I wait?

My mom is a "licensed mental health therapist," and while that may seem like ideal when you're battling depression--it's the opposite. Because to her, I was no longer a daughter--I was a patient. She did what any mom would do and believed that she knew what was right for me and fought for that--but she did that without asking me. And honestly, we all know our own bodies best. This is clearly a sore subject, still.

Depression is a hereditary disease. My grandma struggled with it, my dad does, too. My aunt has really bad anxiety. My sister struggles. I have cousins who struggle--it's in my lineage. The imbalance of brain chemicals is literally programmed into my system. But what most people don't understand is that it's not just being sad. It's not a matter of "oh, I'll get over it. I'm stronger than this. I can battle this."..your brain chemicals are NOT RIGHT. 

Andrew Soloman, author of The Noonday Demon (which is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it), tries to explain it like this: "You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn't a mess. If there are issues you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face, and one aspect of depression is a deep knowledge that the comforting doctors who assure you that your judgment is bad are wrong. You are in touch with the real terribleness of your life. You can accept rationally that later, after the medication sets in, you will be better able to deal with the terribleness, but you will not be free of it. When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better.” 

When I was at my absolute lowest, nothing made sense to me. I thought everything went wrong because of me and there was no telling me any differently. I slept a lot, I cried a lot, I started a lot of fights with people just to avoid talking about anything else. In actuality, I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to sit, alone, and just be. 

The day that I "confessed" about my depression and told my parents that I needed help--I'll never forget. I was sitting on the step that went into my living room, holding my arms because I had just cut myself (parents didn't know that, I don't think) and I was crying harder than I'd ever cried before. All I could say was "I think it's time I get help. I'm not okay. I need help. I'm not okay. I'm not okay."

To which I got the following responses: "We knew you weren't okay, we just wanted you to admit it. But now you're just being dramatic."

Turns out mom had been slipping me St. Johns Wart (basically an herbal remedy for depression for over a year, without telling me). 

Fighting between mom and dad commenced on if I should go to therapy or if we should do drug therapy. Mom is anti-drug therapy because "those chemicals are poison," (and she's clearly never felt like this before and had to "make a choice") and dad said that I needed to go to a doctor and let them make the decision. 

I didn't get much say in the matter. Welcome back to being 16, right?

To make a long story short, I've been on some sort of anti-depression medication or medication for my anxiety since I was 16. I've been on some pretty intense medicine and some of the lower stuff and all of it resulted in me not being able to sleep. I also was in counseling pretty steadily for the remainder years of high school and then sporadically throughout college.

That's the interesting thing with depression and especially when you're coping with medication--it can trigger other things like insominia. 

After doing a lot of reading on the subject ad I've spoken to many people, and while I've been blessed that my depression hasn't required hospitalization, many doctors and professions have considered my depression to be severe. I would either binge eat or not eat. I didn't want to go anywhere. I just wanted to sleep and I just wanted to BE. I wanted people to leave me alone, I wanted people to stop asking me questions and to just leave me alone. 

But my mom decided that that wasn't "healthy," so after a few counseling sessions (the first one didn't go so great), I just got to the point that I was so busy I didn't have time to think; I didn't have time to feel, to get upset. But that just made my lows lower when I finally slowed down. 

It's always a Catch-22 with depression. 

I'm currently 23, I've been on a lower-ish dose of an anti-anxiety medicine for about three years and the insomnia is beginning to be a problem again. Don't get me wrong, I'm tired. But I'm not resting well. I'm getting, maybe, five hours of sleep a night.

Most people would consider that a significant amount of sleep, but with my already depleted immune system--well, I've already said it. Two months of the 5 hours maximum and here I am fighting off "potential scarlet fever." Bottom line: my body doesn't like it when I don't get at least 8 hours of sleep and this is what happens. 

I'm back on a prescription sleep aid, but not without my mom finding out and giving me her infamous "you're sleeping FINE. It's probably just stress but you're being dramatic and it's all in your head. You do not need this medication. Stop overreacting. We've been around you, we know how much sleep you're actually getting and it's more than what you think."

Oh yeah? You stay up with me all night and watch me when I sleep? Get a hobby.

Game, set, match. 

My mom is in the wrong profession. When I have four or five doctors telling me that I need to get more/better sleep, clearly she's wrong, but I'm not allowed to argue because "she's qualified."

Anyway, I'm off topic. That's another soapbox, and probably my next post.

What I don't understand is WHERE and WHEN did the negative stigma become an attachment to those who are needing the assistance of medicine for mental health? 

Why can we not applaud them and say "good for you. we are proud of you for getting help." 

Instead, we belittle them and judge them for the medicine that they need. Yes, I said need. You can't just hit your head really hard into a wall in hopes that your brain chemicals will go back into balance--it doesn't happen that way. You need an MAOI or an SSRI to help your brain. 

If you feel depressed, you are not crazy--no matter what anyone says. This is a disease. It's a disease that needs to be, and should be treated with respect. Since I began my battle with depression and anxiety, I've heard...

"you're crazy."

"you're just sad."

"get over it."

"stop being so dramatic."

"just FIX it and be happy. clearly you're dumb if you can't figure it out."

"why do you cry so much? your life isn't that miserable, suck it up."

"You take everything so personal, just leave us alone. We don't want to be around you because you bring the whole group down."

I will fully admit that I don't know how to act in public anymore when I'm with friends because I've sheltered myself from them. 

Yes, I have friends, most of them know about my past, but they don't see my constant internal struggle. Such as...

"Katie, you've really been teetering lately. Do you need to get off of your anxiety medicine to focus more on your depression?"

"Katie, you've been apologizing a lot to everyone--these people aren't out to get you, so you don't need to apologize so obsessively."
"You know if you get back on depression medicine, Katie, your mom is going to harass you about it and say you're just being dramatic and you jumped the gun--medicine can't solve everything..."

Living with depression, and I will live with it for the rest of my life, is like being in a itty-bitty house, that's crowded with about 200 in it. There's no room to breathe, no room to think...if you put one toe out of line, you've pissed someone off. If you move an arm, you've disappointed someone else. Even if that's not true (about pissing someone off or disappointing someone, good luck convincing yourself differently).

The pathetic thing about the stigma that's associated with depression is that I'm one of the ones who thinks by the stigma. Sure, I'll talk about it--I'll tell you my history. But to say "I think my depression may be coming back..." I can just hear it now...

Mom: "No honey, it's not depression. You're just grieving and it'll go away. You always want medicine to fix everything for you and that's not it in this case. You're not showing the same symptoms you were last time when you were clinically diagnosed with depression. (which was six years ago, after two of my close friends had committed suicide a week apart, and a year later, one of my closest friends would shoot himself). 

My mom, and a few others, make me feel ashamed for wanting to ask for help. For telling people that I need help and that doesn't feel right inside me and I think that I'm spiraling out of control...they just tell me I'm being dramatic. Sometimes, I think dramatic is the only way to get their attention. 

So I'm stuck. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here because I do not feel, especially as of late, one ounce like myself. And there aren't very many people I can turn to and say "I don't feel like myself anymore," without getting the "you're just tired and grieving, you'll be fine" response that I know I'll get from at least my mom. 

Bottom line: If you think you have depression or if you're struggling, SEND ME A MESSAGE. I understand. I understand what it's like to not be able to sleep and to cry yourself to sleep because you don't think it's ever going to get better...I understand. You're not alone. You don't have to be alone anymore.

Together, we can change this stigma. 

“Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression