Friday Flashback: Straight Jackets and Life Jackets

(This is a more recent Flashback...  This post was started well over a year ago...)

There are a lot of things I never pictured myself doing in life; watching my dad remarry, teaching my 82 year old grandma how to use a cell phone (true story - "Grandma, green means go, red means stop."), or writing about depression - especially my own.

Something just wasn't right in my life...
 
I was going through the motions of... living.

I was simply existing.

Barely....

I often found myself saying to everyone (and thinking in my head), "I don't know why I'm being like this," "I'm not normally like this, I don't know what's wrong with me?!"

I had no patience.  NONE. 

I was on the edge and the slightest breeze could blow me over. 

I couldn't remember anything.  I felt completely scatterbrained.  I thought my head could explode at any given minute. 

I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

Really, I was. 

I kept making jokes about friends having to come visit me in a psych ward, and that I needed to be put in a straight jacket. 

I was drowning, and joking about it.

Though, I may have actually needed a straight jacket, what I really needed was someone to throw me a life jacket.

Thankfully, my life jackets came in the form of self awareness:

1.  I was on the phone with one of my most honest friends, and she stated very matter of factly, "After all you've been through these past three years, how could you not need some therapy?  You would have to have super powers to be able to make it through all that with out some kind of help or therapy." 

Yeah, I do not have any super powers... 

2.  Another friend was over helping me prepare for a show one night and brought her daughter along who I pick up from school, and baby sit sometimes.  We were working and talking, and then out of the blue, her daughter said to me, "Holly, do you ever laugh?"  My friend laughed, and reassured her daughter that she hears me laugh a lot.  I, on the other hand, told my friend that her daughter was very insightful, but didn't add that lately I had been wondering the same thing. 

3.  I heard myself giving advice to someone, saying that if their home wasn't happy then they should seek help to do something about it.  Life is too short to be miserable.  Then, as I heard myself say that, I realized I wasn't following my own advice.

4.  I don't even remember the specifics of this one, but Trevan had done something in the kitchen, broken something or made some kind of a mess, and I freaked out.  I started yelling, and I was mad, and in my head I heard, "Why are you yelling?  It was just an accident, it's not a big deal.  What is wrong with you??!!??"  I felt like the worst mom ever. I never used to yell at my kids, and considered myself to be a very patient mother - that was a very big "ah ha moment" for me that something was seriously wrong. 

5.  My Grandpa was diagnosed with lung cancer.  That, for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back.  Within the hour that I got that phone call, I called my Doctor and got an appointment to see her that day.

I knew I couldn't possibly handle one more thing. 

6.  But, shortly before that (#5), I had already decided I was going to get help.  I just hadn't decided when... I was in the car, sitting in the passenger seat and John was driving.   I remember thinking to myself that I really just couldn't take any more. I just didn't want to deal with anything - I was just done, and I pictured myself opening the door while he drove, and me just falling out... I can tell you the exact spot on the interstate where I had that feeling. I pictured myself tumbling out of the door and just being done. 

I had never had a thought like that before in my life, and the moment I thought it, it scared me and I knew I needed to get help. 

I debated about whether to share any of this. But, this is part of me - part of my journey, and it's important to me to share the bad with the good. 

Someday, my children might find themselves down a similar path, and I don't want them to think they are alone in this.  I know there are people out there that are living lives that they aren't happy in, and if my kids find themselves in that position I want them to know it's okay to go for help.  Not just that it's okay - but don't delay it!  Get help!  Life is too short to live it miserably. 

There is such a stigma with taking medicine, or getting therapy.  I know, because I had to swallow my own pride to go see my doctor, and then swallow it again when I made the phone call to a therapist.  Admitting you need help is hard, asking for help is even harder.  But, for some reason we allow society to make us think that there is something wrong with getting help.  It's like, we are afraid of not being perfect, not fitting the image of having it all together, or that, heaven forbid, we need help!  It's not something to feel bad about, or to make us feel like we aren't the best or most perfect person/wife/mother.  We have to get over it.  Some things are in our control, and some aren't.

I realized that I deserved to be happy. I realized that my family deserved to be treated better, and deserved to be around a happier person. They were getting cheated, and I was definitely cheating myself. I realized that I have to be my best self if I want to help and teach my children to be their best selves.  My best self was crying for help.  I barely heard it...

Depression affected almost every aspect of my life, and I didn't even know it was happening.  It was such a gradual thing.  I can't pin point the exact moment where I started to feel like I was losing it.  It happened so slowly - the stresses had been piling up, and I was becoming less able to cope with what was going on around me.

That is what still gets me; I didn't even know it was happening, and didn't realize that I was slowly going down hill.

After getting my mind back (that's what I call it, because it was seriously missing), I could see the differences besides the ones I already mentioned.  My mind was working so hard to stay sane, and to keep me grounded, that it wasn't capable of focusing on anything else.  I couldn't be creative.  I couldn't plan a party, a meeting, nothing.  That, is definitely not like me.  I excel at organized chaos, but my mind was just spinning and I could not have a complete thought if someone paid me a million dollars for one.  I had no creative influx in my business.  I usually have ideas flowing non-stop, but I was at a standstill.  I couldn't create.  I couldn't write.  I have SO many unfinished, unpublished blog posts.  Looking back, I realized I stopped writing my Tuesday Tips, because I stopped seeing the humor in the crazy things kids typically do.  Which is SO not good when you deal with those things on a daily basis... 

I honestly thought I was losing my mind, I just could not figure out what was going on!  I wanted to run away and not tell anyone where I was going.

One night after being on my medicine for a few weeks, I was in the shower and I had my re-birth moment.  I came down from my shower to John doing dishes in the kitchen, and said, "Wow, I was really losing my mind. I can not believe I lived feeling like that for so long."  I could see and feel the difference, and couldn't believe I lived like that.  It was seriously amazing.  It was as if the fog had lifted and I could finally think clearly again.  Seriously, I felt like I had awakened from a coma, and my brain was saying, "Oh, hey, there you are, I've missed you."  It felt good, and I felt good.  (It makes me emotional re-reading that part because it was such a sad/happy moment for me -sad that I had been under such a fog - and happy to be out of it.)

After four or five appointments with my therapist, she told me I didn't need to come see her anymore.  When John got home from work that day, I told him what she had said, and he responded, "So you're rehabilitated?" 

We laugh about that - 'rehabilitated...'

It was and is such a great feeling to be back to "normal," I can't even explain it. 

I think I couldn't blog or record my life, because depression had taken over every aspect of it.  I stopped blogging my life regularly about two years ago this month, and it's like I couldn't pick up there until I wrote this.   As I go back, and start to publish some of the posts I started then, and over the past year and a half, I think you'll be able to tell that I was obviously going through something.  I couldn't bring myself to publish posts that weren't very sunshiney, and for a while, I wasn't feeling very sunshiney, and most likely I probably won't publish all of them. 

I'm an honest person, and I'm pretty open about this.  I don't think it's something to be ashamed of.  A combination of life, stressers, and genetics all came together to create the "perfect storm," (as my doctor called it.) Will I have to take medicine for the rest of my life? I have no idea.  If it helps me be the best me, then I will - no doubt about it.  I like to feel like me,  I don't particularly care for the other alternative.

I wrote this post a long time ago...  It's interesting to see people's views on depression...  Here's a few I'll share...

1-   Someone shared with me that someone told them that depression is just being lazy...  Other than the fact that I was a VERY productive depressed person, how ignorant are some people??

2-  People assumed it was medicine that made me not yell at my kids or my husband.  I quote, "Well, you're on medicine that makes it so you don't yell at your kids..."  Sure, it was helpful for me to be a little more chill while I was getting out of my funk, but yelling is a choice.  Before getting on medicine, I felt like I was at the end of my rope ALL THE TIME, yelling is what I resorted to.  I'm an emotional person, I've always been a yell-er to which my parents probably got really sick of while I was growing up...  But, I had never used to yell at my kids before this.  Sure, being on my medicine helped me have more patience, but therapy is what helped me not yell.  I'll quote my therapist, "You haven't yet made the decision that you aren't going to raise your voice.  You are an adult, you are capable of not yelling."  I know why Mallary was yelling back then, because I was.  It's interesting to see the differences in Trevan and Mallary.  For most of Trevan's life I didn't yell and he doesn't yell... Then there's Mallary...  We teach our kids how to cope with frustration; I was teaching Mallary that yelling was how to cope... 

3-  When you're depressed you aren't allowed to feel sad.   People assume you are only sad because you are depressed.  Not fair.  If I'm upset, sad, or emotional, some people assumed it's only because I was depressed, not actually validating that what I was upset, sad, or emotional about, any person would be upset, sad, or emotional over.

4 - Medication... Some people worry you might become addicted to anti-depressants.  They are not an addiction like pain killers could be.  It's just funny to hear people say things like that.  People ask you about your medication.  I was lucky, the first medicine (and the lowest dosage they prescribe) my Dr. prescribed worked for me.  Not everyone is so lucky. 

I got off my medication a little bit before John and I decided it was time to start trying for a baby, and I for sure could/can tell a difference. 

On that last visit with my therapist, well over a year and a half or so ago, the first thing she said to me was, "How is the transformation of Holly Hamilton going?"

Of course, that transformation is still taking place, and I think we are continually transforming (or should be) - trying to be the best version of ourselves we can be.  Some days, I have to make a conscience effort to not go to sad places, and dwell on hard things in my life.  Which has been harder at times being pregnant and a tad hormonal and not being able to exercise (a natural anti-depressant for me).  I can distinguish when thoughts are headed to depressive tendencies and I have to choose to ignore them or remind myself that that is not me or the person I want to be.  Will I need to get on medicine after I have my baby?  Who knows?  But, for sure if I need to, I won't hesitate to do so.

Depression is not something to be ashamed of or embarrassed of.   I don't think anyone should carry that around on top of the depression they already feel.  Those that need help, should get it.  Seriously, we are supposed to be happy - if we aren't then we should do something about it.

Life jackets were made to save us from drowning.  You can only tread water so long...  I want my kids to know that if someday they feel like they are emotionally or mentally drowning - please, go find a life jacket.