About my crazy
First, I do appreciate the concern. But that said:
Please bear in mind that I have seen a lot of therapists who try different kinds of therapy. I am not so good with talking — writing, yes, talking, no — and I am even less good with the huge power imbalance. I have seen people for more than just 3 sessions. I have tried many antidepressants. I know these are possible solutions to what is most certainly a chemical imbalance. They do not work for me. I am not anti-antidepressants. I know they work for many other people; I know they save lives. But, as it turns out, not mine: I had crippling anxiety, or slept 20 hours a day, or got sick if I smelled anything at all ever, or had such bad tremors that I couldn’t hold a pen. I do follow when new drugs come out, and when a new *type* of drug comes out, not just a different sort of SSRI, I will try again. But until then, I do better without them.
Writing, however, is good therapy for me. So depression shows up a lot here, because often writing about it lessens it. And yes, because I get depressed more than would be ideal. And no, I don’t really like that, so I do what I need to do which, for me, means two things: writing about it and trying to recognise when I’m feeling stuck doing something I hate (and before it comes down to the “hey I want to kill myself, wait, this means there’s a problem” stage). I’m not always so wonderful at the latter, but I am working on it. And writing about it also helps me recognise it, which means that yes, I write about self-injury a lot, but I haven’t done it in a long time, either. So is it disturbing that I write about it, or even about wanting to (something which I admit comes up more often than I write about it, mostly because focussing on that particular thing tends to be destructive)? Maybe. Isn’t it better, though, that I write about it than do it? The point really: this blog does not pretend to be balanced, and it does not give equal space to everything I think about.
There is a lot more to my background and my depression than I write about here; I have reasons for not writing other parts, reasons which are maybe good or maybe not good and probably a bit of both, but in either case I do not write about certain aspects of things.
And I appreciate that it is not fun watching people not go for possible solutions and sitting in misery instead; I know it is frustrating to me to see that when others do it. But I am going for solutions, they’re just less obvious.
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:35 am
I think you’ve come a long way in talking about this. It’s brave to talk about coping mechanisms that may be construed as weak and destructive; we all have them but recognizing the similarities in the motivation may be a leap.
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:47 am
Ditto what Michelle said. I’m not really in a situation anywhere close to what you experience, but still it helps me feel better to i) see that there are other unhappy people around and ii) to read about how other people cope. And if writing about it here helps, then great, by all means keep doing it. I prefer reading someone’s honest take on their life over seeing a parade of happy kittens and clowns with brightly colored balloons any day.
September 3rd, 2005 at 4:01 am
Indeed. Write away.
I understand side effects and that many drugs (including antidepressants) are more trouble than help. It took nearly a DECADE of fiddling around with drug combinations before The Shrink and I agreed on a pharmaceutical coctail that keeps my depression at bay and still allows me to be fully functional. (The Shrink is actually a very good psychiatrist/physician — who I got by Luck Of The Draw — who is immersed in the current literature of medication and is very much a fan of the notion that Everybody is Different and needs a different medical solution to their problem.)
I also did some talk therapy with a psychologist who did nothing more than help me recognize how I talked myself down, and the need for discontinuing that behavior. At the time, I didn’t see how it could help. In fact, it helped a lot.
I encourage you to keep writing, but also to consider some assistance with the insomnia. Perhaps a very low dose of some psychotropic could help with the sleep. Reliable, good sleep makes both brain and body work MUCH better.
September 3rd, 2005 at 4:04 am
Oh, and by the way, YOU ARE NOT CRAZY. Simple depression is pretty ordinary, and not craziness. Mostly, just a royal pain in the wazoo.
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Thanks, Michelle. I’m not sure exactly how much of this is bravery, how much fear, the stuff I do or don’t write about. But I keep going, because it seems to help me.
Sheepish, what? You don’t want to see my kittens? My cats are just so adorable! But there will be no happy clowns with balloons here.
I am not willing to play around for a decade with antidepressants, given that almost all of the ones I’ve tried have left me nonfunctional — unlike my depression. Not that it’s a bad idea to do it, it’s just not a good idea for me. I don’t think other people shouldn’t do what helps them — including therapy. I just find that it does not help me.
I’m not exactly insomniac so much as I am/was choosing not to sleep. I could sleep, and am now trying this sleeping more again to see if I have stopped having bad dreams, which seems to be the case. This kind of period does not usually last long.
Oh, of course I am also crazy alongside depressed. But crazy in the fun way.
ANd in general, I do appreciate people’s kind words.
September 3rd, 2005 at 8:18 pm
Errr, I did put my foot in that one. What I meant, clearly, was give me pathos and kitty pics, in that order! Actually, why not combine the two and post a bunch of crazy cat pictures? Not sure if ‘crazy’ is modifying cat or picture there. Guess I’ll let you decide.
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:28 pm
Well, I could certainly illustrate my sad posts with photos of cats, which might solve this problem. They are not as crazy, just cute and sleepy, but still, cats.