To Sleep, Perchance To Heal?

I don't get it, and right now I'm not going to try, but later on I definitely will give in and do some picking around Google.

Here's the thing: Last night I went to bed feeling that I just could not take another step up the unending life hill. This morning I woke with an amazing blanket-like sense of peace.

Nothing's changed. In fact, the cards are stacked against this sort of feeling.

1. I woke in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep for about a half hour

2. I had a really disturbing dream that I won't detail here, but suffice it to say it involved my family and moving away from my therapist...my anchor source for the past seven or more years

3. According to my doctor, the level of Adderall and Effexor are at their lowest in the morning. Which means I should, and should expect to be profoundly depressed.

And yet....I feel as though I am wrapped in layers and layers of calm; my brain feels like it is swaddled in protective paddings of warmth. What is going on?

I feel the pull of Google and search terms but I'm going to resist and go and work out. I have a gut feeling that trying to decipher this state of mind will wreck it, whereas just going with the flow will prolong the state. So...more endorphins it is.

Coda

One of the particular tortures of depression is the acute ability to feel the drudgery of life...to see the long, exhausting journey of it...and not to be able to develop the interpersonal relationships that would make the journey bearable. At least for me, right this very moment, that's how it seems.

I came across this article in RealSimple (which, by the way, apparently doesn't reprint articles on their web site) and I thought: Who are these people? How on earth are they able to enjoy each other and the life that they have, without buckling under the titanic weight of life's demands? These are successful women...the people that attend this slumber party...and they all have what appear to be high pressure jobs. How do they manage to still enjoy life?

And the questions: What's wrong with me that I can't? What am I not getting that they obviously do, to have a full schedule and not feel as though they are climbing a constantly increasing, ever unending incline?

I don't have answers right now...and the thoughts that are coming to mind are best covered over by sleep. So I'm off to bed with the dog and the husband and hopes that I will awake and find that this darkness has past.

Fascinating Facts

This will be a quick post, as I have expended nearly all of my available mental reserves on lauding Teri Gross, plus I am definitely feeling the effects of an oddly timed wave of depression.

Thanks to a post by a Bill Yarberry...and indirectly to my insatiable desire to know, I came across this interesting article about the connection between nutrition and brain function...with extensive mentions about depression. I have no idea if the author is legit or full of it, but a quick skim of the material leads me to believe he is on to something.

Unfortunately, I'll have to save a more in-depth investigation until this wave passes...as reading the parts about the numerous foods that the author is careful to eat and supplements he diligently takes is weighing on me like a metric crapload of bricks. I'm in the phase of mind in which I neglect to take my prescribed drugs out of a sort of global hopelessness; the last thing I need to do is read about drugs (food, supplements) that I should start taking (eating).

Off Note: Listening to NPR's constant tsunami coverage might not be helping either.

There's No Such Thing As Too Much Laughter.

When you're depressed, that is. Possibly even when you're not.

Anyway.

Teri Gross is reponsible for the nutty, crunchy, wonderfully eclectic show on WHYY that is Fresh Air. On this show, which Chicago's WBEZ so graciously pays to broadcast, she interviews everyone....from people you've definitely heard of (Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Gene Simmons) to those you never have. Somehow, some way, she gets them to tell things they've never thought about holding forth on...mostly by the power of her peaceful, gentle, sounds-like-cashmere-would-sound voice and her unobtrusive manner; it's like she's simply suggesting rather than obnoxiously questioning.

David Sedaris is...well, it's hard to cocantenante into a single concise text string what exactly he is. Basically he's an author, if "author" was expanded to mean "absolutely hilarious human being with a penchant for arid, humorous stories and a fall down, roll around, gasp for breath vocal presence. Plus capable of many, many other wonderfully odd artistic expressions." See. Told you it was hard.

These two forces have smashed together this week in Fresh Air's series "Last Laughs" If you do nothing else this week, go on over and listen to Teri Gross interview David Sedaris. Preferably not while driving.

Regarding Asia At This Time

There's been a lot of coverage in the news and on the internet about the absolutely mind boggling natural disaster that was the tsunami in Asia but I chose to reference this site because it's a forum I regularly visit and can attest to the relatively high level of discourse, they include a list of links to sites that are accepting donations, and the mentions of friends, fellow posters and family infuse the casualties with personal emotions...something that often gets lost, or is rendered simply incomprehensible when the death toll is so high.

This isn't helping the lingering traces of depression that are still around after my late afternoon chaser...but I really don't care. I want to feel badly about this massive amount of life lost. It's hard, however, to fight the accompanying mind-churning; what can I do? what can I give? if I wait until I'm paid, is that horrible? if I don't give my entire paycheck, am I bad? if I don't go because I'm swamped with work and home, does that make me selfish? And on. And on.

At least I have the luxury of thought....negative or otherwise. There are many, many people in Asia that don't.

About Progeny. Sort Of.

I don't have kids. Don't want them. Never have.

Early on, say, during my formative years, I just never thought about motherhood; I was more into lizards and snails than sugar and spice. Later on, after the second onset of depression, my apathy regarding rugrats coalecsed into a protective sort of theory; by avoiding procreation I was protecting theoretical spawn from inheriting my defective mental genes and any other depression related fallout.

Because I don't have kids, I am, to my shame, highly intolerant of them. Now if I wander into a child-infested playground full of audible, physical chaos, I consider any resultant apoplectic rage my fault. However in certain locations, say, my neighborhood coffee joint, I expect a measure of control. Talking and laughing with accompanying hand gestures? Yes. Screaming children flinging display objects about? Absolutely not.

I started this in a Caribou Coffee somewhere in the wilds of Rockville...deserted except for a couple with their object flinging baby. Said couple only intervened when the baby tipped over...ignoring the several cards and two teddy bears the child pulled to the floor. I am now in an airport, accompanied by a large number of small children, all of whom alternate screaming, crying and whining. Sometimes in unison.

What exactly does this have to do with depression? Well according to some intelligent people, depression is anger turned inwards...an implosion of rage. Watching parents ignore their kids who are very obviously misbehaving, or reasoning with a screaming child who is incapable of adult thought... much less reason sends me to the very edge of the brink; I find myself with a stranglehold on the impulse to remind the parent that they are just that: a parent, and a helpless fury at the screaming toddler that can only be stuffed into a boiling simmering mass that lodges itself somewhere in the pit of my brain. I can only wonder if reducing my exposure to tired, cranky children...the ones that seem to be the most subceptible to auditory outbursts...would augment the pharmaceutical and holistic treatment regimen I am currently undertaking.

Now that I've had a few days to think about it, PTSD could be implicated in the screaming, whining children-->boiling impacted rage link. Without letting too many worms out of the proverbial can, I spent quite a bit of my childhood caring for needy adults. Any sort of neediness across my radar, which a small screaming child is the epitome of, turns on the burner under my mental-emotional state. Yet another item to add to my ongoing investigations.

More when I am back in safe territory, aka at Starbucks, with a large Zen and the knowledge of my dog and husband at home.

Hmmmmm.......

Dr. Drew Pinsky, co-host of Loveline and formerly in my opinion, a cheezy dork because of the aforementioned program wrote an amazing book that completely turned my opinion of him on its head. I like that. And I love this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Anyway, remember that post that supposed Black people possibly suffer from PTSD due to the simple fact of existing in a society that, not too long ago, believed they were inferior and, longer than not too long ago...but not such a long time, considered them property? Well, there's a line in Dr. Pinsky's book that reinforced that possiblity...at least in my mind.

"You know what picture I'm getting?" a man in front says. "I see one of those Japanese soldiers coming out of the jungle after hiding for thirty years because he didn't know the war had ended. You don't know anything that's going on. You don't know who to trust or which side you're on. Your instinct would be to turn around and run back into the jungle, where it was safe."

I'm not saying that black people want to run back into slavery, but I am theorizing that the not knowing....who to trust, which side to be on...causes a state similar to the hypervigilance common in PTSD patients. And, quite possibly, the reason why Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton continuously seek out "racist" situations to champion.

Just a thought.

Winter Solstice Is Upon Us

December 21st was the date of the winter solstice this year which, for all you SAD sufferers out there, is the equivilant of hump day. I meant to post on that date...and just might change the date of this post as soon as I can figure it out...because to me the fact that this is the shortest the day could possibly get, that this is the last time I'll have to watch the dark fall earlier and earlier, is a breath of fresh air or the cliched glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then again, given the extremes of Chicago weather, that light may turn out to be an oncoming train. I'm going to blindly hope for the tunnel's end anyway.

Postscript: Apparently changing the date is as simple as clicking a drop down menu.

QuickNotes

No, I haven't found a link between cold weather and depression yet...but I'm working on it. Until then, here's another seretonin enhancing picture...courtesy of my husband and his unique picture finding skills.


"You are aware that your face is COMPLETELY devoid of any sort of fur...right?"

Old Man Winter Is Here, And Boy Is He Pissed.

Screw what the calendar says. Whomever was responsible for assigning dates to days obviously has never been to Chicago where, as the saying goes, if you don't like the weather....wait a minute. It went from relatively nice on Saturday to ridiculously bitter, stay inside all day, two sweaters on the dog plus boots, cold.

Here's my proposal...any day in which the high temperature doesn't clear 10 degrees should be an automatic day off. And I'm not being selfish; this has nothing to do with my depression issues, winter hating self. Well, maybe something...but I'm proposing this for the good of all humanity. Seriously. Who wants to have to deal with driving and dressing and thinking in weather that can keep meat fresh? I thought so. Our Cro-Magnon relatives had it right: when the cold sets in, it's time to grab those woolly mammoth throws, huddle around a big old bonfire and stay put.

Seriously though...I am convinced there is some visceral link between depression, winter and cold. I haven't found it yet...and honestly I'm not going to go looking right now as I have some vigorous sleeping to do, but I know it's out there. Something more complex than simple SAD....some neurochemical reaction that happens when the wind chill kicks in.

Mandatory day off. Think about it.

This Is The Hour of Lead

Sometimes, before the meds kick my brain into gear in the morning, I feel a trapping immobility, an unshakeable inertness, laced with electrical shocks of anxiety.

Let me try that again.

You know how you feel when you are late for an appointment, but are stuck in bumper to bumper completely immobile traffic? Actually, make that a train stuck between stops , since you can't get off a train. Well, combine that with the feeling you get when you're sitting in the most abyssmal boring lecture...small group so you can't just get up and leave...and you look at the clock and see that you've only been there for ten minutes when you'd been dead sure it'd been 45 minutes at least.

If you intensify the mind-numbing lecture feeling by a power of ten and add just a hint of the gridlock anxiety, you'd be within shouting distance of the feeling. I practically stumbled to Starbucks this morning, and I'm convinced people are staring, even though I'm just sitting down, because I feel so thick and dull and logy...completely incapable of intelligence. I feel not at all here, as though I'm existing at one remove from normality.

I think Emily Dickinson said it best, so I looked her up the minute I got to Starbucks (after tea and Adderall). I was right.

"This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go."

Full poem, with a fairly extensive commentary, can be found at this site.

Black Man's Burden

My husband, in light of my description of hypervigilance, said that 'it sounded exhausting'. Which it is, just unconsciously so...manifesting itself (for me at least) through indigestion, aches in my shoulder and hip (because of constant tensing of those areas), and headaches that strike at the base of my skull.

Hypervigilance isn't an aspect of depression, but it is a diagnostic criteria (or whatever they call it) for PTSD...something my mood doctor, aka LCSW, suggested that I investigate along with depression. Coincidentally enough, depression itself is one of the manifestations of PTSD which, more and more, it appears as though I have. Upon skimming through the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook and realizing that I met every criteria that was mentioned in the DSM-IV, one of my first thoughts was, 'Darnit! Now I'm going to have to change the blogsite again.'

That's not bad, is it?

Anyway, its been like the couple trying to get pregnant...PTSD articles seem to be everywhere I look. This one from Salon is good, mentions a number of alternative treatments that seem promising. Then there is this one, which isn't about PTSD, but is about race and being aware of being the other in American society, which made me wonder if being black and moving around daily in a world that is, at least where I live and work, mostly white doesn't somehow exacerbate PTSD. If I indeed have it, which is up for debate at the moment.

More later...and hopefully later will mean in a day or so - rather than in a week or so, now that I am on vacation.


Postscript: You'd think that if they could program an email client for a computer the size of a very small wallet, they could also include HTML formatting along with it. Apparently not, which is why there are no informative links in this post. Yet

Post-Postscript: Okay, okay, Salon does require a subscription or a viewing of an ad to read their articles, but it's a really good magazine so I don't mind sending people their way. Just trust me on this one.

Holdover..

I'm working on a longer post...I've had it in my drafts folder for a while...but since my schedule is absolutely insane I probably won't finish it this week.

So here is a picture of a bear with cookies to tide you over until then. For some abnormal reason, pictures that show an animal's inner thoughts and/or feelings cheers me up somewhat....so long as the inner feeling being shown is positive.

Drowning Again

If I had sat down to write this about five hours earlier, this would have been a post about how, post-depression, when everything is normal, I look back on the mire with more than a slight feeling of embarassment and shame. Was I that self involved? Was I that gloomy for no good reason?

But I didn't, and it's five hours later and what I thought was a few random flashes of embarassment was, in fact, a signal that the Adderall was fading. I took two of the 10mg quick release around that time, but I don't think they helped, except for to keep me awake longer than I normally would be...which means I am unable to get to sleep to be unconscious while this bad mood passes over.

Off to Plan B: Cuddle with the dog, who doesn't care if I'm maniacally happy or suicidal, so long as I keep scratching and don't leave him alone for too long. Works for me.

For Something Completely Different: Ron White's standup act is a wonderful way to get some laughs when in the middle of a really bad funk. By the way, that link is supposed to go to Comedy Central's site for his stand up routine, but the web geeks behind the coding must be off duty because it isn't working too well. Just in case you hit that link and see a schedule for, say, "Drawn Together", which I do not endorse at all, it being the worst show ever.

I Have No Mouth...

One of the more infuriating aspects of depression in all its varying forms is the complete inability to accurately express in words...at least words within the bounds of the English language...how I am feeling. This lack also varies depending on where I am on the emotional scale; if I am deep in depression I don't have the cognitive energy to put the blackness into words, or, I have the words and images I could describe, but lack the kinesthetic energy to put them down...if I have the vitality of normal life, I have the language to describe just how depression feels, but the words I would use seem, to my exuberant, enthusiastic mind, to be overexaggerating...it's not really that bad, I didn't really feel that gutted.

This paradox comes into play when communicating with others, in particular my supplier..er, psychiatrist. When I'm normal, trying to describe the hell I was in last week or last night even, feels like lying; I'm waiting for the good doctor to accuse me of angling for more meds. And I usually never see him when I'm depressed; my appointments are always around the noon hour so that my lunch break will cover it.

If I see anyone when I'm depressed, which I usually don't, I auto-mask with a smile and meaningless obsfucating chatter. For some reason I feel an overwhelming need to both protect my raw brain and to prevent it from oozing on to others. I don't want to see them shy away or watch them avert the conversation.

On a random note: It took me three days to write this thing...not because of any sort of agonizing over what to say but due to the insanely hectic breakneck pace of my schedule as of late. But that is for another post.

Depression and Exercise.

I'd always heard that there was some sort of link between exercise and alleviation of depression, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. Well...I still don't know, but that article does have a few interesting theories, chief among them being this one:

"Some research indicates that regular exercise boosts body temperature, which may ease depression by influencing the brain chemicals."

Hmmmm. This might explain why I feel lighter in summer and more depressed as the days get shorter.

No Fancy Shmancy Title For This One...

I don't post much when I'm experiencing near-continual depression, which I have lately...hence the lack of posts. The medicine isn't kicking in like it usually does; it's almost noon until I feel close to normal, and the normality starts to fade around the usual time (4 to 6pm) so I'm spending most of the day depressed. It's similar to when the days get shorter in the winter, only worse because it's in addition to the days getting shorter in the winter...which is a depression catalyst for me anyway.

I'm not entirely sure what has caused the change, but I have a pretty strong hunch. I'm well into the luteal phase of my cycle which is prime time for PMDD for those who are subsceptible. Oddly enough, the meds that I am taking are supposed to contraindict this, but between the change in birth control, and the shortened winter days, it's entirely possible that they aren't able to help much.

On a tangential note: My husband is in the habit of sending me pictures of animals throughout the day to cheer me up. It usually works, but the other day he sent this:




...which provides a perfect illustration in the difference between the way a depressed mind and a normal mind works. I opened this picture in my email and the first fragments of thought that came to mind were, 'poor dog...looks so lost...bet he's wondering how he got here...bet he's afraid and hungry and just wants to be someplace safe...I wonder if he's okay now....could have gotten blown up since the picture was taken...'

Whereas my husband's thinking went something like this: "Cool! Maybe the dog is the division mascot or something...I bet he's pointing out dangerous areas for the soldiers....'Be careful of that alley over there...it's got bad people in it', he's probably thinking....bet he gets lots of treats..."

Somewhere in the accumulated cruft of research on depression I've been doing on and off I remember reading something about how the limbic system can be set a certain way during childhood depending on the tenor of formative experiences; I vaguely remember it being a biochemical sort of thing. The aforementioned would be a semi-perfect** test case for that theory.

Off to muck about at work....and look up that picture and find out (hopefully) exactly what was going on with that dog


**Only semi-perfect because my husband had more than one experience in his minor years that, if the limbic system theory was correct, would skew his biochemistry towards the depressive side. Then again, he's not borderline obsessive compulsive, nor does he have the control issues or compulsive need to know know the way I do.