Suicide Survivor Success Story

I had some free time on my hands while waiting for my haircolor to take (creative efforts fend off depression for me) so I decided to check out some of the blogs I'd bookmarked from a previous post. The first one I started reading, Furious Seasons, had this article a couple of posts down the page.

David Foster Wallace hung himself on September 15th and while I've not read Infinite Jest, I'd heard of it and a small of my part imploded when I heard he'd committed suicide. In an odd way it was, for me, another piece of proof that life is too hard to endure for an unknown amount of time. Finding this story, about someone who survived suicide and went on to make his life into something whose absence would be noticed, gave me ammunition against that proof. Something I can put in my stash for when I need help in darker times.

Diagnosis 101

Over the past decade plus, I've migrated between three diagnoses: Bipolar II Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder (the latter being the most recent). Lately I've been more urgent about wanting to know exactly what is wrong with me, an urge that is probably indirectly related to The Month Of Hell (which I am still working up to writing about) and most likely directly related to my driving need for control. If I know exactly what my diagnosis is, I can start reading everything about it that I can get my hands on, and therefore know everything there is to know about it.

Shrink Rap, the excellent blog written by three shrinks, does NOT have the solution to my problem, but it does have this very cool post which basically gives you a box seat to the mind of a shrink as they work towards a diagnosis of mood disorder or not. Great inside information.

Best. Preview. Ever

I watch Dexter because it is comforting to know that there is another person out there with a brain as screwed up, or more, as mine...even if they are completely fictional. I watch Dexter work and play with others while hiding his huge secret and it reminds me of how I work with people at a place that has absolutely no idea I suffer from depression and maybe something more. It's cathartic, it makes me think, ponder, question...it's therapy in a tv package.

I watch it when it comes out on DVD; I don't get Showtime and I refuse to pay a dime more to Comcast so I can. But occasionally I will head over to the Showtime Dexter site to see what's up.

Hopped over there and saw this:



I don't know who came up with that promo but they need to get an award for it and yesterday. Absolutely brilliant. It makes me wish I came up with something so beautiful. It makes me want to know more about what is going to happen with my favorite (fictional) mind-damaged blood-spatter analyst. It almost makes me reconsider my not-another-dime-to-Comcast decision. Which is exactly what it was designed to do.

And It's Far, Far Easier To Manage

Once again, thanks to this invaluable list, I found this article on this blog. Of particular note in this post is the very first article from the BBC: Emotional Pain Worse Than Physical.

It's always made sense to me that emotional pain hurts worse than physical pain; a cut happens, heals and the pain is over. But the vague, yet monstrous, inexplicable pain that comes with depression can last for ages, make you wish it was a physical hurt you could bandage up.

I spend a lot of time sometimes, justifying how really difficult depression is. It's good to have validation from an outside source for once.

Makes Me Want To Holler

While going through the wealth of mental health blogs I found yesterday, I scrolled down to this post on Furious Seasons. Here's an excerpt from the post:

Among other things, Wagner is one of the co-authors of the infamous and much-discredited Paxil Study 329, which claimed that Paxil was efficacious and safe in treating depression in adolescents when in fact the study's stats had been so jury-rigged that, in actuality, the drug hadn't beaten placebo and cases of suicidality encountered in the underlying clinical trial went unreported.

And here's a link to the study that the post mentions: Paxil Study 329

I'm a pretty careful consumer; I look up drugs before I take them. But I can't triple check every study to make sure the researcher hasn't been reported as being in bed with pharmaceutical companies, and I shouldn't have to.

This kind of stuff makes me want to scream out loud. I trust my brain to these meds. Who the hell do these people think they are?

Last...Post...So...Tired...

I am so tired, or I am depressed and trying to make myself feel better by telling myself I'm tired, but I have to post this last post on a blog I found because they mention a NYT article on suicide I read several weeks ago and David Foster Wallace took his own life today and that gives me a creepy feeling as though the grim reaper were chuckling over my shoulder...

I Always Thought They Used A Dartboard...

Douglas Cootey, writer of the wonderful The Splintered Mind, posted about his mention in the Top 100 Mental Health Blogs which lead me (late, I know) to this fascinating article on how shrinks pick a psych med for a first time patient. I know that every shrink is different, just as people are, but after my month of insanity* it is reassuring to know that at least one professional has a method to their madness.



*this being the day my own shrink decided that my long time pharmaceutical cocktail wasn't quite doing it for me and that I should switch to something that worked for his other patients, and the four weeks of unspeakable craziness that followed. for unspeakable, read: 'don't want to post about it because that would make it real and I'd rather it not be just yet.'

Dear Nicole Holofcener

I love your movie "Friends With Money". I think it's a beautiful piece of work. I put it on all the time during my (amateur) photo shoots or while I'm painting. I'm currently searching for more of your work on amazon.com and I can't wait to find it so I can buy and watch it.

So why am I posting this letter on a blog about depression? Just one reason: (actually one and a half; the half reason is that I listened to your commentary and wanted to tell you that while you thought you messed up by having Marty prop the phone against his ear even though he had a hand free, I think it captured the zero-energy feeling of depression perfectly) it kinda gets me down that I don't see anyone that looks like me in your movie.

I'm black and while I can relate to so much of what the characters think and say and feel, part of me wishes a little that one or more of them could share my skin color. That black people are not in your movie makes me wonder why, which makes me think: maybe she doesn't know black people that are like the characters in that movie. Which gets me kinda more depressed.

I know you can't go back and change Friends With Money, but maybe you can change your next movie before it comes out.

If You Miss It, It's Probably Not Depression

I found this article a while back while I was searching for something...I'm not sure what. The title alone was enough to start my eyes rolling, but I read it anyway. It's nicely written, and I can't say the author wasn't really depressed...not without knowing her during those years...but I cannot shake the conviction that it is impossible to think longingly of real depression.

There are a very few painful events I look back on and miss in a faint, faded sort of way but depression isn't one of them. It was horrible when I had it, it is horrible when it returns...as it still does every now and then...and if it ever leaves completely I will most definitely not be hoping for it to return.

Testing yet another Blackberry blog client. Maybe a mobile client will allow me to post more.

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This post was made with a trial version of BlogPlanet, a photo blog client for mobile phones. For more information visit www.blogplanet.net.