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[adventureswithdepression-blog]

Distractions

I’ve spent too much time in my own head again. The stress of university and being behind on all things Christmas kinda piled together to form this inescapable bubble of stress and over all shittiness. 

I’ve been historically bad with dealing with things inside my own dome. It’s not like I’m in denial of that there’s stuff happening in there but I’ve always struggled to put names on those “stuff”. And it’s not like I can’t understand and empathize with others emotions, and it’s not like I don’t have emotions, I just struggle to put a name on those. 

And that’s the issue. Naming things. 

As someone in the academics and in a “soft science” like sociology I thrive when things have names and definitions. That’s something I love. The issue is understanding, naming and defining that swirling mess that is my mind. God I’m starting to sound like a lunatic but bear with him. 

I’ve struggled with depression on and off for nearly a decade now. The first down period I had was when I was 12-13 and that’s a long time ago. As I’ve previously written that has somewhat skewed my perception on things like emotions. It’s like I have terms and clinical descriptions on emotions and how they feel but every time someone asks me what I’m feeling I can’t answer them. I still remember the first time my first therapist asked me how I’m feeling in the moment, I can now say it was pure panic. As someone who grew up with a somewhat rigid expectation to know things the fact that I was clueless was absolutely terrifying. 

I think it might be because there’s always more than one feeling when I’m in therapy. And it’s not always happiness or anger, it’s a mixture of more complex emotions, of expectations of myself and of perceived expectations of those emotions. 

The only emotion I’m quite good on perceiving is anxiety which in itself is kinda funny. The only emotion I can pinpoint is the emotion I want less of. For me anxiety comes with all kinds of physical manifestations from upset stomachs to cold sweats to feeling green with nauseousness. I hate it. 

Anger is one I’m absolutely clueless of. One of the therapists I’ve had asked me if I’d been angry before. And I couldn’t say. I don’t remember. I’m human so of course I’ve been angry but the manifestation of anger has never been explored with me. I’ve grown up with expectations of perfection and the image of the perfect daughter and anger isn’t one of the acceptable emotions of that image. So am I angry? Sure I must be. Do I know when I’m angry? Absolutely not. 

This makes living inside my own thoughts hellish. It’s a mess of broken things, of memories I don’t want to think about, about expectations and mean words that keep me up at night. It’s scary mostly because I have no idea on how to start to clean it up.

So I clean my apartment, listen to podcasts and let’s plays, watch Netflix and TV, knit and write all in a vain attempt to escape my thoughts. It’s just not worked lately and I find myself lost in myself without a way out. 

T-4 days until therapy. Goddamn I’ve missed my therapist. Maybe she’ll bring a flashlight so I might sleep well again soon. 

[adventureswithdepression-blog]

Slipping

I didn’t mean to stop writing for a few weeks and yet here I am, somewhat embarrassed but mostly tired. Gosh I’m just so tired. This isn’t going to be long, or good, or coherent. It’s just so that I can say I’ve done this as I’ve meant to do for a while now. 

I don’t like admitting that I made a mistake, but I did. Earlier this year, when the sun was high in the sky and I was filled with that same energy like every year before school starts, I took on a lot of courses. Me, the person who struggled with one or two courses at the same time took on three for the semester when the sun doesn’t rise and seasonal effective disorder runs rampant on campus. 

My point is- well I don’t know what it is. I’m tired and worn down and I still have to complete my courses before Christmas. Essays, presentations, group work and more essays are piling up on my desk and I honest to god don’t know what to do with myself. Mentally I’m in a way better place than I was a year ago and I know that I’ll be able to do all this work before their deadlines run past me. And yet the metaphorical and physical bags under my eyes keep getting bigger as my old friend insomnia has been visiting me for the past two weeks. Ugh. 

I had a list of things I wanted to talk about on this blog, written neatly in my journal I haven’t touched in a few weeks. It’s weird really. I say I don’t have time for things and yet I do, there’s more hours in the day than I actively use. It’s just the fact that I’m so tired. The short period of sunlight per day doesn't help with the fact that I don’t seem to be able to recharge myself. It’s really messing with me and I can feel myself slipping. It’s odd being able to feel that, a few years ago it was like I was fine and the next second I was unable to get out of bed. Now I’ve been feeling like I’ve been slipping towards the pit, or sinking into the marsh for a while now. It’s like waiting for something to happen, although you don’t want it to happen. It feels like something inevitable, lurking just beyond my view ready to trip me up. 

Ugh. Still two weeks until my next therapy. Gotta keep myself working until that. It’s not like I lack things to do, besides drowning in school work there’s the whole thing with the holidays; gifts, cards, traveling to organize. I’m so behind on all of that, and yet for the first time in years I’m not sure if I care if I don’t get things done. Maybe. 

[adventureswithdepression-blog]

Every Action has an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Dichotomy

[dahy-kot-uh-mee] 

A division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups.

Our world is rarely black and white. This is something that is repeated over and over again, and yet the thought of shades of grey seem so aloof that it needs repeating. Even from childhood these dichotomies in life are highly emphasized, there’s the dashing prince and the evil queen, there’s the evil stepmother and the good daughter. It’s easy. Night or day. Good or bad. And yet as we grow up these separate ideals or ideologies seem to blur together. There’s the hero that does morally questionable things for the right cause. There’s the villain that loves his family more than life itself. It’s not easy anymore. Yet these dichotomies live and are perpetuated in everything we consume. I didn’t really spend much thought on these divides, good or bad, east or west, night or day, man or woman, not until I started at university.

Sociology was a new and exciting area of science for me, not quite psychology nor social sciences but instead something in between. A somewhat ironic place for a science so obsessed with the dichotomies of everyday life. Gradually I grew to see dichotomies everywhere, no matter how minute the detail of interest was. Are we creatures of freewill or are there underlying societal structures that define who we are and what we do? Are human’s social creatures or egotistical? Is anything real, and most importantly how do we define what is and what isn’t? All these questions or statements are true, or none of them are depending on who you ask. Another quirk of sociology; if you can motivate it, you can basically say anything about anything.

Not gonna lie I struggled with my subject for a while. I became agitated about the endlessness of it all, nothing was real and at the same time everything was. I sought out my old notes from math in a futile attempt to get my hands on something that was either right or wrong. Yet another dichotomy. But over time, I grew to tolerate, then like these contradictions. 

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about dichotomies this week. I write this realizing that dichotomies are the foundation for my science and a tool for me to understand the world with, but it’s rare that I actively think on these things outside the campus.

Fundamentally there’s conflict between dichotomies. A professor once told me that no science would be interesting without a juicy dichotomy. Another told me that if you find a dichotomy you didn’t expect in your thesis you know you’ve done your job. Academically I’ve grown used to this thought of seeking out the contradictions, but contradictions are fundamentally uncomfortable in everyday life.

Arguing with yourself

Why are you laying there you lazy, stupid girl! What will people think of you, netflixing your life away like this! Just do something! You should be working, studying, working out, writing, cleaning, socializing-

Admitting that you have “voices in your head” is never easy. This is true even when those voices are your own thoughts and ambitions and not hallucinations. It took me over 15 visits with my first therapist, a young woman a few years older than me with a laugh so wonderful it spread like wildfire, to admit to “hearing things”. It was the autumn of 2015 and I had spent weeks with her as her test subject. The institution for psychology that trained psychologists at my university needed volunteers the just about done students could practice on under supervision by their professors. It was a step I could take. Deep in denial of my issues I reached out to talk about my motivation and the lack there of.

She was nice about the whole thing. She pondered about what I said and told me that maybe the two voices arguing were my depression and my own drive. My depression trying to bring me down and not do anything, and my drive chastising me for not giving it a direction or a goal. I didn’t think much of it then, but the thought stayed with me the entire week. I lacked a goal. I’m not going to pretend that I have a goal or a purpose nowadays, living life a day or a year at a time with no clear vision for the future is one of the many side effects 10 years with depression has had on me.

As much as I hate to admit it, the dichotomy between the drive to do things, whether it be from my own volition or from a societal push for productivity and meeting unspoken standards and expectations, and the apathy and boredom of depression has become the norm for me. I’ve lived with this divide for ten years and I do not remember who I was without it. I was a child. All of my character development stems from this contradiction, this easy excuse for being “lazy”. My friendships, my relationships with family, my studies, all of this might change. I might be a totally different person. I have issues with control, I don’t like to drink, smoke, drink coffee or tea, do drugs, alter my personality in any way because I don’t know who that person is. I’m so afraid of loosing control, to take a leap of faith. Do you see the issue this has with beginning my journey to recovery?

Earlier this week therapist number 2, the one with the nice office, asked me what I see in my future. I told her I don’t know. That answer is never easy to give, there’s this partially unspoken expectation that we’re supposed to know who we are, what we want and what we’re ready to do to achieve that goal. I don’t know if I know any of those. 

Seeking help has been a concrete step for me. It’s admitting that I have issues I want solved. It’s also admitting that I don’t want to be this way anymore, I don’t want to be “this person”. This creates this unspoken bond, between who I am now and who I want to be. Admitting that I want to make the change is fine. The issue is that I don’t know who the end product is. This whole thing is like jumping into a deep dark void, needing to trust that there’s something worthwhile down there and not just a void that keeps on going. 

What a wholly unpleasant thought. 

[adventureswithdepression-blog]

Shopping for a Therapist, Vol 1

therapist

[ther-uh-pist] 

Person trained in the use of psychological methods for helping patients overcome psychological problems.

My history with therapy has been a long and eventful one. I first sought out help for my lack of motivation towards studying, neglecting the fact that I’d been unmotivated for pretty much everything for a period before that. I found an opportunity to talk about my motivation when the psychology institute sent out an email looking for people the just-about-done psychologists could practice their therapy on. I signed up and signed specifically up for a quick fix to my issues with motivating myself.

Wham bam, it’s depression. And anxiety.

Apparently those two go hand in hand. It’s like that one annoying couple who seem more symbiotic than most wildlife. It’s like they’re defined by each other, like a twisted romance. If I’m not down I’m stressed and anxious about everything I’m doing. If I’m down I’m stressed and anxious about all the things I’m supposed to be doing. 

It’s not like one would be enough. Let me mope and sigh in peace, there’s no need to remind me of those heaps of books that need to be read or the piles of dishes in the kitchen. 

Since that diagnosis I’ve talked to a lot of people but it never seems to get easier or less tearful. I struggled with the process of seeking out actual help from the actual doctors. You know the ones, sitting in that health center or in the hospital. Seeking help from there is so- final? It’s admitting you have an issue. And as a perfectionist or the “capable daughter” admitting something like that is like admitting you murdered something to a judge. No thank you, I’d rather spend my time wanting to die. So, I spoke to study counselors instead of doctors or therapists and managed to write my bachelors thesis. I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy, and it would’ve been easier if I had been a bit less stubborn.

This summer I made the choice to seek out actual therapy. This involves an overly complicated process of seeking out a doctor who refers you to a psychologist who’s a shoulder to lean on until you find your permanent therapist. When you find this therapist, they’ll make a statement and you’ll go see a psychiatrist twice until they make a decision if you’re sick or not and only then will the state pay for your therapy. I realize that this is a process that isn’t available in certain countries and as much as I like to whine about it I love that it’s there. It’s just a very long process, usually averaging round 6months+.

I’ve just hit the point of shopping for a therapist. I’ve spent a lot of time with the psychologist that was appointed to me by the health services and she’s got a place opening in January. She offered it to me but encouraged me to go see other therapists before making a choice.

Enter the second therapist.

I’ve struggled with loss of appetite and sleep this week and the visit with the second therapist didn’t soothe any of those. I found myself wishing that the time I had booked would’ve been with my primary therapist, but I managed to drag myself out and to her offices even though the appointment was at 7pm, approximately 6 hours after my energy usually runs out.

Her office is in the attic of an old historic building downtown and much to my dismay most of the positives around this visit were about the office itself. The building had this magnificent stone stairway that I opted to take after surveying the small elevator from the 1920’s that looked more like a deathtrap than a person transporter. The office itself was beautifully renovated, her chairs were large and comfy, the size that you could’ve curled up in them and there was this beautiful view of the night sky from the small attic windows.

The therapist was older than I’d thought she’d be, in her fifties I’d assume, lean and sharply dressed. She shook my hand and we sat down and I guess the spark wasn’t really there for me. She’s too much of a psychologist if you know what I mean. She asked me about my earliest childhood memories as her first question, spoke about how the things I said were “important and no doubt very meaningful” whatever that even means. Her voice was this slow drawl, and she held these pauses that made me so uncomfortable as I didn’t know when it was my turn to talk. Eh. I didn’t feel like I could say anything, so she scheduled me another appointment next week.

At least I’ll see that wonderful staircase again.

Mirror, Mirror

I read a few blog posts about these interviews or visits to see if you click with a therapist before I headed out this Monday. They all said that you’d know if it’s the right person. For me that’s a weird thing. I’ve grown quite close with the therapist I was appointed, and with this second therapist it became more and more clear that she wasn’t the right one. Not only did she exude “psychologist”, she also reminded me of my mom. Not cool. 

So I’m definitely not going with her. This brings the question if I’ll go with my primary psychologist. Her office isn’t as nice, and her view is of a construction site. But she feels more of a confidant, not overly eager to pick my brain but also not visibly uncomfortable with my answers. Is it vain of me to wish they’d swap buildings? And it’s it vain to want the nice building?